Iranian President's Past Examined

Ahmadinejad Denies Charges, But At Least One Official Was Involved

(CBS/AP) 
The White House is taking a "wait and see" approach to the controversy, reports CBS News White House correspondent John Roberts. The administration expects to get a clearer picture of what to expect from Ahmadinejad in July, when Iran is set to resume negotiations about its nuclear program with European nations.

Leaders of the Office of Strengthening Unity, the radical Islamic student group that carried out the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover of the embassy, said Ahmadinejad was not among the hostage-takers.

"He was not part of us. He played no role in the seizure," Abbas Abdi, one of six leaders of the group, told The Associated Press.

Mohsen Mirdamadi, leader of the students who swept into the embassy, also said Ahmadinejad was not involved.

Abdi and Mirdamadi are now leading proponents of reform that would support democratic changes and are at loggerheads with Ahmadinejad.

Mohammad Ali Sayed Nejad, a friend of the president-elect, said he and Ahmadinejad were the only two members of the Office of Strengthening Unity who opposed taking the U.S. Embassy.

"While the bulk of student leaders planned and took part in the seizure of the U.S. Den of Spies (U.S. Embassy), we two were extremely worried about communist groups," Sayed Nejad said.

He and Ahmadinejad unsuccessfully argued in favor of seizing the Soviet Embassy, and Ahmadinejad told colleagues in a recent meeting he opposed targeting the American mission because it would bring international condemnation down on Iran.

"I believed that if we did that, the world would swallow us," he said, according to Meisan Rowhani, an aide who was at the meeting.

Ahmadinejad dropped his opposition to the U.S. Embassy takeover after the revolution's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, expressed support for it, but he never participated, said Rowhani.

The Office of Strengthening Unity was formed before the embassy takeover, and its main goal was to support Khomeini's bid to impose an Islamic government after the removal of the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

The embassy takeover galvanized the Islamic factions. The embassy became a focal point for Islamic supporters; hundreds of students, even those not directly involved in the holding of the hostages, had access to the embassy.

Rasool Nafisi, a Middle East analyst who studies conservative groups in Iran, said that Ahmadinejad was a founder of the Office of Strengthening Unity, but the group decided that taking over the embassy was the wrong policy. A group of students that separated themselves from the office planned and carried out the takeover, he said.

Nafisi said Ahmadinejad was not one of those who separated from the original organization, but may have frequented the embassy as one of the thousands of the students who camped out or were involved in protests there.