| سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور Sâzmân-e Ettelâ'ât va Amniyyat-e Kešvar | |
 Seal, incorporating the words "S.A.V.A.K. 1335" in the bottom (1335 being theSolar Hijri equivalent of 1957CE) | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 20 March 1957 (1957-03-20) |
| Dissolved | 12 February 1979 (1979-02-12) |
| Superseding agency | |
| Type | Secret police |
| Headquarters | Tehran,Iran |
| Employees | 5,000 at peak[1] |
| Agency executives |
|
TheBureau for Intelligence and Security of the State (Persian:سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور,romanized: Sâzmân-e Ettelâ'ât va Amniyyat-e Kešvar), shortened toSAVAK (Persian:ساواک) orS.A.V.A.K. (Persian:س.ا.و.ا.ک),[2] was thesecret police of theImperial State of Iran. It was established inTehran in 1957 by national security law,[3] and continued to operate until theIslamic Revolution in 1979, when it was dissolved by Iranian prime ministerShapour Bakhtiar.
The French intelligence service, theService de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE, predecessor of today’sDGSE), assisted in establishing and trainingSAVAK during its formative years in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. French instructors provided courses in surveillance, counter-subversion, interrogation techniques, and political intelligence gathering—expertise refined during the Algerian War.[4][5][6]
According to a declassifiedCIA memo citing a classifiedU.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, the CIA played a significant role in establishing SAVAK, providing both funding and training.[7] The organization became notorious for its extensive surveillance, repression, and torture of politicaldissidents. The Shah used SAVAK to arrest, imprison, exile, and torture his opponents, leading to widespread public resentment. This discontent was leveraged byAyatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then in exile, to build popular support for his Islamic philosophy.[8]
At its peak, SAVAK reportedly employed approximately 5,000 agents operating under thePahlavi dynasty.[1] Iranian-American scholar and ex-politicianGholam Reza Afkhami estimates that SAVAK had between 4,000 and 6,000 members,[9] whileTIME stated in a publication on 19 February 1979 that the agency had 5,000 members.[10]
After the1953 Iranian coup d'état, Prime MinisterMohammad Mosaddeq was removed. He was originally focused onnationalizing Iran's oil industry but had also set out to weaken theShah's power. After the coup, the monarch,Mohammad Reza Shah, established an intelligence service with police powers. The Shah's goal was to strengthen his regime by placing political opponents under surveillance and repressing dissident movements.[11][12][13] According toEncyclopædia Iranica:
A U.S. Army colonel working for the CIA was sent to Persia in September 1953 to work with GeneralTeymur Bakhtiar, who was appointed military governor of Tehran in December 1953, and immediately began to assemble the nucleus of a new intelligence organization. The U.S. Army colonel worked closely with Bakhtīār and his subordinates, commanding the new intelligence organization and training its members in basic intelligence techniques, such as surveillance and interrogation methods, the use of intelligence networks, and organizational security. This organization was the first modern, effective intelligence service to operate in Persia. Its main achievement occurred in September 1954, when it discovered and destroyed a large communistTudeh Party network that had been established in the Persian armed forces.[14][15]
In March 1955, the Army colonel was "replaced with a more permanent team of five careerCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers, including specialists in covert operations, intelligence analysis, and counterintelligence, includingMajor GeneralHerbert Norman Schwarzkopf who "trained virtually all of the first generation of SAVAK personnel". In October 1956, news of the intended establishment of an agency was reported by state media and in 1965, this agency was reorganized and given the nameSazeman-e Ettela'at va Amniyat-e Keshvar (SAVAK).[15][16] These in turn were replaced by SAVAK's own instructors in 1965.[17][18]
SAVAK had the power to censor the media, screen applicants for government jobs, and "according to a reliable Western source,[19][which?] use all means necessary, including torture, to hunt down dissidents".[20][clarification needed] After 1963, the Shah expanded his security organizations, including SAVAK, which grew to over 5,300 full-time agents and a large but unknown number of part-time informers.[20]
In 1961, the Iranian authorities dismissed the agency's first director, GeneralTeymur Bakhtiar,[21] and he later became a political dissident. In 1970, SAVAK agents assassinated him, disguising the deed as an accident.
GeneralHassan Pakravan, director of SAVAK from 1961 to 1966,[21] had an almost benevolent reputation, for example dining on a weekly basis withAyatollah Khomeini while Khomeini was under house arrest, and later intervened to prevent Khomeini's execution on the grounds that it would "anger the common people of Iran".[22] After theIranian Revolution, however, Pakravan was among the first of the Shah's officials to be executed by the Khomeini regime.
Pakravan was replaced in 1966 by GeneralNematollah Nassiri, a close associate of the Shah, and the service was reorganized and became increasingly active in the face of rising communist, socialist, and Islamist militancy and political unrest.
Throughout the 1960s, some agents in SAVAK started to consider financial corruption as a matter of financial security and monitored not only the fiscal activities of the political and economic elite of Iran, but also the royal family.Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was reportedly angered by these SAVAK reports due to its contents and the belief that the security agents were prying into private matters beyond their purview.[23]
A turning point in SAVAK's reputation for ruthless brutality was reportedly anattack on a gendarmerie post in the Caspian village ofSiahkal by a small band of armedMarxists in February 1971, although it is also reported to have tortured to death a Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Reza Sa'idi, in 1970.[24][25] According to Iranian political historianErvand Abrahamian, after this attack SAVAK interrogators were sent abroad for "scientific training to prevent unwanted deaths from 'brute force.'" Brute force was supplemented with thebastinado; sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum;cigarette burns; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo—an allusion to theAmerican spacecraft of the same name. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked.[26] Despite the new 'scientific' methods, thetorture of choice remained the traditional bastinado used to beat soles of the feet. The "primary goal" of those using the bastinados "was to locate arms caches, safe houses and accomplices ..."[27]
Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368guerrillas including the leadership of the majorurban guerrilla organizations (Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas,People's Mujahedin of Iran) such asHamid Ashraf between 1971–1977 and executed up to 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979—the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence.[28]
One well known writer was arrested, tortured for months, and finally placed before television cameras to 'confess' that his works paid too much attention to social problems and not enough to the great achievements of theWhite Revolution. By the end of 1975, twenty-two prominent poets, novelist, professors, theater directors, and film makers were in jail for criticizing the regime. And many others had been physically attacked for refusing to cooperate with the authorities.[29]
The repression was softened thanks to publicity and scrutiny by "numerous international organizations and foreign newspapers."Jimmy Carter becamepresident of the United States and he raised the issue ofhuman rights in the Imperial State of Iran. Overnight prison conditions changed. Inmates dubbed this the dawn of "jimmykrasy".[30]
| No. | Portrait | Director | Took office | Left office | Time in office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Bakhtiar, TeymurTimsar Teymur Bakhtiar (1914–1970) | 1957 | 1961 | 3–4 years |
| 2 |  | Pakravan, HassanTimsar Hassan Pakravan (1911–1979) | 1961 | 1965 | 3–4 years |
| 3 |  | Nassiri, NematollahTimsar Nematollah Nassiri (1911–1979) | 26 January 1965 | 6 June 1978 | 13 years, 131 days |
| 4 |  | Moghaddam, NasserTimsar Nasser Moghaddam (1921–1979) | 7 June 1978 | 12 February 1979 | 250 days |
SAVAK was divided into 9 directorates:[31]
Over the years, the question of the number of employees of SAVAK has been the subject of debate by many historians and researchers. Given the fact that Iran has never disclosed data on the number of employees of the secret agency - many historians gave conflicting figures for the number of SAVAK personnel - 6,000,[32] 20,000,[33] 30,000 and 60,000.[34]
In one of his interviews, on February 4, 1974, the Shah stated that he did not know the exact number of employees of SAVAK. However, he estimated their total number to be less than 2,000 employees.[35] To the frequently asked question about “torture and atrocities” in SAVAK, the shah answered negatively, designating newspaper reports about the “arbitrariness and cruelty of SAVAK” as a lie and slander.[36] Leaflets circulated after the Islamic Revolution indicated that 15,000 Iranians officially served in SAVAK, not to mention the many unofficial employees.
During the height of its power, SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers. It operated its own detention centers, such asEvin Prison. In addition to domestic security, the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians abroad, notably in theUnited States,France, and theUnited Kingdom, and especially students on governmentstipends. The agency also closely collaborated with theCIA by sending their agents to an air force base inNew York to share and discuss interrogation tactics.[37]
Teymur Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970,[38] andMansur Rafizadeh, SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped.[39] Mansur Rafizadeh later wrote of his life as a SAVAK man and detailed the human rights violations of the Shah in his bookWitness: From the Shah to the Secret Arms Deal: An Insider's Account of U.S. Involvement in Iran. Mansur Rafizadeh was suspected to have been a double agent also working for the CIA.[40]
SAVAK was additionally involved in supportingJamiat-e Islami militants during the1975 Panjshir Valley uprising and1975 Laghman uprising in theRepublic of Afghanistan, in collaboration with theCIA and the PakistaniISI, althoughAfghan–Iranian relations later improved in 1976 underMohammad Daoud Khan.[41][42] Two days before theSaur Revolution in 1978, theKGB were informed of the coup byAfghan Army leadersMohammed Rafie andSayed Mohammad Gulabzoy. As a result, theKGB mistakenly informed its operatives inKabul that SAVAK tricked thePDPA into starting a rebellion, expecting it to be crushed and for the rebels to fail.[43]
According to Polish authorRyszard Kapuściński, SAVAK was responsible for: Censorship of press, books, and films; Interrogation and often torture of prisoners; and Surveillance of political opponents.[44]
Writing at the time of the Shah's overthrow,Time magazine on February 19, 1979, described SAVAK as having "long been Iran's most hated and feared institution" which had "tortured and murdered thousands of the Shah's opponents".[10] TheFederation of American Scientists also found it guilty of "the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners" and symbolising "the Shah's rule from 1963–79." The FAS list of SAVAK torture methods included "electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails".[45][46]
SAVAK was closed down shortly before the overthrow of the monarchy and the coming to power ofAyatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the February 1979Iranian Revolution. Following the departure of the Shah in January 1979, SAVAK's more than 3,000 strong central staff and its agents were targeted for reprisals. However, it is believed that Khomeini may have changed his mind and may have retained them into the newSAVAMA.[47]Hossein Fardoust, a former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Fardoust later switched sides during the revolution and managed to salvage the bulk of the SAVAK organization.[48] According to author Charles Kurzman, SAVAK was never dismantled but rather changed its name and leadership and continued on with the same codes of operation, and a relatively unchanged "staff."[49][50]
SAVAK was replaced by the "much larger"[51] SAVAMA,Sazman-e Ettela'at va Amniat-e Melli-e Iran, also known as the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran.[52] After the Iranian Revolution, a museum was opened in the formerTowhid Prison in centralTehran called "Ebrat". The museum displays and exhibits the documented atrocities of SAVAK.
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