“…[W]hen the Shah [flew out of Iran on a plane in January 1979, never to return], it was as if a big starting gun had been fired. Everybody seemed to respond at once…Horns were honking, demonstrations erupting, and the whole city of [Tehran, Iran’s capital city] was alive with jubilation. The event was an indescribable, spontaneous paean of joy, and it went on for two or three hours, increasing in noise and tempo.
“We began to get reports that the crowds were pulling down all monuments to the Shah and his family…During the afternoon we received word that five or six such statues – major landmarks which had stood for several decades – had been destroyed. They were killing the Shah – symbolically.”