Helms articulated several understandings, derived from his working knowledge and experiences as ambassador in Iran. "He came to realize that he could never understand the Iranians," writes William Shawcross. He quotes Helms, "They have a very different turn of mind. Here would be ladies, dressed in Parisian clothes. ... But before they went on trips abroad, they would ship up to Mashhad in chadors to ask for protection." Helms with his wife had visited the pilgrimage site in Mashhad, 'the tomb of the eighth Imam'. As to the shah's statecraft, Helms' May 1976 memo observes, "Iranian government and society are highly structured and authoritarian and all major decisions are made at the top. Often even relatively senior officials are not well informed about policies and plans and have little influence on them." In July 1976 Helms send a message to the U.S. Department of State which, while confident, again voiced various concerns, e.g., about the "inadequate 'political institutionalization'" of the regime. Professor Abbas Milani comments that in 1975 Helms had "captured the nature of the shah's vulnerability when he wrote that 'the conflict between rapid economic growth and modernization vis-à-vis a still autocratic rule' was the greatest uncertainty about the shah's future." Milani, looking ahead after Helms' departure, writes that the election of President Carter in 1976 "forced the Shah to expedite his liberalization plans."