“It was all very, very secret” Interview with Natan Rotberg, July 13, 2015.
“We had our limitations” Interview with Yigal Simon, July 29, 2012.
At a secret meeting on June 11, 1953 Cabinet Secretariat, Cabinet Decision no. 426 of June 11,1953 (author’s archive, received from Gilad Livneh).
“He was confident that with seven or eight good men” Gilad Sharon, Sharon: The Life of a Leader, 82 (Hebrew).
Unit 101 came into being Unit 101 was given the same number as the special force to which the famed British officer Orde Charles Wingate had belonged in Ethiopia and Eritrea during World War II. Prior to that war, Wingate had been posted in Palestine, where he had headed the joint British-Jewish Night Squads. He was considered a hero by many IDF senior figures who had served under him in the Night Squads. The date of the formation of the unit is taken from a lecture given by Ariel Sharon in Sderot on March 20, 2003.
“This unit was set up for the purpose of operations across the border” Sharon, Life of a Leader, 552.
the first to try out the new and still secret Israeli-made Uzi Interview with Uzi Gal, November 2002.
Sharon, craving action, drew up plans Interview with Uzi Eilam, December 2, 2009.
The government vowed to retaliate Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 1949–1956, 274–76 (Hebrew).
“In the Qibya operation” Ilil Blum, “Father’s Great Spirit,” Yedioth Jerusalem, May 1, 2009.
The death toll was sixfold higher Oddly, the number of the resolution condemning Israel for the raid was 101. Security Council Resolution 101 (1953), November 24, 1953 (S/3139/Rev.2).
Unit 101 “proved…that there was no mission it could not carry out” From a lecture given by Sharon in Sderot on March 20, 2003.
Dayan merged it with the Paratroopers Brigade Dayan, Story of My Life, 113–15 (Hebrew).
Sharett wrote in his diary Sharett, “Personal Diary,” vol. C, 823 (Hebrew). Gratitude to Yaakov Sharett, son of Moshe, who called my attention to this entry.
In the middle of the 1950s, Hafez was winning Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 1949–1956, 81, 101, 343–45 (Hebrew).
Yet he was a vague figure, cloaked in shadows Interview with Nimrodi, December 14, 2010. Thanks to Ofer Nimrodi and Shimon Shapira for their help in setting up the interview.
the seminal formulation of Israeli militarism Aluf Benn, “Militaristic and Post-Zionist,” Haaretz, May 9, 2011.
“This is our generation’s destiny” Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, 128–29 (Hebrew).
Natan promised his uncle, Shmaryahu, that he would avenge Roi, his son Interview with Rotberg, August 3, 2015.
“which sets off the bomb, and—kaboom!” Interview with Rotberg, August 3, 2015.
“When he pulled the book out of the package” Egyptian Military Intelligence, Inquiry into the Death of Colonel Hafez, July 16, 1956 (author’s archive, received from Nimrodi).
The same day Hafez was killed Dar, encouraged by his success, suggested to Dayan that he go a step further and use a double agent to assassinate a Syrian general, the chief of Military Intelligence. Dayan approved the detailed operational order and passed it on to Ben-Gurion but he demurred. The Israeli PM was afraid that repeated assassinations of senior government officials would motivate the Arabs to retaliate against their counterparts in Israel, perhaps even against himself, and did not approve the operation. Interview with Dar, October 8, 2015.
CHAPTER 4: THE ENTIRE SUPREME COMMAND, WITH ONE BLOW
try to make it look as if the plane had crashed because of a technical fault Israeli military censors barred publication of details about the operation until 1989. Recording of Mordechai Bar-On about Dayan, from the seminar “Operation Rooster 56,” March 5, 2015.
AMAN assigned the task of identifying and tracking the air convoy Interview with Gelber, May 16, 2011. Uri Dromi, “Urgent Message to the CoS: The Egyptian Code Has Been Decrypted,” Haaretz, August 29, 2011.
Days passed slowly, radio operators patiently waiting Interview with Yom-Tov Eini, January 19, 1999. Argaman, It Was Top Secret, 39–60.
Mattias “Chatto” Birger, commander of the air force’s 119 Squadron Tsiddon- Chatto, By Day, By Night, Through Haze and Fog, 220–21 (Hebrew).
“the downing of the Egyptian General Staff” Nevertheless, it’s difficult to find grounds for the claim about its immediate effect. In Egypt, nothing has ever been published about the incident. In Israel as well—as far as the research for this book has managed to discover—no specific information has been registered regarding the identity of the people on board the Ilyushin that blew up, or about any problems faced by the Egyptian high command in the wake of the interception. Interviews with David Siman Tov and Shai Herschkowitz, February 12, 2017, Yoram Meital, October 18, 2013, and Motti Golani, January 15, 2013.
ordered that it be leaked to The New York Times On Monday, June 4, 1956, The New York Times published the news that the text of the speech was in American hands, and the next day it ran lengthy excerpts from it, under a heavy bank of headlines: KHRUSHCHEV TALK ON STALIN BARES DETAILS OF RULE BASED ON TERROR. CHARGES PLOT FOR KREMLIN PURGES. DEAD DICTATOR PAINTED AS SAVAGE, HALF-MAD AND POWER-CRAZED. The publication sent shock waves around the world, exactly what the CIA was looking for.
The secret alliance between American and Israeli intelligence was born Other Israeli and American intelligence organizations besides the Mossad and the CIA have forged links with each other as well. Particularly important was the relationship between the American NSA and its Israeli counterpart, Unit 8200 of AMAN. Among the documents that Edward Snowden leaked, there were several historical surveys of these relations, dating back to the early 1960s and documenting deep cooperation in espionage against common adversaries in the Middle East. Perusal of Snowden documents in a vault of The Intercept, New York, May 2016, made possible through assistance and cooperation of that website’s staff, with special thanks to Henrik Moltke.
Israel’s Sinai Campaign of 1956 Interview with Harel, April 6, 2001. The most detailed report on the Suez Campaign and Israeli gains and losses may be found in Golani, There Will Be War Next Summer, 597–620 (Hebrew).
“the periphery doctrine” David Kimche, a senior Mossad commander in Africa, explained: “It cost us the same amount of money to send over to Africa an expert on henhouses or an instructor on intelligence gathering. The latter would end up meeting the emperor. The former would end up in a henhouse. It’s obvious what our first choice was. Intelligence liaisons were the fastest way to foster an intimate relationship.” Interviews with David Kimche, August 18, 1998, Harel, April 6, 2001, Reuven Merhav, April 22, 2014, Ben-Natan, September 13, 2010, Tamar Golan, September 24, 2007, Hannan Bar-On, December 30, 1997, Yoav Biran, April 22, 1999, Lubrani, December 26, 1997, and Arie Oded, September 16, 1998. Pilpul in Addis Ababa to the MFA—Report on meeting with Ethiopian Emperor and chief of staff, August 25, 1957, ISA 3740/9. Black and Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars, 186.
the CIA provided funds for its activities Ben-Gurion explained the nature of this alliance in a letter he sent to President Dwight Eisenhower: “With the goal of erecting a high dam to stem the Nasserite-Soviet tidal wave, we have begun tightening our links with several states on the outside perimeter of the Middle East….Our goal is to organize a group of countries, not necessarily an official alliance, that would be able to resist Soviet expansion by proxy, such as Nasser.” Eshed, One Man’s Mossad, 277. The C’LIL agreement called for periodic meetings between the heads of the intelligence bodies of the three states, with a different country serving as host each time. The three nations also set up a complex mechanism for intelligence coordination and information exchange on various issues. Israel considered C’LIL an unprecedented strategic achievement, as Israel had positioned itself as the central axis in a military-intelligence pact. In regional disputes that arose between Turkey and Iran, C’LI
L served as a platform and Israel as arbitrator. “At the time,” explained Reuven Merhav, a Mossad official who was involved in planning the C’LIL meetings, “all the heads of intelligence in Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia had a direct link to the boss, whether it was the shah or emperor Haile Selassie. Through C’LIL, it was possible to pass messages and ideas directly to the ruler. [The original triple alliance] gave us a triple orgasm, and with the inclusion of Ethiopia, a quadruple orgasm.” The CIA wanted to express its appreciation for the establishment of Trident, and it financed the construction of a two-story building on a hilltop outside Tel Aviv to serve as the alliance’s HQ. Interviews with Reuven Merhav, April 22, 2014, Harel, March 1999, and Yossi Alpher, May 18, 2015. Ronen Bergman, “Israel and Africa: Military and Intelligence Liaisons,” Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 53–78. Bureau of Minister of Defense, report on meeting between Lt. Col. Vardi and Emperor of Ethiopia, February 24, 1958, Ministry of Defense and IDF Archives (MODA) 63-10-2013.
Bauer left him alone, with the classified documents lying on the desktop Interviews with Zvi Aharoni, July 1998, Medan, June 30, 2015, and “Lexicon,” March 2016. Mossad, Report Regarding Dybbuk, Zvi Aharoni, March 4, 1960. Mossad, Operation Eichmann: A Report on Stage A, Zvi Aharoni, undated (both in author’s archive, received from “Lexicon”).
Ben-Gurion authorized Harel to go to Buenos Aires Interviews with Zvi Aharoni, July 1998, Amram Aharoni, October 21, 2012, and “Ethan,” May 2016. Neal Bascomb, Hunting Eichmann, 208–18 (Hebrew).
Harel was considered the strongman An expression of Harel’s unprecedented power can be found in the way he himself described, to Mossad historians in the early 1980s, his relationship with the prime minister, apparently unaware of the grave flaws in his understanding of democracy. “Ben-Gurion never gave us operational orders. He would express some concern or wish for something. He did not know how to translate his ideas into the language of operations, and indeed he did not need to know. The prime minister should deal with setting policy and not with details, on the basis of certain principles, of course.” The Mossad summed it up, “Isser [Harel] generally did not report to the prime minister precisely what he was doing and how he was operating.” Mossad, History Department, “The German Scientists Affair,” 1982, 14, henceforth Mossad German Scientists Dossier (author’s archive, received from “Toblerone”).
CHAPTER 5: “AS IF THE SKY WERE FALLING ON OUR HEADS”
the new Al-Zafer (the Victor) model Central Intelligence Agency, Scientific Intelligence Memorandum, “The United Arab Republic Missile Program,” February 26, 1963, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001173825.pdf.
the Egyptian military was now capable of hitting any point Jay Walz, “Nasser Exhibits Military Might,” New York Times, July 24, 1962.
“Former German Nazis are now helping Nasser” Edwin Eitan, Canadian Jewish Chronicle, May 10, 1963.
a humiliating failure for Harel’s Mossad Later examination revealed that Mossad personnel in Europe had in fact garnered various items of information in the years prior to the parade indicating that Nasser was recruiting German scientists. The Mossad tried to blame Military Intelligence and the Defense Ministry for the failure, claiming it had conveyed the information to them but they had made light of it. Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 8–10.
the German scientists developing the Egyptian missiles Harel allocated the task of uncovering the conspiracies that he was sure veterans of the Wehrmacht, the Gestapo, and the SS were plotting to a group of German-speaking Mossad personnel. This unit, code-named Amal, did not discover anything, because there were no such plots. Embarrassingly, the one case in which former figures in Hitler’s advanced weaponry program were in fact involved, the Egyptian missile project, remained undetected. Yossi Chen, the Mossad, History Department, “Staff Organization, Amal-Meser,” May 2007.
“I felt helpless” Many Mossad and AMAN staffers interviewed for this book recall a similar sense of shock and anxiety when the first details about the German scientists and their project came out. Moti Kfir of AMAN’s Unit 188 said: “I had a big fear, a real sense of existential danger.” Interviews with Moti Kfir, June 9, 2011, and Ben-Natan, September 13, 2010.
“It was one of the most important and traumatic events” Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 2.
The document was an order written in 1962 by Pilz Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 17.
Harel’s plan, then, was to kidnap or to eliminate the Germans Interview with Eitan, September 1, 2013.
Harel decided to act against Krug Interview with Harel, April 6, 2001. Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 39.
On Monday, September 10, at 5:30 P.M. Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 40–41.
Krug met Oded in the lobby Eyewitnesses at the Ambassador Hotel, including the reception clerks, and at the Intra offices who were questioned later by the police said Saleh was “of Levantine appearance.” An identikit reconstruction of his likeness was printed prominently in the press with reports of Krug’s disappearance. “The truth is that the identikit was quite like me,” Oded says with a smile. It meant that he’d been burned, and he was told not to travel to Germany for ten years. Oded says that from the moment the door closed behind Krug he “disengaged from the entire operation” and that “he has no idea what happened to the German.” Interview with Oded, August 3, 2015.
“Do exactly what we say or we’ll finish you off” Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 43–44.
the Mossad launched a wide-ranging disinformation operation Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 44–45. Interview with “Patriot,” September 2013.
“yielded much fruit” Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 45.
to take Krug to a deserted spot north of Tel Aviv and shoot him The execution of Krug really angered some of the few Mossad people who knew about it. Zvi Aharoni (who later on was to become a bitter opponent of Harel) said, “This was an unforgivable act, a stain on all of us.” Rafi Eitan observed: “That was Isser’s way. I don’t think he got Ben-Gurion’s okay.” Interviews with “Patriot,” August 2011, Zvi Aharoni, July 1998, and Amram Aharoni, May 3, 2016.
Isser Harel resented Unit 188 Head of AMAN Chaim Herzog to chief of staff, January 2, 1962. Shaul Avigur, Report of the Committee for Examining the Intelligence Community, July 31, 1963, 3, MODA 7-64-2012.
188 had a veteran operative under deep cover in Egypt Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 45.
Yariv ordered Natan Rotberg to start preparing the bombs Interview with Rotberg, August 3, 2015.
Unit 188 also helped the French smuggle explosives into Cairo Yosef Yariv, commander of Unit 188, coordinated these activities in Paris, together with deputy AMAN chief Prof. Yuval Neeman (a prominent physicist and one of the founders of the Israeli nuclear project), who said that “If I saw that the French wanted something from us, a murder for example, that if it came out later, would really embarrass the State of Israel, I decided that I would make the decision, and if there was a fiasco, I would bear full responsibility.” Interviews with Yuval Neeman, August 2011, Harel, August 1998, Meir Amit, July 12, 2005. Bar-Zohar, Phoenix: Shimon Peres—A Political Biography, 344 (Hebrew). Harel, Security and Democracy, 295.
Brunner received a large envelope in Damascus In July 1980, this time with the enthusiastic authorization of Prime Minister Begin, the Mossad sent another letter bomb to Brunner. The ostensible sender was the “Association of Friends of Medicinal Plants” because Brunner was known to be a firm believer in this form of medicine. He opened it and it exploded, causing the loss of several fingers. Interview with Rotberg, August 3, 2015, and “the Pilot,” March 2015. Adam Chandler, “Eichmann’s Best Man Lived and Died in Syria,” Atlantic, December 1, 2014.
“I oppose any action that I don’t control” Interview with Eitan, December 1, 2012.
getting to the Germans in Egypt turned out to be a very complica
ted matter Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 52.
The next target on Harel’s hit list was Dr. Hans Kleinwächter Interviews with Harel, August 1998, and Zvi Aharoni, July 1998. Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 74.
“We needed to wait a bit and create a trap of our own” Interview with Eitan, December 1, 2012. Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 61.
Vallentin had grasped that Kleinwächter would be the Mossad’s next target Interview with Zvi Aharoni, July 1998.
Aharoni got out of the car and went up to Kleinwächter Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 62–64. Interviews with Nehemia Meiri, June 12, 2012, and Harel, April 6, 2001.
These operations also failed dismally Bar-Zohar, Issar Harel and Israel’s Security Services, 237–38 (Hebrew).
information gathered in Cairo about a Dr. Hans Eisele Mossad German Scientists Dossier, 66.
three journalists, whom he subsequently recruited into the Mossad His new recruits were Shmuel Segev of Maariv, Naftali Lavie of Haaretz, and Yeshayahu Ben-Porat of Yedioth Ahronoth. “Disenchik [Aryeh Disenchik, Maariv’s editor in chief] supported Golda and Isser,” Segev said. “He wanted to make use of my materials to demolish Ben-Gurion and Peres, and then prevented me from speaking about the subject because he knew that my position was different.” Interview with Shmuel Segev, June 6, 2010.
Harel’s stories generated a media frenzy Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, 534–35.
Ben-Gurion tried to calm Harel down Meir Amit to Aharon Yariv (handwritten), Office of the Chief of AMAN, March 28, 1964 (author’s archive, received from Amos Gilboa).
“He was not, in my opinion, quite sane” Bar-Zohar, Phoenix, 362 (Hebrew).
It ended, as most obsessions do, in Harel’s own destruction Harel later gave his version to a number of journalists and writers, and this was reflected in their writings, which were very supportive of Harel. Among these writings were Kotler, Joe Returns to the Limelight, 34–38; Bar-Zohar, Isser Harel and Israel’s Security Services, 239–49 (Hebrew), and Caroz (Harel’s deputy), The Man with Two Hats, 160–63 (Hebrew).
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