QOTBZADEH, SADEQ (IRAN)

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06935722
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2022
• Case Number: F-2021-01734
• Publication Date: November 10, 1979

Approved for Release: 2022/07/15 C06935722
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Sadeq QOTBZADEB
(Phonetic: GAWTBzaDEH)
Minister of Foreign
Affairs (since 28 November
1979)
Addressed as:
Mr. Minister
The ruling Revolu-
tionary Council (RC) ap-
pointed one of its mem-
bers, hardliner Sadeq
Qotbzadeh, to replace
Abol Hasan Bani-Sadr, who
had overseen the Foreign
Ministry for only three
weeks. (Bani-Sadr, who
remains Economic Affairs and Finance minister,
probably was replaced because of his attempts to
reach some sort of compromise with the United
States.) Qotbzadeh continues to supervise the
regime's major propaganda medium, the National
Iranian Radio and Television Organization (NIRTO),
a function he has performed since the February
1979 revolution.
IRAN
Active in the anti-Shah movement for over 25
years, Qotbzadeh spent much of that time in exile
and was one of those who played an important role
in bringing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power.
The ambitious Qotbzadeh seems to
have attained increased importance by becoming a
member of the Cabinet
It has become
increasingly evident that Khomeini and the clergy-
men closest to him make the important decisions.
Qotbzadeh is likely to adopt a tough posture
toward the United States in any negotiations or
other relationships, but it will probably be the
ayatollahs in the RC who will tell him how and
when to act.
Qotbzadeh has been unpopular at NIRTO. He
has forced leftist staff members to follow the
propaganda themes of the Islamic revolution and
has removed over a hundred who balked. He has
irritated many Iranians by banning all enter- 3011)fil
tainment programs and substituting speeches by
(cont.)
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religious and government figures interspersed with
patriotic songs. In March 1979 two women's rights
activists, angered by NIRTO reporting on feminist
issues, attacked him while he was riding in a car;
one of the women shot at him but missed.
Professional Revolutionary
Born into a middle-class merchant family,
Qotbzadeh is the youngest of three brothers;
neither of his brothers holds office in the regime.
As a youth he was the most religious member of his
family. He did have a brief flirtation with
Marxism, but he returned, at least outwardly, to a
militantly Islamic orientation. Qotbzadeh re-
ceived some of his early education in Tehran and
some in Canada. Along the way, he became a member
of the anti-Shah National Front and a follower of
Prime Minister (1951-53) Mohammad Mosadeq. After
Mosadeq's fall, Qotbzadeh was imprisoned for anti-
government activities. When he was released in
1959, he came to the United States to continue his
studies and agitate against the Shah. Along with
Ebrahim Yazdi (Foreign Minister from May to early
November 1979) and Mostafa Chamran (now Minister
of National Defense), he founded the Islamic
Students Association of the United States.
Qotbzadeh may have attended the University of
California at Berkeley for a short time, but he
eventually ended up at the School of Foreign
Service of Georgetown University in Washington,
where he studied languages. While there he fre-
quently had hostile verbal exchanges with Ardeshir
Zahedi, then the Shah's son-in-law and Ambassador
to the United States. After one of these confron-
tations, Qotbzadeh told the press, "sooner or
later the future will be in our hands." In 1961
the Iranian Government lifted his passport.
Expelled from Georgetown for missing too many
classes--because of illness, he says--he was de-
ported from this country in 1964, an action he
blames on the Shah.
Qotbzadeh subsequently
traveled in the Middle East and Africa and estab-
lished contact with the Palestine Liberation
Organization.
Eventually making his home in France, Qotb-
zadeh became active in the International Con-
federation of Iranian Students; he was later
expelled because of his differences with its
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leftist elements. Once or twice a year, he went
to Najaf, Iraq, to visit the exiled Khomeini.
Qotbzadeh occupied a leadership position in the
Union of Iranian Students in France until he began
to play a more active role in the group around
Khomeini.
When the ayatollah left Iraq in October
1978 to go to France, Qotbzadeh accompanied him.
He subsequently became one of Khomeini's spokesmen
and principal aides, and he returned to Iran with
him on 1 February 1979.
Personal Data
Qotbzadeh likes to wear
fashionable suits, silk ties and loafers. An
enthusiastic talker, he speaks fluent English and
French and a little Arabic. His full name is
Qotbzadeh-Esfahani, but he does not use that form.
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