Gholam Reza Azhari
Arteshbod Gholam Reza Azhari was an Iranian military officer who served as the 39th and penultimate Prime Minister of Iran under the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Early life and education
Azhari was born in Shiraz in 1912. He was a graduate of Iran's war college and was also trained at the National War College in Washington in the 1950s.Career
Azhari commanded the 11th Infantry in 1959; the Western Corps at Kermanshah in 1342 SH, later to be also commanded by Abbas Gharabaghi, and the First Army in 1970.In 1966, Azhari became Iran's Military Representative to the Central Treaty Organisation. He was appointed chief of staff of Iran's armed forces in 1971 and his tenure lasted until 1978. He served as interim prime minister of a military government until a civilian government could be chosen. He served as prime minister from 6 November 1978 to 31 December 1978. He formed the first military government in Iran since 1953.
On 21 December 1978, Azhari, then the prime minister, told U.S. Ambassador to Iran William Sullivan that, "You must know this and you must tell it to your government. This country is lost because the Shah cannot make up his mind." Azhari left office on 2 January 1979 after reportedly having a heart attack. He was succeeded by Abbas Gharabaghi as the chief of the army staff. Shapour Bakhtiar succeeded Azhari as prime minister. On 18 February 1979 Azhari was retired from the army in absentia.
Cabinet
His cabinet was composed of nine members:- General Gholam Ali Oveissi, Military governor of Tehran,
- Lieutenant General Nasser Moghaddam, head of the Security Police,
- General Abbas Gharabaghi,
- Lieutenant General Abdol Hassan Sa'adatmand,
- General Gholam-Reza Azhari
- General Reza Azimi
- Amir Khosrow Afshar,
- Mohammad Reza Amin,
- Karim Motamedi
- Admiral Kamal Habibollahi
Honours
Later years and death
Azhari suffered a heart attack while serving as prime minister. After leaving office he went to the US in January 1979 for heart surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital. After surgery he did not return to Iran and settled in McLean, Virginia. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, a religious judge and then chairman of the Revolutionary Court, informed the press that the death sentence was passed on the members of the Pahlavi dynasty and the Shah's former officials, including Azhari.He died of cancer in McLean, Virginia, in the U.S. on 5 November 2001.