When I was at college in the mid-70s, I knew a LOT of Persian students (aka “Iranian”).
The Shah kept an agent of “Savak” or two at every college and loyal students could rat out others to the agent(s), but no one really knew who they were so they were all pretty tight-lipped.
They lived in constant fear of misspeaking, and being disappeared, which DID happen.
One Saturday night you were partying with Farhad, on Monday someone would say “hey, where’s Farhad?” to which there was, typically, no answer.
Iranian students shy in the ‘70s?
Not at UF, the bastards would line up 8-10 deep behind the mics at every event with a popular speaker; Ralph Nader, Eugene McCarthy, etc. and hijack the Q&A with endless parroted anti-Shah speeches while the crowd cursed them and threw stuff.