In a suburb of Paris, in the months before the overthrow of the shah, the ayatollah gave scores of interviews. He concealed his political ambition and suggested he would ultimately step back from governance, though in past writings he often espoused rule by the clergy. He even wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter, asking him to defang the Iranian military and promising to keep Iran free of Soviet domination and the country’s oil on the markets. But all along, he was keen on clerical despotism and, as it soon became apparent, harbored deep resentments against the United States.