I was raised in a relatively liberal family. My companions were mainly my older brother’s friends, and my cousins, many of whom were males. However, coming from a strongly religious family, she was restricted to socializing with females only. Hence, she was not allowed to visit my house, and the only way for us to spend time together was for me to go over to her place. Although, this was not always the case, as she normally managed to find ways of rebelling against her family.

Later on, as we grew older, we started an English course, which turned into an excuse for her to spend some time out and socialize with people. Every day, we would meet at my place and make our ways to school from there. This provided her with the opportunity to get rid of her black chador for part of the day. She’d remove it as soon as she arrived at my house, and would put it on again when she was close to home. Soon it was the university time, providing her with even more opportunities to get out of the house. Like many other girls of that age, we’d go to the cinema, coffee shops, and restaurants, occasionally flirting with guys here and there. This was supposed to be the extent of our playfulness, as I assumed at the time.

However, her family restrictions had driven her extremely curious about men. She was always seeking a chance to try what she’d been prevented from. I suppose she would have been amongst the first friends of mine to start dating, if not the very first one. Not always being able to go out on dates, she’d get the boys over to her attic, where her parents thought she spent all her time studying! Not to mention what stress she went through to get the boys in and out of the house!

Eventually she found herself living a double life-on the one hand, five-times-a-day prayers, fasting during Ramadan, visiting holly places with family, covering up head to toes while around her family, and talking religion at home. On the other hand, having secret male visitors, intimate phone conversations with men, and dressing in miniskirts on the sly. However, with her family monitoring her more and more, it didn’t take long before she realized it was too difficult to maintain such a double life. That was when she started seeking the gateway to contentment!

We were as close as always when she told me about a woman she had met in the gym. She was married, with two children. At the beginning she was only a gym friend, who later on became more than one would expect. I was told that her husband was out of town most of the time. So, my friend’s family had no problems with her staying over at the woman’s place, as long as there was no man around. In fact, they were very happy to find out their daughter was socializing with a woman who had a family. At the end of the day, single girls could be a bad influence!

Before long her life was revolving around this new friend, staying at her house for weeks, while her husband was away. “She is so kind and caring. I feel very happy around her”, my friend would brave. Soon was the time for romantic presents to come her way. “She is so sweet, she is always buying me nice things”, she would boast. “Maybe we should all do something together”, I suggested once. “Well, I don’t know about that; I’m not sure she’d be comfortable around you”, she replied. “To be honest, I can no longer keep in touch with you. Just don’t ask me why!” she told me once on the phone. This was our last official conversation as friends, and just like that I was cut out of her life.

Later on, I ran into them once in the neighborhood, walking hand in hand. She turned pale as soon as I called her, letting go of her hand. She quickly said hi and walked away. I found it awkward but thought to myself that it was just a silly friend thing, and she’d be back to normal soon. But it wasn’t long after that I realized it was more than a “friend thing”.

Determined to save our friendship, I decided to surprise her for her birthday. So, I bought her a present and went to her house. As I arrived at the door, I saw the woman’s car was parked there. I rang the bell and my friend opened herself. “What are you doing here?!” she asked, looking puzzled and uncomfortable. “I’ve come to say happy birthday!” I replied. “I’m sorry, today is not a very good day. I have a visitor”, she said. “I don’t care about your visitor. I’m here to see you for a while”, I said, as I walked in.

That vary afternoon she finally decided it was time to put it on the display for me. So, there they were, sitting face to face, holding hands, and looking into each other’s eyes passionately. The talking was smooth and the words were kind. Love was in the air!

It was a complete flop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHMPP3kJggM

During the filming of the third part of ‘I Tre Volti’, 

which was subtitled Latin Lover, Soraya fell under the spell of the director, Franco Indovina.

.

An affair began between the two but the future was uncertain. Franco was married with two children. He told her that he would divorce his wife and they would have a new life together. (Autobiography of Soraya “Le Palais Des Soltudes”. 1st Edition, Michel Lafon, 1991) – The Shah must have been seething at this point. Rumor had it that when he heard that his ex wife was to appear in a love movie, he was so infuriated that he ordered all the copies be bought and destroyed. The Iranian secret service SAVAK travelled all over Italy buying up copies of the film and destroying them but one survived.

Soraya had kept one rushes copy, which was eventually sold at the auction of her estate in Paris in May of 2002 together with all her personal effects.

According to the official Bakhtiari family website:

Soraya left for Munich and came back 6 months later to join Franco who had just separated from his wife. The couple had a blissful 5 years of life together filled with love and happiness until that fateful day on the 4th of May 1972 when Franco’s plane crashed in Sicily and he was tragically killed.

I cribbed this from Wikipedia on flight 112:

Alitalia Flight 112 was a scheduled flight from Leonardo da Vinci Airport, in Rome, Italy, to Palermo International Airport with 115 on board. On 5 May 1972, it crashed into Mount Longa, south-west of Palermo while on approach. Investigators believe that the crew had 3 miles visibility and did not adhere to the established vectors issued by air traffic control. It remains the deadliest single-aircraft disaster in Italy.

Around 10:23-24 PM, the aircraft  hit against a crest of 935 meters about 300 feet below the top of the mountain, and slid for a long time on the ground with its wings, its fuselage, and its four engines, until it disintegrated in the successive hits against the rocks of the crest. The wreckage was strewn across a 25 mile area, so wild it took rescue teams 3 hours to reach it. Later on, some witnesses at Carini said that they had seen the aircraft on fire before the crash.

One of the victims’ relatives. Mrs. Maria Eleonora Fais, sister of Angela Fais, who died in that plane, was able to find, after many years, the report of the Vice-Chief of Police Giuseppe Peri that says that the plane exploded because of a bombing. Peri accuses an alliance of people having ties with the Mafia and with a subversive group from the Right with the responsibility for this bombing.

The National Association of Italian Pilots (ANPAC) sided with the pilots, refusing the possibility of a mistake due to their long experience and due to the fact that the accusation of an intoxication to prove their “exclusive” responsibility had been denied.

My point:

Is there any evidence that Franco Indovina was the intended victim of this bombing- if indeed the plane was bombed? Could the Shah have taken out the contract on Indovina for bringing the Peacock Throne into disrepute?

__________________________________________________________________

There was a  spyware programme that was sold around the world in the 80’s called PROMIS.

This is an old interview from 1993 conducted by Glenn Krawzcyk for the Australian magazine Nexus relating to that.

The interviewee is Ari Ben-Menashe. Iranian born Mossad agent, who for various reasons decided to speak out in his supressed book: Profits of War (translated into Farsi as پول خون).

PROMIS (Prosecutor’s Management Information System) is now ancient history but its legacy lives on.

The Dossier Society

The computer program we are talking about is called Promis, and its use presents the biggest threat to individual rights by any computer technology in use today. Not only that, it has given US Intelligence agencies access to extremely sensitive information stored in the databases of possibly as many as eighty-eight countries around the globe.

Ben-Menashe devotes an entire chapter of his book detailing the joint American-Israeli initiative to sell Promis to intelligence and law-enforcement agencies world-wide, and gives several examples of how the program has been used to interfere with the political process of various countries and to keep track of citizens.

Since obtaining an illegal copy of the program  in the 1980s, the Central Intelligence Agency, in conjunction with Israeli Intelligence, embarked on a highly successful world-wide initiative to install “bugged” copies of the software in computer systems run by intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, (as well as other government organisations), to which they now covertly have unlimited access.

One of the earliest “leaks” regarding this covert computer double-dealing came out in an article entitled “Spy vs. Spy”, (written by Zuhair Kashmeri for the Toronto Globe and Mail), which was published on Saturday 20 April 1991. Devoted entirely to the Promis initiative, the article quotes one of Kashmeri’s Canadian Intelligence sources: “Some of our Allies, such as Australia, are furious after they found out from the revelations of the Inslaw Case that they were sucked into buying Promis”. Kashmeri confirmed to one of my colleagues that he has had a twelve year relationship with the two intelligence sources who supplied the information for the article, and that they had always proved reliable in the past.

At the time I interviewed Ben-Menashe, it proved very hard to authenticate all his claims. Although Israeli Intelligence denied all knowledge of him for some time, I was informed by a helpful contact within the Australian Democrats that he had indeed worked there for them, and, was given copies of various personal references that supported the claim. After later interviewing Bill Hamilton, the Director of Inslaw Inc., the company that wrote the program, and other individuals familiar with the case, I felt quite confident that Ari Ben-Menashe knew exactly what he was talking about.

On 1 September 1992, an investigative committee of the US Congress released an investigative report on the Inslaw case, which outlines the controversial history of the Promis software. It took three years of investigation to complete the report, due in part to the withholding of evidence by government agencies connected with the theft, modification and distribution of the program, as well as the intimidation of important witnesses. In order to slow down and mislead the investigation there have been arrests, on false charges, of individuals informing the judicial committee, as well as the suspicious death (red murder) of journalist Danny Casolaro, who had been investigating the Inslaw Case and its links to the October Surprise, Iran-contra Affair, and BCCI bank collapse. Far from answering all the questions, the report concludes that a far more thorough and far-reaching investigation must be urgently undertaken.

This committee’s report confirms many of |Ben-Menashe’s claims. He was, in fact, one of the key sources of their information. I put the following questions to him when we met in 1991:

GK: What is Promis?

B-M: It is the most sophisticated computer database that has ever been developed in the world. Computers are very widely used by the intelligence community; it’s the main source of information about people. You can essentially get anything about anybody you want to know.

GK: To what extent would it be used by the intelligence community to collect information about the civilian population?

B-M: It’s quite widely used, al over the world, to collect information about dissidents, opposition leaders, and so on. What does it do? I’ll give you an example which is very interesting. You have a computer, put this program on it, and connect this computer to the water company, to the electric company, to IATA (International Air Travel Association), to credit card companies, to the tax department, bank accounts, to anything you like to think… phone lines, where someone calls to, which is very important. Other than tapping him, now you can also have a written record of all the telephone numbers he or she dials. So if you want Mr. Joe Smith and everything he does, it’s the only program that can bring all this data from everywhere…

GK: Globally?

B-M: Globally, yes, onto one screen! It’s a very sophisticated program. I mean, this is the biggest infringement on privacy, on anybody, anything. Is there any privacy? I mean, the government agencies would be able to monitor anybody’s activities as they wish. Very quickly, too. Once they have this information, who knows what they do with it.

GK: How quickly can Promis assimilate information and provide a dossier on a person?

B-M: If it’s hooked up correctly, in a matter of seconds. It is a better information collection system than any other. I mean, I think it put the satellites out of business.

GK: Have you seen this in operation?

B-M: Oh yeah, You know, this program makes George Orwell’s ‘1984′ look like … (nervous laugh). George Orwell was modest. What this program can do, the only one in the world that can do this, is first of all make sure when you’re talking about “Harry Smith” it’s the same “Harry Smith”, because there could be ten “Harry Smith’s. It would compare notes, check common denominators, and it would find Harry Smith. His water usage, his electric usage, how many times he has travelled abroad, what does he do with his credit cards, his car licence number, all sorts of stuff. Put it together, and there you go. You have everything you ant to know about this person. The first version was ready in 1979/80. In ‘81 he (Bill Hamilton) offers it to the Justice Department, because it’s also good for law enforcement. He offers it, and then suddenly the National Security Agency has it. It’s given to the Israeli’s in 1982, and it’s being marketed around the world, given to allies and to non-allies. The reason being, it was bugged as well. What you do is basically set it up for one government, and without letting that government know, have a phone tap on that computer and can pull out information for yourself also. They bugged their allies as well! I’ll give you an example. The Americans sold it on our behalf (Israel) to some Arab countries. Jordanian Military Intelligence had it in ‘82 and they were collecting data on the Palestinians. The Palestinians were threatening the king (Hussein) as well. We were also sharing that information with them.

GK: Without their knowledge?

B-M: Of course, without their knowledge. Now, the two countries that marketed, the two security forces that marketed this program, one was Israel, and one was the United States. Israel did it through various computer companies owned by Robert Maxwell. The Americans on the other hand did it through a company called Hadron, based in the United States, owned by the owner of UPI (United Press International), a fellow by the name of Earl Brian. He used to be Reagan’s Secretary of Welfare and Health in California, when Reagan was governor. Then he was working for the intelligence services. Basically his companies were ‘attached’ to the CIA. The CIA was marketing it for the National Security Agency . One of the Maxwell companies sold it to the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) and that was bugged. The West knew what was going on in that theatre faster than the Russians. Another example, South Africa. Great place. It was given to them without the bug. It was set up through a company called Degem, owned by Maxwell. This program tracked ANC (African National Congress) people, and what came out of the computer was handed to the Buthelezi people (Inkatha) and then you had ‘black on black’ violence.

GK: And meanwhile, was this being monitored by the US as well?

B-M: Yes. It’s funny, you know, there was also a terminal in Pretoria that was used by the South African Military Intelligence, And the US Embassy and that place share a wall, so…

GK: How widespread is the use of Promis in other countries?

B-M: It’s quite widespread. Most of the Western Allies have it; as we said, the South Africans have it, the Nicaraguans have it, even the Guatemalans. The ex – Eastern Bloc countries have it too. I believe that since 1990 most of them have checked it for bugs, but they still use it. MI5, MI6, the Russians.

GK: Who is using it in Australia?

B-M: ASIO (The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation).

GK: Do you know who installed Promis in Australia?

Yes I do. It was Hadron.

GK: Could the use of Promis be seen as a threat to the privacy of the general public?

B-M: Sure. That’s what it’s all about.

GK: So it couldn’t be written off as something that’s just there to monitor terrorist groups and so on?

B-M: Sure. That’s what they say. But what is a terrorist? I mean, what is national security, what is all this? It’s a matter of monitoring people who are getting in the way of the government keeping everybody in line. Once you have this technology and you know everything everybody else is doing, or whomever you want to follow… you can basically control people that way. You can put in disinformation, do all kinds of things, block bank transfers, you know, stop people doing things, or make sure they don’t have money, or their money doesn’t come through on time, and so on.

There’s so much that can be done with this information. Simple things. You don’t have to be very sophisticated. Cancel reservations, slow down bank transfers, put in a computer that a credit card is no good. Just imagine, all you have is your American Express card, and you’re stuck somewhere around the world and the computer shows that your card is no good! Simple as that. And then when you complain three weeks later, :sorry, mistake”. But in the meantime, for three weeks you were in trouble.

GK: I have been told that the National Crime Authority in Australia is setting up a database to monitor every single bank transaction over $5000. I suppose that system might be useful for this purpose as well?

B-M: It’s the same database by the way. They just got a condensed version of Proms It’s not called Promis, but once the program is out…

GK: How much of a connection is there between intelligence agencies and banks or other private organisations that hold extensive and sensitive computer records?

B-M: Well, I think what happens is that the intelligence agencies become the centre of all of it. You know, the banks monitor the money, other guys monitor stuff, but the intelligence agencies put it all together.

GK: So they have access to banking records?

B-M: Oh sure. They have access to everything. This is why a lot of countries love the idea of ID cards, because this way it makes things easier. Or they use a social security number or a tax file number. Initially the idea was to do it all through law enforcement and that kind of thing, but since it didn’t work, because of parliament or congress or whatever, they just had to do it through the back door. It’s the same thing, and again, it’s governments and bureaucracies trying to control everybody’s lives.

GK: When you look at all the intelligence-gathering capabilities, surveillance, eavesdropping, tracking, monitoring and so on, it seems that they are all evolving and interlocking more and more. Is it steamrollering out of control?

B-M: Yes, yes. I’ve always said this. It is getting out of control. I mean, suddenly you have everything being monitored. Everything.

GK: Do we need it? I mean, what are they going to do with all this information?

B-M: Who knows. But it’s bureaucracy. Everybody loves it. Each bureaucrat, or each guy that runs some section of a listening agency wants his empire to grow, and it grows and goes out of control. Remember that intelligence bureaucracies are just like everything else, they get over-zealous. I sometimes wonder how the United States government… I mean, $600 million for a stealth bomber. One stealth bomber! With $600 million you could clean up Los Angeles and all its homeless. But you know, “security”, “defence”, “the communists are coming”. But I guess the communists aren’t coming any more. We need to find a new enemy. (Cynical)

GK: The question I get asked all the time is “How do they keep all this a secret?”

B-M: It’s easy. Everybody protects his job. And I’ll tell you another thing. Most of these guys in national security, what do they do? They either sit down listening all day, or running their computers, or re-listening to tapes. Some of these jobs are very menial. He comes home. His wife asks him something. “It’s secret. I can’t tell you”. It’s also a means of protection. It’s easy. This guy starts talking publicly… He’s gone. And there’s another thing. Each person has a very small amount of knowledge, unless you get to a senior level, and once you get there you’re part of the system. Each person has this very small thing he does. In twenty years, how many people have broken rank? Not that many who are sufficiently up there to know. But my question today is what is it all for?

GK: That’s what we would like to know!

B-M: When you look back at it, it’s a whole load of bullshit crap, bureaucrats keeping people in work, and keeping tabs on their opponents.

GK: But is all this surveillance capability so powerful now that it’s impossible to resist unfair government practice?

B-M: It’s hard to resist unfair government practices. It’s very hard. I mean, how do you do it? You’re fighting ghosts basically. But bureaucracies can be fought if you know how they operate. It’s hard, but you can do it, you know, stay ahead.

GK: You’re suggesting it’s more bureaucracy out of control than some grand conspiracy, then?

B-M: Yep! That’s what it is! I never ran into any “Super-commission”. That’s what it is. Friends with mutual interests protecting each others powerbases or their own power- bases That’s how it goes. I don’t see it as one grand conspiracy. It’s just there’s technology and bureaucrats, they want to do their job well, so the collection becomes larger and larger. More collection and more information

GK: What happens when interests collide then, say, on a national level?

B-M: Then you have a fight. That’s what they call a “crisis”!

GK: Are we heading to a point where this is all too fragile, this reliance on technology and a “balance of terror”?

B-M: Would your life be any different if you were not monitored? Probably better. But the average person, what does he care? The way I see it, you go to work, you get your house, you give half of what you earn toward the house, at the age of 60 you own the house and live off your pension.

You stay in line, you get the house. I mean, this whole issue of mortgage is… make sure they get married at a certain age, You have two children, and that’s how everybody’s in line. You work all your life to pay your mortgage and if you don’t work you lose your house. Perform or…

GK: In terms of gathering information on people, are there any moral criteria as far as the intelligence community or bureaucrats are concerned?

B-M: Moral criteria about what? If you’re targeting somebody you’re targeting somebody.

My Notes:

The internet has changed the world but did these guys start computer espionage?
I am interested in the fact that they relied on information technology while the East Germans and Soviets relied on manpower. Vorsrpung durch technik and that kind of thing.

I was thinking of the German film ‘The Lives of Others’ which opens with the Stasi motto:
Nothing is Private, Nothing is Sacred, our mission is to know everything.

Ben-Menashe, was born in Iran and speaks fluent Farsi, I imagined a film that would revolve around his TV interview in a darkened room, in English and Farsi.

Sound track is Kraftwek’s Computer World.

Location: Stasi Museum, Berlin

به هر یک ذره در صد مهر تابان

اگر یک قطره را دل بر شکافی

برون آید از آن صد بحر صافی

به هر جزوی ز خاک ار بنگری راست

هزاران آدم اندر وی هویداست

(Mahmoud Shabistari, Golshan Raz)

This poem with its atom splitting imagery predates the Hatef Esfehani poem that the Iranian government is using as a slogan for its nuclear programme by 500 years: دل هر ذره را که بشکافی// آفتابیش در میان بینی

and this one is from the 20th century:

عارف به دل ذره جهان می بيند

آنجا مه و مهر و کهکشان می بيند

کوری بنگر که چشم دانشور عصر

دست و سر کشتگان در آن می بيند

Khalilullah Khalili, Rubaiyat

Zeb’s name, perfectly innocuous in his native Urdu, is Persian in origin.

زیب pronounced Zeeb, in Farsi and Zeib in Dari means the attribution of Beauty, like Aurang Zeeb the Moghul Ruler, but it has quite another meaning in Arabic, if pronounced as Zob.

Meanwhile Zeb says the entire thing is a nonsense. “It must be someone playing a practical joke because I’ve never been appointed to Saudi Arabia and they’ve never asked for my agreement. It’s a prank that someone’s playing on the Internet.”

The news initially appeared on several blogs and then variations of the story started appearing in online posts in news sources such as the Jerusalem Post, National Review, The Atlantic Online and Foreign Policy.

When I read this I thought, rather uncharitably, it serves him right.

Had he spelt his name as Zeeb (like in Farsi) no one would have read Zeb for Zob!

We Iranians are always puzzled by the Anglo-Indian system of transliteration, the one used by Zeb, which transliterates شیر Sheer (lion, or tiger in Afghanistan) as Sher, but  گِل Gel (mud) becomes Gil and Del becomes Dil. In other words they use the ‘kasr’ as the letter ‘i’ and the letter Ya becomes ‘e’.

It is as if the Glaswegian accent were to be set as the standard for international English; causing incomprehension and mayhem everywhere.

The whole thing reminded me of a foot-note, recounted by an acquaintance Jason Elliot, in his book ‘Mirrors of the Unseen’

on the presentation of the Greek Ambassador to Tehran, Kyriakos, to the court of Reza Shah.

‘Kir’ in Persian is the male organ and ‘Kos’ the female. Ya means ’or’.

‘Well?‘ demanded the outraged Shah from a stammering chamberlain. ’Which is he? – kir ya kos? If he has not made up his mind throw him out!’

Diplomatic relations between Greece and Iran were severed the same day.  (Mirrors of the Unseen, Journeys in Iran, by Jason Elliot, P. 400).

Unlike the Zeb story, this one, I believe is not apocryphal.  A better illustration of the illiterate Shah’s  ignorance and cruelty,  I cannot imagine.

I put it up in the edit suite.

Nima came in and in that authoritarian tone that we have come to know and love, said it was wrong. It should be Een neez bogzarad. I said it was the Afghan version, he looked unconvinced.

Then Adel noticed it two days later.

He said tentatively: Is it not wrong and should it not be Een neez bogzarad?

I said it was the Afghan version, he looked confused.

I heard that Amir Payvar had come to do a voice over. He had said why is this funny, should it not be a bit different, etc. etc.

I thought to myself, This Too Will Pass.

The calligraphy was made on the Maryam software by a Scottish friend. He was referring to a story by Attar in Idries Shah’s book, The Way of the Sufi. It describes a King who was a bit bi-polar and went from sadness and depression to madness and elation with catastrophic results, as he was entrusted with running a kingdom. So he asked his courtiers for something that would stabilise his mood. The courtiers went off racking their brains but could not think of anything  but then they noticed that someone had scrawled in the dust with their finger a legend. They wrote this on a ring and gave it to the king to wear. Whenever he had a mood swing he would look at the ring and see that it had inscribed on it:

”This Too Will Pass”.

The Farsi speaking friend, who made the calligraphy above, actually found a ring with this motto on it in Kabul, in the 1970’s,and he testifies to its effectiveness. Needless to say that the wording on that ring was closer to the Attar original, Een HamMeegozarad, and not the modern Iranian version, Een neez bogzarad!