Week In Review

A familiar face

News tips come from many sources, ranging from freelance reporters trying to sell stories to committed partisans seeking to promote information that they hope will advance one cause or another.

We try to look at all such information with an open mind, make an independent assessment of its legitimacy, and publish it if it has genuine news value.

So it was when we received an e-mail on Wednesday with a link to a Middle Eastern Web site (www.iranfocus.com) that claimed Iran’s new president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had played a central role in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

We were particularly intrigued by a photograph, purportedly distributed by the Associated Press on Nov. 9, 1979, showing a blindfolded American hostage being paraded in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The bearded man with a vicelike grip on the hostage’s left elbow, the Web site said, had been identified as Mr. Ahmadinejad by “a source in Tehran, whose identity could not be revealed for fear of persecution.”

We asked reporter David R. Sands to work with our photo desk to contact the Associated Press to see whether we could find out more about the photograph.

Mr. Sands also began researching the authors of the Web site — an Iranian opposition publication called Iran Focus — and looking for independent information about Mr. Ahmadinejad’s role in the hostage crisis.

Senior editors decided to build up the package. They asked the photo desk to secure permission to reprint the AP photo and assigned National Desk reporter Joyce Howard Price to contact some of the former hostages for comment on the rise to power of one of their captors.

Unexpected break

I was at lunch with an overseas visitor when Mr. Sands found me in the dining room with disappointing news.

The photo desk had been able to obtain some other 1979 photos of the man in question showing him from other angles. But a close comparison of the photos with current pictures of Mr. Ahmadinejad raised serious doubts that it was the same man.

We could not find a 1979 shot that showed the man’s ears — apparently the key feature for experts in photo identification. But a profile showed the 1979 hostage-taker had a straight nose while Mr. Ahmadinejad’s nose has a pronounced bump.

It appeared that we no longer had a big story. But I asked Mr. Sands to go ahead anyway and prepare an article for the inside pages spelling out whatever he could find out about the incoming Iranian president’s role in the 1979 events.

I was walking through the newsroom an hour later when I overheard Miss Price on the phone with a former hostage. It was clear from her end of the conversation that the man on the phone remembered Mr. Ahmadinejad from the embassy ordeal.

We were back in business. Before she was done, Miss Price had two former hostages with detailed recollections of the Iranian leader as one of their tormentors. Mr. Sands combined her quotes with his own research on Mr. Ahmadinejad and the story ran across the top of Page 1.

The item turned out not to be quite as exclusive as we had hoped, however. At about 8 p.m., the AP moved its own version of the story which, like ours, relied heavily on quotes from former hostages who said they remembered Mr. Ahmadinejad.

By the next morning, the hostages were being interviewed on television, the State Department was demanding an accounting from the Iranian government, and known leaders of the hostage taking were denying that Mr. Ahmadinejad had been among them.

We went back to work, collecting quotes from persons on all sides of the issue for a front-page second-day story. But whether it really was Mr. Ahmadinejad at the U.S. Embassy 25 years ago we may never know for sure.

• David W. Jones is the foreign editor of The Washington Times. His e-mail address is djones@washingtontimes.com.