IRDC.IR: When US recognized that it was no more able to protect the Shah, he was ordered to leave the country without hesitation, because US believed that the adversaries were going to calm down with him being gone, and that meant as a second chance for the US puppet regime.
Cyrus Vance, US foreign minister during Carter's presidency remembers: "It was January 3rd, Sullivan had sent a confidential message just for me to read, saying this was "the moment of choice" in Iran for US. He reported that the moderates inside and outside the government had agreed on the fact that Shah had to leave the country immediately".
He added that there were also a group of military officers putting pressure on Shah to forge about Bakhtiar and use the "Iron Fist" policy. The other Generals had implied if Shah wouldn't make a clear decision in a few days, they were going to stage a coup and dethrone him. I believed Sullivan was right about what he had mentioned in his conclusion; US and Iran's interests required Shah's immediate departure. And he was right about the fact that Shah would've left the country only if Carter told him to do so. Sullivan had emphasized that if the president was going to give such an advice to Shah, he had to take action immediately; and if not, we should've expected a military coup happening in few days.
On January 14th, president discussed Sullivan's evaluations of Iran's current situation with his advisors in a meeting. He decided to take Sullivan's advice. I sent his message to him. The president wanted to put an end to Shah's doubts( about leaving the country ) and increase Bakhtiar's chances to put up his cabinet together. The next day, I sent him another message following the first message of the president, to make sure he had gotten the point correctly. I told him: "We consider Bakhtiar as a moderate occidental nationalist, so we prefer a non military government being monitored by the Royal Court, with Shah leaving the country temporarily. We want Bakhtiar to be fully supported by Iran's integrated military. However, we believe that the military must also have precautionary plans to get into the field if the non military government doesn't work." And I emphasized that the main purpose of these precautionary plans had to be restoring order.
The integrity of Iran's military had become a vital issue. The president discussed many options with me, Harold Brown and General David Jones, and we ended up deciding that a US military officer must be in Tehran to work directly with Iran's military commander. This military agent was going to be responsible for assuring US that the military had practical, realistic plans to keep the armed forces united, it was supporting the legal procedures and it was ready to prevent the fall of the regime. The chosen officer for this mission, was General Robert Huyser, the executive officer of the allied forces in Europe ( deputy of Alexander Haig )
According to Vance, Huyser came to Iran to prevent the upcoming events, but those were beyond US will and power.
Translated by: Roya Jalali
