The "Crown Prince" so to speak, was a young child when the revolution happened and even the Khomeini-ists publicly announced they had no quarrel with him since he had never done anything bad to anyone. Much too young.
Timmerman has his good and bad moments and I'm not sure if you read incorrectly or he mis-spoke. As has been said by more than one pro-Khomeini supporter, the reign of the late Shah was paradise mutiplied by ten thousand compared to what's there under the Mullahs.
Carter made the Shah look really bad in the West as part of his personal agenda.
I speak from personal knowledge not the Media spin.
I am not specially recommending a return of the monarchy, other than perhaps the only practical catalyst and umbrella under which a democratic system could operate more smoothly after all the chaos of the last quarter century of the Mullahs.
The orchestrated attacks on the late Shah and his "repression" and "suppression"- so over intensified by the Media - was not only almost mythical compared to reality but even among Iranians evaporated rapidly compared to what they began to endure immediately after Khomeini took over.
Anymore than the Media presents anything good about Iraq, they were given the agenda of vilifying the late Shah because Carter wanted to glorify Khomeini as a new Iranian Pope.
You might want to read up about some of this on http://www.antimullah.com
Timmerman has some unique access and seems very well informed.
I hope Bush doesn't really think he's going to talk to the Mullahs about their nuclear ambitions.