| سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور | |
 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 20 March 1957 |
| Dissolved | February 12, 1979 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Headquarters | Tehran |
| Employees | At least 5300 |
| Agency executives |
|
SAVAK (Persian: ساواک, abbreviation for سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور Sâzemân-e Ettelâ'ât va Amniat-e Kešvar, lit. '"Intelligence and Security Organization of the Country"') was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service in Iran during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The SAVAK did not have an official flag, but they did associate themselves with an emblem. This emblem resembled the old days in ancient times. In the middle of the emblem there is a lamassu, a protective deity that was well-known in these ancient times. The text underneath the lamassu gives the Persian abbreviation SAVAK, as well as the year of its founding in the Solar Hijri Calendar.
The SAVAK was founded in the year 1957, four years after the coup in 1953 where Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown and after which Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, had absolute power. The organisation was founded for three purposes: “the suppression of opposition, the surveillance of social groups to prevent any threat to the monarchy, and the control of media activities throughout the country”.
The SAVAK had ten directorates. Only one of these directorates was known to Iranian citizens, namely the Security Directorate. This directorate was also seen as the “most important and largest.”
The SAVAK worked mostly together with the CIA and the MOSSAD. For example, SAVAK worked together with the CIA in Afghanistan in the 1970s to combat the influence from the KGB. Another notable operation was the assassination by a SAVAK agent of former director Teymur Bakhtiar, who had fled to Iraq, in 1970.
The SAVAK did not only have operations outside Iran, but they also had many operations within Iran. The Third Directorate was the part of the SAVAK that managed the missions carried out inside Iran. They kept a close watch on the activities of revolutionary groups, like the Tudeh communist movement and also on Khomeini. They mainly gathered information, and national security was also their responsibility. Furthermore, the media was controlled by the SAVAK, and information was gathered by its informants in and outside the country. There were several thousands of informants working for the SAVAK, both part time and full time. The SAVAK sometimes tortured people for information, but rarely tried to kill them directly.
With the revolution of 1979 and the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the SAVAK was disbanded. A new service was founded, called the SAVAMA (active 1979-1980). The structure of this new organisation was based mainly on the older SAVAK, though the ideology was different from the one the SAVAK had. Some of the SAVAK employees were arrested, but members who had not committed serious crimes according to the new government joined the SAVAMA. General Hossein Fardoust, former deputy director of the SAVAK, was the head of the SAVAMA. He was arrested in 1985 for being a "Soviet informer". This SAVAMA institution did not last long, the new government felt the need for an actual Ministry of Information and Safety (abbreviation in Persian: VEVAK) so they made one based on the SAVAMA. The VEVAK is still active today as one of Iran’s few sovereign entities overlooking security and gathering information.
| No. | Portrait | Director | Took office | Left office | Time in office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Timsar Teymur Bakhtiar (1914–1970) | 1957 | 1961 | 3–4 years | |
| 2 | Timsar Hassan Pakravan (1911–1979) | 1961 | 1965 | 3–4 years | |
| 3 | Timsar Nematollah Nassiri (1911–1979) | 1965 | 1978 | 12–13 years | |
| 4 | Timsar Nasser Moghaddam (1921–1979) | 1978 | 1979 | 0–1 years |
