The decline of US-Iran relations started right after Watergate and Nixon’s presidency, namely after the failed negotiations between the Shah and President Ford’s administration from 1974 to 1976 regarding American nuclear exports to Iran. The Shah did not enjoy the same intimate relationship with President Gerald R. Ford as he had with Nixon. Although Kissinger worked hard to defend the United States-Iran relationship and secure a nuclear agreement, the Shah’s detractors were no longer sidelined as they had been under Nixon. Ford sought to appease these critics by foisting a nuclear agreement on the Shah that included safeguards that went beyond Iran’s commitments under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Shah rejected Ford’s demands, seeing them as a violation of Iran’s sovereignty and a reversion by the US to treating Iran as a client, rather than a partner.
When President Ford decided to maintain and deepen arms relations with Iran, he cemented a momentum that became near impossible for a successor to break by continuing the policy of his predecessor Richard Nixon. Nixon had given the Shah of Iran a “blank cheque” to purchase whatever American arms he desired—short of nuclear weapons. Although Ford’s authority would be challenged by members of his own administration and a Congress seeking to claw back some of its authority, the need to support allies in the Middle East against the threat of the Soviet Union, even during a time of détente, remained paramount.
What led to the calamitous drop in Iran's oil revenues in January 1977? Politics, religion, culture, and economy have been identified as factors contributing to the collapse of Iran's monarchy in 1979. But until now scholars have been unable to access documents that could shed light on the inner workings of the relationship between senior US officials and the Shah of Iran, whom Henry Kissinger lauded as "that rarest of leaders, an unconditional ally, and one whose understanding of the world enhanced our own."
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