On February 1, 1979, Khomeini returned to homeland. The government of Bakhtiar fell and he became one of many members of Iran’s social and political elite that fled in the face of the new order. While Khomeini consolidated power in homeland, the Shāh languished in exile. When President Carter allowed the Shāh to visit America for cancer treatment in October 1979, nervous radicals, fearing a repeat of 1953, seized the American embassy on November 4.