Iranian envoy mixed business, pleasure
He was a trusted adviser to the shah, a former son-inlaw to Iran’s last king and one of the most influential diplomats in the pro-western government that ruled Tehran before the Islamic revolution.
In Washington, where he served two stints as ambassador to the United States, he was also a suave bachelor who romanced actress Elizabeth Taylor, cultivated friendships with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Sen. Barry Goldwater, and threw lavish parties complete with conga lines, kissing games, Iranian caviar and Dom Pérignon.
“No other ambassador has ever given parties like that,” former Washington Post journalist Sally Quinn once said of Ardeshir Zahedi. “It was almost dancing on tables, it was that kind of thing. There was more caviar than you could eat.”
The dancing and dining came to an abrupt halt in 1979, when Zahedi was forced into exile by the overthrow of the shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini. Zahedi, who liked to say that he presided over the golden age of U.s.-iranian relations, faced a death sentence in the new Islamic republic and moved to a villa in Montreux, Switzerland, where he gave occasional interviews lamenting the acrimony between Washington and Tehran. Switzerland was still his home when he died Nov. 18 at age 93. His friend Abbas Milani, the director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, confirmed his death but did not give a cause.
Gossip columnist Doris Lilly, a frequent guest at Zahedi’s parties, once described him as “a terrific charmer, intelligent, wellspoken, sophisticated, wealthy, influential and powerful. He had haunting black eyes and a shiny police chief head of hair, and he flirted outrageously with everyone — everyone, that is, of importance on Washington’s power circuit.”
“Invitations to his embassy parties were coveted as a mark of social acceptance in Washington,” journalist Kitty Kelley wrote in a biography of Taylor. “Always there were music and feasts. Sometimes there were belly dancers, hashish and pornographic movies.”
Zahedi embraced the publicity, saying, “I don’t mind being known as a playboy.” He insisted that he combined “business and pleasure” at his parties, which helped him win friends and influence at a time when Iran supplied oil to the United States while also facing accusations of government corruption and human rights abuses.