Newly released documents by the National Archives in Kew have shed more light on Margaret Thatcher’s decision to deny the deposed shah of Iran asylum in the UK following Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.



In 2009 it was revealed that Britain had secretly dispatched an emissary to the Bahamas to relay a message to the shah, then living in exile with his family on the Caribbean casino resort of Paradise Island, that the UK was not prepared to give him sanctuary for fear of reprisals against its existing diplomats in Tehran.



The newly released files, including secret communiques to and from No 10 Downing Street, reveal that the prime minister was supposedly so worried about the safety of British diplomats in Tehran that she wrote personally to a prominent barrister dissuading him from accepting the role of representing the shah.

The documents also show that Sir Denis Wright, an earlier UK ambassador to Iran, who had gone to the Bahamas under a pseudonym to avoid media attention, wrote a secret telegram to Thatcher’s office, saying: “Shah’s Iranian retinue now seems reduced to a handful of guards and/or servants plus a European nanny. There were black servants in the house.”

More than 35 years after Iran’s Islamic revolution, details about much of what happened during and after those turbulent events remain hidden away, but unclassified documents released by the UK and the US in recent years have shown how quickly the west’s support for the shah – whose full name was Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi – faded away soon after the victory of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In June, a row erupted in Iran over BBC Persian’s reporting of newly declassified US diplomatic cables that revealed extensive contact between Khomeini and the Carter administration weeks before the revolution. Khomeini returned to Tehran on 1 February 1979, two weeks after the shah fled Iran.

The shah subsequently lived in exile, first in Egypt and then Morocco, and then a string of other countries including the US, Mexico and Panama. He died of cancer in Cairo in July 1980.

The new files show that the shah had wanted to stay in the UK for his children’s education. His request was firmly rejected by Thatcher, despite Britain’s earlier efforts at helping him, including facilitating his surreptitious passage from Morocco to the Bahamas.



“The prime minister made it clear that she was deeply unhappy about the government’s inability to offer sanctuary to a ruler who had, in her view, been a firm and helpful friend to the UK,” reads a newly released letter from Thatcher’s office to the Foreign Office. “The PM is nevertheless very conscious of the need to avoid any risk to those British subjects remaining in Iran or to our embassy there.”



Wright, who met the shah in the Bahamian capital, Nassau, then sent his assessment to the Whitehall. He added: “Shah’s house is within a wire compound where American security men were tumbling over each other. The house is clearly too small for Shah and his family ... I gathered ... that atmosphere is far from happy and Shah is longing to settle where his children can get proper education.”

Lord Carrington, then foreign secretary, was particularly worried about the press finding out about Wright’s mission, which was meant to be secret. “If Denis Wright’s mission leaks to the press, we propose to come clean, ie admit he went to the Bahamas as an official emissary to discuss question of Shah coming to Britain,” he wrote to No 10.



The Foreign Office said Wright had gone to explain the government’s position to the shah and to “explain the difficulties which his coming to Britain would present”. The Bahamas was said to be “swarming with journalists”, according to Wright. The shah was not pleased with the message and complained to the ambassador that he could not fathom why the UK took heed of a regime “which did not matter”.



Thatcher personally wrote to Lord Shawcross, a prominent barrister, saying she appreciated his loyalty to the shah but she believed he should not represent the shah in any international tribunal that might arise.

“I believe that, were you to accept this brief, there could be very unwelcome effect on our own relations with Iran and possibly even the safety of our embassy staff in Tehran,” she wrote by hand. “The consequences for our relations, and our people in Tehran, could be serious. I am sorry to have to reply in this cautious vein, but given the suspicious and hysterical nature of Iranian opinion, I would not wish to run any unnecessary risks.”

The British prime minister went on to say she thought the shah “was a good friend of this country” but her concern was “for the safety of our own people still in Iran”.

