SAVAK

And that was stood up with the assistance of the CIA and the Israeli intelligence services assisted with the training of that group from the early 1960s.

Now, the SAVAK became one of the most feared international security services in the world.

With a documented record of extreme torture, its function was to suppress any internal opposition to the state.

And the critical part of that is the state has now aligned itself with Western oil exportation or export.

The Soviet Union had one of the largest KGB stations in the world based in Tehran, and they were running lots of illegals, and they were, they were locked in battle really with the Western intelligence services, and the Western intelligence services were backing the Shah's intelligence services.

So SAVAK, the brutal security service of the Iranian monarchy, was clamping down on opposition brutally with, with help from the West, it has to be said.

And, and so you've got this churning spy war going on into which Kozichin is sort of plunged overnight, and it's stressful.

It is highly difficult.

But as he rises, the pressure levels are beginning to tell on him, and he finds this job, it's not an easy job that he's doing.

It's also extremely dangerous.

I mean, people are being picked up by SAVAK all the time.

The KGB is finding it extremely difficult to plant its spies in Tehran.

I've become someone who's on each week.

Now, Chad Van Horn, Savak.

It is so much fun.

Chris Perkins is awesome.

Now, I don't like the mullahs any more than the next guy.

You know, if we could have snatched all of the mullahs like we did – Maduro and somebody in the government could make a more sane Iranian government, not like the Shah or his Savak, you know, goons, but like something sane.

And there was a good chance of like doing that.

That's one thing.

And so they installed this guy and he's ruling from 53 to 79, but you get into the mid 70s and he's really alienating some important lobbies In Iran, like the clerics, the really religious folks, some of the merchants, bad economic conditions.

And he's using what he called the Savak, which were his secret police to kind of put these people, you know, to suppress this, you know, kind of rebellion, put people in secret prisons.

It was bad.

And we kind of we didn't kind of rein him in to say, hey, man, you need to chill.

They overthrew the government.

They brought in that shithead, the Shah, and the SAVAK, the

secret police that made the SS look good.

So when this revolution happened, they had had enough of this shock.