The Iranian White Revolution was instigated by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in January of 1963. Pahlavi held a referendum before instituting the changes he designed to modernize Iran; ridding itself of it’s feudal past. The results were overwhelming support for Pahlavi’s policies. The White Revolution is, however, cited as the main cause of the Shah’s downfall.
Among the elements of the Revolution were land reform where landlords were compensated for their land by shares of privatized state-owned factories, expanded road, rail, and air network, dam and irrigation projects, work to eradicate diseases such as malaria, promotion of industrial growth and profit-sharing schemes for workers, enfranchisement of women, nationalization of forests and pastures, literacy and a health corps for isolated rural areas. Wikipedia
Nearly 90% of Iranian sharecroppers became landowners. Many of their youth migrated to cities seeking jobs and education in a trend of urbanization. The results of Pahlavi’s efforts included a better standard of life for Iranians, increased literacy, economic growth and the abandonment of feudal customs.
The aristocratic landowners were of course opposed to the Shah. The Ulama (Islamic clergy), led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, was also opposed to the White Revolution. The farms of these two feudal institutions were no longer profiting from cheap labor.
Khomeini was quite vocal in his opposition to the Shah and his new society. He gave speeches criticizing the land reforms and women’s right to vote. He was arrested. Three days of protests broke out which the Iranian military suppressed.
The Ayatollah then reached out to the United States. A declassified CIA document reveals that, in November 1963, Khomeini sent a rare message of support to the Kennedy administration while being held under house arrest in Tehran.
This message was a few days after the Iranian military executed organizers of the protests and a few days before the visit of a Soviet diplomat. The administration feared the Shah would align himself with the Soviet Union (the actual document is at BBC).
Khomeini wanted the Shah’s chief benefactor (Kennedy) to understand that he had no quarrel with America. “Khomeini explained he was not opposed to American interests in Iran,” according to a 1980 CIA analysis titled Islam in Iran, partially released to the public in 2008. To the contrary, an American presence was necessary to counter the Soviet and British influence, Khomeini told the US. BBC
It is not known if Kennedy ever saw the dispatch, he was killed 2 weeks later in Dallas Texas. The Shah did not align his nation with the Soviet Union and extended diplomatic immunity to US military in Iran.
The Shah sponsored the Ayatollah’s exile. “The American president should know that he is the most hated person among our nation,” Khomeini declared, shortly before going into exile.
On 4 November 1964, Khomeini was secretly taken to Ankara and then to Bursa, Turkey. On 5 September 1965, he moved to Najaf, Iraq and stayed there until Saddam Hussein deported him in 1978. Finally, he was exiled by the pressure of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Neauphle-le-Château, Paris on 6 October 1978 Wikipedia
While in Bursa he stayed in the home of Colonel Ali Cetiner of the Turkish Military Intelligence (NY Times).
From January 21 to February 8, 1970, while in exile in Najaf, Khomeini gave a series of 19 lectures on Islamic Government to a group of his students. The students turned the lectures into a book called Islamic Government and distributed it in Iran. It is the most influential modern book advocating rule by Theocracy.