By the end of 11 February revolutionary crowds had broken into Evin prison, releasing all the prisoners, including the politicals; and had ransacked the former headquarters of SAVAK . Elsewhere in the country, in Shiraz, in Rasht, and in other places, the revolutionaries, often led by air force personnel, took over police and SAVAK buildings and established locally the same outcome as in the capital. Bakhtiar went into hiding. On the afternoon of 11 February, US Ambassador Sullivan was attempting to organize the safe evacuation of some USmilitary personnel who were trapped in a building that was under attack, when he received a series of telephone calls from the White House. In one of these, David Newsom asked him on behalf of Zbigniew Brzezinski what were the chances of a successful military coup: ‘The total absurdity of such an inquiry in the circumstances then existing in Tehran provoked me to a scurrilous suggestion for Brzezinski that seemed to shock mildmannered Under- Secretary Newsom.’ Back in the US , General Huyser was asked the same day, as part of the same deliberations, whether and under what conditions he would return to Iran to ‘conduct a military takeover’. His response was more polite, but no more encouraging than Sullivan’s. The fighting that finally toppled Bakhtiar’s government had been spontaneous; instigated by the enthusiasm of the revolutionaries themselves, by the Homafaran under the intelligent leadership of Imam Khomeini, who was more concerned to avoid the revolution descending into complete anarchy. But the outcome left him dominant. Since 1979 the Islamic regime has regarded 11 February as the date of the final victory of the Islamic revolution – and has celebrated the ten days between Imam Khomeini’s return and 11 February as the Daheh- ye Fajr – ‘ten days of dawn’.
Iran Airforce Elites Join Revolutionary Corps: Mobilization of Dissatisfied Elements in Army
