CBC:

Carole Jerome was involved with Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, foreign minister after uprising.

Flying into Iran in February 1979, former CBC News reporter Carole Jerome knew there was a good chance their plane would be shot down.

The aircraft was carrying Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shia cleric, out of exile in Paris and returning him to Tehran where he intended to seize power from Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.'s closest ally in the Middle East.

"At that point we didn't know for sure if there were still any loyalty to the Shah or to the Royalist forces," Jerome told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti.

"We were warned that there was a distinct possibility we might be shot out of the sky by Iranian phantom jets."

But Jerome said she was "too busy" to be scared, as she focused on reporting the cataclysmic events that were unfolding before her.

Monday marks the 40th anniversary of Khomeini's return, and the beginning of the revolution that swept the Shah from power and established the Islamic Republic.

Jerome watched the upheaval up close, reporting each twist and turn to Canadian audiences.

But she also had a personal connection to the revolution.

Jerome had fallen in love with Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, a close aide of Khomeini during his exile. He went on to become his foreign minister in the new regime.

Jerome says she fell for Ghotbzadeh "the moment [she] met him."

"He was extraordinarily charismatic and compelling," she remembered.

Jerome had journalistic reservations about being romantically involved with a prominent political figure in a story she was covering, but told Tremonti, "We don't really choose those things, do we."

When she disclosed the relationship to her bosses, they reviewed her work and — finding no bias — decided to trust she could remain impartial.

 

 

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