And he was indeed the Shah's final chief of the armed forces during the revolution.

Contemporary American diplomatic reporting records him wrestling very explicitly with the prospect of a bloodbath and resisting a, military coup.

A January 1979 US cable says he told General Robert Heiser that he did not want to be responsible for one.

That makes your father's recollection of the later conversation effectively why didn't you fight?

And Garabagi explaining the shah's reluctance to shed blood and the disintegration of military authority particularly striking.

It sounds like your father heard Garabagi discussing one of the central decisions of the revolution in an ordinary family living room, rather than learning a polished public version later.

One thing I would correct from the picture we had earlier, Garabagi ultimately died in Paris in 2000, not Britain or America.

The sources I can find don't immediately establish the