also worked at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Houston. From 1961 to 1977, Yazdi founded the Muslim Students Association from the United States and later became a spokesman for Paris-based Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In 1978, he joined Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris where the latter had been in exile and became one of his advisors. He translated the reports of Khomeini into English in a press conference on 3 February 1979 in Tehran. He was the deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in the interim government of Mehdi Bazargan, until 6 November 1979. Yazdi proposed to celebrate 'Jerusalem Day' and his suggestion was endorsed by Khomeini in August 1979. Yazdi's American citizenship was revoked in 1979. In May 1980, he was appointed by Khomenei as head of the Kayhan newspaper. The day after the victory of the revolution, on 2 February 1979, several foreign embassies in Tehran, including those of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Yugoslavia were over-run by groups identifying themselves as leftist revolutionaries. The opinion of the Revolutionary Council, of which Yazdi was a member, was that these attacks may be aimed at creating chaos and preventing the international recognition of the new regime. In the case of the US embassy, the attackers were successful in entering the embassy compound and taking personnel, including the US ambassador, William Sullivan, captive. Yazdi, at the request of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council, went to the embassies and resolved the crisis, resulting in the release of embassy personnel and the departure of the attackers. On 4 November 1979, the US embassy was taken over for a second time, this time by a group calling itself “Students Following the Line of the Imam (i.e. Ayatollah Khomeini)” and led by Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha, who had closer ties to certain revolutionary leaders. As before, Yazdi was asked to go to the embassy and resolve the crisis. He asked and received permission of Khomeini to expel the occupiers, but shortly thereafter found out Khomeini had changed his mind and appeared on state television openly endorsed the takeover of the embassy. The entire cabinet of the interim government, including Yazdi and Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, resigned in protest the next day. They stated that they opposed the embassy takeover as “contrary to the national interest of Iran”. The embassy takeover is considered to have been motivated in part by an internal struggle