Nader Talebzadeh (Persian: نادر طالبزاده), also known as Nader Ordoubadi, was an Iranian conservative journalist and filmmaker.[2]
Early life
Talebzadeh was born in 1953[2] or 1954 in Tehran.[3] His father Mansour Talebzadeh Ordoubadi, was a general officer serving in the Imperial Iranian Army. Several sources claimed that his father was instrumental in 1953 Iranian coup d'état, overthrowing Mohammad Mosaddegh, a claim which Talebzadeh always denied during his lifetime. Talebzadeh himself told Iranian news sources that his mother was Seyyedeh Vahideh Amir Molouk Sharafi a descendant of Ayatollah Sharafolaali Isfahani.[4] Nasser Talebzadeh (Noah Mckay)'s funeral lists his mother as Marie Ordoubadi.[5] The couple had two other children. Talebzadeh's brother, Nasser Ordoubadi also known as Noah A. McKay, was a medical doctor. His sister, Nini Ordoubadi[5] lives in a barn located in East Meredith, New York with her husband Anthony Chase, and owns a tea shop named Tay Tea.[6][7]
Talebzadeh immigrated to the United States in 1970[8] and lived in the state of Virginia.[9] Talebzadeh told the Los Angeles Times in 2008 that he studied at the American University.[8] Afterwards, he studied cinema at Now York City's Columbia University.[10]
Career
Talebzadeh returned to Iran after in 1979 to film the Iranian Revolution.[10] He became a fixer for American media in Tehran due to his command in English language and his earlier experiences, working closely with the crew of CBS News, which at the time had about thirty to forty personnel stationed in Iran.[10] He also established contacts in the National Radio and Television, as well as the Ministry of National Guidance.[10] According to Hamid Naficy, Talebzadeh left CBS after he became disillusioned with media portrayal of the revolution by Western outlets.[10]
Using his connections, he then made a 35-minute documentary named Vaqeiyat (lit.'Reality') about Western bias on covering the hostage crisis, which included using juxtaposition technique to mix interviews he had made with foreign correspondents covering Iran and reports aired by their media.[10]
During the 1990s he irregularly contributed to Sobh, an anti-intellectual publication edited by Mohammad Nassiri.[11]
U.S. federal government accused Talebzadeh of working closely with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and traveling across the world to recruit assets for the Quds Force under cover of inviting guests to conferences.[13] Talebzadeh denied allegations of providing the IRGC with information.[14] He was nonetheless put on the sanctions list by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2019 for "supporting intelligence and cyber targeting of U.S. persons".[3]
According to John Gaffney, a classmate and friend of Talebzadeh at the Columbia University, Talebzadeh had a partially deaf girlfriend from Chicago named Randi Hoffman.[21] New York public marriage license data show that Talebzadeh married Hoffman during the time he spent in United States.[22] According to Hoffman's twitter page, she later accompanied him back and spent time in Iran acting as a journalist for CBS news.[23] Talebzadeh later married twice, first to Azam Bagheri, and later in life to Zeinab Mehanna, a Lebanese woman.[3]
^ abcdMirsepassi, Ali (2017), Transnationalism in Iranian Political Thought: The Life and Times of Ahmad Fardid, Cambridge University Press, p. 372, ISBN9781107187290
^ abFleishman, Jeffrey (29 April 2008). "Jesus through the lens of Islam". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 19 July 2021. In 1970, he moved to the United States, where he says he studied at American University in Washington, D.C., and Columbia University in New York.
^Young, Deborah (13 February 2005). "'Messiah' has Islamic take on Jesus". Variety. Retrieved 11 February 2016. A film teacher who studied cinema at Columbia U. in the 1970s.
^ abcdefgNaficy, Hamid (2012). A Social History of Iranian Cinema. Vol. 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978–1984. Duke University Press. p. 64. ISBN978-0822348771.
^ abMirsepassi, Ali (2017), Transnationalism in Iranian Political Thought: The Life and Times of Ahmad Fardid, Cambridge University Press, pp. 296–297, ISBN9781107187290
^ abMichael, George (2011), "The Strategic Use of Holocaust Denial", in Horowitz, Irving Louis (ed.), Culture and Civilization, vol. 1, Transaction Publishers, pp. 239–240, ISBN9781412813495