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NEW YORK (CBS) ― Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk, Fidel Castro delivered tortuously long rants, Yasser Arafat showed up wearing a holster and Hugo Chavez called President Bush the "devil."

Now, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is cementing his place in this rogues' gallery of world leaders who have visited New York for the U.N. General Assembly, the annual gathering where "tinhorn dictators" and powerful heads of state get their say.

This time, Ahmadinejad's appearance, his third in as many years, is different. Tensions with Iran are escalating as the United States continues to accuse the country of trying to develop nuclear weapons and arming insurgents in Iraq with powerful improvised explosive devices that kill U.S. troops.

A defiant and unpredictable Ahmadinejad isn't expected to defuse the situation when he appears at a forum at Columbia University on Monday and addresses the General Assembly on Tuesday. But you can be sure that he's going to put on a show, playing to an Iranian electorate that's unhappy with his domestic programs but has strong nationalistic feelings.

"You should treat this as an off-Broadway production," former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said, describing the United Nations as a "Twilight Zone" that gives a platform to "tinhorn dictators."

"The General Assembly is the theater in which Ahmadinejad and others perform," he added.

The show has been going on practically since the United Nations was founded in 1945 after World War II.

Soviet Premier Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk after a diplomat criticized the U.S.S.R. in 1960. The leader of the Philippines delegation had noted the contradiction between Khrushchev's complaints about western imperialism while the Soviet bloc was swallowing eastern Europe.

On his first visit to the U.N., Castro warned the world about American "aggression" in a speech that lasted more than four hours.

Arafat came to the General Assembly in 1974 and delivered a fiery oration while wearing an empty holster, trying to legitimize the Palestinian struggle.

"I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun," Arafat said. "Do not let the olive branch fall from my hands."
 
A year later, the murderous Ugandan dictator Idi Iman exhorted the United States "to rid their society of the Zionists" and called for the "extinction of Israel as a state."

Last year at a Harlem church, Venezuelan President Chavez promised to send discounted heating oil to needy Americans, a day after calling Bush "the devil," "an alcoholic" and "a sick man."

Chavez will be back this year but he'll only be a sideshow.

The spotlight will be on Ahmadinejad, the rogue president Americans love to hate, the man who called the Holocaust a "myth" and has said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

Though he has yet to arrive, he's already caused a stir with a failed bid to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site. The city's tabloids went ballistic, labeling him a "madman," "idiot" and a "Holocaust-denying, nuke-coveting, terrorist-aiding nut."

Despite being roundly denounced from the White House to the mayor's office, he'll be treated like royalty, chauffeured around
the city by the Secret Service, who, in tandem with the NYPD, will protect him until he leaves early Wednesday.

The cost to taxpayers? Kim Bruce, a Secret Service agent, said she didn't know how much her agency will spend. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he has no idea what it will cost New York. Whatever it is, he said, the federal government is supposed to pay for it but seldom does.

While he's here, Ahmadinejad will be under the same travel restrictions as diplomats in the Iranian U.N. mission, said Kendal Smith, spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The U.S. hasn't had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1980.

Iranian diplomats are free to travel up to 25 miles from midtown Manhattan but any farther requires an exemption.

Will Ahmadinejad try to eat at one of Manhattan's excellent Persian restaurants? The Secret Service wouldn't reveal his dining plans, and messages left at the Iranian's U.N. mission in New York were not returned.

His appearances at the U.N. and Columbia are expected to draw large crowds of protesters, further taxing an NYPD that already has to clear traffic lanes and provide security as scores of diplomats race through Manhattan in their black limousines.

"He's more dangerous than Osama bin Laden," said Malcolm I. Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "He has missiles. He has an army which has purchased huge amounts of weapons."

In a twist, some politicians including Bush have used Ahmadinejad's visit to draw attention to this country's tradition of protecting free speech and international laws.

"I'm confident that he'll say something so revealing that it will help demonstrate how dangerous this regime is," Bolton said.

Joshua Muravchik of the conservative American Enterprise Institute doesn't believe his visit is worth all the fuss.

"I wouldn't get upset about Ahmadinejad being here," Muravchik said. "I would just sell popcorn and treat it as a circus." 

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)