<P> As early as the Tabriz riots in February, the Shah fired all the SAVAK officials in the city in a concession to the opposition, and soon began to dismiss civil servants and government officials whom he felt the public blamed . In the first national concession, he replaced the hardline SAVAK chief General Nematollah Nassiri with the more moderate General Nasser Moghaddam . The government also negotiated to moderate religious leaders such as Shariatmadari (apologizing to the latter for the raid on his house). </P> <P> By summer, the protests had stagnated . They remained at a steady state for four months--about ten thousand participants in each major city (with the exception of Isfahan where protests were larger and Tehran where they were smaller), protesting every 40 days . This amounted to a small minority of the more than 15 million adults in Iran . </P> <P> Against the wishes of Khomeini, Shariatmadari called for 17 June mourning protests to be carried out as a one - day stay . Although tensions remained in the air, the Shah's policy appeared to have worked, leading Amuzegar to declare that "the crisis is over ." A CIA analysis concluded that Iran "is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary situation ." Indeed, these and later events in Iran are frequently cited as one of the most consequential strategic surprises that the United States has experienced since the CIA was established in 1947 . </P> <P> As a sign of easing of government restrictions, three prominent opposition leaders from the secular National Front: Karim Sanjabi, Shahpour Bakhtiar, and Dariush Forouhar were allowed to write an open letter to the Shah demanding that he reign according to the constitution of Iran . </P>

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