GLOSSARY
Active measures Operations to influence or otherwise affect other
ANC nations’ policies African National Congress
ANO Abu Nidal Organization
AFR Automatic fingerprint recognition
AI Artificial intelligence
AL Specialist unit operating under deep cover in the United States
Aman Israeli military intelligence
ASU Active service terrorist unit
AWAC Airborne warning and control aircraft
Babbler Counterbugging device
Backstopping Fake identification papers
Base Permanent station in foreign country
Bat leveyha Female assistant agent
Better world Euphemism for killing enemy agent; similarly, to “send a person on vacation” means to injure him/her—the extent of the injury depends on whether the “vacation” is to be brief or long
Bioleverage Euphemism for blackmail—literally, the use of derogatory information to coerce someone
Blind dating Meeting place chosen by a contact to meet his controller
Blow-back Fake stories fed to foreign news media
Bodel A courier
BND BundesNachrichtenDienst, German Federal Intelligence Service, concerned with both foreign and domestic intelligence
Bug Electronic device for hearing and recording
Burn An agent deliberately sacrificed in order to protect a more valuable spy
BW Biological weapons
Case death Operation that fails for no obvious reason
Case officer In charge of field agents
CAT Computer-aided tomography
Chamfering Technique for opening sealed mail
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CIS Commonwealth of Independent States
CIO Central Imagery Office
Cold approach Attempt to recruit a foreign national
Comint Acronym for communications intelligence
Cover Identity assumed by intelligence officer when abroad
Cultivation Establishing rapport with a source of information
CW Chemical weapons
Daylight Highest form of alert
Dardasim Agents operating in China
DEA Drug Enforcement Administration
DI Directorate of Intelligence
DCI Director of Central Intelligence Agency
DIA Defence Intelligence Agency
Diamond Communications unit
DO Directorate of Operations
Dry cleaning Various techniques to avoid surveillance
ECM Electronic countermeasure
EDP Electronic data processing
Elint Electronic intelligence intercepted from radar, satellites
Exfiltrate Removing an agent from hostile country
Falach Agent working in Lebanon
FACES Facial Analysis Comparison and Elimination System
False flagging Recruiting a person who believes he or she will be working for another country or interest
Fumigate Sweeping an area for electronic bugs
Go-away Prearranged signal not to make contact at previously arranged rendezvous
Grinder Debriefing room, also used to interrogate suspects
Honey trap Sexual entrapment for intelligence purposes
Humint Intelligence gathered by agents in the field
IDA Intelligence database
IED Improvised explosive device
IFF Identification, friend or foe
II Image identification
Institute Formal name of Mossad—Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations; originally called Institute for Coordination
IR Infrared
ISA Intelligence support activity
JIL Joint Intelligence Center
Jumper Agent working overseas on short-term assignment
Katsa Case officer
Kidon Operative specializing in assassination
LAKAM Intelligence agency gathering scientific data
Legend Bogus biography for katsa
LAP Department of Psychological Warfare
Light cover Katsa working under diplomatic cover
Loot Intelligence gathered from operations
Mabuah A non-Jewish informer
Measles Assassination that appears to stem from natural causes
Meluckha Recruiting department
Memune Title given to director general of Mossad
Miketel Bug for intercepting/recording telephone calls
Mishlashim Dead letter box; a secure place for an agent to receive or drop off information
Music box Radio transmitter
Naka Writing system
Nativ Agent working in former Soviet Union
Neviot Surveillance specialist
NHITC National Human Intelligence Tasking Center
NIC National Intelligence Center
NSA National Security Agency
NSTL National security threat list
OAU Organization of African Unity
Oter Arab recruited to work with other Arabs
PFLP Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
PLF Palestine Liberation Front
PLO Palestine Liberation Organization
Photint Photographic intelligence
PROD Technique for retrieving photographs from optical disc
Radint Radar intelligence
Reg-sig Recognition signal for katsa to make contact with field agent in public place
RAF Red Army Faction (Germany)
Safanim Unit to target PLO
Safe house Apartment or house used for secret meetings or as an operations base
Shicklut Surveillance department
Sleeper Katsa/agent to be called upon in only the most dire circumstances
Slick Hiding place for documents
Target Intelligence assignment
Teud Forged document
Telint Telemetry intelligence
Vacuamer Agent who provides details of all aspects of a target
Walk-in Person who volunteers to serve
Wash Recycling of a valid passport obtained by theft or purchased
Yahalomin Special communications unit
MOSSAD DIRECTORS GENERAL
1951–1952 REUVEN SHILOAH
1952–1963 ISSER HAREL
1963–1968 MEIR AMIT
1968–1974 ZVI ZAMIR
1974–1982 YITZHAK HOFI
1982–1990 NAHUM ADMONI
1990–1996 SHABTAI SHAVIT
1996–1998 DANNY YATOM
1998–2002 EFRAIM HALEVY
2002– MEIR DAGAN
ALSO BY GORDON THOMAS
Nonfiction
DESCENT INTO DANGER
BED OF NAILS
PHYSICIAN EXTRAORDINARY
HEROES OF THE R.A.F.
THEY GOT BACK
MIRACLE OF SURGERY
THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE AND YOU
THAMES NUMBER ONE
MIDNIGHT TRADERS
THE PARENTS’ HOME DOCTOR (with Ian D. Hudson and Vincent Pippet)
TURN BY THE WINDOW (with Ronald Hutchinson)
ISSELS: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DOCTOR
THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (with Max Morgan-Witts)
EARTHQUAKE (with Max Morgan-Witts)
SHIPWRECK (with Max Morgan-Witts)
VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED (with Max Morgan-Witts)
THE DAY GUERNICA DIED (with Max Morgan-Witts)
ENOLA GAY/RUIN FROM THE AIR (with Max Morgan-Witts)
THE DAY THE BUBBLE BURST (with Max Morgan-Witts)
TRAUMA (with Max Morgan-Witts)
PONTIFF (with Max Morgan-Witts)
THE YEAR OF ARMAGEDDON (with Max Morgan-Witts)
THE OPERATION
DESIRE AND DENIAL
THE TRIAL: THE LIFE AND INEVITABLE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS
JOURNEY INTO MADNESS
ENSLAVED
CHAOS UNDER HEAVEN
TRESPASS
INTO TEMPTATION
MAGDALENE: THE WOMAN WHO LOVED JESUS
THE ASSASSINATION OF ROBERT MAXWELL: ISRAEL’S
SUPERSPY (with Martin Dillan)
THE SECRET ARMIES OF THE CIA
Fiction
THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND
TORPEDO RUN
DEADLY PERFUME
GODLESS ICON
VOICES IN THE SILENCE
ORGAN HUNTERS
POISONED SKY
Universal Critical Acclaim for Gideon’s Spies
“Tells it like it was—and like it is.”
—Meir Amit, former director general of Mossad
“Gripping and compulsively readable.”
—Sunday Express (UK)
“Gordon Thomas has a grasp of history … . This is one of the few books to have captured the true nature of the Israeli government and the thought process of the Israeli power elite … . This book is a must for any student of modern Middle Eastern history.”
—Ari Ben-Menashe, former advisor on Intelligence to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and the Israeli government
“Thomas provides readers with a good sense of how the Mossad trains its agents. Fun read.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A fascinating look at a spy organization that has remained off-limits to most journalists. Some of the incredible episodes Gordon Thomas writes about seem like they belong in fiction, and yet this is a first-rate nonfiction account.”
—Mary Fischer, GO magazine
“Gordon Thomas has kept his head above the orchestrated campaigns of disinformation and produced a document about the Mossad that is as balanced and as truthful as can be arranged. This book is neither a vilification nor a condemnation of the Mossad. Thomas clearly understood Israel’s dilemmas when he put together this fine work.”
—Barry Chamish, coeditor of Israel Today Intelligence Review and author of Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin?
“A thought-provoking and compelling book.”
—David Pitt, Booklist
“Gordon Thomas digs deeply into the secrets of the Israeli intelligence service as a result of being given exclusive access.”
—Soldier magazine (UK)
“Rich in detail … powerful in the writing.”
—El Pais (Spain)
“Fascinating from beginning to end.”
—Japan Times (Japan)
“A story crying out to be filmed! All-action, great characters.”
—Hollywood Reporter
“Great revelations. The author of this acclaimed history of Mossad has done it again.”
—Drudge Report
“Here is real insider stuff, written by an acknowledged expert. It is shocking and absorbing; rich and powerful. Go buy it!”
—All American Radio, Washington, DC
“Gordon Thomas has written a major work on the history of the Israeli secret service, Mossad.”
—Ireland on Sunday (Ireland)
“Using eyewitness accounts from director, agents, and even assassins, Thomas goes where few writers have gone before—inside the Mossad, Israel’s ruthless, super-secretive intelligence agency.”
—Maxim
“This is essential reading for anyone concerned with the Middle East and world affairs.”
—Al-Wasat (Saudi Arabia)
“Thomas meticulously documents the shadowy world of spies and covert operations. Espionage buffs will love every page.”
—Booklist
“What he says is always ominous—but never judgmental. That is what makes this book one of the most trusted on the world of secret intelligence.”
—European (Spain)
“A compelling read, with any number of disturbing revelations.”
—FHM
“Reveals for the first time that all too often the truth exceeds all the fantasies that Mossad has attracted.”
—Bolton Evening News (UK)
NOTES ON SOURCES
I have had access at a sufficiently high level within the Israeli intelligence community to have made this an authoritative account. As with my previous books, I came to the subject of Mossad with no baggage. I have used information its members provided in the way any writer does when dealing with an intelligence service: checked it, checked it, checked it.
Some eighty hours of taped recollections were made, including repeated interviews with persons connected directly or indirectly with Mossad. Others were with persons Mossad had tried to kill. They included Leila Khaled, who came to notoriety during the spate of aircraft hijackings by the PLO in the 1970s, and Abu Al-Abbas, who masterminded the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in which a crippled American Jewish passenger was hurled over the side of the cruise liner to his death. I met them in May 1996 in Gaza City, where they had been permitted to visit Israel as part of its rapprochement with the PLO. I also spoke to Yasser Arafat, himself once a prime target for Mossad assassination.
I was introduced to the business of writing on intelligence matters in 1960 when I worked with Chapman Pincher, then Britain’s foremost writer on the subject. We were both employed by the Daily Express in London. A number of our stories—notably the Burgess and Maclean debacle for British intelligence—helped to change the perception of how such matters should be reported. It is a position I have tried to maintain with such books as Journey into Madness, Pontiff, and Chaos Under Heaven. The Black Book of the CIA, Secrets & Lies, and Secret Wars; the latter title published by the publisher of this book.
I have reported on the secret intelligence wars being waged against Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, areas in which Mossad remains directly involved. I have also written extensively on Mossad’s relationship with the Vatican. My own contacts with the Holy See were useful in conducting further background interviews for this book.
In 1989 I was in China at the height of the student unrest. Once more I witnessed the machinations of intelligence agencies and detected the hand of Mossad over its concern that China’s exporting of weapons to both Iran and Iraq could pose a serious threat to Israel. I went on to write about the role of Mossad in the Persian Iraqi War and in the aftermath of Soviet Communism.
In August 1994 I received a call from Zvi Spielmann. Spielmann is something of a legend in Israel: he fought with distinction in its War of Independence and went on to create Israel’s United Film Studios. He has produced a raft of films, many of them Hollywood coproductions. Spielmann asked if I would write and present a documentary on Mossad. He assured me I would have a completely free hand, that the only restriction on the information I obtained would be the questions I asked to obtain it; the more I asked, the more I would learn.
I discovered that, apart from Victor Ostrovsky’s books, and the work of Ari Ben-Menashe, there was precious little to read about Mossad in the way of hard information. This was in marked contrast to the CIA, which has some two hundred books devoted to its work. The British Secret Intelligence Service has close to fifty, and similar numbers are in print for the KGB and the German and French intelligence agencies. But a check on their contents showed where there were gaps in the secret wars they had waged. It became clear that Mossad could fill many of these.
On trips to Israel, some on behalf of Britain’s Channel 4, the process of interviewing was like any other. The time frame of the story my interviewees had to tell initially encompassed a strange period, somewhere between recent history and fading memory. Gradually, as we came to know each other and their accounts moved closer to the present time, they became more specific, better able to remember the minutiae—who said what, when, and where.
It became clear that even those who had helped found Mossad had vivid recollections of a period that was part of their living history—and that had never been recounted from their perspective. Most important, they could relate those earlier times to the present day. For example, when they identified Mossad’s role in the closing days of the shah of Iran, they translated it as the root of the current scourge of Islamic fundamentalism. When the
y revealed Mossad’s involvement with South Africa, they were able to juxtapose it with that country’s situation today. Time and again they showed how the past was part of Israel’s present; how Mossad had bridged the gap between then and now.
They showed that legends attributed to Mossad paled into insignificance when placed against what really had happened. I remember Rafael Eitan chuckling and saying, “Almost every published fact about the capture of Eichmann is pure bullshit. I know because I personally am the man who captured him.”
In many ways Eitan and his colleagues turned myths into a compelling reality. They asked I should do no less.
Listening to Eitan, his achievements seemed to be as inexhaustible as his energy. He had fought a great secret war. A man of endless vision, all he asked was to live long enough to see the day when Israel would truly be at peace. In October 2008, Eitan told a German magazine that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad should be kidnapped and brought to trial at the Hague War Crimes Tribunal. Eitan was then the head of the Pensioners Party in the Israeli Knesset.
I learned quickly that there were distinct and acrimonious camps among my interviewees. There were the “Isser Harel” people and the “Meir Amit” people, and the contempt each had for the other was undimmed by the years. I sensed there will never be a mellowing on either side.
This led to an additional problem: weighing the emphasis to be put on their information. My interviewees are also in a race with time. Men like Meir Amit are in the twilight of their lives. It was to his credit that he was willing to endure lengthy interviews and repetitive questions. He granted his last one shortly after he had returned from Vietnam, where he had gone to learn firsthand about how the Vietcong had often outsmarted U.S. intelligence in the Vietnam War.
Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad Page 82