Hassan Pakravan
Hassan Pakravan was an Iranian General and the second director of SAVAK, serving from 1961 to 1965. Pakravan was well-known as more compassionate director than any of SAVAK's other leaders. However, Muhammad Reza Shah replaced Pakravan with his childhood friend Nematollah Nassiri in 1965, furious that Pakravan had failed to curb the power of the Islamic fundamentalists. Nassiri rapidly made SAVAK one of the most hated aspects of the Shah's rule, as over 13,000 Iranians were murdered soon after his appointment. Pakravan was named Minister of Information, then Ambassador, first to Pakistan and then France. He returned to Iran in 1976 he was brought out of retirement in 1978 by the Shah in a last-ditch effort to curb corruption at the Royal Court.
After the Iranian Revolution, Pakravan, Nassiri, and the fourth and last SAVAK chief, Nasser Moghadam, were among the first of the Shah's officials to be executed. It is worthy to note that all of SAVAK's chiefs were murdered; Teymur Bakhtiar was assassinated by SAVAK itself on the Shah's orders. It is well-documented fact (confirmed by many Iranian officials, including the late Shah, in his memoirs) that Pakravan was a key in convincing the Shah to commute a death sentence passed on Khomeini in 1963 for his role in the 1963 riots into exile. Khomeini was first sent to Turkey, and then to Iraq, where he stayed until his expulsion to France in 1978.
Pakravan was a close friend of Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda. Both were fluent in French and enjoyed reading French literature.