Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – May 11, 1983

Mr. Shirazi, the Friday Prayer Leader of Mashhad, telephoned and said that he was heading to Qom to prepare the groundwork for a letter from the Friday Prayer Leaders to the Majlis or the government. The letter is to request land reform and the taking of land from large landowners. He is working with love and faith to solve this chronic problem. Before noon, we met with the country's officials and the congress of the Islamic Republican Party with the Imam. To congratulate him on the day of the Mab'ath, [Ayatollah] Mr. Khamenei offered congratulations, and the Imam delivered remarks that were mostly mystical in nature. We had expected him to say something about the party congress as well, but he did not, and this will presumably give the party's opponents something to use against it.

Messrs. [Ayatollah] Khamenei, [Mousavi] Ardabili, and Ahmad Aqa were my guests for lunch. We discussed the weakness of some ministries; among them Commerce, Industries, and Agriculture. I said that the weaknesses are to some extent caused by the lack of clarity regarding the main lines of work, which in turn concerns the Majlis, the Guardian Council, and the Imam, not the executors; for example, in distribution and trade and urban land and agricultural land and banking and ownership and.... The matter is still not clear, and naturally this creates duality and confusion in decision-making and implementation.

In the afternoon, we attended the party congress, and the regulations for the elections of the Central Council and the Arbitration Council were approved. I was at home at night. All the anti-aircraft guns in Tehran began firing. It turned out that only the radars had detected a suspicious object 35 miles away, and the firing had no particular basis. Ahmad Aqa also came and said that the second television channel had broadcast the Imam's previous remarks that contain an attack against the [Islamic Republican] Party. There must be a hand behind it - and he quoted this from the Imam himself - I reminded my brother Mohammad [the managing director of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting] to look into it.