David Ignatius: Agents of Innocence

Jamal’s silence about Fuad’s links with the Americans would be the best sign of his bona fides. They would proceed with the operation only if they were confident that Jamal hadn’t blown Fuad’s identity.

In the meantime, stressed Rogers, Fuad should live his cover. He was a Lebanese Sunni Moslem with strong leftist convictions. He had been living in Egypt but wanted to return to Beirut for family reasons. He was meeting with Fatah officials because he supported the Palestinian Revolution as the road to liberation for all the Arabs.

If the operation was blown at any point, endangering Fuad’s status in Lebanon, Rogers pledged that he would arrange his relocation and termination in the United States. With the safety net out, Rogers felt more comfortable. He didn’t like making mistakes, especially when they put his agents at risk.

The next step, Rogers decided, was to try for a second meeting with Jamal. If the Palestinian agreed to meet Fuad again, knowing of his links with the United States government, then they might have a live fish on the line.

Rogers sweetened the bait for the second meeting. With permission from Hoffman and the Near East Division back home at Langley, he gave Fuad a draft of the current U.S. peace plan for the Middle East and told him to give it to Jamal.

It was chicken feed. The same draft had already been circulated to the Lebanese, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Israeli governments. A version had even been leaked to The New York Times. Indeed, Fatah officials were already denouncing it on the grounds that it rejected their demand for an independent Palestinian state. But they hadn’t seen the text. Rogers hoped that a leaked copy of the plan would convince Jamal that the Americans were willing to take the Palestinians seriously. Among revolutionaries, Rogers had noticed, the hunger for respectability was often nearly as strong as the drive for power.

Fuad and Jamal met this time at an Italian restaurant called Quo Vadis, near the Beirut red-light district.

The Palestinian arrived in a red Ferrari convertible, driven by the same bosomy blonde Fuad had seen emerging from the office in Fakhani. Jamal kissed her on the mouth while the poor Shia boy who parked cars looked on enviously. Then he strolled up the stairs and into the restaurant.

Fuad shook his head as he watched this grand arrival through the window. His Palestinian friend was not a man who seemed to value discretion. He’s going to get himself killed, Fuad thought, as he watched Jamal strut into the dining room.

When they were seated and had lit up their cigarettes, Fuad got to the point.

“You were right, of course, about my friends,” Fuad said quietly. He did not want to speak the word “Americans.”

“Of course,” said Jamal. He had his eye on a brunette across the room.

“I have a gift from my friends,” said Fuad. He took from under his arm a copy of the morning edition of the pro-Egyptian Arabic paper, Al-Anwar, and placed it on the table. Inside it was the U.S. document.

Jamal picked up the paper and opened it enough to read the words “United States Department of State” written on the document. The Palestinian smiled like a boy with a new toy.

“Good news!” said Jamal, pointing to the paper. He called the waiter and ordered a bottle of wine.

They had a boisterous meal of spaghetti and veal. Jamal drank most of the bottle of Chateau Musar and told stories about his father’s exploits fighting the Israelis. The Palestinian seemed ebullient, and when Fuad proposed that they meet again in a week, he readily agreed.

“What gives with this guy?” Rogers wondered out loud after debriefing Fuad later that day.

“Either your friend Jamal is recruiting himself-jumping into our arms-or he’s running his own operation against us.”

Rogers lit a cigarette. He had the nervous look of a man who has just realized for the first time that someone may be setting him up.

“Jamal is flamboyant, said Fuad. “But he is not stupid.”

Rogers paced the room. He stopped at the bar, poured a whisky, and then put it down.

“I wonder,” said Rogers. “Is it possible that our new recruit imagines that he is recruiting us?”

Fuad clucked his tongue. That was how Lebanese answered questions for which they hadn’t any answer.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” said Rogers. “The secret is that it doesn’t matter what Jamal thinks he’s doing. So long as he plays the game.”

When he returned to the embassy that evening, Rogers set in motion some discreet inquiries about Jamal. The answers came back several days later from a Lebanese agent who worked in the registry of the Deuxieme Bureau.

The Lebanese intelligence service, it turned out, had a thick file on Jamal Ramlawi. He was a security officer, with what appeared to be wide-ranging responsibilities. He was respected and feared by his subordinates. He was, just as Fuad had said, a favorite of the Old Man, who invited him to meetings with the senior Fatah leadership and solicited his advice. The Old Man, it was said, was cultivating Jamal as a leader of the younger generation of Fatah, someone who could work easily with the new wave of Palestinian exiles studying and working in Europe and the Arab world.

The evidence strongly suggested that whatever Jamal was doing, he had the Old Man’s approval.

There was another interesting tidbit. Jamal was reputed to be sex-crazy. He was currently having an affair with a blond German woman who was the mistress of a very rich, but aging, Lebanese banker.

The third meeting, a week after the luncheon at Quo Vadis, was more discreet. They met at a prearranged time in a park on the grounds of the American University of Beirut. The smell of the sea mingled with the scent of the eucalyptus and pine trees.

This time, Jamal brought a surprise of his own. He proposed regular contact between himself, on behalf of Fatah, and Fuad, on behalf of the United States. The purpose would be to discuss “matters of mutual concern,” a phrase as vague in Arabic as it is in English. He said the arrangement should be one of “liaison,” like the contacts the U.S. Embassy maintained with other embassies and political organizations around town.

Fuad, who had been carefully coached for the meeting by Rogers, responded that he wasn’t authorized to discuss substantive issues like the one raised by Jamal.

“I am here to listen,” Fuad said. “Only to listen.”

“That’s not enough,” said the Palestinian. “We are not interested in a one-way dialogue.”

“Maybe what you are seeking is possible,” responded Fuad. “But I cannot approve it. To make such an arrangement, you must talk directly with a member of the U.S. Embassy staff.”

Now it was the Palestinian’s turn to balk.

“Impossible! With an American agent? Do not ask for too much, my dear.”

The Palestinian then delivered a brief lecture about the perfidy of the Zionists and the Imperialists.

Fuad listened patiently and eventually concluded the meeting with a well-rehearsed pitch.

The Americans had offered a sign of their goodwill by providing a document that dealt with issues of concern to the Palestinians. Now it was time for Fatah to reciprocate. Before proceeding further, Fuad said, the Americans would need some sign of Jamal’s good faith.

The answer came on December 1, 1969, when Jamal delivered a public address to a gathering of students at the Lebanese Arab University. The local press was invited, and copies of their articles were sent the next day by the Beirut station to CIA headquarters in Langley, where they aroused considerable interest.

The speech was unusual in itself. Fatah officials, other than the Old Man, rarely spoke in public. But it was the tone of the speech that was most surprising. In those days, Fatah’s pronouncements were usually ferocious blasts of revolutionary indignation. But Jamal’s speech was something different. The young Palestinian seemed to be signalling that he was a responsible, reasonable man, willing to do business.