The 18th Premier

Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran, changes Premiers as casually as other men change suits. In Teheran last week, he courteously turned out Assadollah Alam, the 17th Premier in the Shah's 22-year reign, and appointed as Premier No. 18 elegant Hassanali Mansur, who holds a degree in economics and political science from Paris University and is married to an Iranian beauty and heiress named Farideh Emami.

Outgoing Premier Alam had spent 19 months in office, taking over a bankrupt treasury from his predecessor and building up a foreign exchange balance of more than $100 million. Alam had also fought hard for the Shah's "white revolution," which is aimed at bettering the lot of Iran's desperately poor 16 million peasants, while curbing the absentee landowners and mullahs (Moslem priests), who bitterly oppose all reforms. But Alam, an old personal friend of the Shah, had come to power in the awkward period in 1962 when there was no Majlis (parliament), and the Shah ruled by decree. Mansur, representing the majority New Iran Party in today's Majlis, has a solid political base. Alam will not suffer overmuch; he becomes guardian of the Shah's son, three-year-old Crown Prince Reza, and president of Pahlevi University in Shiraz.

Hassanali Mansur began grooming himself for the premiership in 1961 when he established a 194-man committee of fellow experts to draw up plans for economic and administrative improvements in Iran. His new Cabinet is composed of 22 technicians, whose average age is 42; while, at 40, Mansur himself is Iran's youngest Premier in 40 years.

The major problems facing the new government are the recent business recession and the nation's creaky, corrupt bureaucracy. To combat the first, Mansur intends to create work by rebuilding 1 1/2 million mudbrick houses inhabited by 75% of Iran's population. As for the bureaucracy, Mansur says he will close down unneeded departments and fire surplus civil servants after giving them lump-sum severance pay.

Among the first to go may be the chief of the State Budget Department, who was asked to submit a draft of the fiscal-year budget. The official replied, "What kind of budget do you want, sir? A balanced budget, a budget with a deficit, or a budget with a surplus?" Snapped Mansur: "We are going to stop fooling the public and fooling ourselves."

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