Exporting Imperialism: Arms, Iran, and the Military-Industrial Complex, 1969–1979

On November 15, 1977, several thousand Iranians congregated in Lafayette Park. The shah of Iran’s trip to Washington, D.C. prompted a “blitz of competing parades, speeches, picketing, street theater, leafleting and general political huckstering.”1 The Los Angeles Times called it the “most turbulent day” at the White House since the antiwar demonstrations of the 1960s.2 Mounted police surveilled the opposing crowds. Regime supporters traded taunts with students wearing masks to protect their identity from secret police. During the monarch’s 1973 visit, protesters chanted, “Nixon, Don’t Arm the Shah!”3 Now Iran was the largest foreign consumer of U.S. arms. Reflecting the change in times, students carried new placards: “Stop Arming the Shah’s Regime.”4 As the deafening snap of a twenty-one-gun salute announced the monarch’s arrival, demonstrators traded stones and exchanged fists. Policemen melted into the crowd. While a jumble of limbs, flags, and placards dueled, a cloud...