At Washington University in St. Louis, Ledeen was denied tenure, according to history department faculty interviewed by the Washington Post, because of questions regarding the " quality of his scholarship " and about whether Ledeen had " used the work of somebody else without proper credit ".

' While it would not do to come right out and deny the savagery of the Shah ’ s legendary SAVAK secret police, Ledeen informs us that, under the monarch ’ s beneficent rule, ' Iran had become too modern, too tolerant — especially of women and of other religious faiths — and too self-indulgent.

Ledeen had also been part of the board of the U. S. Committee for a Free Lebanon.

These Pentagon-approved meetings were brokered by neoconservative Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, who had also played a part in Iran-Contra, and is said to have taken place in Paris in June 2003.

Ledeen has been a long time and active supporter of political dissidents, particularly those of Iranian nationality.

Ledeen has been accused of associations with shady organizations.

Although Ledeen was in favor of assisting anti-Saddam forces in Iraq short of an invasion, he also believes that Iran should have been the first priority in the war on terror.

" While he acknowledges being paid by the SISMI in 1980 for " risk assessment ", Ledeen denies any connections with Licio Gelli's masonic lodge.

On the July 10, 2011 edition of Fox News ' The Big Story, host John Gibson interviewed Michael Ledeen, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute ( AEI ), and said " some are calling the global war on terror something else, something more like World War III.

Ledeen continued his studies in Italian Fascism with a study of the takeover of Fiume by Italian irredentist forces under Gabriele d ' Annunzio, who Ledeen argued was the proto-type for Mussolini.

Ledeen was a strong proponent of the theories in the book The Terror Network written by Claire Sterling that held that the USSR was the source of much of the international terrorism in the world.

Ledeen specifically called for the deposition of Saddam Hussein's regime by force in 2002:

Ledeen also believed that Iran is the main backer of the insurgency in Iraq and even supported the al-Qaida network formerly led by al-Zarqawi despite its declaration of jihad against Shi ' ite Muslims.

Ledeen was a board member of the " Coalition for Democracy in Iran " ( CDI ), founded by Morris Amitay, a former Executive Director of American Israel Public Affairs Committee ( AIPAC ).

* Interview with Ledeen, Front Page Magazine, conducted by Jamie Glazov, 30 December 2003.

* Intervista sul fascismo, edited by Michael Ledeen, 1975.

" Pazienza, while at SISMI, did help Ledeen obtaining a tape confirming information on " Billygate.

" Ledeen added that " probably the start of it War IV was the Iranian revolution of 1979.

In 1979, Ledeen was one of the first Western writers to argue that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a " clerical fascist ", and that while it was legitimate to criticize the Shah's regime, if Khomeini seized power in Iran the Iranian people would suffer an even greater loss of freedom and women would be deprived of political and social rights.

In 1980, Ledeen worked for the Italian military intelligence service as a " risk assessment " consultant.

In 1980, in the period leading up to the U. S. presidential elections, Ledeen, along with Arnaud de Borchgrave, wrote a series of articles published in The New Republic and elsewhere about Billy Carter's contacts with the Muammar al-Gaddafi regime in Libya.

Michael Ledeen, a consultant of National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, requested assistance from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran.

* 1973: Applicon CAD / CAM computer system using the Ledeen recognizer for handwriting recognition

JINSA's advisory board includes such notable figures as Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, and R. James Woolsey, while Vice President Dick Cheney, former U. S. Representative to the United Nations John Bolton, and former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith were all on JINSA's Board of Advisors before they entered the Bush administration.

One faculty member said " the ' quasi-irregularity ' at issue didn't warrant the negative vote on tenure for Ledeen ".

Both Ledeen and de Borchgrave worked for the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University at the time.

As a consultant of National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane, Ledeen vouched for Iranian intermediary Manucher Ghorbanifar.

( According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as a consultant.

However, Ledeen maintains these statements are consistent since: " I advocated — as I still do — support for political revolution in Iran as the logical and necessary first step in the war against the terror masters.

According to Justin Raimondo, Ledeen " holds up Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright as patsies for Khomeini — who supposedly believed that the Ayatollah overthrew Shah Reza Pahlavi because the Iranian government was ' excessively repressive and intolerant.

Blogger Glenn Greenwald has taken Ledeen to task for what Greenwald calls his history of false statements and inaccurate predictions, calling him " one of the most dishonest and ludicrous jokes on the political scene.

According to Christopher de Bellaigue of the New York Review of Books, Ledeen has purveyed a " distorted analysis of events in Iran " to his readers, claiming, for example, in National Review online that there were ` something like a half a million ` Iranians demonstrating the death sentence of Hashem Aghajari on November 22, 2002 when in fact Bellaigue, in Iran on that date, observed only about 5000 students in the biggest demonstration.

* Michael Ledeen Timeline, Center for Cooperative Research.

Ledeen vouched for Ghorbanifar to National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane.

Michael Arthur Ledeen ( born Los Angeles, California, August 1, 1941 ) is an American specialist on foreign policy.

Another major influence on Ledeen was the Italian historian Renzo De Felice.

Michael Ledeen was one of its most vocal proponents, promoting it on TV and in newspapers all over the world.

In the early 1980s, Ledeen appeared before the newly established Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, alongside former CIA director William Colby, author Claire Sterling and former Newsweek editor Arnaud de Borchgrave.

Ledeen follows Italian historian Renzo de Felice in drawing a distinction between " fascism-regime " and " fascism-movement ", and seems to approve of at least one aspect of the latter, saying " fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy.

It was during this time in Italy that Ledeen supported the " Bulgarian connection " conspiracy theory concerning Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca's 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II.

" But Ledeen responded that " it's more like World War IV because there was a Cold War, which was certainly a world war.

Neoconservative author Michael Ledeen argued in his 2002 book The War Against the Terror Masters that America is a revolutionary nation, undoing traditional societies: " Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad.

* Ledeen, Michael A.

In late 2005 Johnson, along with blogger and author Roger L. Simon launched a news site called Pajamas Media ( briefly called Open Source Media ) featuring mostly conservative and libertarian bloggers and journalists ( e. g., Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, Michael Barone, Tammy Bruce, John Podhoretz, Michael Ledeen, Cathy Seipp ) with some liberal participants ( e. g., David Corn, Marc Cooper ).

In 1974, Michael Ledeen moved to Rome where he studied the history of Italian Fascism.

In 1981, Michael Ledeen then became Special Adviser to secretary of state Alexander Haig.

Ledeen holds a Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he specialized in Modern Europe.

Ledeen was subsequently named Visiting Professor at the University of Rome.

Ledeen held political views which stress " the urgency of combating centralized state power and the centrality of human freedom " that are said to have influenced or inspired the Bush administration.