Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – September 9, 1984

I was supposed to visit the shrine [of Imam Khomeini] on the way to the Majlis; But because the security guards stationed there had arranged a program that would take a lot of time and I would not be able to do my work, I gave up on this visit. Our [hijacked] Boeing 727 plane, which was taken to Cairo, was taken to Iraq and landed in Basra. [The plane hijackers] are from Ayadi [Shapour] Bakhtiar. Iraq will probably not return these planes; This is our third plane that remains in Iraq.

A group from the Faculty of Statistics had come to meet; I talked to them about the importance of statistics and information. [Employees of the] Assembly Selection Unit came and reported their work; Out of two hundred and fifty cases, ten people have been rejected. Mr. Safari and Nawab Safavi's son came. They gave a report of their success in designing and making a type of weapon such as mortars and grenades; Interesting and effective things. They complained about lack of support. It usually is.

Imam Juma Malair came and gave a report about the reduction of disturbances; He was satisfied. He wanted help to speed up the approval of the Hofmann furnace to Malayer and to dig the wells that hit the rocks in an area.

Mr. [Hasan Abedi] Jafari, Minister of Commerce, came and consulted about the rice plan. There are two opinions about this; One is to be left to the guild under the supervision of the government, and the other is to be completely free. I preferred the second plan.

Mr. [Mortaza] Alveiri came; He had some information about the program and budget. Suggestions on new sources of government income, such as increasing the price of government land, selling corporate houses, etc., and I suggested that they study the increase in the value of our currencies. He requested not to pressure former representatives to leave their homes. I explained the new representatives' need for housing.

In the evening, the central council of the [Islamic Republic] party had a meeting in my office. We discussed and criticized the activities of Tehran's organizations and government opponents, and discussed the president's [Ayatollah Khamenei] trip [to Syria, Libya, and Algeria] and [also talked about] the party's dire need for money, but we did not get anywhere. I came home at night.

At the end of the night, the Prime Minister informed by phone that the Imam has told us to put guards on the military planes as well. He was worried about the reaction of the pilots. I asked Ahmad Agha about this, and it turned out that it was not an order, but [the imam] was thinking of finding a solution.