History of Iran  Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar  Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar
Shapour Bakhtiar, son of Mohammad Reza (Sardar-e Fateh) and Naz-
Baygom was born in 1915 in the Bakhtiari region of Iran.
Bakhtiar's maternal grandfather, Najaf-Gholi Samsam ol-Saltaneh,
was appointed prime minister twice: in 1912 and 1918.
Bakhtiar's mother died when he was seven years old. He attended
elementary school in Shahr-e Kord and then attended secondary
school in Esfahan and Beirut, Lebanon where he received his high
school diploma from a French school.  On his way to France to
continue his studies in 1934, Bakhtiar learned that his father
had been executed by order of Reza Shah. He returned to Iran and
remained there for two years.  He then left for France in 1936,
where he earned degrees in political science, philosophy and law
in 1939. In the same year, Bakhtiar married a French woman and
in 1940 he volunteered for the French army and served in the
"Orlean" battalion in WWII. After the war, he obtained his PH.D.
in the field of politica