Hostage Claims Stir W.H. Interest

5 Americans Say Iran President-Elect Was One Of Their Captors

(CBS/AP)  In April 2002, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit by the hostages seeking $33 billion in damages. The State Department intervened, arguing the lawsuit would violate the U.S.-Iranian agreements that freed the hostages and would damage U.S. credibility.

"This puts the Bush administration in an interesting position," Daugherty said. "You know how he said, `You're either for us or you're for the terrorists.' Well, now the leader of Iran is a terrorist."

Ahmadinejad was a member of the Office of Strengthening Unity, the student organization that planned the embassy takeover, but he was opposed to taking the U.S. Embassy, several of his associates said.

The aide, Meisan Rowhani, told the AP from Tehran that Ahmadinejad was asked during recent private meetings if he had a role in the hostage taking. Rowhani said he replied, "No. I believed that if we do that the world will swallow us."

Mohammad Ali Sayed Nejad, a longtime friend of the president-elect, said that in 1979, "Ahmadinejad had focused his fight against communism and Marxism and he was one of the opponents of seizing the U.S. Embassy. He was a constant opponent."

Some former hostages couldn't be sure about their captors. Former Marine embassy guard Paul Lewis of Sidney, Ill., said he thought Ahmadinejad looked vaguely familiar when he saw a picture of him on the news last week, but "my memories were more of the gun barrel, not the people behind it."

Daugherty, who worked for the CIA in Iran and now lives in Savannah, said a man he's convinced was Ahmadinejad was among a group of ringleaders escorting a Vatican representative during a visit in the early days of the hostage crisis.

"It's impossible to forget a guy like that," Daugherty said. "Clearly the way he acted, the fact he gave orders, that he was older, most certainly he was one of the ringleaders."