# The letter to the Shah > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The letter to the Shah," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-letter-to-the-shah/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The fan letter John Kiriakou wrote at fourteen or fifteen to the deposed Shah of Iran, objecting to how the United States had treated him — and the reply, agreeing, with an autographed photograph enclosed.* - **Written:** At fourteen or fifteen - **The complaint:** That Washington reversed its decision to let the Shah enter for cancer treatment once the political heat rose - **The reply:** *"You're right, it's terrible the way I've been treated; here's an autographed picture"* - **Other letters of the period:** Margaret Thatcher; Ezer Weizman, then Israel's defence minister, who also sent a signed photograph - **Kiriakou's later view:** *"People that today I wouldn't dream of writing a letter of support to"* **The letter to the Shah** is the episode [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) offers when asked how conservative his politics were before he had any. He was, he thinks, fourteen or fifteen, and he wrote to the deposed Shah of Iran because he objected to Washington's handling of him.[1] > *"I wrote to tell him that I was disgusted by the way our government had treated him — that once we had made a decision, we should have stuck with the decision, and the decision had been to allow him to come to the United States for treatment of his cancer. And when the heat got a little more than the president could handle, the Shah was unceremoniously thrown out and ended up in Panama, and then, later, the Bahamas."* The reply is the part of the story he enjoys. *"He actually wrote me a letter back saying, you're right, it's terrible the way I've been treated; here's an autographed picture."* Put to him that the Shah probably did not receive many letters of that kind, he agrees: *"No, I'm sure he didn't."*[2] It was not the only one. He also wrote to Margaret Thatcher, and received a signed photograph from Ezer Weizman, at the time the defence minister of Israel. Asked whether anyone had steered him in that direction, he says not: *"it was my own thing. It was my own interest."* His retrospective judgement is unsentimental — *"these are people that today I wouldn't dream of writing a letter of support to, but back then I was pretty hawkish."*[3] The interest behind it was foreign affairs rather than any of the individuals. He followed the Iran hostage crisis *"day by day by day,"* staying up for Ted Koppel every night despite the hour, *"because originally Nightline was to give us a daily update of events in Iran."* It produced the conversation in which he told his father he did not want to be a dentist: *"I think I want to join the foreign service."* He was fourteen. His father's answer was *"whatever you want to do, just do it well."*[4][5] ## See also - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) - [Reza Pahlavi](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/reza-pahlavi) - [George Washington University](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/george-washington-university) ## Sources 1. The Real News Network (2015-04-16), at 9:18. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlJO1uL1CsE&t=558s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-04-16-the-real-news-network-the-real-news-network/ 2. The Real News Network (2015-04-16), at 9:52. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlJO1uL1CsE&t=592s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-04-16-the-real-news-network-the-real-news-network/ 3. The Real News Network (2015-04-16), at 11:26. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlJO1uL1CsE&t=686s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-04-16-the-real-news-network-the-real-news-network/ 4. The Real News Network (2015-04-16), at 10:24. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlJO1uL1CsE&t=624s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-04-16-the-real-news-network-the-real-news-network/ 5. The Real News Network (2015-04-16), at 10:56. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlJO1uL1CsE&t=656s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-04-16-the-real-news-network-the-real-news-network/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-letter-to-the-shah/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt