The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (67 page)

90
“had ordered the execution …”:
Zein, “Deceit with Extreme Prejudice,” p. 194.

91
“Fedayeen senior official”:
Goldman and Herschaft, “Papers Shed Light on Envoy’s ’73 Killing.” See also Burton and Bruning,
Chasing Shadows
, pp. 199–205.

92
“Israel is here to stay”:
Robert Ames, memo to Richard Helms, July 18, 1973, Richard Helms Papers, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA,
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/index.html
. See also David Ignatius, “PLO Rejects Role for Jordan’s Hussein in Mideast Talks, Moderate Group Says,”
Wall Street Journal
, March 11, 1983.

93
“Arafat claims to have the agreement …”:
Bird,
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate
, p. 286; Robert C. Ames to Ambassador Helms, July 18, 1973, Richard Helms Papers, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA; also quoted by Oren, “Top Secret, Eyes Only”; David Ignatius, “Secret Strategies,”
Washington Post
, November 12, 2004.

94
“When the USG says …”:
Henry Kissinger, cable to Richard Helms, August 3, 1973, Richard Helms Papers, CIA,
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/index.html
.

95
“low-level intelligence channels”:
Henry Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), p. 625.

96
“My company is still interested …”:
David Ignatius, “Penetrating Terrorist Networks,”
Washington Post
, September 16, 2001.

97
“But Valters, I’m No. 2, so you’re going”:
Robert Greenberger, “New Envoy to UN Has Long Advocated Going Underground,”
Wall Street Journal
, June 21, 1985, p. 14.

98
“We regard the King of Jordan as a friend”:
Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval
, p. 628.

99
“There are no objective reasons …”:
Naftali,
Blind Spot
, p. 74. Naftali is citing a memo from Brent Scowcroft to Walters, “Talking Points for Meeting with General Walters,” October 23, 1973, NSC CO: Middle East, “Palestinian [July 1973–July 1974],” Box 139, Nixon Materials Project, National Archives.

100
“The dynamics of the movement …”:
Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval
, p. 629.

101
“potentially too explosive …”:
Ibid., p. 629.

102
Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Simcha Dinitz, was briefed:
Naftali,
Blind Spot
, p. 348 n. 56.

103
Salameh was somewhere in Europe:
O’Neil, “Charming Assassin,” p. 104. Actually, by Mustafa Zein’s account, the botched Lillehammer operation came about as a result of misinformation planted by the PLO. Zein says he asked Salameh what happened in Norway. Salameh replied, “I just can’t believe it! They [the Mossad] swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker in one gulp. I just implanted in their minds through informers that I was going to be in Norway on that date. I chose the most far away place that I could think of that no one in the Middle East would ever think of visiting.” Zein, “Deceit with Extreme Prejudice,” p. 218.

104
“When they killed Boushiki”:
Bar-Zohar and Haber,
Quest for the Red Prince
, p. 200.

105
“The CIA deputy director said it was not possible …”:
Gordon Thomas,
Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), p. 280.

106
to shoot his plane down:
Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval
, p. 1037.

107
accompanied by Ali Hassan Salameh:
George Cave, interview, March 14, 2011;
Taylor,
States of Terror
, p. 38. Salameh met in Beirut with U.S. embassy officials to plan the details of the visit. See “Whereabouts of Abu Iyad,” U.S. embassy cable, Beirut, November 12, 1974, Wikileaks,
https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BEIRUT13562_b.html
.

108
“Salameh begged for understanding and flexibility”:
U.S. embassy cable, Beirut, November 8, 1974, Wikileaks,
https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BEIRUT13562_b.html
.

109
“I have come bearing an olive branch …”:
Edward R. F. Sheehan,
The Arabs, Israelis and Kissinger
(New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1976), p. 153.

110
Mustafa Zein was there to introduce Salameh:
Zein, “Deceit with Extreme Prejudice,” p. 228;
Charles Waverly
, e-mail to author, July 27, 2012.

111
They spent the night in the Waldorf:
Shafiq Al-Hout,
My Life in the PLO: The Inside Story of the Palestinian Struggle
(London: Pluto Press, 2011), p. 122.

112
“Arafat and his Fatah wing …”:
Ignatius, “Secret History of U.S.-PLO Terror Talks.”

113
“The PLO at the Waldorf Astoria!”:
Taylor,
States of Terror
, p. 72.

114
“We in Force 17 …”:
Natour, “Martyrdom of Ali Hassan Salameh.”

115
“persuaded the PLO leaders …”:
Rubner, review of four books on Munich.

116
“I’m just a middle man in all this”:
Robert Ames to Mustafa Zein, June 5, 1974; reproduced in Zein, “Deceit with Extreme Prejudice,” p. 225-A.

117
“In Tehran”:
Bruce Riedel, interview, March 30, 2011.

118
“The Shah in his early years …”:
Classified secret letter from “John” to Ambassador Helms, August 1973, published in “Documents from the U.S. Espionage Den,” vol. 8, p. 49,
http://ia600409.us.archive.org/10/items/DocumentsFromTheU.s.EspionageDen
.

119
“Glad things have worked out so well”:
Knight, cable to Kuwait, November 1, 1973, Richard Helms Papers, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA.

120
“Bob frequently produced long think pieces …”: David Reeve
, e-mail to author, January 1, 2012.

121
“Bob had a keen instinct for the jugular”:
Graham Fuller, interview, April 3, 2012.

122
“He once told me”:
Yvonne Ames, interview, November 19–20, 2010.

123
“Henry was a mess”:
Yvonne Ames, e-mail to author, May 21, 2012.

124
“His pugnacious Irish temperament …”:
Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, May 18, 2012.

125
“Henry got juiced”: Bill Fisk
, interview, March 27, 2011.

126
He became a potter:
Betty Bretting, e-mail to author, May 16, 2012. Betty was Henry McDermott’s first wife. They separated in 1970 and divorced in 1977. McDermott died in the early 2000s.

127
“Please let me know”:
Ames, secret cable to “KNIGHT,” June 10, 1975, Richard Helms Papers, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA,
www.foia.cia.gov/helms/pdf/75_1503978.pdf
.

128
magazine”:
Philip Agee and Louis Wolf, eds.,
Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe
(New York: Dorset Press, 1988), p. 52. More than ninety other chiefs of station were named in this magazine article, so it seems unlikely that Ames would be pulled from Kuwait for this reason alone. But perhaps the circumstances in Kuwait warranted his transfer.

129
“His murder …”:
Nelson, cable to Helms, December 26, 1975, Richard Helms
Papers, Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA,
www.foia.cia.gov/helms/pdf/75_1504058.pdf
.

  
1
only about 2,500:
George Crile,
Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History
(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003), p. 156.

  
2
“Get rid of the clowns”:
Tim Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
(New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 323.

  
3
he’d fired more than five hundred:
Powers,
The Man Who Kept the Secrets
, p. 323; Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes
, p. 325.

  
4
“We predicted …”:
Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes
, p. 329. By contrast, a prescient memo written by a State Department intelligence analyst predicted in May 1973 that there was a “better than even bet” that war between Egypt and Israel would occur “by autumn.” See William Burr, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 415, March 5, 2013.

  
5
“In the context of the politics …”:
William Colby, oral history, March 15, 1988, CIA Oral History Archives,
http://www.foia.cia.gov/helms/pdf/reflections
.

  
6
“The Congressional investigations”:
Ibid.

  
7
“A lot of dead cats …”:
Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes
, p. 338.

  
8
thirteen times to testify:
Powers,
The Man Who Kept the Secrets
, p. 341.

  
9
“wear this conviction like a badge of honor”:
Ibid., p. 353.

10
“If we could, we’d bury you”:
Kai Bird, “The Captured Documents,” 1985, Alicia Patterson Foundation,
http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/captured-documents
.

11
“In my experience …”:
Richard L. Holm,
The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA
(Mountain Lake Park, MD: Mountain Lake Press, 2011), p. 23.

12
18,000 officers and staff:
Bird, “The Captured Documents,” 1985.

13
“I am sure there were those in the division …”:
Clarridge,
Spy for All Seasons
, p. 153.

14
“wog factor”:
Ibid., p. 105.

15
He had three pairs:
Bob Layton, interview, September 20, 2011.

16
“Bob played with a pipe …”:
Henry Miller-Jones, unpublished op-ed, ca. May 1983, courtesy of Miller-Jones.

17
“Ph.D.s don’t do well in the espionage business”:
Duane R. Clarridge, interview, November 26, 2011.

18
“liaison relationship with this murderer”:
Duane R. Clarridge, e-mail to author, March 16, 2013.

19
“In the 1970s”:
Duane R. Clarridge, telephone interview, March 22, 2013.

20
“Willi was a very cool guy”:
Karin Assmann, Felix Bohr, Gunther Latsch, and Klaus Wiegrefe, “The Munich Olympics and the CIS’s New Informant,”
Der Spiegel OnLine
, January 2, 2013,
www.spiegel.de/international/germany/how-willi-voss-went-from-abetting-terror-to-working-for-the-cia-a-875374.html
.

21
“The intelligence was valuable”:
Terence Douglas, e-mail to author, March 18, 2013.

22
“If the agent
[
Voss
]
can set up Carlos …”:
Clarridge,
Spy for All Seasons
, p. 158.

23
“lost his nerve”:
Assmann et al., “Munich Olympics.” Voss, sixty-eight years old, is today the author of dozens of crime thrillers and screenplays in Germany.

24
“He and I got along well …”:
Duane R. Clarridge, telephone interview, March 21, 2013.

25
Alcohol, he wrote, “plays a major part”:
Clarridge,
Spy for All Seasons
, p. 79. 169
A CIA survey:
retired CIA officer, e-mail to author.

26
“Recruiting agents is very hard”:
Duane R. Clarridge, telephone interview, March 21, 2013.

27
“the Agency would have been awash in spies”:
Duane R. Clarridge, e-mail to author, May 11, 2012.

28
“Dewey is a brilliant intelligence officer”:
Clair George, interview, March 23, 2011.

29
“Dewey was an ass, a showboat”: Lindsay Sherwin
, interview, March 22, 2011.

30
“If Dewey asks …”:
Henry Miller-Jones, interview, March 19, 2011.

31
“He once told me”:
Miller-Jones, unpublished op-ed.

32
“Alan looked like …”:
Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, “Assignment Aden.”

33
Born in 1928:
Department of State Biographic Register, 1974. Wolfe received a letter of reprimand in the mid-1990s when the Agency discovered he had failed to report that CIA officer Aldrich Ames had a drinking problem in Rome. Wolfe later died of brain cancer.

34
“He had a low threshold for the dim-witted”:
Clarridge,
Spy for All Seasons
, p. 153.

35
advance man for Henry Kissinger’s secret trip:
Crile,
Charlie Wilson’s War
, p. 59. 171
“Learning a wog language”:
Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, December 2, 2010.

36
“Orientalists,” liable to be critical: Hillel Katz
, interview, Tel Aviv, November 11, 2012.

37
“Alan, I understand …”:
Frederick Hutchinson, interview, December 5, 2011. Hutchinson served as chief counsel to DCI Casey.

38
“Right away,” recalled Zein:
Mustafa Zein, interview, Amman, October 6, 2012.

39
“Clandestine officers are usually extroverts”:
Charles Allen, interview, December 21, 2012.

40
“Bob had a nice personality”: Lindsay Sherwin
, interview, March 22, 2011.

41
“I think sloppiness is contagious”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, July 2, 1978.

42
He typed his own memos:
Bob Layton, interview, September 20, 2011.

43
He never learned to type:
Miller-Jones, unpublished op-ed.

44
green ink:
By some accounts, there is a tradition by which intelligence officers favored green ink. See the biography of Sir Claude Dansey by Anthony Read and David Fisher,
Colonel Z: The Secret Life of a Master of Spies
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984), p. 234.

45
“Salameh was perceived …”: Charles Waverly
, interview, March 28, 2011.

46
“Okay, why don’t you give him a replica …”:
Bruce Riedel, interview, March 30, 2011.

47
“He would seek his ‘out of school’ take on an issue”:
Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, March 10, 2012.

48
“They were constantly trying to recruit each other”:
Naftali,
Blind Spot
, p. 76. O’Connell told this to Naftali in an interview on October 22, 2003.

49
“They tell you in the CIA …”:
Henry Miller-Jones, interview, March 23, 2011.

50
Ames got Salameh to pledge:
Sam Wyman, interview, July 27, 2010.

51
37 percent of the Agency’s total budget:
Church Committee,
Foreign and Military Intelligence
, bk. 1 of
Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, U.S. Senate
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1976), p. 123,
www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports_book1.htm
.

52
“I never thought of Lebanon as a country”:
Aburish,
The St George Hotel Bar
, p. 201.

53
“In Beirut everyone has an agenda and a gun”:
Benjamin Weiser, “Company Man,”
Washington Post
, May 17, 1992.

54
According to Jonathan Randal:
Jonathan Randal,
Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers, and the War in Lebanon
(New York: Vintage Books, 1984), p. 182.

55
Salameh supervised the security arrangements:
Sam Wyman, interview, July 27, 2010.

56
“I will get you through the Palestinian lines”:
Sam Wyman, interview, November 5, 2010.

57
Kissinger even sent Arafat an official letter:
David Ignatius, “The Secret History of the U.S.-PLO Terror Talks,”
Washington Post
, December 4, 1988; Nasr,
Arab and Israeli Terrorism
, p. 108.

58
“ ‘Oh, I killed him two days ago’ ”: Charles Waverly
, interview, March 28, 2011.

59
“I told him that we had some intelligence …”:
Charles Englehart, interview, September 20, 2011. Englehart was told this story by Frank Anderson.

60
“It is a little hard to hear”: Charles Waverly
, interview, March 28, 2011.

61
a “barbarian” and a murderer:
Woodward,
Veil
, p. 186.

62
“our brutal warlord”:
Bob Layton, interview, September 20, 2011.

63
Woodward got this wrong:
Sam Wyman, e-mail to author, March 31, 2013. Wyman checked with friends in the CIA, and he insists that “Woodward is wrong.” Tim Weiner reports that Ames was the CIA officer who recruited Bashir Gemayel, but on the basis of Wyman this seems incorrect (Weiner,
Legacy of Ashes
, p. 389).

64
“pimply-faced, overweight hooligan …”:
Aburish,
Brutal Friendship
, p. 205.

65
Salameh’s daily routine:
Klein,
Striking Back
, p. 212.

66
“Being outside Palestine”:
Ali Hassan Salameh, interview by Nadia Salti Stephan,
Monday Morning
, April 26–May 2, 1976. Also quoted by Bar-Zohar and Haber,
Quest for the Red Prince
, p. 208.

67
“There are no permanent enmities …”:
Ali Hassan Salameh, interview by Nadia Salti Stephan,
Monday Morning
, April 26–May 2, 1976.

68
When Dany Chamoun, the chieftain of the Christian right-wing Tigers militia, was captured:
Bar-Zohar and Haber,
Quest for the Red Prince
, p. 209.

69
“Salameh played a large part …”:
Thomas,
Gideon’s Spies
, p. 281.

70
“I spent a lot of my time coaxing him …”:
Sam Wyman, interview, November 5, 2010.

71
“We had an audio operation”:
Duane R. Clarridge, interview, November 26, 2011.

72
“I told Salameh”:
Sam Wyman, interview, July 27, 2010, and March 28, 2011.

73
“They
[
the Israelis
]
are not supermen”:
Paul O’Neil, “A Charming Assassin Who Loved the Good Life,”
Life
, April 1979, p. 104.

74
“a playboy, a smuggler, a murderer …”:
Ali Hassan Salameh, interview by Nadia Salti Stephan,
Monday Morning
, April 26–May 2, 1976, p. 12.

75
“We are here for beauty, not politics”:
Bar-Zihar and Haber,
Quest for the Red Prince
, p. 202.

76
postage stamps with Rizk’s image: Daily Star
, Beirut, January 11, 1975.

77
“She is Lebanon’s queen …”: Daily Star
, Beirut, March 1, 1975.

78
he wanted to “prove that he was not needed …”:
Mohammed Natour (Abu Tayeb), “The Martyrdom of Ali Hassan Salameh,” unpublished manuscript, courtesy of Mustafa Zein.

79
“Bush would have favored Salameh’s trip”:
Duane R. Clarridge, telephone interview, March 21, 2013.

80
Vance authorized the visit:
Mustafa Zein, interview, Amman, October 7, 2012.

81
“Everything was arranged …”:
Duane R. Clarridge, telephone interview, March 21, 2013.

82
Ames’s ranking superior at the time, Alan Wolfe flew down to New Orleans:
Ibid.

83
“Abu Hassan was pleased”:
Taylor,
States of Terror
, p. 73.

84
a hidden tape recorder:
Mustafa Zein, e-mail to author, August 21, 2012, and interview, Amman, October 8, 2012.

85
“He was scared to death of it”: Charles Waverly
, interview, March 28, 2011.

86
“It was kind of creepy, riding in”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, March 5, 1977.

87
“I think they should just level the place
 …”: Ibid.

88
“One good thing came out of this war”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, April 2, 1977.

89
“I feel the Muslims are more eager …”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, February 27, 1977.

90
“three radio friends”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, March 5, 1977.

91
Half of his meetings:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, March 12, 1977.

92
he had to hide inside the trunk:
Robert Hunter, interview, March 17, 2011.

93
“Bob said it was high tension …”: Sanford Dryden
, e-mail to author, May 18, 2012.

94
“I guess none of us ever lose that strange feeling …”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, March 26, 1977.

95
“doesn’t know how to write”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, April 2, 1977.

96
“has fixed it up as only a Lebanese male can do”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, March 5, 1977.

97
solid-gold prayer beads:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, March 12, 1977.

98
“I think they’re trying to convert me!”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, March 19, 1977.

99
“Especially since she is blonde”:
Robert Ames to Yvonne, March 26, 1977.