Shapour Bakhtiar was born in 1914. After completing his primary schooling in Iran he attended a secondary school in Beirut, following which he obtained his PH.D in the field of political science from the Sorbonne in Paris.
As a firm opponent of all totalitarian rule, he volunteered for service with the French Resistance and served in the "Orlean" battalion in World War II.
Dr. Bakhtiar returned to Iran in 1946 and entered the Ministry of Labour, in Dr. Mossadeq's cabinet in 1951.
After Mohammad Reza was forcibly returned to power as shah of Iran in 1953, Bakhtiar established a private law practice. In the following years he was imprisoned for opposition political activities and rose to deputy chief of the reorganized National Front. He remained a firm critic of the Shah's administration and was subsequently imprisoned for a total of nearly six years and banned from leaving Iran for a period of ten years.
Having been a leading member of the opposition to the Shah for over twenty five years on constitutional and democratic grounds, Dr. Bakhtiar accepted the almost impossible task of forming a civilian government to replace the existing military one in the closing days of December 1978. Bakhtiar accepted the position only on condition that the Shah leave the country. He tried to implement moderate reforms, but, after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in France on February 1, Bakhtiar's government and power quickly evaporated. He went into hiding and by April had reached France, where he established the exile National Movement of the Iranian Resistance.
In 1991 Dr. Bakhtiar, who had escaped at least two previous assassination attempts, was tragically murdered in his home in a Paris suburb.