The Shah of Iran, as his contribution to the U.S. bicentennial celebration, flew 150 celebrities to Iran for a week of partying.

The bicentennial visitors, ranging in glamor from actress Elizabeth Taylor to the Baroness Garnett Stackelberg, arrived aboard one of the Shah’s 747 superjets.

They were wined, dined and entertained in a splendor that rivaled the excesses of the Xerxes. By day, they were chauffeured to Iran’s assorted ruins and festivals. By night, they drank champagne and watched belly dancers.

None of the distinguished Americans were invited, of course, to see Iran’s seamier side. But behind all the glitter, the Shah rules by torture and terror, which are the antithesis of the U.S. principles he pretends to honor.

The language of Iran’s constitution is as eloquent as the Declaration of Independence. But it contains a grim Catch 22; a clause states that Iran’s bill of rights is granted only “in conformity with the Law”. The Law has come to mean whatever the Shah determines it is.

We have received documented complaints of the Shah’s oppression. Under his tutelage, the SAVAK secret police have become increasingly harsh and cruel. The secret police answer only to the Shah who, in turn, has become more and more dependent upon them to keep him in power.

For intelligence reports claim that his authoritarian rule and imperial airs are alienating his people, that he is dangerously isolated and aloof.

The bicentennial luxury tour almost coincided, ironically, with the completion of a study by two world renowned lawyers. They are William Butler of the New York Bar Association’s Human Rights Commission and Prof Georges Levasseur of the University of Paris. Instead of taking an expenses paid junket to the panoplies of Persepolis, they tried to find out about conditions in the Shah’s prisons. Their study will be made public in a few days.

“There can be no doubt that torture has been systematically practiced over a number of years against recalcitrant suspects”, Butler reports in his section of the study.

He identifies the torturers as members of SAVAK, which “is accountable to no one except the Shah” and, therefore, has become “a law unto itself.”

Butler’s most sickening information came from a courageous Iranian poet, Reza Baraheni, who at great personal risk furnished a statement on his own observations in a SAVAK dungeon. He was “beaten, whipped and exposed to the sounds of screaming prisoners.”

From his own experiences and talks with other inmates, the poet described how prisoners were lashed to the top of an iron, double-deck bed, which was transformed into a human toaster.

“With the heat coming from a torch or a small heater, they burn your back in order to extract information,” Baraheni confided. “Sometimes the burning is extended to the spine, as a result of which paralysis is certain.

“There were also all sizes of whips hanging from nails on the walls. The electric batons stood on little stools The nail-plucking instrument stood on (one) side. The gallows stood on the other side.”

The Iranian poet also described how “they hang you upside down and then someone beats you with a mace on your legs or uses the electric baton on your chest or on your genitals ”

In other SAVAK torture rooms, which held Baraheni for 120 days, there are “weightcuffs that break your shoulders in less than two hours of horrible torture ” He also told of a “pressure device which imposes pressure upon the skull to the extent that you either tell them what they want or let your bones break into pieces ”

The horror is compounded by these additional, startling revelations:

—For SAVAK victims, there is no judicial appeal. SAVAK officers actually have “the power to act as ‘military magistrates,’ ” with the right to detain prisoners as long as they wish.

—The SAVAK secret police, 200,000 strong, have been “expertly trained by the Israeli Secret Service, the CIA and AID agents,” reports the study.

—The SAVAK doesn’t restrict its activities to Iran but allegedly operates in other lands, including the United States. Charges Butler: “SAVAK operates throughout the world where Iranian students congregate and where Iran may have a national interest.”

—Levasseur, in milder terms, also denounces SAVAK’s disdain for legal rights. “It operates its own prison for interrogation of suspects and detainees,” according to the study.

Rather than tour ancient ruins and watch belly dancers, the visiting celebrities might have found it more instructive to tour a SAVAK prison.

Footnote: The study finds improvements in Iran’s women’s rights, health, education and the economy. U.S. and Israeli spokesmen acknowledge that their governments train Iranians but deny teaching torture or other extra-legal practices. Iranian officials insist the study’s charges of torture and terror are “unfounded.”