This is the Iran the diaspora remembers.
After the crisis of 1953, the Shah took a clear lesson: Iran could not stay weak or divided. Not to foreign powers, not to forces inside.
He built a security service — SAVAK — a common Cold War instrument in states resisting communism, separatism, foreign interference, and Islamist militancy. Over time, it also became feared for pressuring writers, students, clerics, and opponents of the monarchy. Politics was allowed, but within narrow walls. Parliament got two loyal parties — Mardom and Melliyun.
In 1959 he married Farah Diba, an architecture student from Paris — the new face of a new Iran.