Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran is commonly portrayed in Cold War historiography as a loyal client of the United States. Yet, the shah also pursued détente with Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, culminating in Iran's September 1962 pledge to the Soviet Union that no foreign missile bases would be permitted on Iranian territory. Drawing on American and British documentary sources, as well as the memoirs of several Iranian participants, this article suggests that the shah's 1962 pledge was not simply a ploy to leverage more arms from the United States. Rather, it represented the shah's first modest step towards a more independent foreign policy during the Cold War.