Dear Mr. Buffett_ What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street - Janet M. Tavakoli [114]
On June 20, 2006, I sent Warren my concerns about Iran’s potential treatment of Israel based on my first-hand experiences living in Iran at the time of the Shah’s overthrow and Khomeini’s return. At a party shortly after the Shah was deposed, a couple announced they were moving to Canada. My then husband, a Moslem in name only, observed that the wife was wise to leave because her grandfather is Jewish. Her grandfather? He insisted it might become a problem. As it turned out, he was probably right.
In the summer of 1978, when midday temperatures exceeded 100°F, I met Habib Elghanian at the Shahanshahi Club, where Iranian waiters dispensed pastel-colored iced melon drinks to foreign businessmen and captains of Iranian industry. Elghanian, a pleasant man pushing late middle age, was the third richest man in Iran and a leader in the thriving Iranian Jewish community. He and his two brothers accumulated most of their wealth in Iran during World War II, and one of his brothers had settled in Israel. Among other things, Elghanian owned a manufacturing company that produced refrigerators. His factories created jobs in Iran and were a major contributor to the Iran’s modest industrial progress. My ex-father-in-law imported refrigerators, freezers, stereos, and various luxuries for sale in Iran, and Elghanian occasionally visited his stores to examine the displays of foreign appliances and glean ideas for improvements of his own products.
In May 1979, I remembered Habib Elghanian’s pleasant smile with deepening sadness and horror as I watched his televised kangaroo court trial. Facial bruises and swelling showed through heavy makeup. Bearded mullahs dressed in dark cloaks spat questions at him. Before he could answer, a mullah answered the question for him and twisted it into an accusation. Elghanian had no defense counsel and seemed disoriented and unsteady in his chair. He had been accused of being a Zionist spy, and the mock trial served as a warning to those who wanted to oppose the clerics. If this could happen to Habib Elghanian, any Iranian could be arrested for being a collaborator with the Shah, and any foreigner could be accused of spying. The next morning, the newspapers printed a photograph of Habib Elghanian’s corpse. He was naked from the waist up and lay on his back in the courtyard of the prison. His execution as a spy was the pretext clerics used to seize his property for the benefit of the Islamic revolution. The Shahanshahi Club was renamed the Revolutionary Club.
In mid-June 2006,Warren recommended I see The Fog of War, a movie about Robert Strange McNamara’s role in the Vietnam War and the United States’ military industrial complex. The Middle East is unstable, and one of the challenges of having a large military industrial complex with powerful lobbyists in Washington is that it tends to find a reason for growing, namely a war. I ordered an old VHS copy that arrived in early July, and wrote Warren on July 14, 2006, two days after the war began. McNamara seemed to admit to having floundered his way through the Vietnam conflict.
Thank you for your recommendation [to see] The Fog of War. I watched it twice back-to-back, and I will watch it again in the near future. I was fascinated by Robert S. McNamara’s view of himself, and I was startled by what he felt were revelations. I agree that war is chaotic. But in the epic battle, I’d rather have been one of the hundreds of Roman legionnaires than one of the tens of thousands of Queen Boudica