Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – October 9, 1983

I went to the Majlis early in the morning; sometimes I go very early so that the streets are less crowded. I had breakfast at the Majlis. I read the reports. The latest international news was the bombing at the site of the South Korean president's visit in Rangoon, the capital of Burma, in which about sixty people, including four ministers and eleven senior Korean officials, were killed or wounded, and the possibility of the Super Étendard [aircraft] being delivered to Iraq. Several bills were passed in the open session. During the recess, as usual, I responded to the representatives' requests. At noon, I spoke to the spectators, who were disabled veterans of the Revolution.

In my office, Messrs. [Gholamabbas] Zaeri and [Abbas] Matin, representatives of Bandar Abbas, came and raised the matter of replacing the Friday prayer leader and the director general of the power department. They said the electricity at the power plant had been cut off for thirty hours and had caused problems. Mr. [Seyyed Taghi] Khamoushi [representative of Tehran] came and spoke about the factories under government supervision overcharging, and proposed establishing agricultural machinery institutions through charitable interest-free loan funds and leasing the machinery to farmers without machines, in order to lower the cost of agricultural work. I told him to send his proposal to the Supreme Economic Council. Mr. [Manouchehr] Mottaki had brought with him Dr. Moravvej from Cambridge University in London, who proposed having Muslims at the university translate the Imam's works in response to the Baha'is' and counterrevolutionaries' negative propaganda. Mr. [Mirakbar Ghaffari] Qareh Bagh [representative of Urmia] spoke of the skyrocketing price of wheat in Azerbaijan, the weakness of the governor [of West Azerbaijan], and the party's poor performance.

In the afternoon, we had a meeting of the Central Council of the [Islamic Republic] Party and then the party's Arbitration Council, where most of the discussion in the Arbitration Council was about the Third Line and the need to attract its figures. I came home late. Effat made kebabs; I ate and went to sleep. Mr. Hossein Marashi woke us by telephone, saying that a thief had broken into his office and stolen the checks he was holding in trust. I postponed dealing with it until tomorrow morning.