LIFE AND DEATH OF A TERRORIST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200330004-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: July 10, 1983
• Content Type: NSPR

ARTICLE APPEARED Approved For Relea OQ O/T.1M1 A-RD 88
ON BOOK REVIEW-3 10 July 1983
Li fe a~Terrarist
~.nd Death of
cy. . Bar-Zohar and Mr. Haber would have us
THE QUEST FOE THE WED PRINCE
By Michael Bar-Zohar and Eitan Haber.
Illustrated 232 pp. New York:
William Morrow & Co. $I5.95.
By JAMES M..MARKRAM
LI HASSAN SALAMEH, one of Yasir Arafat's
believe that in "the Muslim-inhabited part of war-torn
Beirut all foreigners were distrusted" and "all West-'
erners were suspected of being Israeli spies or secret
agents," the truth was far more subtle and paradoxi-
cal. During Mr. Arafat's persistent efforts to open a
dialogue with the United States, Al Fatah took it on it-
self to protect American diplomats in chaotic West
Beirut after civil war erupted in 1975. Salameh's' men
guarded Americans and other foreigners as they were
evacuated from a West Beirut seaside swimming club
by the United States Sixth Fleet on June 20, 1976. An
American diplomat 'I knew in Beirut in those bizarre
years liked to show off with.acchuckle a gift from Abu
Hassan - a heavy Palestine Liberation Organization
key chain.:
As David Ignatius reported recently in The Wall
Street Journal, Salameh was "a backdoor channel be-
tween the U.S. and the P.L.O.," and he furnished sen-
ior American diplomats, including former Secretary
most trusted. lieutenants, was blown up in his
car as it passed a booby-trapped parked Volks-
in West Beirut on Jan. 22, .1979. In "The Quest
wageh
for the Red Prince," Michael Bar-Zohar and Eitan
'Haber, two Israeli writers, give a fast paced account
of how the Mossad, the Israeli' intelligence service,
tracked Salameh for months and assassinated him'.
They have also tried to blend into the tale of the Pales-
tinian leader's violent life and death a history of the
'struggle between Arabs and Jews in Palestine before-
1948, in the young state of Israel and "in shadowy thea-
ters of operation elsewhere.
Abu Hassan, as the flamboyant Fatah chief was
known, was the son of Sheik Hassan Salameh, a Pales-
tinian warlord who died in 1948 fighting the emergence
of Israel. The sheik's son was no scruffy, unshaven
gun-toter but a sleek German-educated playboy'who
shortly before his death married a former Miss Uni-
verse, a Lebanese Christian named Georgina Rizak.
-He was also a terrorist, one of the masterminds of
Black September, the Fatah subgroup that shoved the
Palestinian cause into the world's horrified conscious-
ness by murdering-11 Israeli athletes during the Mu-
nigh Olympics in 1972.
But Salameh's most fascinating sideline and the one
most. relevant to his death is not mentioned in this
book. As the boss of-Sgu1:7 the Fatah security out-
fit, he was Mr. Arafat's contact with the United States
Embassy in Beirut and the Central Intelligence Agen-
of State Henry Kissinger, with tips about assassina.
tion plots planned by radical Palestinian and other
terrorist groups. He is also said to have supplied simi-
lar.information to security organizations in West Ger-
many, Italy and Japan to demonstrate that Al Fatah
had gone out of the terror business and become a valid
diplomatic interlocutor.
One revealing and heretofore untold anecdote is that .
not long before Salameh's death, a grateful C.I.A. took
him to Florida's Walt Disney World, a place he had al-
ways wanted to visit. This uniquely American gesture
compounded Mr.: Arafat's bitterness and sense of be-
trayal when Salameh was slain.
There was nothing angelic about Al Fatah's stealthy
STAT
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ov rtures the to eds to es.
. Salameh was no C.I.A. agent. Mr. Kissinger made a point of
What Mr. Arafat and he were of- having key Arabs and Israelis
-fering was.' after all, the other briefed on the clandestine
hand of terrorism: protection F.L.O. encounter. In the ensu-
from it in the roiled Middle big peace talks in 1974 and 1975,
East. But it is perhaps -reason- Israel ,extracted a pledge from
able to assume that a budding, the United States not to negoti-
Palestinian-American relation- ate with the.. P.L.O. until the
ship, however unsavory its P.L.O. recognized Israel's right
genesis, was not comforting to to exist.
'Prime Minister Menachem E can only speculate
Begin, who came to power in Is- about why the authors of
rael in 1977. President Jimmy "The Quest for the Red.
Carter was then on record as
favoring "a homeland provided Prince" have omitted the best
for the. P.alestinian refugees who part of their tale. In fact, the
have suffered for many, ' many book contains -little that has not
years." Mr. Carter had out- been published elsewhere, and
raged Israelis by-meeting with it leans heavily on a seven-year-
Syria's President, Hafez al- old British -book, "The Hit .
Assail, on the eve of the election Team" by David B. Tinnin with
that brought Mr. Begin to office. Dag Christensen, for its cloak-
and-dagger material. As Israeli
R. BAR-ZOHAR and citizens, Mr. Bar-Zohar and Mr.,
Is-
Mr. Haber say that Haber are obliged to nod to Is-
raeli military censorship by not-
the Mossad ended its thg repeatedly that "foreign
assassination campaign against sources" or British journalists
Black September terrorist -and by implication not Israeli
chieftains in - 1973 after a .intelligence - gave them infor-
botched operation in which Is- mation. The authors also adopt
raeli agents were arrested in a journalistically dubious
Norway for killing an innocent narrative manner. They are
Moroccan waiter whom they, privy to Salameh's most private
mistook for Salameh. Mr. Ara mutterings to his terrorist com-
fat disbanded Black September rades, when presumably not
in the same year. The authors even a foreign source was
contend that some "five, years present; and they confidently let
later the Begin Government re- us know that in 1,948 a. "sweet
vived plans to kill Salameb for perfume . of orange blossoms
what were essentially emotional hung in the air" as Haganah
reasons. "Israel felt that no ter-
sappers, "glassy-eyed with
rorist withblood on his hands " fear," went on "attack. Such
could be left in peace," they feats of empathy even permit
write. "In the late 1970's Sala.- insights into Sheik Hassan Sala-
meh's name was on the aveng- meh's hometown in 1918: "But
ers' list once again." when the news about the swell-
But a risky and meticulously ing stream of Jews flooding into
planned assassination is usually the country reached Kulleh, it
not just an act of passion or was received with typical Orien-
vengeance. A more cynical and , tal indifference." ^
rational explanation of the Sala-
meh killing would be that it was
meant to disrupt Al Fatah's fit-
ful secret dialogue with the ,
United States, which, as Mr..
Kissinger tells. us in his mem-_
oirs, was initiated by-Mr. Arafat
in the aftermath of the 1973 Mid-
die East war. The Secretary of
State's secret envoy, Vernon
Walters, met. with an unnamed
Arafat confidant almost cer-
tainly Salameh - in Rabat, Mo-
rocco, on Nov. 3 "to gain time '
and to prevent radical assaults
on the early peace- process."
"Afterwards," Mr. Kissinger
continues, "attacks on Amert- James M. Markham, chief of the Bonn bureau of The
cans- at least by Arafat's fac- New York Times, was Beirut bureau chief in 1975-76.,
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