Gordon Thomas - Gideon's Spies

Bazoft found himself “singing for my supper” at Iraqi parties. His new hosts were more relaxed and ready “to let down their hair” than Iranians. In turn they were captivated by his gentle manners and endless witticisms about the ayatollahs of Tehran.

At one party had been an Iraqi businessman, Abu Al-Hibid. He had listened to Bazoft—once more, slightly tipsy by the end of the evening—endlessly proclaiming his abiding ambition to be a reporter and how his heroes were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who had brought down President Nixon. Bazoft told Abu Al-Hibid he would die happy if he could topple the Ayatollah Khomeini. By now Bazoft was contributing articles to a small-circulation Iranian newspaper for exiles in Britain.

Abu Al-Hibid was the alias for an Iraqi-born katsa. In his next report to Tel Aviv, he included a note about Bazoft, his present work, and his aspirations. There was nothing unusual about doing that; hundreds of names every week were forwarded, each to find its place in Mossad’s data bank.

But Nahum Admoni was running Mossad and eager to develop his contacts in Iraq. The London katsa was instructed to cultivate Bazoft. Over leisurely dinners, Bazoft complained to Al-Hibid that his editor was not making full use of his potential. His host suggested he should try to break into mainstream English journalism. There should be an opening for a reporter with good linguistic skills and knowledge of Iran. Al-Hibid suggested the BBC would be a starting point.

Within the broadcasting organization were several sayanim whose tasks included monitoring forthcoming programs on Israel and keeping an eye on persons recruited for the BBC’s Arab-language service. Whether any sayan had a direct role in the employment of Bazoft will never be known for certain, but soon after meeting Al-Hibid, he was hired by the BBC for a research assignment. He did well. Other work followed. Desk editors found they could trust Bazoft to make sense of the intrigues of Tehran.

In Tel Aviv, Admoni decided it was time to make the next move. With Irangate’s revelations gathering pace in the United States, the Mossad chief deliberately decided to expose the role in the burgeoning scandal of Yakov Nimrodi, a former Aman operative. He had been a member of the consortium David Kimche had created and had used his own intelligence background to keep Mossad out of what was happening. A wily, fast-talking man, Nimrodi had, as the arms-for-hostages deal began, driven U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz to comment that “Israel’s agenda is not the same as ours and an intelligence relationship with Israel concerning Iran might not be one upon which we could fully rely.”

When Kimche had pulled out of the consortium, Nimrodi had remained for a while longer. But, as the reverberations from Washington grew louder and more embarrassing for Israel, the former Aman operative had disappeared back into the woodwork. Admoni, smarting at the way Nimrodi had treated Mossad, had other plans: he would publicly embarrass Nimrodi and at the same time give Bazoft a career boost that would enable him to better serve Mossad.

Al-Hibid fed sufficient details to the reporter for Bazoft to realize this could be his big break. He took the story to The Observer. It was published with references to “a mysterious Israeli, Nimrodi, being implicated in Irangate.” Soon Bazoft was a regular contributor to The Observer . Finally, a coveted prize for someone who was not on staff, he was given a desk of his own. It meant he would no longer have to pay his own telephone costs to track down a story from home and he would be able to charge entertainment expenses. But Bazoft would still only be paid for what appeared in the paper. It was an incentive for him to find more stories and to push hard for any trip to the Middle East. On those occasions, he would be living on full expenses and, like all reporters, would be able to manipulate them to give him extra cash above what he had spent and could genuinely reclaim. A shortage of money had always been a problem for Bazoft, something he was careful to hide from his Observer colleagues. Certainly none suspected that the reporter who spent hours talking in Farsi on the phone to his contacts was a convicted thief. Bazoft had spent eighteen months in jail after raiding a building society. Passing sentence, the judge had ordered Bazoft should be deported after he was released. Bazoft appealed on the reasonable grounds he would be executed if sent back to Iran. Though the appeal was rejected, he was granted “exceptional leave” to remain in Britain indefinitely. The grounds for such an unusual step have remained locked in a Home Office vault.

Whether Mossad, having spotted Bazoft’s potential, used one of its well-placed sayanim in Whitehall to facilitate matters has remained an unresolved question. But the possibility cannot be discounted.

After Bazoft was released from prison, he began to suffer bouts of depression, which he treated with homeopathic medicines. This background had been unearthed by the Mossad katsa . Later an English writer, Rupert Alison, a conservative member of Parliament and a recognized expert on intelligence recruiting methods, would say a personality like Bazoft’s made him a prime target for Mossad.

A year after they had first met, Al-Hibid had recruited Bazoft. How and where this was done has remained unknown. The extra money would have certainly been a consideration for Bazoft, still short of cash. And, for someone who so often viewed life through a dramatic prism, the prospect of living out another of his dreams—to be a spy in the tradition of another foreign correspondent he admired, Philby, who had also once worked for The Observer, as a cover for his work as a Soviet spy—could also have been a factor.

More certain, Bazoft began to carve a small reputation for himself; what he lacked in writing style, he made up with solid research. Everything he unearthed in Iran was passed over to the London katsa . As well as stories for The Observer, Bazoft was also being given assignments by Independent Television News and Mirror Group Newspapers. At the time the foreign editor of the Daily Mirror was Nicholas Davies. In his safari-style suit, Davies might have stepped out of the pages of Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop . He had a reporter’s gift for gossip and an ability to hold his drink, and was always ready to buy his round. His north-of-England accent had all but gone: colleagues said he had spent hours perfecting the dulcet tone he now used. Women found appealing his easy good manners and the commanding way he could order dinner and select a good bottle of wine. They loved his been-there-done-that mentality, the way he spoke of faraway places as if they were part of his private fief. Late at night over another drink, he would hint at adventures that cynics said was simply Nick romancing.

Not for a moment did anyone—his colleagues at the Mirror, his wide circle of friends outside the newspaper world, even his wife, Janet, an Australian-born actress who had starred in the highly successful BBC television series Doctor Who —know that Nahum Admoni had authorized Davies should be recruited.

Davies would always insist that even if he had “been approached,” he had never served as a Mossad agent and that his presence in the hotel lobby on that April Friday afternoon was purely as a journalist watching the arms dealers going about their work. He could not later recall what he and Bazoft had spoken about while in the lobby, but said, “I imagine it was about what was going on.” He refused to elaborate, a position he would steadfastly maintain.

The pair had traveled to Iraq with a small group of other journalists (among them the author of this book on assignment for the Press Association, Britain’s national wire service). On the flight from London, Davies had regaled the party with ribald stories about Robert Maxwell, who had finally bought Mirror Newspapers. He called him “a sexual monster with a voracious appetite for seducing secretaries on his staff.” He made it very clear he was close to Maxwell, though: “Captain Bob is sheer hell to be with, he knows I know too much to sack me.” Davies’s claim that he personally was fireproof because of what he knew about the tycoon was dismissed by his listeners as hyperbole.