The Man in the Mirror: A True Story of Love, Revolution and Treachery in Iran

D.M.L. Farr is a professor emeritus of history at Carleton University in
Ottawa.

This is a remarkable story. Sadegh Ghotbzadeh became a supporter of revolution in his native Iran while he was a student in the United States and Canada. Later he attached himself to Ayatollah Khomeini and accompanied him when he returned to Iran early in 1979. He was in the midst of the struggle for power that went on around Khomeini and emerged as Iran’s foreign minister ten months later. In office during the hostage crisis with the United States, Ghotbzadeh became a familiar figure in the West as a spokesman for the revolutionary regime. But he was a moderate in a government of extremists and eventually was forced out of office. He attempted ineffectually to stage a counter-coup, was changed with treason, and was executed in September 1982.

Carole Jerome is a Canadian broadcaster and journalist who covered the revolution in Iran, first from Paris during Khomeini’s exile there and later from Teheran. She came to know Ghotbzadeh and fell in love with him. She was thus in a position to meet most of the leaders of the revolution and to gain a close knowledge of their viewpoints and the relationships between them. Much of what she learned came from Ghotbzadeh, who was alternately frank and reserved with her. The book conveys very well the inner tensions, the irrationality, the remorseless fanaticism of the early months of the Iranian revolution. Against this background is the intense emotional tie between the author and Ghotbzadeh, a link that was beset by contradictions and the personal risk it carried to the Western woman and the Iranian minister.

Not surprisingly, the account portrays Ghotbzadeh sympathetically. He appears as a reasonable man, eager to see Iran as a democratic state on the Western model yet preserving her Islamic individuality. Having spent many years in Europe and North America, he was able to interpret Iran’s actions to the West, a role which events and his opponents prevented him from fulfilling. He is pictured here as a tragic hero, the moderate destroyed by forces of passion and unreason which he had helped to arouse but could not control. Carole Jerome has written an eloquent tribute to his struggle.

The book is attractively produced, contains an interesting selection of photographs of the Iranian leaders and an index. Since it is a personal account, not a history of the revolution, there is no bibliography.