The gleaming white Vickers Viscount had taken off in bright moonlight from Tehran. Now, some ten hours later, escorted by a squadron of Italian jet fighters, it touched down at Rome’s Ciampino airport. Wearing a blue air marshal’s uniform with gold pilot’s wings, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the handsome, greying Shah of Iran, stepped from the plane one day last week, exchanging greetings with Italy’s President Giovanni Gronchi, Premier Amintore Fanfani, and six Cabinet ministers. A small cluster of Iranian citizens resident in Italy set up a shout of “Zendibad Shahanshah [Long live the King of Kings]!” The Shah made a brief speech commenting on the good relations between Italy and Iran, which, he said, “were reinforced by the oil agreement.” Oil and the influence of the Shah are perhaps the two most important factors in the slow but certain awakening of the Iranian nation from the sleep of decadent centuries.