Gordon Thomas - Gideon's Spies

On a spring morning in 1980, David Kimche used his unrestricted access card, which had replaced the two keys, to access the headquarters building. Arriving in his office, he was told that Hofi wished to see him at once. Kimche strolled along the corridor to the director general’s office, knocked, and entered, closing the door behind him.

What happened there has passed into Mossad legend, a tale of increasingly raised voices, of accusation and counteraccusation. The row lasted for twenty electrifying minutes. Then Kimche came out of the office, tight-lipped. His career in Mossad was finished. But his intelligence activities on behalf of Israel were about to enter a familiar arena, the United States. This time it would not involve the theft of nuclear materials, but the scandal that eventually became known as Irangate.

After a period of considering his future, David Kimche had accepted the director generalship of the Israeli foreign ministry. The post was ideally suited to his ability to think his way into, and out of, a situation. It offered Kimche an opportunity to bring his skills to bear on the international stage far beyond Lebanon.

In the United States the saga of President Nixon and Watergate had moved to an inescapable finale, leaving the CIA tarred with suspicion, the likes of which had not been seen since the death of President Kennedy, as more and more revelations emerged about the Agency’s activities during the Nixon years.

Kimche studied every facet of the drama, “absorbing the lessons to be learned from a debacle that should never have happened. The bottom line was that Nixon should never have kept those tapes. Without them he would still probably have been president.”

Closer to home, what was happening in Iran, ever a matter of abiding interest to Israel, also occupied him. With Khomeini and his ayatollahs firmly in control, it came as a genuine shock to Kimche to see how badly the CIA and the State Department had failed to correctly judge the situation.

But there was a new president in the White House, Ronald Reagan, who promised a new dawn for the CIA. The Agency, Kimche learned from his own contacts in Washington, would become Reagan’s “secret trump” in foreign policy. Heading the CIA was William Casey. Instinctively, Kimche sensed he was no friend of Israel—but someone who could be outmaneuvered should the need arise.

As part of his work, Kimche closely followed CIA operations in Afghanistan and Central America. Many of them struck him as “babe-in-the-wood stuff, old-fashioned intelligence gathering, mingled with some pretty ruthless killing.”

Then, once more, Kimche’s attention was brought to focus on Iran—and what had happened in Beirut.

A few months after Kimche took up his duties at the foreign ministry, Israel had begun to arm Iran with the tacit support of the United States. Israel had provided the help to weaken the Baghdad regime—part of Jerusalem’s long-established tactic of what Kimche called “playing at both ends.”

Three years later, two events had affected matters. There had been the car-bomb massacre in Beirut of 241 U.S. Marines and the growing U.S. suspicion that Mossad not only had prior knowledge of the attack, but that Iran’s intelligence service had helped to prepare it. Pressure was put on Israel to stop supplying Tehran. It increased with the kidnapping, torture, and subsequent death of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut. In quick succession, seven other Americans were taken hostage by Iran-backed groups.

For the tough-talking Reagan administration, which had come into office with its promise to crack down on terrorism, the idea of American citizens languishing deep beneath the rubble of Beirut demanded action. But retaliation was out of the question; to bomb Tehran, as Reagan suggested, was ruled out by even his hard-line aides. A rescue mission would also likely fail, said Delta Force chiefs.

There then occurred a conversation between the president and Robert McFarlane, a gung ho former marine who was national security adviser. Kimche was to recall that McFarlane told him that the conversation went like this:

“What do the Iranians need most, Mr. President?”

“You tell me, Bob.”

“Weapons to fight Iraq.”

“So we give them what they want. And we get back our people in return.”

Reagan and McFarlane—against the advice of Casey and other U.S. intelligence chiefs—took the simplistic view that arming Iran would not only result in the mullahs bringing pressure to bear on the Beirut group to free the hostages, but would improve the administration’s relations with Tehran. There could also be the added bonus that it was bound to weaken Moscow’s position in Iran. The seeds were sown for what became known as Irangate.

Marine colonel Oliver North was put in charge of supplying the arms. North and McFarlane decided to exclude the CIA from their plans. Both were action-oriented men. Their push-and-shove mentality had served them well in Vietnam, and from all they had heard, Israelis were similar men of action. So, in North’s words, “it was time to bring Israel into the fold.” There was also the personal prospect of visiting the Holy Land; a committed Christian, North relished the thought of treading in the footsteps of Jesus.

Israel’s new prime minister, Yitzak Shamir, decided there was only one person capable of handling the request from Washington for help—and making sure Israel’s interests were fully protected. On July 3, 1983, David Kimche flew to meet with McFarlane in the White House. Kimche said he believed the arms-for-hostages deal could work. He asked if the CIA was “actively involved.” He was told the Agency was not.

In turn, McFarlane asked Kimche how far Mossad would be involved : “After all,” he stated, “they are the guys who do all your secret work overseas.” Kimche told him that Yitzhak Rabin, then defense minister, and Shamir had decided to exclude Mossad and leave the entire matter to him. McFarlane said that was fine by him. Kimche had not told him that Mossad’s chief, then Nahum Admoni, shared Casey’s fears that the arms-for-hostages deal was fraught with operational hazards.

McFarlane drove to Bethesda Naval Hospital to present Kimche’s views to Reagan, who was recovering from a colon operation. The president had one question: Could Kimche ensure that Israel would keep the deal secret? A leak could harm U.S. relations with more moderate Arab states already fearful of the growing radicalism of Tehran. Kimche claims that McFarlane reassured Reagan that Israel would “batten down the hatches.” The deal was on. Kimche flew back to Israel. Two weeks later Kimche was back in Washington. Over dinner, he laid out his game plan to McFarlane. Kimche was to recall the conversation went like this:

“Do you want the good or bad news first?” Kimche asked McFarlane.

“The good.”

“We’ll ship the arms for you, using the same routes we used before.”

McFarlane said “no problem.”

Kimche’s method would ensure that the United States had no direct contact with Iran, and so the administration’s bellicose attitude about being tough on terrorism would not be compromised: the U.S. arms embargo on Iran would be intact and the hostages, when freed, would not have been directly exchanged for weapons.

“And the bad news?” McFarlane prompted.

Kimche said his own well-placed contacts in Iran were uncertain the mullahs could actually manage to procure the release of the Beirut hostages.

“The radicals there are getting beyond Tehran’s control,” he told his host.

If McFarlane was disappointed, he did not show it. The next day, Secretary of State George Shultz told Reagan, back in the Oval Office, the risks were too high. Supposing the Iranians took the arms and then revealed the deal to embarrass “the Great Satan,” the mullahs called the United States? Wouldn’t that draw Iraq further into the Soviet camp? And what about the hostages? They could be even worse off. All morning the arguments continued. By lunchtime Reagan was visibly tired. The decision, when it came, was sudden. The president agreed to support the proposition that the United States would replace all arms Israel sold to Iran. Once more Kimche returned home with a green light. Nevertheless, Shamir insisted that all possible steps should also be taken so that he “could deny any connection with the matter should there be a problem.”