He attended elementary school in Shahr-e Kord and then secondary school, first in Isfahan and later in Beirut, where he received his high school diploma from a French school. He attended Beirut University for two years. He and his cousin, Teymour Bakhtiar, then went to Paris for additional university education.
There, he attended the College of Political Science.Being a firm opponent of totalitarian rule, he was active in the Spanish Civil War for the Second Spanish Republic against General Francisco Franco’s fascism. In 1940, he volunteered for the French army –rather than the French Foreign Legion– and fought in the 30th Artillerie Regiment of Orleans.
