Jimmy Carter's engagement with Ruhollah Khomeini

[1][2] According to the report, in turn, Carter and his administration helped Khomeini and made sure that the Imperial Iranian army would not launch a military coup.

[1][2] In his memoir, Answer to History, Mohammad Reza Shah claimed that the little-known Khomeini was able to ignite the 1963 demonstrations in Iran with help from foreign agents and that US President John F. Kennedy initially wanted him out of power before later changing his opinion of him.

[3][4] The BBC report also showed a 1980 CIA analysis, which portrays Khomeini's attempts to contact the US as far back as 1963, during John F. Kennedy's administration.

[1][2] A declassified cable shows that on 9 November 1978, William H. Sullivan, then-US ambassador to Iran alerted the Carter administration of the Shah being "doomed".

[2] Sullivan stated that the US should get the Shah and his most senior generals to leave the country, and construct an agreement between secondary commanders and Ruhollah Khomeini.

[2] On 27 January 1979, Khomeini told the US just weeks before the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's government:[1][2] It is advisable that you recommend to the army not to follow Bakhtiar (...) You will see we are not in any particular animosity with the Americans.

(...)In mid-to-late January 1979, according to the declassified documents, Carter's government de facto admitted that it would have no issues with the abolishment of the Iranian monarchy and its military, whom were having daily talks with Huyser — as long as the eventual result would come gradually and in a controlled way.

[2] Gary Sick, former member of the National Security Council during the period of the Islamic revolution has stated to The Guardian that "the documents [shown by the BBC] are genuine".