Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – April 26, 1997

After breakfast and exercise, we returned to Tehran. I did the office work that was left and gave an Eid to the guards and clerks. We went to the leader's office. As usual, minutes before the meeting, in the presence of a group of high level officials, we sat down with the leader. Then we went to the Ghadir Eid ceremony. I gave a short speech to congratulate and talked about the importance of this Eid, because of the creation of a military under the leadership of the infallible Imam, which is necessary for Khatamith and mission. Then Ayatollah Khamenei talked about the province for about half an hour.

In the evening Dr. [Ali] Larijani, [head of the Broadcasting Organization] came. He brought the result of the election opinion poll which shows that, parallel to Mr. Natiq Nouri's chances going down, Mr. Khatami's chances are going up. He expressed his concern and requested me and made suggestions similar to Mr. Natiq's own suggestions.

We went to the international exhibition to open the 10th book fair. I visited the reference books booth, the booths of the publishers' new book collections, and the education booth. At the opening ceremony, after listening to the report of Mr. [Alireza] Barazesh, [Deputy for Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Guidance] and Mr. [Mustafa] Mirslim, [Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance] and awarding awards to outstanding publishers, I gave a speech and I appreciated the rapid growth of book publishing and the quantitative and qualitative development of press distribution and publications and the large participation of domestic and foreign publishers in the exhibition, and I introduced the future horizon more clearly.

At eleven o'clock at night, Efat came from his trip to Mecca; While he has a fever and is sick.