Spies Against Armageddon (58 page)

Shlomo Hillel told the story of his secret work in Iraq in his book in Hebrew,
East Wind: On a Secret Mission to the Arab Lands
(Edanim/Yediot Aharonot and Ministry of Defense, 1985). Also see Howard M. Sachar,
A History of Israel
(Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), pp. 398-403.

On Nativ and Bitzur and their role in Jewish intelligence, see
Ha’aretz
articles by Yossi Melman: “Return of the Nativ” on July 2, 2009; and “Why the Mossad Must Remain an Intelligence Service for All Jews” on November 4, 2010.

On Yeshayahu (Shaike) Dan and his deals with Romania’s dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, one of the authors interviewed Dan in 1990, four years before his death. Also, a former cabinet minister in charge of immigration, Yaakov Tzur, was interviewed by one of the authors in May 2002.

Yaakov Kedmi, the head of Nativ in the late 1990s whose activism began as a daring student in Moscow, was interviewed by one of the authors in July 2007. He told his own life story and related the anecdote about Mossad chief Nahum Admoni telling the KGB, “We never spied against you.”

The rescue of Tunisian Jews, arranged by Mossad men in Morocco thanks to the French navy, was revealed in
Ha’aretz
on May 29, 1987; also
Yediot Aharonot
, January 22, 1988, and Reuters news agency, December 28, 1988.

Leo Gleser told his story exclusively to one of the authors. See Yossi Melman, “Jewish Cowboy,”
Ha’aretz
, March 30, 2006.

Milt Bearden, formerly with the CIA, was interviewed by one of the authors in summer 2007.

Chapter 14

Nahik Navot, the Mossad veteran tied intimately to the war in Lebanon, spoke with the authors. See Yossi Melman, “Waltz Without Bashir,”
Ha’aretz
, September 22, 2010.

Despite Israeli press restrictions and official censorship, stories of involvement with drug smugglers popped up, time and again, starting with
Foreign Report
(Economist Intelligence Unit, London) in early July 1993. Also, London’s
Sunday Times
had an article on December 25, 1996; it is interesting that it was written by Israeli journalist Uzi Mahanaimi, who had been an officer in Unit 504 and was the son of a brigadier general in Aman.

Regarding the creation of Hezbollah, see Shimon Shapira,
Hizbullah: Between Iran and Lebanon
(in Hebrew, HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 2000), pp. 96-134.

The CIA’s car bomb in 1985 aimed at Hezbollah’s Muhammad Fadlallah was revealed by Bob Woodward in
Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987
(Simon & Schuster, 1987), p. 506. See Woodward, in
The Washington Post
on May 12, 1985.

Chapter 15

An attempt to kill Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, in February 1984 by sending him an exploding Quran, is related by Yossef Bodansky in
Terror: The Inside Story of the Terrorist Conspiracy in America
(SPI Books, 1994), pp. 34-6.

The pilot of one of the Israeli helicopters that attacked Hezbollah’s leader Abbas Musawi spoke to Felix Frish, with the Israeli website NRG.com (affiliated with the newspaper
Ma’ariv
), February 16, 2008.

Security questions surrounding the two bombings in Argentina, the Israeli embassy in 1992 and the Jewish center in 1994, were reported by Yossi Melman, in
Ha’aretz
, December 25, 1997. In the article, Shin Bet director Yaakov Perry denied that he did not take seriously the dangers in South America. On the contrary, he said, “I always emphasized that South America had the potential for terrorist attacks against us, because of the proximity of Muslim immigrant communities from the Middle East.” He also said there was a thorough internal investigation, and Shin Bet was not found to have failed.

American intelligence sources shared the story of the Southeast Asian extremist, caught on a far-off Asian island and involved in the Hezbollah plot to bomb the Israeli embassy in Thailand. They revealed that an Asian security service turned over the man to the CIA, which tried to turn him into a double agent. They felt that telling the tale after 15 years would pose no harm.

The kidnapping, including the use of a female Lebanese agent, and interrogation of Mustafa Dirani was reported by Yossi Melman in
Ha’aretz
on April 20, 2010.

Shin Bet interrogators rejected rough methods used by Aman’s Unit 504, according to a Shin Bet man who spoke with one of the authors in June 2007.

Chapter 16

Descriptions of Marcus Klingberg, after he served prison time in Israel for espionage, are based on a visit to Klingberg in Paris by one of the authors in April 2006. See Yossi Melman, “I Spy,” in
Ha’aretz
, June 1, 2006.

Additional information comes from Klingberg’s memoir, written with his lawyer Michael Sfard,
Ha-Meragel ha-Acharon (The Last Spy)
, published by Ma’ariv Books (Tel Aviv, 2007).

Various sources revealed that a Mossad agent delivered poisoned chocolates to a Palestinian terrorist leader, Wadi Haddad, and—with the motive given as his group’s hijacking of an airliner to Entebbe, Uganda, as “the last straw”—see Aaron J. Klein,
Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response
(Random House, 2005), pp. 207-8.

In failing to detect Klinberg’s disloyalty, “We asked the wrong questions.” So said Victor Cohen, a Shin Bet investigator, when interviewed by one of the authors in March 2003.

Chaim Ben-Ami, the Shin Bet interrogator who made Klingberg break, spoke to one of the authors in June 2005. See Yossi Melman, “The Best Keeper of Secrets in the World,” in
Ha’aretz
, September 21, 2007. A play written by Melman, “The Good Son,” based on the interrogation of Klingberg, was performed by Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theater in the summer of 2006.

“I agreed to work for the Soviet Union because they saved my life. And out of belief in the cause of Communism.” So said Klingberg during his extensive interview by one of the authors in Paris in April 2006.

On an anthrax vaccine that was tested on Israeli soldiers, see Yossi Melman, “Defense Attempting to Block Report About Anthrax Trial,”
Ha’aretz
, January 27, 2009.

The French newsletter that revealed a $200 million American investment, thanks to Israeli data on the anthrax tests, is www.IntelligenceOnline.com, number 591, April 2, 2009. It said that Israeli courts had banned publication of some details, but added that the United States wanted and received the results of tests on humans.

Chapter 17

Yitzhak Hofi was described as a man “of steel and infinite patience” and “a born commander” by another former Mossad director, Efraim Halevy, in his essay in Gilboa and Lapid (eds.),
Israel’s Silent Defender
, p. 289.

Details of the Mossad’s sabotage at the French port of La Seyne sur Mer in 1979 are based on interviews with Western intelligence veterans who were familiar with the incident.

The task of choosing an air route, and mapping electricity wires in enemy lands on the way to Baghdad were written about by the air intelligence officer of the attack operation in June 1981, Lt. Colonel Shamai Golan, “Aerial Intelligence for the Attack on Iraq’s Nuclear Reactor,” in
Israel’s Silent Defender
, pp. 101-5. Golan also writes that King Hussein reported on the Israeli jets overhead, but there was no sign of a Saudi or Iraqi response to that.

The role played by Professor Uzi Even, in telling Shimon Peres about a plan to attack Iraq’s nuclear reactor, was relayed by Even to one of the authors in November 2011.

Details of the attack on Osirak, first called Operation Ammunition Hill but later known as Operation Opera, are in Shlomo Nakdimon,
Tammuz in Flames
(in Hebrew, Yediot Aharonot Books, 1986); and Nakdimon
, First Strike: The Exclusive Story of How Israel Foiled Iraq’s Attempt to Get the Bomb
(Summit Books, 1987). Nakdimon was a close advisor to Prime Minister Begin.

Relik Shafir, one of the eight Israeli pilots who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, spoke with one of the authors in March 2005. See Yossi Melman, “War Games,” at TabletMag.com, April 15, 2010.

Details of the raid on Osirak are also in an article marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in
Israel Defense
, a Hebrew magazine, December 23, 2011.

On the Reagan Administration’s official condemnation of the Israeli raid on Iraq, the national security advisor in the White House at the time, Richard Allen, wrote an op-ed in the
New York Times
, June 6, 2010.

On Ronald Reagan saying the Israelis have “claws” and “a sense of strategy,” Richard Allen is quoted by Seymour Hersh,
The Samson Option
(Random House, 1991), p. 9.

Former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit told one of the authors that he regretted not assassinating Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan. See Melman and Javedanfar,
The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran
, pp. 151-6.

The story of the nuclear spy Mordecai Vanunu is based on the authors’ previous book,
Every Spy a Prince
, pp. 360-379; and on additional research, including interviews with Yehiel Horev, head of the defense security agency Malmab; and Chaim Carmon, who held a similar post overseeing Dimona security. See Yossi Melman, “Who’s Afraid of Mordecai Vanunu?” in
Ha’aretz
, March 19, 2004.

The authors also interviewed Mordecai Vanunu’s brother, Meir, who ran a one-man campaign for his brother’s freedom.

The claim that British newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell was a Mossad agent or sayan features prominently in Gordon Thomas,
Gideon’s Spies
(St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009); and in Hersh,
Samson Option
, pp. 312-5. Thomas’s book goes on to highlight a somewhat absurd claim that the Mossad murdered Maxwell after he tried to blackmail the agency.

Chapter 18

Jonathan Jay Pollard’s boasts at Stanford University about being in the Israeli military or the Mossad were reported by
The
Washington Post
, November 24, 1985.

In a letter to the authors in November 1990, Pollard said that federal authorities invented charges of quirky behavior to create “a legend of instability, to discredit and isolate me.” Prosecutors insisted he had a long record of weaving incredible tales.

The CIA’s assessment of Pollard as “a fanciful liar” was reported by
U.S. News and World Report
, June 1, 1987.

Pollard, when interviewed in the federal prison at Butner, North Carolina, in 1997 by Ben Caspit of the newspaper
Ma’ariv
, said he was especially concerned that Israel did not have U.S. information about Iraq’s chemical weapons program. See New Jersey’s
Metro West Jewish News
, May 22, 1997.

An official Israeli inquiry commission criticized senior political leaders for deciding not to ask what Lakam was doing. Pollard told Caspit: “[Defense Minister] Moshe Arens was deeply involved with my activities. He knew everything. He okayed everything. Arens’s fingerprints were on all of the tasking orders I received.” In the article, Arens replied that Pollard’s claim was incorrect.

Pollard’s time spent in Paris with Rafi Eitan and other Israeli handlers is related in Wolf Blitzer,
Territory of Lies
(Harper and Row, 1989), pp. 90-1. The use of a Washington apartment for massive photocopying is on pp. 96, 130-1.

Anne Pollard’s final dinner with Avi Sella is on pp. 142-4.

On Ronald Reagan saying “I don’t know why they are doing it,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 27, 1985.

A longer account of the Iran-Contra affair is in Chapter 15, “The Chaos of Irangate,” in
Every Spy a Prince
, pp. 324-342.

The CIA’s assessment of the priorities of Israeli intelligence, including spying on the United States, is in Melman,
CIA Report
, p. 9.

Pollard’s own memo to the judge, about his intelligence tasking, was reported by
Time
magazine, March 16, 1987.

“I do not intend to be used as a scapegoat,” said Rafi Eitan, quoted in the Hebrew newspaper
Hadashot
, March 15, 1987.

President Clinton nearly released Pollard, according to George Tenet,
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
(Harper Collins, 2007), pp. 66-72. Memoirs by President Bill Clinton and Middle East mediator Dennis Ross confirmed Tenet’s threat to resign; although leaders of the American Jewish community say Tenet, for some reason, vehemently denied to them that he had blocked Pollard’s freedom by threatening to quit. See Marc Perelman, “Former CIA Chief Changes Tune on Pollard Story,”
Forward
, May 18, 2007.

The story of Yossi Amit, who was nearly recruited by the CIA, is recounted in Chapter 15, “Drug Deals,” in Yossi Melman and Eitan Haber,
The Spies: Israel’s Counter-Espionage Wars
(in Hebrew, Yediot Aharonot Books, 2002), pp. 245-256. The senator who apparently referred to Amit, although not by name, was David Durenberger, Republican of Minnesota.

Chapter 19

The Shin Bet scandal stemming from the Bus 300 hijack in Gaza in 1984 has been the subject of many Israeli newspaper articles, TV reports, and documentaries since Raviv and Melman,
Every Spy a Prince
, wrote of the case in 1990, pp. 278-300. The most recent and complete was, “The Breaking Line” by Gidi Weitz, in Hebrew in the
Ha’aretz
supplement of September 28, 2011, pp. 14-26, based on a documentary aired four days later, on October 2, on Israel’s Channel 10.

Ehud Yatom, the Shin Bet man who admitted killing the two bus hijackers and said he was proud of it, spoke to
Yediot Aharonot
, quoted by, among others, British newspapers
The Independent
(“Shin Bet Man Proud of Murdering Two Arabs”) on July 24, 1996, and
The Daily Telegraph
(“Justice Minister’s Resignation Adds to Netanyahu’s Troubles”), on August 9, 1996.