Ahmadinejad Gets a Warm Reception

Booed by Columbia University students a year ago, President Ahmadinejad of Iran early yesterday received a much warmer reception from 400 American students and professors at the Hyatt hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

"Especially at a time when our leaders and policymakers aren't meeting with this man, it was refreshing to hear from him," a senior at North Central College of Naperville, James Nebl, said. Mr. Nebl flew from Chicago with seven other students from the college to hear the Iranian leader. The college paid for the trip.

Other students who got face time with the Holocaust-denying president came from the State University of New York at Old Westbury and Chestnut Hill Academy, a boys' school in Philadelphia.

The president of SUNY Old Westbury is the Reverend Calvin O. Butts III, who is also the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, one of Harlem's largest churches.

"It was incredible," a North Central College senior, Ann Fisher, said. "I honestly believe that the National Intelligence Estimate is correct and that since 2003, the nuclear program has been peaceful."

"I love you all," Mr. Ahmadinejad told the roomful of students, the Boston Globe reported. "I feel I am with very old friends."

Last September, when he spoke at Columbia, thousands of students and New Yorkers protested his invitation. The school's president, Lee Bollinger, drew criticism for inviting the Iranian leader and then harshly introducing him at a speech to faculty and students, belittling the leader by calling him a "petty, cruel dictator."

Several students asked the Iranian president about his most controversial positions: that Israel ought to be destroyed and that the Holocaust may not have occurred. About the murder of 6 million Jews, Mr. Ahmadinejad said he was unable to "negate it or prove it," the Associated Press reported.

Ms. Fisher said that Mr. Ahmadinejad skirted questions about which candidate he supports in the American presidential election.

North Central College, a liberal arts college, paid for all eight students to travel to meet the Iranian president. A political science professor who helped arrange the trip, Steven Caliendo, said that North Central students represented Iran at a Model United Nations Conference last year in New York, where they met the Iranian ambassador. The ambassador was impressed with the students and contacted the college's Model U.N. coach to invite them to meet Mr. Ahmadinejad, he said.

"They were beside themselves," Mr. Caliendo said about his students, adding that they "were not supportive of Ahmadinejad's regime in any way, shape, or form."

Mr. Caliendo called the meeting an "amazing educational opportunity," and said that he would have felt the same way if the meeting were with Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler.

Following his speech at the General Assembly Tuesday, Mr. Ahmadinejad hosted a dinner with 40 Americans, including professors and representatives of several nonprofit groups.

Harvard professors Graham Allison and Hassan Abbas, Columbia professor Gary Sick, and MIT professor James Walsh were among those attending the dinner, which was also held at the Hyatt.

The guests sat around a table for three hours and discussed American-Iranian relations, Iran's nuclear program, Iran's human rights record, and the Holocaust. According to Mr. Walsh, who has attended three such dinners with the Iranian president, Mr. Ahmadinejad came off as "more of a statesman" than in previous visits. He was "more practiced, more self-assured," and made jokes. "Ahmadinejad is a bit of a debater, so he prefers people to offer their opinions," Mr. Walsh said.

No alcohol was served.