The exiled monarch had become unpopular in much of the world, especially in the liberal West, ironically his original backers and those who had most to lose from his downfall. He travelled from country to country in his second exile seeking what he hoped would be a temporary residence.
First he went to Egypt, and got an invitation and warm welcome from president Anwar el-Sadat. He later lived in Morocco, the Bahamas, and Mexico. But his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma began to grow worse, and required immediate and sophisticated treatment.
Reluctantly, on 22 October 1979 President Jimmy Carter allowed the Shah to make a brief stopover in the United States to undergo medical treatment. The compromise was extremely unpopular with the revolutionary movement, which were against the United States' years of support of the Shah's rule, and demanded his return to Iran to stand trial.
This resulted in the kidnapping of a number of American diplomats, military personnel and intelligence officers in what became known as the Iran hostage crisis. Once the Shah's course of treatment had finished, the American government, eager to avoid further controversy, pressed the former monarch to leave the country.
He left the United States on 15 December 1979 and lived for a short time in Panama. Finally he went back to Egypt where he died on July 27, 1980, aged 60.
