Everything about the interview this reporter conducted with Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani 12 years ago was extraordinary — from the gauntlet of Rafsanjani associates who had to give their prior approval to the rigorous security screening before the meeting in the former Iranian president’s office.

On that chilly February evening in 2005, Rafsanjani, who died Jan. 8 of a heart attack at age 82, was planning one of his many political comebacks. He had decided to signal to the world and to his own people that a major plank of his platform would be to seek an end to Iran’s decades-old enmity with the United States — a position he thought would help him win election to a new term as president later that year.

An interview with the diplomatic reporter of USA Today, my job at the time, seemed a good way to accomplish this goal in the view of Rafsanjani’s advisers. “The mere fact that I am sitting here talking to you is an indication that we have no differences with the American people,” the former president said.

Before a formal dialogue with the US government could begin, however, the United States would need to unfreeze Iranian assets still held after Iran released US diplomats held hostage from 1979 to 1981. The Americans, Rafsanjani said, “had to show positive signs for us so we can believe they are sincere.”