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The Iranian Features
February 7-11, 2000 / Bahman 15-19, 1378

Today

* Revolution: Imbaba
* Novel: Conspiracy at Desert One -4

Recent

* Revolution: Night has fallen
* Novel: Conspiracy at Desert One -3
* Life: First city
* Novel: Conspiracy at Desert One -2
* Wine: High spirits
* Novel: Conspiracy at Desert One -1
* Cover story: Conspiracy at Desert One


Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday


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Friday
February 11, 2000

Revolution

Imbaba
No wonder Egyptians loved Iranians so much

Written & photographed by Dokhi Fassihian
February 11, 2000
The Iranian

I was studying Arabic in Cairo during the summer of 1997. Living among Egyptians was an extraordinary experience. They welcomed me as their own and would never believe it when I told them I wasn't Egyptian. When they found out I was Iranian, they treated me like a queen. I got the best tables at restaurants; gifts at the bazaar, free feluka rides on the Nile, free taxi rides. Egyptians mean it when they tarof; their friendliness and warmth is full of sincerity.

"We haven't seen Iranians for ten years," a bazaar merchant told me. "Only Farah Diba and her entourage come to visit the Shah's tomb every year, and they usually just visit the jewelery stores." >>> GO TO FEATURE

Novel

Conspiracy at Desert One
A novel

By Bernace Charles
The Iranian

Chapter Four >>> GO TO FEATURE

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Thursday
February 10, 2000

Revolution

Night has fallen
A revolution puts friends on separate paths

By Gelareh Asayesh
February 10, 2000
The Iranian

I am remembering when I first met her, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her parents were studying there, just as mine were. They lived in university housing, as we did. We played blindman's buff in the room she shared with her sister, their prison-striped bunk beds identical to the one my sister and I shared. When her family returned to Iran shortly after we did, Elham came to Iran-Suisse. She was an instant hit among my classmates, with her long hair and slim grace and the touch of American sophistication that had somehow eluded me. Though we were the same age, she always seemed older perhaps because she was the oldest of three children, used to responsibility.

Our paths separated when my family returned to America. I heard that she organized demonstrations at school, that she had joined the Mujahedeen, that she was on the run. When I was in college, she was in prison. When I was working for the Baltimore Sun, she was enrolled in university in Ahwaz, struggling to make up for lost time. She is a medical student now, close to attaining her first year of residency. It is a wonderful achievement, but her family rarely mentions it. The well-traveled, educated parents, the beautiful sister, the young brother with his skeptical eyes, seem subtly distanced from Elham. Elham and her black veil stand out in a household that is as Western as any I have seen. But it was not the family that changed, it was Elham >>> GO TO FEATURE

Novel

Conspiracy at Desert One
A novel

By Bernace Charles
The Iranian

Chapter Three >>> GO TO FEATURE

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Wednesday
February 9, 2000

Life

First city
Honolulu is home now - among other homes

By Majid Tehranian
February 9, 2000
The Iranian

I live in Honolulu. But my journey began in Mashhad, Iran, where I was born eons ago. Today as I listened to the murmur of the rain falling on rooftops, looking out my window at the misty Diamond Head and the roaring Pacific beyond, a feeling of nostalgia set in. I was banished to paradise in 1981 to stay here only for a year. Life' s mysterious design had brought and kept me here. It is home now, among other homes - Mashhad, Tehran, Hanover, Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, and now Honolulu - seven cities in all. I had wandered from city to city as a migrating bird. But I had no destination in mind. The journey was the thing ...

The most vivid memory of my childhood is the piercing pain I felt in my toes when I was walking with my mother along the narrow, stone-laden streets of Mashhad. It had snowed heavily the night before, and streets were filled with slush, penetrating into my little shoes and toes as we walked fast to reach home from my grandparents' house >>> GO TO FEATURE

Novel

Conspiracy at Desert One
A novel

By Bernace Charles
The Iranian

Chapter Two

As Wes exited the parking area, no other cars were on the highway. As he drove across the dam, he knew something frightening but exciting had entered his life. A rush of adrenaline sent his mind whirling and forced him to forget his sorrow. Life was a pain-filled void and now he sensed his life might have a new meaning; it might take a different direction.

It was nine years since he had been in Israel. He was then researching the history on the West Bank. Now, Walker turned on the car 's interior light and unfolded the paper given to him. After reading a Chicago telephone number, a woman's name, and a street address in The Old City of Jerusalem, Wes turned his Cadillac to the side of the Keystone Highway. Blessed with a photographic memory, he lighted the paper with a gold-platted, cigarette lighter, and dropped the paper into the car's ashtray >>> GO TO FEATURE

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Tuesday
February 8, 2000

Wine

High spirits
Shiraz wine: from Persia to Australia

By Cyrus Kadivar
February 8, 2000
The Iranian

One ancient Persian legend says that Jamshid, a grape-loving king, stored ripe grapes in a cellar so he could enjoy grapes all year long.

One day he sent his slaves to fetch him some grapes. When they did not return he decided to go to the cellar himself only to find that they had been knocked out by the carbon dioxide gas emanating from some bruised fermenting grapes. One of the king's rejected, distraught mistresses decided to drink this poisoned potion, only to leave the cellar singing and dancing in high spirits >>> GO TO FEATURE

Novel

Conspiracy at Desert One
A novel

By Bernace Charles
February 8, 2000
The Iranian

Chapter One

1999
Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The voice through the telephone carried a guttural sound. "Meet with me, Walker. You need the story . . . the story needs you."

Wesley Walker, a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a man carrying the disputable distinction of being a writer of fiction answered, "I'm not interested. No one is. A military blunder is exactly that. It's a poor history."

Again, the words sounded as coming through a long, dark tunnel. The shaft shaped them. "There was more to it, Mr. Walker . . . thirty minutes . . . it's all I need . . . it's all you need to hear the story. Men played a deadly game . . . the game caught them short. Meet me in the vista parking lot at the Keystone Dam.">>> GO TO FEATURE

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Monday
February 7, 2000

Cover story

Conspiracy at Desert One
A novel

By Bernace Charles
February 7, 2000
The Iranian

Conspiracy at Desert One is the first story serialized in The Iranian. New parts of this unpublished novel will be posted here every day (except weekends).

Introduction

Following April 25, 1980, Iranian Revolutionary Guards arrested Laleh Sanders, an American photojournalist in Tehran. The Iranian Press charged her with spying for America. She then disappeared for ten months before allowed to leave Iran. Why? President Carter claimed to have no knowledge of her at a press conference. Who was Laleh Sanders and what role did she play in preventing the American rescue-effort from reaching Tehran? >>> GO TO FEATURE

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Cover story

Conspiracy at Desert One
A novel

By Bernace Charles

THE IRANIAN
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