Ali Shayegan

Who was Ali Shayegan?

Dr. Ali Shayegan, was an opponent of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and lived in political exile in New York and New Jersey from 1958. Dr. Shayegan, one of the leaders of the National Front of Iran, was also a Member of Parliament, the Minister of Education and a close aide to Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, whose government was overthrown by army officers loyal to the Shah in 1953 in a coup d'état orchestrated by the CIA. Following the coup, Dr. Hossein Fatemi, also a leader in the National Front and close associate of Shayegan was executed. Shayegan was initially sentenced to life imprisonment and then to ten years. After three years he was exiled to Europe and later came to America. He organized the Iranian National Front in Exile in New York in the late 1950s and helped in the formation of the Confederation of Iranian Students.

While in exile, he taught at the New School of Social Research in New York City and at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey. After the fall of the Shah in 1979, Dr. Shayegan returned to Iran and was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Presidency. He declined any nominations and took a stand against the Islamic Republic. In 1981, he returned to the United States, where he died shortly thereafter. He died at the Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood, New Jersey, after suffering a stroke.