January 16 marks 45 years since the departure from Iran of its last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ... an outcry after the former deputy head of Savak, Pahlavi's secret police force, was pictured ...

Its primary purpose was to eliminate threats to the Shah. SAVAK's tactics included censorship, torture, and execution. When the Shah was ousted in 1979, SAVAK was singled out as a primary target ...

This might have seemed a reasonably peaceful way to increase U.S. influence via Iran over Kabul. It was, however, paired with an explosive initiative: via SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police, ...

If the hostages in Iran were not released ... victims, that is, of Savak, the Shah's notorious secret police. I have heard a diplomat, an old friend of the Shah's, always hasten, if somebody ...

(credit: WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY/REUTERS) Its predecessor, the shah’s SAVAK, was disbanded on the eve of Khomeini’s return to Iran. Yet Khomeini in exile had been insightful enough to cultivate ...