One of the penultimate photos of the last Shah of Iran, in the Bahamas, was of the deposed ruler being helped onto a private plane in 1979. The Shah and his family were leaving Paradise Island, after two months in exile. The Shah was frail and desperately ill. Little did he know that, just a year later, he would dead.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, also known as Mohammad Reza Shah, was the last Shah of Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979.
THE SHAH’S CANCER CONCEALED FROM HIM UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE
For some inexplicable reason, the very truth about his cancer was kept from the Shah of Iran, by his own physician. For four long years, Mohammad Reza Shah, the last Shah of Iran, was being treated for a phantom ailment and not for the leukaemia, cancer of the blood, which was slowly killing him.
“In 1974 the Shah’s doctor, Dr. Ayadi, diagnosed the Shah with splenomegaly after he complained of a swollen abdomen. On 1 May 1974, French Professor Georges Flandrin flew into Tehran to treat the Shah. Upon the first visit, Georges was able to diagnose the Shah with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The Shah’s diagnosis of cancer would not be revealed to him until 1978. Medical reports given to the Shah were falsified and altered in order to state that the Shah was in good health to conceal his cancer from him. The Shah later met with French physicians in 1976 in Zurich who were disturbed by the Shah’s abnormal blood count. They discovered he was being treated with a wrong medication worsening his condition.
In 1979, the Shah left Iran. First, the Shah found refuge in the Bahamas but was later forced to leave.”
THE LAST SHAH OF IRAN, Wikipedia
The Last Shah of Iran Arrives in Nassau To Live On Paradise Island
The house, which once was the first refuge of the last ruling family of Iran, in 1979, can still be seen on Paradise Island, today.
Photo: Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and shabanou Farah Diba with their children, shortly afterward arriving in the Bahamas.
(Washington Post, Wednesday, 23 May, 1979)
BAHAMIANS ACCUSE BAHAMAS GOVERNMENT OF LYING ABOUT SHAH AND BEING THE PUPPET OF THE UNITED STATES
Granting asylum for the Shah of Iran and his family sent the entire world abuzz with speculation. Why the Bahamas? Why Paradise Island? While the wealthy who owned houses in get Bahamas were clamouring over themselves to offer their residence with compliments for their stay, some Bahamians, were accusing Prime Minister Lynden Pindling of lying about knowing that the last Shah of Iran was granted asylum in the Bahamas.
MARION BETHEL, Lecturer at College of Bahamas Organised Protest Meeting Against The Shah’s Arrival in the Bahama.
American Embassy, in Nassau, deny all knowledge of the Shah’s impending arrival in the Bahamas.
Progressive Liberal Party Chairman, Andrew Maynard, addressing Leftist protest group in Nassau, also denied that the Bahamas government knew of the Shah’s arrival.
(The Calgary Herald, Friday, 4 May, 1979)
SHAH’S APPLICATION FOR POLITICAL ASYLUM DENIED BY BAHAMIAN GOVERNMENT – Wednesday 30 MAY 1979
As demonstrations and outcries from the protest group Bahamas Citizens Committee on the Shah, grew in Nassau, Prime Minister Lynden Pindling, was forced to deny the political asylum application of the Shah.
(Logansport Tribune, Thursday 31, May, 1979)
27 July 1980 – SHAH OF IRAN DIES IN EGYPT WASTED AWAY BY CANCER AND UNCONTROLLABLE BLEEDING
THE PEOPLE OF IRAN CELEBRATE HIS DEATH
Just a year and month or so after leaving Paradise Island, the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, succumbed to the cancer that had been hidden from for some four years.
