Diplomat’s secret mission to Bahamas to prevent former ally settling in UK

By Owen Bowcott

December 30, 2009

Source:

The deposed Shah of a reluctant exile on the Caribbean casino resort of Paradise Island turned into such an international pariah that an ambassador was dispatched incognito to dissuade him from seeking asylum in the UK.

Secret files released today reveal how the Foreign Office and Downing Street schemed to keep their former ally at arm’s-length and conceal British involvement.

Using the pseudonym Edward Wilson and wearing dark glasses, the veteran diplomat Sir Denis Wright was flown to the Bahamas to inform the ruler once venerated as “Shahanshah” (King of Kings) that he could not retire to his Surrey estate.

and the flight of the Shah in February 1979 had transformed British interests in Iran, exposing UK firms and citizens to the risk of confiscation and arrest amid the Islamic backlash. The UK was specifically targeted because of its intimate past ties to the ousted royal regime.

Members of the Pahlavi family were deterred from entering the UK, according to the documents released to the , in case London became a centre of opposition to the new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini.

A family tree of the Shah’s relatives was sent to immigration officials. A Foreign Office official wrote: “Ideally we would prefer to discourage this group from coming to Britain (we accept we cannot prevent them from doing so if they qualify under the immigration rules) but we shall have to handle these personalities on a case by case basis.”

In March, the UK smoothed the way, surreptitiously, for the ailing monarch to slip out of Morocco and fly to the Bahamas. “We wish to avoid publicity over our role in transmitting the Moroccan request, which is difficult to refuse,” one diplomat recorded. “The idea of the Shah spending some time in the Bahamas and then moving off to settle in Latin America could offer a satisfactory way of removing him from the limelight.”

Jock Duncan, UK high commissioner in the Bahamian capital, Nassau, observed the arrival of the Pahlavi entourage aboard a chartered Air Maroc 747 jet. “He was whisked to Paradise Island by helicopter,” Duncan noted. “He is staying in the private house of James Crosby, head of Resorts International, who owns the casino complex – reportedly as a paying guest.” Tourists were removed from neighbouring hotels to make room for the Shah’s followers. “Coming under the umbrella of Resorts International the gentleman is not in good company,” added a disapproving Duncan.

Brazil, Argentina, the US and New Zealand all denied the Shah refuge. The incoming Conservative government was left to confront the dilemma.

Margaret Thatcher, barely three weeks into her premiership, accepted the objection of Sir Anthony Parsons – the last ambassador to Tehran – to granting the Shah asylum and his proposal that someone should convey the news “frankly” to the Shah in person.

Sir Denis Wright, an earlier UK ambassador to Iran, was chosen as emissary. “Confidentiality is most important,” Lord Carrington telexed to Duncan in Nassau. “You should say nothing of Wright’s visit [even].. to the Americans.” The high commissioner was instructed to meet Wright, who would be travelling under his assumed name and posing as a businessman visiting a friend. Security around the Shah was “virtually impenetrable”, Duncan cabled back, and there was a serious risk of the visit leaking out.

The file stops shortly before Wright’s disguised arrival. The former ambassador subsequently revealed that the Shah received the bad news with “bitter disappointment”. After travels through the US, Mexico and Panama, the Shah eventually died of cancer in Egypt the following year.