Final_Judgment

354 An Heir To the Throne [293]
"Now the threat posed by Kennedy was gone; the Shah's relationship
with President Johnson was comfortable and he felt no fear of the United
States despite the huge demonstrations mounted against him in New York,
Washington, and indeed throughout the country [when he came to America
on state visits]. " 781
(It should be noted, significantly, that Robert Morrow flatly states in
his account of the RFK murder that Rafizadeh was, in fact, the SAVAK
official in Iran who directed the aforementioned Khyber Khan to orchestrate
the RFK assassination plot. Morrow contends that Rafizadeh was promoted
to his post as SAVAK chief as a reward for the successful assault on RFK. 782
Thus it is interesting, to say the least, that we find Rafizadeh
commenting on the Shah's reaction to JFK's assassination.
In his own book, of course, Rafizadeh does not discuss the
circumstances surrounding RFK's murder at the hands of the CIA-Mossadbacked
SAVAK.)
PERPETUATING THE COVER-UP
The murder of Robert F. Kennedy by the Shah's SAVAK was a reaffirmation
of a long-standing hostility between the Kennedy brothers and
the Shah. RFK's murder helped perpetuate the cover-up of the role that
SAVAK's allies in the CIA and the Mossad had played in the previous
Kennedy assassination. It was again—as in the JFK assassination—a case of
mutual interests coming into play.
RICHARD HELMS AND THE SHAH
There is yet another interesting personal connection between the Shah
of Iran and the CIA worth noting.
In fact, in the early 1930's Richard Helms (who later became director of
the CIA in 1966) and the Shah had been best friends and schoolmates
together as children at boarding school in Switzerland. 783 It was Helms
who was later the CIA coordinator of the very coup that installed the Shah
on the throne in 1953. 784 It was a lifelong relationship which culminated
with Helms later becoming U.S. Ambassador to Iran.
Thus it was that through his relationship with Iran and SAVAK, as
Robert Morrow notes, that Helms "suddenly would have at his beck and call
a worldwide, covert strike-force of dedicated, trained, professional agents and
assassins. "785
It was during his tenure at the CIA, as we have seen in Chapter 8, that
Helms was the "chief patron" of the CIA's Mossad liaison, and devoted
supporter of Israel, James Jesus Angleton.
And it was after Helms became director that he and Angleton became
entangled in a little-noticed controversy involving a CIA memorandum that
ostensibly fingered CIA operative E. Howard Hunt as having been in Dallas
the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. (In Chapter 16, we analyzed
that memorandum in detail.)