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PROFITS OF WAR -- INSIDE THE SECRET U.S.-ISRAELI ARMS NETWORK |
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Introduction EARLY ONE MORNING in the spring of 1990, I lay on my bunk in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, unable to sleep, my mind restless. I stared at the ceiling of my tiny cell, and the fluorescent lights stared back, unblinking. I glanced over at the depressing furnishings -- a sink, a toilet, two metal cabinets. This was federal prison -- my home for the time being. It wasn't terribly violent -- no murders, no gang rapes. My neighbors on the high-status white tier, as opposed to the black and Hispanic tiers, were mostly white-collar criminals. John Gotti, the Mafia don, had been here for a short time, but had been released on bail. (He won that case, but he was to return later.) Adnan Kashoggi spent a few nights in residence. And Joe Doherty, the Irish revolutionary, was present all the time I was. The conditions weren't that awful either -- nothing like what I had been subjected to at El Reno in Oklahoma while being transported across the country. No overcrowding, no debilitating noise, no guard brutality as in many state and city jails. MCC was more like a third-class, flea-bag hotel -- with one important exception. You weren't free to leave. Below me, on the lower bunk, my cellmate, Nick Lante, later convicted of conspiracy to sell heroin in the "pizza connection" case, snored. How in the world had I ended up here? Living with this guy? In this place? What had gone wrong? The events of the last few months flashed through my mind. In the fall of 1989 I had been on top of the world -- a healthy 37-year-old Israeli citizen, married with a delightful young daughter, a prestigious job in the Prime Minister's Office, a considerable amount of money in the bank, and a two-week vacation in Australia awaiting me. Then one day I was arrested and tossed into jail in Los Angeles on phony charges of illegally trying to sell three C-130 transport planes to Iran. I'd been expecting something to happen for a while -- in Australia, Israel, the U.S., anywhere, anytime. I didn't know exactly what, but ever since my friend Amiram Nir had died in a mysterious "plane crash" in late November 1988, two years after his involvement in the Iran-contra affair had been revealed, I'd been worried. So this was it -- an arms-dealing rap. Actually I felt a measure of relief. At least it wasn't death. Nobody was likely to kill me in jail in the custody of the U.S. government. But then the reality began to sink in, and I felt deeply hurt. I'd been set up, betrayed, by the American and Israeli governments. The Americans I could understand. I knew a lot about the CIA's arms deals with Iran and Iraq; in fact part of my job had been to threaten to go public with that information if the CIA didn't halt chemical weapons sales to Saddam Hussein. Naturally, the Americans were not pleased. But the Israelis, my own people, my own government that I'd served for all my adult working life -- that was hard to swallow. I'd started working for the government as a codebreaker on the Iranian desk in Signals Intelligence during my three years of compulsory military service, 1974 to 1977. Then, as a civilian, I'd put in ten years with Israel's military intelligence, in the prestigious External Relations Department; from 1980 I also served on the Joint Committee for Iran-Israel Relations. Finally, I had spent two years as a roving troubleshooter for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, working directly out of his office, with the title of special intelligence consultant. It was secret missions for Israel that had resulted in my being jailed. When word of Shamir's communications with the PLO leaked out and embarrassed the government, someone had to be sacrificed. I was the one. That's how I had ended up at Metropolitan Correctional Center, in this metal bunkbed, staring at the fluorescent lights, unable to sleep. I had believed that my work was part of the effort to ensure the survival of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. But here I was in prison, my future in peril, and nobody was coming forward to help me. When I was needed by my employers, I was always there. When I needed them, they turned their backs on me. Shamir, for whom I had felt great respect, and who had known my father since the 1940s, had had a hand in setting me up. And then two lawyers representing the Israeli government had visited me in prison and asked me to make a deal -- plead guilty; keep silent, go live in obscurity somewhere. I'd refused, and now that government was publicly denying that I'd ever worked for it. I had expected this official government response. But from those I'd worked with and considered my friends I had also expected some support. There were ways it could have been done without their risking their own lives or careers. But no one did anything. No one would even acknowledge they knew me. My own wife told me on the telephone from Israel that there was nothing she could do for me. She refused to come to New York. My sisters wouldn't talk to me, out of fear. Everyone except my mother had abandoned me -- and she was being hassled and threatened by the Israeli government. I never had felt so alone. My choices seemed pretty clear: I could do what the Israeli government lawyers had offered to arrange -- keep silent, plead guilty, get a deal from the judge, be totally discredited, accept a lot of money from the Israeli government, and go off to live in the boonies somewhere. I could plead not guilty, but not say much about what had really gone on, and see what might develop as my trial approached. I could go public with my story, talk to journalists, plead not guilty, go to trial and tell the truth as my defense -- that I had sold billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Iran, but that I had been acting on behalf of my government in everything I had done, usually with the full knowledge and cooperation of the U.S. government as well. I mulled the options. The first seemed the easiest. I could conceivably return to my country, try to save my marriage, at least see my daughter, perhaps get a decent job, and have enough money to live comfortably. But I would be pleading guilty to something I hadn't done, and my reputation would be destroyed forever. Worse still, the memory of what had happened to Amiram Nir stuck in my mind. I, too, would probably be killed a couple of years down the road, just to make sure I'd remain silent. The second option offered no answers and not much hope. Besides, I was sick of living with uncertainty. As for the third choice, I had, of course, signed the Official Secrets Act in Israel, which forbade me from revealing anything publicly about my work. But since I'd been set up and left out in the cold, I no longer felt constrained to play by the rules of my former masters. All bets were off. If I did talk, however, it meant that I would never be able to return to Israel. I would lose my wife and daughter forever. My passport might be revoked, and I would have a hard time getting a job. Still, this seemed the most pragmatic choice because it was least likely to lead to my death. It's always more difficult to kill someone who has a high profile. When you're making allegations the government doesn't want anyone to believe, killing you only makes people believe them more. Equally important, I was furious. I'm not the kind of person who can take betrayal lying down. I prefer to fight back. Finally, I felt the story I had to tell could be of service, that people needed to know what had actually happened, unbeknownst to them or the press, over the last decade -- how Israel and the U.S. had prevented peace in the Middle East, how the American government was still supplying chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein, how Ronald Reagan and George Bush had swapped arms with the Iranians for a delay in the release of the hostages to win the 1980 election, and much more. I asked myself, "Is anyone going to believe me? Will the American and Israeli governments deny everything and brand me a nut, totally discrediting me?" That was a distinct possibility. But I remembered Watergate and how there had been denial after denial -- until the truth came pouring out. On that quiet spring morning, I chose the third option. I did not plead guilty, and I eventually won my case in court. I talked to journalists. And now I have written this book about my career in Israeli intelligence. It is not a pretty story, and I am no longer proud of my part in it. It is a tale of the 1980s -- of big money, insatiable greed, and unfathomable corruption. It is a tale of government by cabal -- how a handful of people in a few intelligence agencies determined the policies of their governments, secretly ran enormous operations without public accountability, abused power and public trust, lied, manipulated the media, and deceived the public. Last but not least, it is a tale of war -- armies, weapons, hundreds of thousands of deaths -- war run not by generals on the battlefield but by comfortable men in air-conditioned offices who are indifferent to human suffering. This book is both a memoir and an expose. It is also, in part, an act of atonement. I only hope that my story will in some small way contribute to the difficult process of righting the terrible wrongs of the 1980s and help remove from power those who were responsible.
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