Columbia University President Lee C Bollinger must have known he would not be appreciated for extending an invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak, but it's debatable if he was prepared for the extent of criticism over his decision. The United States, after all, shares a thorny relationship with the Middle-Eastern nation, blaming it for exporting terror and proceeding with a rogue nuclear programme.

So, as Ahmadinejad took the dais on Monday evening, Bollinger sought to set the record straight about the man who was seated barely 10 feet away. 'Mr President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,' the university's head said. And, referring to Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust, Bollinger said in his 10-minute introduction, 'When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous. For the truth is that the Holocaust is the most-documented event in human history.'

But Ahmadinejad, who is on his third visit to the United States to address the United Nations General Assembly, was not one to be fazed so easily, either by the critical opening address or by the volume of protests over his presence on an American campus. Estimates state that 70 per cent of those who turned up to hear him were critical of him, but there was no denying the mad scramble to hear him speak. Online tickets sold like hot cakes last week, vanishing in 90 minutes flat, drawing parallels with Bruce Springsteen.

As the jousting continued between Ahmadinejad and American academics, security outside the hall was tight. Inside, some 700 people, 80 percent of them students, listened to the leader in rapt attention despite the protestors, many of them sporting T-shirts saying 'Stop Ahmadinejad's Evil'. Fliers distributed outside stated: 'Thank god bin Laden is not available'.

Image: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right) shakes hands with John H Coatsworth, Columbia Dean of School of International Affairs, after speaking at Columbia University in New York City September 24.
Photograph: Shannon Stapleton-Pool/Getty Images