Hunting Eichmann

by Neal Bascomb

  Aharoni also traveled to Tucumán to check out the CAPRI company. It took only a couple of days to discover that the company had closed in 1953, contrary to their intelligence that Eichmann still worked there. Aharoni was fairly certain now that the reason he had seen Eichmann in Buenos Aires on almost every reconnoiter of his house over the past two weeks had nothing to do with the occasion of his silver anniversary. He likely worked in the area, a key piece of information.

  On Sunday, April 3, Aharoni returned to San Fernando to make one further attempt to get a close-up photograph of Eichmann. He brought two volunteers with him: Roberto, the student who had first brought the postcard to 4261 Chacabuco Street, and "Rendi," a sayan who looked old enough to be out searching for a house for his family, which was his cover story. Aharoni had taught Rendi how to hold the briefcase camera and release the shutter. He parked the pickup truck he was driving underneath the railway bridge, seventy-five yards from the house. Then he sent Rendi out.

  Rendi cut across the field to the house. Through his binoculars, Aharoni nervously followed him as he walked up to Eichmann and his son Dieter, who were working in the yard. If there was any sign that Rendi was in danger, he planned to rush the house himself. Two minutes passed. Then three. Then four. Rendi continued to speak to the two men as if they were old friends.

  At last he walked away, heading toward Eichmann's neighbors, as instructed by Aharoni, to inquire of them how much it would cost to build a house in the area. Then Rendi headed back up to the kiosk, where he waited for a bus back to the San Fernando station. Rendi was confident that he had not been suspected of taking any photographs. Three days later, when Aharoni received the developed film, he was delighted to see that Rendi had taken perfectly focused shots of Eichmann and his son at three or four different angles, all of them up close. With these photographs, Israeli identification experts could confirm what Aharoni already knew beyond a doubt: Eichmann had been found.

  In the meantime, Aharoni had received his orders from Harel to return as soon as possible to Tel Aviv to provide a full report. He tied up some loose ends—returning his rental cars and bidding Yossef farewell—and boarded a flight to Paris on April 8. He was satisfied that he had accomplished his mission.

  Yaakov Gat welcomed Aharoni at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, where he had a one-day layover before his connection to Tel Aviv. Aharoni returned with Gat to his apartment on the Right Bank, where he showed him the negatives of the photographs of Eichmann. Each man told the other about his investigation. They felt as if they were the only two people in the world in on a great secret. They were both sure that an operation was now inevitable, and both wanted to be on the team.

  Aharoni promised that he would ask Harel to include Gat in the operation when he reported his findings in Tel Aviv. Even so, he was not sure that he himself would be included in the mission. It was certainly beyond his expertise, and he had already accepted that he would probably have to return to his interrogation work. Such was life, he thought, feeling a little disappointed.

  The next day, Aharoni boarded the flight to Tel Aviv. He was shocked to see Isser Harel coming down the aisle. Harel sat down next to Aharoni, acting as if he were a total stranger. Only after the plane took off did he turn to Aharoni and ask, "Are you definitively sure this is our man?"

  Aharoni retrieved a negative from his coat pocket, proud that the Mossad chief was depending on his judgment. "I have not the slightest doubt. Here's the picture."

  Harel studied the photograph for a moment and said, "Okay. In that case, we're going to get him."

  "Will I be on the team?" Aharoni asked, assuming the worst.

  "Did you ever think otherwise? We need you for it."

  Aharoni rested his head on the back of the seat, feeling exuberant.

  15

  AVRAHAM SHALOM WALKED through the terminal building at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv on the morning of April 10, exhausted after an intense undercover operation. He had journeyed several hundred miles across the Arabian Desert in a truck to reach his departing flight. Going through passport control, he took care to remember the details of his alias so as to avoid any problems that might delay a shower and crawling into bed.

  As he walked out of the airport, his heart sank when he was met by one of Harel's men. "Isser wants to see you," the man said.

  "When?" Shalom asked.

  "Now."

  Shalom nodded and folded himself into the man's car. After nine years of working for Harel, he knew that his chief would not waste time on a frivolous meeting.

  The thirty-three-year-old deputy of Shin Bet operations had the stout body of a wrestler and the kind of common, indistinctive face one usually forgets once the person has left the room. Originally from Vienna, Shalom had lived through one year of the Nazis' occupation of Austria before his well-to-do family immigrated to Palestine. He did not leave unscathed. On the day of Kristallnacht, everyone in his neighborhood knew that the Germans were about to launch attacks on the Jews, but his mother made him go to school anyway. While his teachers looked on, he was beaten so badly by thirty of his classmates, some of whom he thought were his closest friends, that he had to stay in bed for two weeks to recover. He was only nine and was still coming to understand what it meant to be Jewish. Up to then, he had hardly even known his religious faith, since his parents never attended synagogue. He did not return to school. Soon afterward, his father's linen manufacturing company was taken over by the Nazis, and the family was forced from their apartment—and ultimately their country.

  In Palestine, unable to speak Hebrew and feeling out of place, he spent much of his first year in silence, a trait he retained, speaking only when absolutely necessary. Like other boys at the kibbutz, he joined the Haganah when the War of Independence broke out. He handled the mortar for his platoon, and on May 15, 1948, he was on the Lebanese border when the Arabs attacked Israel in large numbers. His platoon of thirty men, all of whom he had grown up with at the kibbutz, was cut in half within the first few hours. Shalom went on to participate in battles as a regular soldier before he was recruited to become a scout for Rafi Eitan. Beyond his keen eyes and ears, he had a talent for reading maps and navigating in unknown territory, and he spent the rest of the war operating mostly behind enemy lines.

  After the hostilities ended, Shalom rejoined his kibbutz. Unhappy with the communal existence, he moved to Tel Aviv, where he worked briefly as a truck driver. When he met Eitan in the street, his former officer recruited him to join the Shin Bet. Shalom became a commander of counterintelligence activities in divided Jerusalem, then Harel posted him to Paris to run Mossad operations in Europe. There he married an embassy secretary, and for three years he tangled with the Russians—enjoying the war of wits. He returned to Israel to study economics, but occasionally Harel would call him away from his studies to do a job. It soon became apparent that this work suited him best, and he rejoined the Shin Bet under Eitan. Logistics and operational planning were his expertise.

  Shalom was the kind of agent that Harel favored: a former member of a kibbutz who had proved himself during the War of Independence; someone who went about his work discreetly and effectively and had a stable home life, which now included a three-year-old son. His integrity was unquestionable, and he was all business. "Isser wants honest men to do scoundrels' work," one of Harel's deputies once explained to a new Mossad recruit. Shalom honored that expectation.

  When Shalom arrived at Mossad headquarters in Sarona, Harel sat him down and asked, "How would you feel walking around in a foreign country with a false passport?"

  It was a strange question, Shalom thought, considering that Harel knew he never left Israel with anything but a fake passport. "I'd feel fine," Shalom said.

  "Fine? You can do that?"

  Shalom wondered what Harel had planned for him now. For some reason, Harel was obviously hesitant to give Shalom his new orders. Although the chief was dictatorial in his approach to operations, believing he was always right, he nonetheless
related to his agents as equals, and often it was clear that he did not enjoy issuing orders.

  "Yes, of course," Shalom answered.

  "We're going after Eichmann and maybe this time we'll get him."

  "Give me some details."

  "Aharoni has them. Go see him and ask what he found. Then find Rafi. We have to assemble a team."

  The meeting was over. After a visit home to see his family, Shalom traveled to the Shin Bet offices in a dilapidated old building by the clock tower in Jaffa. At this point in the mission, Shalom was focused more on the operational details of capturing Eichmann than on the ramifications should they succeed. Shalom sat down with Eitan, who had been considering the task for a few weeks already, and they finalized a list of people to assemble for the team.

  The first choice was obvious to both of them: Shalom Dani, the forger. Dani had escaped from a Nazi concentration camp by fashioning a pass out of toilet paper, and they would need his exceptional skills for all the forged passports, driver's licenses, and other identification documents they would require. The second choice, also obvious to both Eitan and Shalom, was Moshe Tabor. Tabor was not only a strongman—his hands were the size of baseball mitts—but also a technical master who could create suitcases with false bottoms, overhaul a car engine, fix a submachine gun, pick any lock, and build a safe room that would never be discovered.

  Harel wanted Zvi Aharoni on the job, even though he did not have much operational experience. From what Shalom had heard, he deserved the spot. His knowledge of the area would be useful, and his skill as an interrogator would prove essential in questioning Eichmann. His name was added to the list.

  They also agreed on Yaakov Gat, not only because he was an experienced, cool-headed agent but also because they knew him extremely well, and he would fit seamlessly within the team. Eitan pushed for Peter Malkin, another strongman who had a fine operational mind and who was an expert in disguises. Harel did not know him well, which made him a liability, but he was well suited for the mission. Ephraim Ilani was needed for his encyclopedic knowledge of Buenos Aires and his fluency in Spanish. Finally, they needed a doctor, someone who would keep Eichmann in good health and, if necessary, under sedation, as well as treat any wounds or injuries the team might suffer. Eitan and Shalom knew who would fill this post: "Dr. Maurice Kaplan," a dependable civilian doctor whom they had used a couple of times before on operations. Including themselves, that made a core team of eight. Most of them were Shin Bet—not surprising, given that the Mossad still had a limited number of operational agents.

  It was a good team. Each member had almost a decade of experience in Israeli intelligence services. They spoke a wide range of languages—key to keeping their cover. Except for the doctor, they knew one another extremely well and had worked together on numerous assignments. They understood one another's strengths and weaknesses, could communicate without speaking, and, most important, had absolute trust in one another.

  Aharoni entered the headquarters of the Israeli police in Tel Aviv a few days after his return to Israel. He carried an envelope with the photographs he had taken of Klement, old photographs of Eichmann in his SS uniform, and the most recent ones of Eichmann's brothers collected by Simon Wiesenthal. Harel wanted confirmation from the police's criminal identification unit that Klement was Eichmann.

  For this reason, Aharoni had also shown the photographs to an Israeli who had met Eichmann in Berlin in 1936. The eyewitness thought it could be Eichmann, but since it had been almost twenty-five years since he had seen him, he could not say for sure.

  Aharoni handed over the photographs to Israel's best identity experts. A few hours later, he received his answer: there was a reasonable chance that Eichmann and Klement were the same person. The experts had come to their conclusion by matching characteristics of the left ear. As they explained to Aharoni, much like a fingerprint, the size and shape of the ear, as well as the angle at which it joins the face, are unique to each individual. Although there were eight points indicating that Klement and Eichmann were one and the same—and none indicating that they were not—there were not enough points of comparison to allow a definitive identification.

  Aharoni delivered the news to Harel, who then sent him and Amos Manor, the forty-three-year-old Shin Bet director, to Jerusalem. There they met with Haim Cohen and Pinhas Rosen, the Israeli minister of justice, to present their evidence that Klement and Eichmann were the same person and to receive legal advice as to whether the operation should go forward. The two top lawyers of the Israeli government gave their approval. Although abducting Eichmann would violate Argentine sovereignty, this was solely an issue of diplomatic relations between the two countries. In their view, it did not affect I sraeli jurisdiction to prosecute Eichmann, because, they believed, Germany was never going to pursue extradition seriously, let alone hold a trial.

  With their legal consent secured, nothing stood in the way of the operation moving to the next stage.

  At Mossad headquarters, the staff was busy preparing for the task force's journey to and stay in Argentina. Given the nature of the assignment and the number of agents involved, this was a complicated endeavor. All of the agents needed to travel on separate flights, departing from different locations, with forged passports and an array of visas. It was imperative that no agent be tied to another or tracked back to Israel. Further, some of the agents would need to travel out of Buenos Aires with different passports from the ones with which they arrived.

  First, each agent had to leave Tel Aviv under one identity. When the agents arrived at their first destination outside Israel, they would be met by Israeli operatives and given new tickets and new identities. These identities needed to match their particular language abilities. One could not give an Italian passport to someone who did not speak Italian. Fluency was not necessary, particularly when one had what Avraham Shalom liked to call "personality." Several of the agents spoke German, others French and English; they also spoke a hodgepodge of other languages.

  Travel visas were another challenge, since the Argentine consulate in each country required character references and health documentation. Most of these needed to be forged, and already Mossad and Shin Bet staff were being sent to Paris to undergo inoculations and medical examinations so that their stamped approvals could then be altered and pasted into the passports of the Mossad agents. A couple of agents would bypass this process by being booked into Latin American tours that spent a few days in Buenos Aires (which did not require references or exams), but they would require alternative passports to leave the country. In any event, all of the agents needed at least one completely different set of papers in case the operation was compromised.

  Once an agent arrived in Buenos Aires, he would have two rendezvous times—one in the morning, one in the afternoon—at different locations in order to meet with one or more members of the team who were already in the city. No two agents could stay at the same hotel, and any equipment that could not be bought in Argentina without raising suspicions had to be transported by diplomatic pouch in advance. Some of the items that Eitan had already requested included handcuffs, hidden cameras, sedation drugs, miniature drills and woodworking tools, lock picks, field glasses, pocket flashlights, a forgery kit, and a makeup kit with false teeth and wigs. The sizable amount of money needed for the operation—for renting cars and safe houses, for example—was also transported in diplomatic pouches.

  For all these preparations, Harel created a veritable travel agency, and his staff began filling a telephone directory-size book with the matrix of identities, flights, and scheduled meeting points. The simplest error could result in disaster.

  Early in the morning of April 16, Peter Malkin strode through the tangled streets of Jaffa's old quarter. The Shin Bet agent had the broad shoulders of a linebacker and a head shaped like a bowling ball. His expressive, youthful face switched easily from a pensive scowl to almost clownish mirth. The day before, he had returned from concluding an investigation into an outbrea
k of terrorist activity in Nazareth and had met with Eitan. His chief of operations had pointed to Buenos Aires on a map, saying, "We're going to bring Adolf Eichmann to trial in Jerusalem. And you're going to capture him, Peter." What Eitan didn't tell him was that it had taken some effort to convince Isser Harel to include him on the team.

  Malkin entered the Shin Bet building and went straight to another meeting with Eitan. They were not alone. Most of the team set for Buenos Aires was gathered for the first time. Malkin felt that they were looking at one another in a new way, as if they were measuring each man to see whether he was up to such a monumental mission.

  "Well," Eitan said, easing the tension, "you've all slept on it. Any bright ideas?"

  Malkin was reassured that Harel would be on hand in Argentina during the operation and doubly so that Eitan was handling the tactical plans. The two were dramatically different leaders. Harel focused on compartmentalization and rarely took advice from others, his ideas set in his mind before he revealed a mission. In contrast, Eitan brought everyone into the fold and sought their ideas before he decided a course of action.

  "We'd just better hope that this man Klement stays put," Avraham Shalom said.

  "That's out of our control," Eitan countered. "Why don't we take a look at what we've got."

  The shades were drawn on the balcony that overlooked the harbor, and Moshe Tabor turned on the slide projector. Aharoni walked them through a comparison of the photographs of Eichmann in his thirties wearing his SS uniform and the shots he had obtained in Argentina.