In 1976, Mohammad Reza told the Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal in an interview: “I want the standard of living in Iran in ten years’ time to be exactly on a level with that in Europe today. In twenty years’ time we shall be ahead of the United States”.Lunar astronaut Neil Armstrong meeting the Shah of Iran during visit of Apollo 11 astronauts to capital on 28–31 October 1969
Reflecting his need to have homeland seen as “part of the world” (by which Mohammad Reza meant the western world), all through the 1970s he sponsored conferences in homeland at his expense, with for example in one week in September 1975 the International Literacy Symposium meeting in Persepolis, the International Congress of Philosophy meeting in Mashhad and the International Congress of Mithraic Studies meeting in Tehran.