by Neal Bascomb
“Run two of them together,” Peter Malkin asked.
Tabor arranged two slides in the projector and put the images up on the blank wall. If they were both Eichmann, Malkin was shocked at how haggard and aged the Nazi had become since the end of the war. “It’s not easy to tell, is it?”
“We can’t be one hundred percent sure until we’ve got him,” Eitan said.
“Once we’re sure,” Tabor said, his massive frame a dark silhouette at the back of the room, “why don’t we kill the bastard on the spot?”
“We all share that feeling, I’m sure,” Eitan said.
Tabor shook his head. He was Lithuanian, and his family had been killed during the Holocaust. He had seen the extermination camps at the end of the war. Revolted and enraged, he had joined a Jewish avenger group and had hunted down, interrogated, and executed numerous SS men. There was no question in any of the team members’ minds that he would gladly kill Eichmann himself if given the chance.
Over the next few hours, and during several follow-up meetings, the team ironed out the operational details. Ephraim Ilani briefed them on Argentine local customs — everything from traffic conditions, airport procedures, and styles of dress to how to rent a car or a house and how to behave at a café. Since only Ilani and Aharoni had been to Buenos Aires, and the team wanted to blend in as much as possible, this was key information.
Most of their time was spent planning how and where they would seize Eichmann. They settled on three possible methods. The first was snatching him while he was away from home. The second was a commando raid at night, taking him from his bed. The third involved grabbing him on the street near his house — a possibility given the desolate neighborhood. They’d make a final decision once they were on the ground in Buenos Aires.
Each night, Peter Malkin returned to his Tel Aviv apartment and read, then reread, the Eichmann file. Malkin had broad shoulders like a linebacker and a head like a bowling ball. His expressive, youthful face switched easily from a pensive scowl to almost clownish mirth. Now, though, the Shin Bet agent could only think of his older sister, Fruma, who had stayed behind in Poland in 1933 when the rest of her family emigrated to Palestine. She had died with her husband and three children in the Holocaust.
Malkin knew that because of his strength and speed, he would likely be the one who would actually grab Eichmann. For the first time in his thirty-three years, many of them spent in dangerous situations, he had a profound fear of failure. He focused his every waking moment on the mission ahead and spent hours crafting different disguises and practicing the exact moves needed to overpower his quarry.
With the capture plans coming together, Harel turned his attention to getting Eichmann back to Israel once he had been captured. He had already contacted Yehuda Shimoni, the manager of the Israeli national airline, El Al, to discuss the possibility of sending a plane to Argentina, where the airline did not usually fly. International flights were a much more difficult and dangerous business in 1960, especially when they involved crossing an ocean, but Shimoni assured Harel that it was technically possible for an El Al plane to reach Buenos Aires.
Fortune shone on the mission when Harel learned that Argentina would be celebrating its 150th anniversary of independence from Spain in late May. Delegations from around the world had been invited to attend the festivities — including a group from Israel. It was the ideal cover for an El Al flight.
“Okay, everyone, let’s talk,” Harel said, seating himself at the desk in his office. His secretary stubbed out her cigarette, leaving one last trail of smoke to dissipate into the air, and placed a stenographer’s pad on her lap. The small office was crowded with the key members of the Eichmann operation: Rafi Eitan, Avraham Shalom, Zvi Aharoni, Peter Malkin, Ephraim Ilani, Shalom Dani, and Moshe Tabor. Only Yaakov Gat, who was still in Paris, was absent.
“I want to begin by speaking to you from my heart,” Harel said after taking a deep breath. “This is a national mission of the first degree. It is not an ordinary capture operation, but the capture of a hideous Nazi criminal, the most horrible enemy of the Jewish people. We are not performing this operation as adventurers but as representatives of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Our objective is to bring Eichmann back safely, fully in good health, so he can be put to trial.
“There might well be difficult repercussions. We know this. We have not only the right but also the moral duty to bring this man to trial. You must remember this throughout the weeks ahead. You are guardian angels of justice, the emissaries of the Jewish people.”
The men looked at one another as Harel spoke. They knew that he had dedicated his life to Israel and that everything he did was a matter of principle, but on this day he was particularly fervent and eloquent, and his words stirred his team.
“We will bring Adolf Eichmann to Jerusalem,” Harel said, “and perhaps the world will be reminded of its responsibilities. It will be recognized that, as a people, we never forgot. Our memory reaches back through recorded history. The memory book lies open, and the hand still writes.”
He turned to Eitan. “Are your people ready?” he asked, his tone cool, no longer layered with feeling.
“All ready,” Eitan replied.
On April 24, Yaakov Gat flew into Ezeiza Airport, Buenos Aires. Born in Transylvania, a region of Romania, Gat had a personal stake in the operation to find Eichmann: Many in his extended family had been sent to extermination camps by the Nazis. Dressed in an immaculately cut suit, his suitcase in hand, Gat smoothly managed passport control despite his lack of Spanish. Then he stepped out of the plane into the harsh glare of the Argentine sun. Instead of taking a taxi, whose driver might later remember where he had dropped off his passenger, he boarded a bus outside the terminal. He was scheduled to meet Ephraim Ilani in a couple of hours. He took a seat close to the doorway, as was his habit, just in case there was a problem.
The bus to the city center was jammed with people, but there was no sign of the driver. A policeman was walking around the front of the bus. After ten minutes, no driver in sight, Gat began to worry. After twenty, he was convinced that something was terribly wrong.
Suddenly, two men rushed onto the bus, blocking the exit. Gat figured that one was the driver, because of his uniform. The other placed himself directly in front of Gat and rattled off something in Spanish. Gat froze.
The man showed him a photograph of himself in profile coming off the plane. Questions rushed through Gat’s mind. Did the Argentine police know who he was? Had they been tipped off? Did they know his passport was fake? Was he about to be detained?
Before he could react, the man turned to the next passenger and presented him with a freshly developed picture of himself. It dawned on Gat that the man was just a photographer, hoping to cash in on some tourist business. He obviously had an arrangement with the bus company and the police to hold the bus until he had developed his photos.
When the man came back around, Gat gladly paid for the picture and then eased himself back in his seat. If he had made a run for it and had been caught, he might have compromised the entire mission before it began. Such were the dangers from even the most harmless of incidents.
At eleven o’clock, Gat walked into a café in the center of Buenos Aires. Ephraim Ilani was waiting for him there, a cup of coffee in his hand and a pipe in his mouth. Twice a day he had gone to a prearranged street corner, restaurant, or café — a different rendezvous each time to avoid suspicion — expecting to meet with one of the operations team. He never knew who might arrive or on what day.
“Pleased to see you! Come, sit here!” Ilani said joyfully in English, sliding out of the booth seat.
“How are you?” Gat asked brightly in the same language, projecting his voice. “I’ve come straight from the airport.”
Later, they spoke quietly in Hebrew, then left the café to visit the safe house Ilani had found and equipped.
The next day, Zvi Aharoni met them in a similar manner at a restaurant. Since h
is last trip to Buenos Aires earlier in the month, Aharoni had let his hair grow out and now sported a mustache to avoid being recognized by anyone with whom he’d had contact on the previous visit.
Avraham Shalom was next to arrive. He had flown to Rome under one passport, switching it for another at the Israeli Embassy. Then he traveled by train to Paris, where Shalom Dani gave him an authentic German passport whose name he had carefully changed by a few letters. He had then flown to Lisbon.
Shalom had to surrender his forged passport to the Portuguese authorities until just before boarding his flight to Buenos Aires. Inexplicably, he forgot his assumed name when the policeman holding the pile of passengers’ passports asked him for it. Usually he used some kind of mnemonic device to remember his cover names, linking syllables or letters of the first name with the last, but this time his mind was struck blank. Luckily, he spotted his green passport in the pile and pointed to it, saying confidently, “That one’s mine.” The policeman handed it to him without a problem.
When Shalom arrived at the reception desk of his hotel in Buenos Aires, he gave his passport to the receptionist. The man took one look at his papers and said, “Compatriot. You’re from Hamburg. I’m from Hamburg!”
Shalom felt his limbs go weak. He was originally from Vienna and spoke German with an Austrian accent. The receptionist would surely notice that he did not speak like a German from the north. What was more, the man’s age and nationality were consistent with the possibility that he might have been a Nazi. Aiming to put him off, Shalom said that he was actually from a small town outside the city. The receptionist replied that he was from the same place. Shalom was stunned. What were the chances?! He made haste with the hotel forms, took the keys to his room, and walked away, certain that he had made a poor impression. He would have to change hotels.
The team members had scheduled a 6:00 P.M. rendezvous at the corner of Avenida Santa Fe and Avenida Callao. Shalom arrived at the same time as Aharoni and Gat.
“What do you want to do, Avrum?” Aharoni asked, deferring to Shalom as the Shin Bet deputy director.
“Let’s go to his house,” Shalom decided. “No reason to delay.”
“It’ll be dark,” Aharoni said.
“We’ll go.”
By the time they reached San Fernando by car, the sun had set, and a slight mist hung in the cool evening air. The lack of streetlights in the area was proof of its isolation. As they passed under the railway embankment on Route 202, Shalom saw small, alternating red and white lights up ahead and to his right. Soon he realized it was a person walking with a double-headed flashlight. When the car’s headlights lit up the pedestrian’s face, Shalom recognized Eichmann.
“That’s him! That’s the man,” Shalom said sharply.
Aharoni braked and steered to the side of the road, as if he expected Shalom and Gat to jump out and grab Eichmann straightaway.
“Stop that! Drive away!” Shalom said. “He’ll think that something’s wrong.”
Aharoni hit the accelerator and steered the car back onto the road, too horrified at his mistake to utter a word. Gat watched from the backseat, praying Eichmann would not turn around to see what had caused the car to slow down and veer right. Thankfully, he did not.
They continued for a few hundred feet down Route 202 before Shalom instructed Aharoni to stop.
“Gat, go after him and see if it’s Eichmann,” Shalom said.
Gat jumped out and crossed the street, keeping one hundred yards between himself and the man. The lights from the car disappeared, and the neighborhood was shrouded in darkness. He watched the red and white lights move sharply to the left and knew that the man must have turned onto Garibaldi Street. He followed. The man walked twenty yards farther before angling toward a pillbox of a house — one that matched the photographs Aharoni had taken.
A half hour later, Aharoni picked up Gat on the opposite side of the embankment.
“Eichmann,” Gat said. He was excited that they had found their target on the first night.
Shalom thought that he had seen enough to cable Harel. It was a Tuesday, and Eichmann was probably returning from work, having taken the bus. If this turned out to be the case, then it was possible that Eichmann returned home at the same time every day and walked along an empty, dark street to a house in an unlit, isolated neighborhood. It didn’t get any better for a capture operation, thought Shalom.
Early the next morning, April 27, Shalom met with Ephraim Ilani, the only member of the team working out of the Israeli embassy. He passed him a single code word to send to Tel Aviv: “Carrot” — the mission should move forward.
When he received the message later that day, Harel called Rafi Eitan and gave him the nod for the rest of the team to travel to Buenos Aires. With the mission now going ahead, Harel hurried to finalize the plans for Eichmann’s transport out of Argentina. He had already chosen the date when the special El Al flight would leave Tel Aviv for Argentina: May 11. This would allow the Foreign Ministry delegation to arrive a week before the anniversary celebrations in Argentina, and it met with El Al’s scheduling demands.
Harel met with chief pilot Zvi Tohar and the two men charged with selecting and vetting the crew: El Al Security Officer Adi Peleg and Head of Crew Assignments Baruch Tirosh. “Look, friends, this is the situation,” Harel began, gravely serious. “We have a flight to carry an Israeli delegation to the Argentine anniversary. On the return journey, we will be bringing Adolf Eichmann back with us.”
The three men listened intently as Harel detailed his plan. He wanted only Israelis selected for the flight, cabin, and ground crews. They were to be trustworthy and extremely capable. Every technical detail was to be treated with extra care. The flight crew would need to be ready to take off quickly from Buenos Aires and, potentially, to make evasive maneuvers if they were pursued by Argentine fighter planes. “What do you have to say about this?” Harel asked.
Tirosh affirmed that they could handle the assignment, but said that, given the distance, they would need two full crews. He suggested that they might throw off potential pursuers by filing a false flight plan for the return journey.
Peleg was noticeably moved by the prospect of the mission. Shortly after the Nazis had come to power in Germany, his father, a successful merchant, had been beaten and forced to drink liters of castor oil. Soon after that, he had died of a heart attack.
Harel stressed that he wanted to limit the number of stops on the return flight from Buenos Aires. Normally, three stops for refueling would be required for a journey of that distance — for example, one in Recife, Brazil; a second in Dakar, Senegal, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean; and a third in Rome, Italy, before the plane crossed the Mediterranean to Tel Aviv. Harel felt that this would provide too many opportunities for the plane to be seized should their mission be exposed.
“Will you be able to manage with only one stop?” he asked.
“It is a very long flight,” Tohar said. “Let me check it out.”
Two hours later, he rang Harel to tell him that a flight with only one stop, in Dakar, was possible at a level of risk he was willing to take. But there could be no guarantees. At some point over the Atlantic Ocean, they would pass the point of no return.
Captain Zvi Tohar, El Al.
Lying flat on their stomachs at the top of the railway embankment, their faces inches from the tracks, Shalom and Aharoni trained their binoculars on Route 202 and on the house seventy-five yards away. This was the third night they had watched Eichmann walk home.
Lights appeared on the road. Aharoni checked his watch: 7:38 P.M. On the previous two nights, at 7:40, the green and yellow No. 203 bus had stopped at the kiosk, and Eichmann had stepped off. They had his schedule down. Their whole operation would depend on his sticking to it.
Tonight, again, Eichmann stepped off of the bus. After it moved away, he turned on his flashlight and walked slowly, head down, toward his house.
Avraham Shalom had been struck by Eichmann�
��s impoverished existence. He lived in a shabby neighborhood, without electricity or running water, and dressed in the threadbare clothes of a simple factory worker. Given the power Eichmann had once held, it was hard for Shalom to believe that this was the same man.
Shalom and Aharoni watched the house for a few more minutes. Then they descended the embankment, where Gat picked them up at a prearranged time. The three men returned to the safe house, a grand second-floor apartment in an exclusive neighborhood. They had dubbed the place Maoz, which means “stronghold” in Hebrew. They needed to find another safe house in which to keep Eichmann, one with very specific requirements: It had to be a large house in a fairly wealthy area so that several expensive cars could be seen coming and going without arousing suspicion. It had to be private, therefore detached, and preferably have a fenced garden and an attached garage so they could bring their prisoner directly inside without anyone seeing him. Finally, the location had to be remote — but not too far from either San Fernando or the airport — and accessible by a variety of routes. In the best case, they would rent a house from a local Jew, explaining that they wanted to use it for the Israeli diplomatic delegation. Then, if circumstances demanded, they could call on their landlord to turn a blind eye.
The team decided to split into two groups and spend all of the next day checking out suitable locations.
“The initial team has located Eichmann and reported good chances for the operation.” Harel was standing across from David Ben-Gurion in the Prime Minister’s office.
“Are you certain that the man is Adolf Eichmann?” Ben-Gurion asked.
The Mossad chief listed his reasons, although he had come to see Ben-Gurion to ask for his farewell blessing, not to be quizzed. Harel was scheduled to depart for Buenos Aires the following day, and Ben-Gurion was hesitant about him joining the task force. Having an intelligence agent caught on foreign soil would be a problem; having the chief of Israel’s security services caught on foreign soil would be a disaster. Harel understood this, but he wanted to be on the ground in Buenos Aires to make sure that everything went well. He felt that the mission was too important and too complicated to be trusted to someone else.