Ernest Perron

Ernest Perron (June 29, 1908 – 1961) was a Swiss man who served as the best friend, private secretary and closest advisor to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, a man of considerable behind-the-scenes power in Iran.

The son of a gardener and handyman who worked at the Institut Le Rosey in Rolle, Switzerland , Perron first met the Crown Prince of Iran, Mohammad Reza while the latter was a student there between 1931-36. A "short and thin man, almost fragile", Perron lived in the servants' quarters of Le Rosey and fancied himself a great poet, reciting his poetry at all times. Perron worked at Le Rosey as a janitor and gardener, and most considered him a ridiculous figure, the janitor who thought of himself as a great poet. Perron, an eccentric, effeminate man who dressed in a campy style, walked with a limp and who did nothing to hide his homosexuality was often beaten up by the students in what might today be deemed gay-bashing until one day Mohammad Reza came to his defense, and the two become best friends. Perron had only a high school education, but he read widely and impressed Mohammad Reza with his knowledge of French literature, poetry and philosophy. Besides for his love of poetry, Perron was noted for being both openly gay and a devout Catholic who ultimately persuaded the Shah's older sister Princess Shams Pahlavi to convert to Catholicism. Perron introduced Mohammad Reza to French poetry and as Mohammad Reza later recalled under his influence Chateaubriand and Rabelais "become my favorite French authors".

In 1935, the British Legation in Bern reported to London that Perron was "the most oddest young man...who appears to be the Prince's chief guide, philosopher and friend. He is apparently engaged as a sort of Super-Servant for the prince in Switzerland". Perron introduced Mohammad Reza to French poetry while Mohammad Reza took his best friend with him on weekend trips to the Bern house of Anoushirvan Sepahbodi, the Iranian ambassador to Switzerland, where he introduced Perron to Persian food, which he loved. Besides enjoying Persian cooking, Perron and Mohammad Reza spent hours at Sepahbodi's house listening to Persian and classical music with Mozart and Bach being particular favorites. The Shah, Reza Khan was nominally a Shia Muslim, but in fact he was an atheist, and Perron's devout Catholicism gave Mohammad Reza someone outside of his immediate family who had the certainty of faith, of believing that there was a just, omnipotent God out there to look after one, which appealed to the teenage Crown Prince. Though the relationship between Mohammad Reza and Perron has caused much speculation, it seems that Mohammad Reza lost his virginity to a maid who worked at Le Rosey in 1935. The Crown Prince liked Perron so much that when he returned to Iran in 1936, he brought Perron back with him, installing his best friend in the Marble Palace. In report from 1936, Perron was described by the British Embassy in Tehran as "a curious fellow...dressed like a musical comedy Bohemian who also writes characters from hand-writing and from the palm of your hand and makes the most surprising statements of the strength of it about your vie sexuelle!...It is rather alarming that such an odd specimen should have such a hold on the prince. The Belgian Charge here, a most sensible fellow, has said that he would not entrust any young man to Monsieur Perron, let alone a future monarch; and his description of him as un exalté, un illuminé, un mystique is just about right." Reza Khan strongly disapproved of Perron for his homosexuality and tried to send him back to Switzerland, but was persuaded by his children to allow him to stay. Reza Khan's first reaction to Perron was to attack him with his riding crop and beat him bloody, and through the Crown Prince persuaded the Shah to let Perron stay, Reza Khan demoted Perron down to a gardener at the Marble Palace. In 1939, Perron started to write newspaper articles about Iran for Swiss newspapers, by 1941 was an "employee" of the Crown Prince, through he was unable to provide a job description to foreign diplomats about what he was actually doing and by 1942 he was working for the French embassy in Tehran as a translator. In 1942, Perron worked as a messenger for Mohammad Reza, carrying letters back and forth between him and Reza Khan who had been exiled by the British to South Africa in September 1941.

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