The death today of Michael Ledeen takes from America one of its most courageous historians and journalists — a figure who had been one of the liveliest and smartest in Washington, where for years he operated from the American Enterprise Institute. He had a corner office crammed with shelves of books and other totems of a life well lived, among them photos from his time teaching in Italy and a Darth Vader mask. 

The Darth Vader mask was a testament to his wit. The Democrats vilified Michael because of his minor role in arranging for the sale of Israeli missiles to the Iranian regime in exchange for the release of hostages in Lebanon, the first half of what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Instead of seeking forgiveness and approval of the Washington establishment, Michael leaned into this unearned infamy. 

Michael was not a Darth Vader. He was a kind, generous intellectual in a city of climbers. He lived many lives — as a journalist, historian, adviser and operative, but he always saw himself first and foremost as a scholar. He trained to be a historian under George Mosse at the University of Wisconsin and wrote the first comprehensive history of Benito Mussolini’s efforts to create a Fascist Internationale.  

In our many meetings, lunches, and dinners, he carried himself like a professor. He made sure to recommend books I hadn’t read and then would help me better understand them a few weeks later. He was also a great source, connecting me to his friends in Europe, to the Bush administration, and later to the dissidents he knew in Iran. As a young journalist trying to understand how Washington worked, I treasured Michael as a guide to navigating the Washington swamp.  

Michael had a gift for friendship. He played bridge with Omar Sharif. He discussed Italian fascism with James Jesus Angleton. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was invited to Henry Kissinger’s dinner parties. He built friendships with the University of Indiana Basketball coach, Bobby Knight, and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager, Tommy Lasorda.  

Michael was particularly generous to Iranians fighting the  regime back home. In 2008, he learned that Ahmed Batebi, the student activist featured on the 1999 cover of the Economist hoisting a bloody shirt above his head, had been released from Evin Prison for medical treatment after suffering a stroke. Mr. Batebi made his way to the Kurdish region of Iraq without a passport or any identification. Michael sprung into action.

Ledeen persuaded the George W. Bush White House to grant him asylum. “I came to the United States without a passport or any ID,” Mr. Batebi told me. “For years, I didn’t know that they paid for my flight. Michael and Barbara never told me about this.” After Mr. Batebi arrived, Michael and Barbara opened their home to him. They paid for his medical treatment and helped this young Iranian dissident begin a new life in freedom. 

That episode helps illuminate why Michael spent so much of his energy agitating for the United States government to align with Iran’s democracy movement. He saw this strategy as a natural evolution of Reagan’s statecraft at the end of the cold war, when an American president became a champion of the dissidents stuck behind the Iron Curtain. That is what he meant when he would sign off his columns with the phrase, “Faster Please.” 

Ledeen is survived by his wife, Barbara, and two sons, Gabriel and Daniel, and a daughter, Simone. His sons served as officers in the Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively. Simone served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan and worked on finance for the coalition provisional authority in Iraq. His wife, Barbara, was a Washington figure in her own right, having served for years as a staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

It is bittersweet that Michael, who was 83 when he died this morning, did not live long enough to see the Mullahs topple. He used to joke that all he wanted was to be the mayor of Isfahan for a week in a free Iran. When Iran finally rids itself of its tyrants, I hope to be in that ancient city where I can raise a glass of red wine and light a cigar in honor of a great friend not only of America and its ideals, but of the Iranian people.