Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said the administration has followed the career of Iran's president-elect, Ahmadinejad, a hard-liner who has been serving as mayor of Tehran.
He said they are ''looking to see what's in the files," but he would not disclose what the US government may know about any role Ahmadinejad had in the 1979 hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran and whether he is one of the captors pictured in photos.
''At this point no determination has been made. We need to get the facts," Hadley said. ''These are allegations that have come forward; they are allegations at the present time."
Former hostages Chuck Scott, David Roeder, William J. Daugherty, and Don A. Sharer told reporters that after seeing Ahmadinejad on television, they have no doubt he was one of the hostage-takers. Two other former hostages, Kevin Hermening and William A. Gallegos, said they reached the same conclusion after looking at photographs. Associates of Ahmadinejad denied that the president-elect took part in the seizure of the embassy or in holding Americans hostage.
In Maine, former hostage Moorehead Kennedy, who lives near Mount Desert, said yesterday that he never saw Ahmadinejad during his captivity.
''I never saw this guy that I can remember," Moorehead said. ''I saw someone else who was a leader. I think they kind of divided us up." Kennedy said he could not rule out the possibility Ahmadinejad was in charge of another group of captives. He said the captors either concealed their names or just gave their first names.
The hostage-taking, retribution for Washington's refusal to surrender an ousted shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, for trial there, contributed substantially to President Carter's defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.
Militant students seized the US Embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The shah had fled Iran earlier that year after he was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution.
