Asadollah Alam (Persian: اسدالله علم; 24 July 1919 – 14 April 1978) was an Iranian politician who was prime minister under Mohammad Reza Shah from 1962 to 1964.
Shortly after deposing the Qajar dynasty, Reza Shah intended to unite Iran's non-Qajar nobility through inter-marriage.
[3][4][5] Alam was subsequently made the director of the Pahlavi Foundation, a charitable trust worth at least $133 million, set up by the Shah to finance social-welfare plans out of the profits from royal holdings in banks, industries, hotels.
Though the cynical snickered, Alam got free rein from the Shah, and carefully began building airtight cases against suspected grafters among Iran's leading bureaucrats and government leaders.
A military court convicted Khazai of taking a cut out of government contracts and sentenced him to five years of solitary confinement.
The former boss of the Tehran Electricity Board was in solitary confinement for five years; cases were in preparation against an ex-war minister and twelve other generals for graft.
Though the whereabouts of the Shah were kept secret, rows of white-helmeted troops, backed by tanks, immediately sealed off access to royal palaces in the city and suburbs.
[7] Nearly 7,000 troops were called out by Alam's government to restore peace, albeit an uneasy one, in Tehran; by then damage was estimated in the millions, at least 1,000 were injured, and the officially reported death toll was 86.
It was undoubtedly higher, but since the public cemetery was closed and under heavy guard to prevent further clashes at gravesides, the real number remained unknown.
As the minister of the Royal Court he was the closest man to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who now ran the country autocratically.
Alam's memoirs, published posthumously, are exceptionally detailed documents on the life and the deeds of the Shah as perceived by an insider.