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PROFITS OF WAR -- INSIDE THE SECRET U.S.-ISRAELI ARMS NETWORK |
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2. Codebreaker BETWEEN 1975 AND 1977, the Iranian desk in Unit 8200 was reading coded messages faster than the Iranians. They came in, we threw them into the computer, translated them, and sent them on to various interested intelligence quarters. Breaking the code had opened doors to a wealth of material from around the world. The monitoring of the Iranians, along with other signals, was carried out through the satellite station in Bet Ella in the foothills of the Judea mountains, half an hour's drive from Jerusalem. There were also various Unit 8200 listening stations in northern Israel, the Sinai, and overseas. Located in innocuous-looking buildings in Japan, Italy, and Ethiopia, these powerful listening posts could intercept, among other signals, all the traffic in and out of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, the Royal Court, the SAVAK, and Iranian military intelligence. The listeners zeroed in on Tehran, the hub, and other Iranian embassies. Under the Shah, Iran had good relations with what we referred to as the "moderate pro-American Arab countries" -- Egypt, Jordan, and the Emirates, including Kuwait. We were getting no intelligence on these nations from the Americans. With the code broken, however, we were able to find out what various Iranian emissaries were reporting back to Tehran. In addition, the Iranians had good contacts with the Soviet Bloc, and what the Soviets told Tehran they also unwittingly told us. There was one other vital source of information -- Ardeshir Zahedi, the Iranian ambassador to the U.S. Zahedi reported directly back to the Shah's office in the Royal Court what was being said in the U.S. capital about Middle East policy and the Americans' initiatives with Anwar Sadat's Egypt. While we "read" a great deal of important material, we also noticed how much junk came through the code system. We found out just how lazy some ambassadors were -- they merely translated newspaper editorials into Farsi and sent them as their well-informed analyses of what was going on in their respective countries. Among the "newspaper clippers" was the Iranian ambassador to Israel, who was obviously an avid reader of the Jerusalem Post, at the time the only English- language daily in Israel. He would translate the editorials and, passing them off as his own assessments, direct them to his foreign minister. This was done with such regularity that finally we saved ourselves a great deal of translation time -- we would cut out the editorial from the paper and clip it to the printout of the coded message, then send it on to our analysts. Often, they had already read the editorials anyway. It wasn't all office work in Unit 8200. Friday morning, July 2, 1976, I was ordered to report to Lt. Col. Yishaek's office. I found a number of other officers there, all experts in various languages. We were then asked to accompany him to the office of Col. Yosef Zeira, a very stern department commander in Unit 8200. The colonel locked his door. Then he turned to us all and said, "From now until Sunday morning you are all going to 'disappear.' No going home, no telephone calls. You have simply vanished." No one protested. Whatever this was about, it was all part of our work. Our families and friends would simply have to understand. "You're all going on a trip to Kenya," the colonel said. Then he told us that Israel had decided to mount a commando raid to rescue the Israeli and other passengers on board an Air France jet that had been hijacked June 27 while flying to Paris from Tel Aviv. Members of the Baader-Meinhof Group had boarded the plane on a stopover in Rome, diverted it to Athens, and then finally landed it at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The non-Israeli passengers had, by Friday, been released. At that time relations between Israel and Idi Amin were at their lowest. The self-proclaimed president of Uganda had been a close friend of Israel and had been installed in a military coup, planned and led by the former Israeli military attache in Uganda, Col. Baruch Bar Lev. But now, after Col. Muammar Qaddafi of Libya had promised money to black African nations if they cut ties with Israel, relations between Israel and Uganda had deteriorated. Amin, however, still wore the paratrooper's wings bestowed on him by the Israeli military when he had undergone training in Israel. The details of the Israeli rescue are, of course, well known. What isn't known is the misery that at least one of the backup teams endured. We were told we would be flying to Nairobi in an Air Force Boeing 707, which would be used as a listening post. The plan was to fly there, park on the airfield, and tap into radio frequencies to establish if any messages were being passed, in any language, that the Israelis were on their way. I was told to scan for Farsi. In addition to being used for our various language skills, we were also ordered to sign for combat gear -- if extra manpower were needed, we would be the first to be airlifted to Entebbe as backup. Now I could see that my training with explosives might come in handy after all. The Boeing 707 that took off from Israel carried no markings. I had been assigned a seat at the rear with my equipment: earphones and a scanner. This, I was told, would be where I would stay for however long the rescue operation took. During the flight the toilets broke down. My seat was right by the toilet door. By the time we touched down shortly before dawn that morning, the air conditioning had also failed. Sweat poured from all our bodies as the plane taxied to its position in a dark corner of the Nairobi airfield. By the following night the heat and stench were unbearable. In stark contrast to the commando raid at Entebbe, I had absolutely nothing to do but listen to the crackling earphones and try to overcome waves of nausea. We were self-sufficient for food and water, although I couldn't face eating anything. After who knows how many hours, the technicians on board were able to repair the toilets and the air conditioning, and I then continued listening for Farsi in relative comfort. Many hours later a shout went up. The raid had been a success. Our job was over -- if it could be called a job. When we arrived back at the airfield in north-central Israel, the nation was in a jubilant mood. Everyone involved in the operation, no matter what their role, was lauded as a hero. A young woman I was going out with at the time forgave me for disappearing on her and hugged and kissed me. I tried to tell her that all I had done was sit in a sardine can beside a smelly toilet listening to stereophonic crackling, but she didn't care. I was her hero, she said. *** One night in 1976 while I was duty officer in Unit 8200, I read a telegram sent from the Iranian Embassy in Ramat Gan to Tehran. I couldn't believe my eyes. The ambassador talked in detail about a meeting he had had with the Lockheed Aircraft Company representative in Israel who had passed on details of Lockheed bribes paid to Defense Minister Shimon Peres. The sum involved was the equivalent of $3.5 million. I remembered the Lockheed bribe scandal that had hit Japan, but no one had heard of Israeli involvement in such things. The intercepted telegram dealt with the sale of C-130 aircraft to Israel and the possibility of Israel purchasing more C-130s as opposed to other transport. I double-checked the translation. There was no way I could have been mistaken. By now, Lt. Col. Yishaek had become commander of the department, replacing Col. Yirador, who had remained in Military Intelligence. It was the middle of the night, but I knew how explosive this material was. A sleepy voice answered Yishaek's number. "Sir," I said, "you need to come here right away." "I hope this is important." "Sir, I wouldn't have called you for anything less. It's more than important -- it's extremely sensitive." "Unless this is as big as the Egyptians declaring war on Israel, I'll have your balls cut off for getting me out of bed at this time." "It's worse," I said. He arrived 20 minutes later, in uniform, unshaven. "OK," he said, "what's so important?" I told him to sit and read the computer. He said he couldn't read Farsi. I told him I deliberately hadn't translated it. I went through it for him word by word, whispering, so a woman soldier working in another part of the office couldn't hear. He asked me to translate it again. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Sir, I am absolutely sure." The telegram also detailed in which of Shimon Peres's brother's business accounts in Europe the bribe money had been deposited. Other than his "analyses" plagiarized from the newspaper, the ambassador was very credible. Yishaek got on the phone and told Buffy to come right away. By the time he arrived, I had the translation on paper. Buffy read it, his brow furrowed under the fluorescent lighting. Known for his good relations with Peres, Buffy looked up finally and sighed heavily. "I want the original telegram, the translation, your log, and anything else connected to this erased," he said slowly and deliberately. I told him it couldn't be done. The monitoring of embassies inside Israel was not carried out by Military Intelligence, but by the SHABAK, and the telegrams in and out of the Iranian building were accounted for by the SHABAK. They sent the telegrams to us every day, we would decode the letters, and early the following morning they would demand every telegram back with its translation. It wasn't a matter of just fixing the local log. The SHABAK had a log, too. However, the following morning, the SHABAK, for the first time, did not ask for the telegram. Before I went home, I was called into Buffy's office. He told me, "We all know that you are a good officer. You are a patriot. You love your country. And I know that nothing of this matter will leak out." The young woman who had been working with me immediately received transfer orders to another unit of B200 in northern Israel, and within a short time Col. Ben-Porat was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and later appointed official spokesman of the Israel Defense Forces. I don't know if Peres actually received the bribe. I do know that after I stumbled on the accusation and passed it on to my superiors, it was covered up. No public disclosure or inquiry was ever made. In April 1977, Lt. Col. Yishaek told me that I was required to travel to Italy, to work in our Rome listening station. Alarm bells rang in my head. Only recently two members of Military Intelligence working in that station had been killed, and although nobody claimed responsibility, suspicion had fallen on the Palestine Liberation Organization. In the aftermath of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, a battle was raging in Europe between Mossad agents and a Palestinian group called Black September. They were killing each other at every opportunity. We knew there was a leak somewhere at the embassy in Rome; someone was passing on to the Palestinians the names and activities of Israeli military and security personnel. The chances were that I would be a marked man as soon as I arrived. Obviously one's life is put at risk at times in the service of one's country, but I simply didn't want to be one of those who could die in this senseless situation. "I'm not going," I said. "You can say or do what you like, but I won't go." Yishaek was furious. "You'll be court-martialed for insubordination," he said. "So be it," I replied. "At least I'll still be alive." The next morning, I was called to the Administrative Officers' Bureau, where two military policemen were waiting. I was taken before a military tribunal on a charge of serious insubordination. I refused an attorney and was found guilty. The sentence was 14 days in jail and reduction in rank from lieutenant to corporal. I was also told I would no longer have the honor of serving the extra two years in the military. I would be released after I completed my regular military service. I was taken to a military prison near Haifa to serve my 14 days. Two days later, to my surprise, I was released and sent straight back to my unit. Shulamit Ingerman was waiting to tell me that Lt. Col. Yishaek had overreacted and she had gone over his head to obtain a pardon from the director of Military Intelligence -- only someone with a rank of major general or above can overrule a military tribunal. "Your rank can be restored right away if you agree to sign again for the extra two years' service," said Shulamit. My regular military service was due to end in less than a month, and if I were to keep to the contract, I would be doing an extra two years as a career officer. This was my opportunity to scrap the contract and I took it. I told Lt. Col. Yishaek, "Thanks for the pardon. But I'm not going to stay here any longer." If truth be told, I was bored. We had broken the code. I didn't want to spend another two years there. I was looking in another direction -- I wanted to work in the deepest sanctum of Israeli intelligence: the External Relations Department of the Israel Defense Forces/Military Intelligence. I wanted to serve Israel where I would have the most impact. I was ambitious, and with my unique background and skills, I felt the ERD offered the most challenging future for me. I obtained an interview with the office of the chief personnel officer of the intelligence corps. I expressed my hopes of joining Military Intelligence as a civilian in the External Relations Department, where almost everyone else was a civilian anyway. On May 3, 1977, I was released from the military. I was then scheduled for a number of interviews, including one with the chief of External Relations, Col. Meir Meir. "I think," he said, "we could draw on your Iranian expertise." At the same time I was offered a job in Mossad operations, to be stationed in Europe. I declined, pinning my hopes on getting assigned to External Relations. The SHABAK also offered me work in their Iranian Unit, and there was a possibility of joining the Foreign Ministry. I still wasn't interested. I knew what I wanted. Finally the message came back. I had been accepted in External Relations. Had I known what was in store, I might have considered it safer to go to Rome.
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