Spies Against Armageddon (56 page)

On the role of sayanim (helpers), one book claims they must all be Jewish. See Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy,
By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer
(St. Martin’s Press, 1990), pp. 86-7. Ostrovsky, who asserts he was an officer compelled to leave the Mossad after being unfairly blamed for an error, was—according to Israeli officials—only a cadet at the agency’s academy. While they denied many highly critical statements in his book, Israel’s government did see it as potentially damaging and unwisely tried to prevent its publication in the United States. The controversy helped make it a best seller. As for a “list” of 7,000 sayanim worldwide, Ostrovsky and Hoy wrote: “One thing you know for sure is that even if a Jewish person knows it is the Mossad, he might not agree to work with you—but he won’t turn you in.”

Ex-Israeli operative Avri El-Ad in his book,
Decline of Honor
, pp. 267-8, told of the message tapped out by Motke Kedar: “Don’t let them drag you down.”

The refusal to grant Kedar a new hearing was reported by
Hadashot
, November 14, 1986; and by
Yediot Aharonot
, February, 4, 1990. Those newspapers also quoted Yehoshafat Harkabi, the former Aman chief, who said recruits for spy missions are “not uncomplicated.”

Isser Harel’s boast that judges and courts decided the fate of aberrant agents, and “no traitor was ever executed,” is in his book,
Security and Democracy
, pp. 270-3; and in the
Jerusalem Post
magazine, January 20, 1989.

Harel’s feeling that creation of an operations unit was like a “birth” was related during a rare interview with Harel, conducted by author Yossi Melman in Harel’s house in Tzahala on December 12, 2002, two months before Harel’s death at age 91.

Aharon Cohen’s espionage against Israel, and his trial, are reported by Michael Bar-Zohar,
Isser Harel and Israel’s Security Service
, pp. 106-8, 148.

For more on Yair Racheli’s account of “the Comb” method of surveillance for counterespionage, see “Parallel Underworlds” by Yossi Melman in
Ha’aretz
, May 16, 2003.

On Harel blaming the FBI for failing to share all information about Kurt Sitta, see Harel,
Soviet Espionage
, pp. 169-175; also
Ma’ariv
, November 14, 1986.

For Israel Be’er’s claim, until his dying day, that he was innocent of espionage: Harel,
Soviet Espionage
, pp. 131-6.

A recent and thorough book on the Israeli mission to kidnap the notorious Nazi war criminal in Argentina was
Hunting Eichmann
by Neal Bascomb (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010).

Indications that hunting for Nazis was not a high priority for Harel before Eichmann was located include two memos between Shin Bet and the Mossad in 1952, each suggesting that the other organization should deal with hunting for Eichmann. One said, “We have found that we do not have the means to devote suitable attention to dealing with the matter.” They were revealed when the Mossad took the rare step, in early 2012, of putting relics from the capture of Eichmann—including the false passport in the name Ze’ev Zichroni—on display at Beit HaTfutsot (The Diaspora Museum) in Ramat-Aviv. A Mossad archivist said the exhibit had been inside the agency’s headquarters. See
Ha’aretz
, in Hebrew on April 12, and in English on April 15, 2012, at Haaretz.com.

Simon Wiesenthal’s employment by the Mossad was revealed by historian Tom Segev in
Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends
(Knopf Doubleday, 2010), pp. 9 and 182.

Moshe Tavor, one of the Israelis who kidnapped Eichmann, was interviewed by Saguy Green in
Yediot Aharonot
, “The Safecracker of the Mossad,” April 18, 2006, only three weeks before Tavor’s death at age 89.

Harel published his version of the Eichmann kidnapping in 1975,
The House on Garibaldi Street
(re-released by Frank Cass Publishers, 1997).

On the surprise and joy in Israel’s parliament when the capture of Eichmann was announced: Ze’ev Schiff and Eitan Haber,
Israel, Army, and Defense: A Dictionary
(Zmora Bitan Modan, 1976), pp. 36-7; Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan, and Eli Landau,
The Mossad: Inside Stories
(New American Library, 1978), pp. 177-198 and 212-227; and Stewart Steven,
The Spymasters of Israel
(Ballantine Books, 1980), pp. 130-9.

Although Eichmann is the only person put to death by Israel’s judicial system, there was the somewhat legal execution of Captain Meir Toubianski, shot on the orders of military intelligence chief Isser Beeri in 1948.

“I believe that he has no idea where Mengele is,” Zvi Malchin said to Harel, according to Malchin himself—writing in Hebrew in 1987 as Peter Mann with co-author Uri Dan; and then in English with Harry Stein,
Eichmann in My Hands
(Warner Books, 1990).

Harel said that Mengele moved to Paraguay, then Brazil: Reuters, “Israeli Who Captured Eichmann,” April 6, 1989.

“Don’t touch Mossinson,” the request from Ben-Gurion to Francisco Franco of Spain: according to Yigal Mossinson, interviewed by the authors, December 6, 1988.

Among those telling of the successful boyhunt for Yossele Schumacher: Stewart Steven,
Spymasters
, pp. 141-151; and Eisenberg, Dan, and Landau,
The Mossad
, pp. 36-53.

One of the Israeli journalists recruited by Harel to write about the dangers of German scientists in Egypt was Samuel (Shmuel) Segev, interviewed about this mission by one of the authors on October 21, 1988. The mission was also chronicled in Bar-Zohar,
Isser Harel
, p. 240.

Amos Manor, nominal chief of Shin Bet, spoke to one of the authors in March 2006 about the advice he gave to a stubborn Harel when Harel had his final falling-out with Ben-Gurion.

Chapter 7

“It was a command.” David Ben-Gurion giving the Mossad directorship to Meir Amit is told by Eitan Haber,
War Will Break Out Today: Memoirs of Brigadier General Israel Lior, Aide-de-Camp to Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir
(published in Hebrew by Edanim/Yediot Aharonot, 1988), p. 62.

Isser Harel being forced to testify to an inquiry about the campaign against German scientists was written in Hebrew by Yair Kotler,
Joe Returns to the Limelight
(Modan, 1988), pp. 40, 61, 66-8; also Eitan Haber,
ibid.
, p. 62; and
Yediot Aharonot
, October 16, 1987, which quotes Harel himself.

Yitzhak Shamir resigned: Kotler,
Joe Returns
, p. 61; Steven,
Spymasters of Israel
, pp. 186-187.

“A woman could not gather information in the Arab world,” an attitude that changed in the next 20 years, was said to one of the authors in 1988 by a long-time Mossad male operative, who wished to remain anonymous.

On using prostitutes for sexual blackmail missions, the late Hesi Carmel, a Mossad operative who became a French journalist and author, spoke with one of the authors in June 2001.

On the Mossad’s virtual monopoly over foreign intelligence collection, with some military exceptions for Aman: Melman,
The CIA Report
, pp. 41-56; and Walter Laqueur,
A World of Secrets: The Use and Limits of Intelligence
(Basic Books, 1985), p. 220.

“It was more effective and less complicated to kill” a Nazi war criminal such as Herbert Cukurs, Meir Amit told one of the authors in an interview in August 2007. Amit died in July 2009 at age 88.

In telling of some of the successes by the Keshet operations department, later renamed Neviot, Mossad veterans did not wish to reveal precisely where the legendary Yaacov Barda and others were active against Arab targets.

On planting misleading stories in the press as Mossad “psychological warfare,” senior Mossad veteran David Kimche was interviewed by one of the authors in June 2007. He died in March 2010 at age 82.

A more complete account of the secret meetings between Israeli officials and King Hussein of Jordan can be found in Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv,
Behind the Uprising
(Greenwood Press, 1989).

On the unsolved disappearance and murder of a Moroccan dissident, with Mossad operatives involved: “The Murder of Mehdi Ben Barka,”
Time
magazine, December 29, 1975. Also: Steven,
Spymasters
, pp. 240-252. In the Israeli press,
Monitin
magazine in June 1987 and
Yediot Aharonot
on October 16 and 19, 1987, had some details.

Chapter 8

Former Aman and Mossad director Meir Amit spoke with one of the authors in January 2009, six months before his death.

Otto Skorzeny’s role as an organizer of Odessa, an organization of former SS officers, and its “rat lines” that smuggled Nazis to South America, is recounted in many books and is neatly summarized in Michael Benson,
Inside Secret Societies
(Kensington Publishing, 2005), p. 132.

The negative view of Israeli intelligence by the late CIA Arabist, Archie Roosevelt Jr., is cited by Stephen Dorril,
MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service
(Touchstone, 2002), p. 654.

Ex-Mossad chief Meir Amit told how the Israelis found and recruited Skorzeny in a public lecture in April 1997 in Tel Aviv, and in an interview with one of the authors in May 1997. Rafi Eitan and Avraham Ahituv also shared their versions with one of the authors in May 2006. See also Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal,
The Mossad
(in Hebrew, Miskal/Yediot Aharonot, 2010), pp. 108-9.

Amit spoke about his 1966 meeting in Paris with Egypt’s Colonel Khalil, in the interview with one of the authors in May 1997.

The motto of Sayeret Matkal is
“Ha-me’iz M’natze’ach”
(The Darer Wins). Two books in Hebrew detail some of the history of the élite military unit: Avner Shur,
Border Crosser
(Kinneret/Zmora-Bitan/Dvir, 2008), and Moshe Zonder,
The Elite Unit of Israel
(Keter, 2000).

The risky proposals to steal a MiG-21 warplane from Egypt or from Poland—what became Operation Diamond—were related to one of the authors by Amit in 1997. Also: Gad Shimron,
The Mossad and the Myth
(Keter Publishing, 2011), pp. 144-6.

Books in the past said there was a female Israeli, sent to Iraq as part of Operation Diamond, to help persuade the pilot Munir Redfa to defect; however, well-informed sources recently told the authors that no Mossad woman was involved.

The story of Abbas Hilmi, the Egyptian pilot who defected to Israel, and his untimely end in Argentina was related to one of the authors by an Israeli intelligence veteran of Aman’s Unit 154, which handled Hilmi’s interrogation.

The Israeli spy Eli Cohen was transmitting too much intelligence from Damascus for his own safety: Samuel Segev,
Alone in Damascus: The Life and Death of Eli Cohen
(Keter, 1986), pp. 23 and 60; and Steven,
Spymasters of Israel
, pp. 202-4.

The public campaign by Cohen’s family to have his body handed over to Israel by Syria’s government can be seen at www.EliCohen.org.

Masoud Buton, an operative for Aman and the Mossad in several Arab countries, wrote his autobiography with Israeli journalist Ronni Shaked,
From Jerusalem to Damascus and Back: An Intelligence Agent Behind Enemy Lines
(in Hebrew, Lavi Publishing, 2012). Buton died in 2011 in France, where he worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant before finding success as a trader of various goods. Ex-Mossad chief Amit called Buton a liar, quoted by YnetNews.com, “Spy: Eli Cohen Died because of Failure,” November 5, 2006.

Yaakov (Jacob) Nahmias recalled the agent he ran in Egypt, Wolfgang Lotz, in the documentary film
The Champagne Spy
, directed by Nadav Schirman (2007).

“It was a cardinal error,” permitting Lotz to have two marriages: Avraham Shalom, a former head of Shin Bet, said that in Schirman’s film.

Interviews with Lotz’s son, Oded Gur-Arie, living in the United States, and with others who knew Lotz/Gur-Arie, are in Yossi Melman, “Double Dad,”
Ha’aretz
weekend magazine, March 9, 2007.

Amit remarked on the art of running double agents, in his interview with one of the authors in 1997.

“I never got drunk. I outdrank them”: Victor Grayevsky told one of the authors in an interview in 2006. See Yossi Melman, “Our Man in the KGB,” in
Ha’aretz
, October 5, 2006.

Amit spoke of disinformation “tailored” by three Israeli agencies, in his interview with one of the authors in 1997.

A longtime Shin Bet commander who ran the Yated double-agent operation, David Ronen, was interviewed by one of the authors in March 2011. See Yossi Melman, “How Israel Won the Six-Day War,” in
Ha’aretz
, March 31, 2011.

“Let them believe their tall tale,” Isser Harel said to one of the authors, quoted in “How Israel Won the Six-Day War,”
Ha’aretz
, March 31, 2011.

Chapter 9

Yasser Arafat’s escape from the West Bank in 1967: See Ehud Yaari,
Fatah
(in Hebrew from Levin-Epstein, 1970), pp. 101-2.

On Yosef Harmelin’s rise to be director of Shin Bet, see
Hadashot
newspaper of June 19, 1987. Also,
Ma’ariv
of April 7, 1988.

On the “masqueraders” unit in Arab communities, Shmuel Moriah was interviewed by one of the authors in June 1996 when he revealed for the first time the existence of the unit. See Yossi Melman quoted in “Israeli Agents Licensed to Wed,”
The Reading Eagle
(Pennsylvania), September 30, 1998, p. A2, as well as many other newspapers citing his
Ha’aretz
article. Also, “Sixty Years Later, Spies’ Lives Revealed,” in
Yediot Aharonot
’s English-language YnetNews.com, February 20, 2011.

“The double life they were living cost them emotionally,” said Amos Manor, retired head of Shin Bet, in an interview with one of the authors in March 2006.