Mehdi Bazargan; Former Premier of Iran

Mehdi Bazargan, the Iranian prime minister who in a moment of pique likened Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to a bulldozer and himself to a delicate car, died Friday in Zurich, Switzerland, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported. He was believed to be 87.

Bazargan, Iran’s first premier after the 1979 Islamic revolution, led a lame-duck government that appealed for reason amid the revolutionary fervor that culminated in the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Iran’s ambassador to Bern, Mohammad Reza Alborzi, told the Associated Press that Bazargan was traveling from his home in Tehran to the United States for heart surgery. He collapsed at the Zurich airport and died two hours later in a hospital.

Less than a year after he was appointed by Khomeini to head the provisional government that replaced the ousted monarchy, the soft-spoken Bazargan resigned when Khomeini endorsed the 1979 embassy siege, in which 52 Americans were taken hostage for 444 days.

Bazargan then went from one of the staunchest supporters of Khomeini and his revolution to one of his harshest critics.

At a time when the country’s new clerical rulers propounded “revolutionary justice” in which thousands were summarily executed, Bazargan appealed for justice and calm.

In a speech at Tehran University before resigning in November, 1979, he said: “Don’t expect me to act in the manner of (Khomeini), who, head down, moves ahead like a bulldozer, crushing rocks, roots and stones in his path. I am a delicate passenger car and must ride on a smooth, asphalted road.”

Bazargan earned a degree in thermodynamics at the University of Paris at a time when study abroad was a rare thing for a young Iranian.

He returned home in 1942 to teach at Tehran University, where he won a reputation as one of Iran’s best mathematicians and was awarded the chair of thermodynamics at the university’s Technical College.

When Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh stripped the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. of its assets and nationalized the industry, he dispatched Bazargan to head the company’s operations.

After Mossadegh was ousted, Bazargan plunged into a tireless campaign to overthrow Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whom he accused of human rights violations. Bazargan was jailed several times.

This allied him with Khomeini, who assigned him to direct the oil industry strike in 1978 that crippled the main pillar of Iran’s economy.

But as head of the short-lived provisional government, the pious Bazargan was constantly frustrated. “They have put a knife in my hand, but it is a knife with only a handle. Others are holding the blade,” he said in describing his government.