THE ISRAELI ACCOUNT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 14, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

AN .c qrrty++rti:L -ink nnc-Tn,.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
l)
THE IsRAEuAaouxr
BY JEFF
MCCONNELL
AND
RICHARD
HIGGINS
J n October of last year, Uri Simchoni, then Israel's chief military attache in
Washington, sat in the White House situation room with US intelligence
officials. Hours earlier, the Palestinian hijackers of the Achille Lauro
cruise ship had taken off in an Egypt] plane to apparent freedom. Sim-
choni gave the Americans key information that enabled US warplanes to
intercept and bring the plane dow
i
Si
il
n
n
c
y.
The next month, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a Navy counterterrorism analyst, was arrested
for passing US military secrets to Israel, in what became the most public intelligence
scandal ever to come between the two countries. Pollard, 32, is scheduled to be sen-
tenced next month. Although Israel continues to shrug it off as a "rogue operation," the
Pollard case has sparked debate in both countries over the extent of past and present
Israeli operations in the United States.
Such examples of cooperation and conflict run throughout US-Israeli relations. They
are especially evident in the ordinarily hidden realm of intelligence-gathering, and no-
where more so than in what the Central Intelligence Agency calls its "Israeli account."
For 35 years, the Israeli account has been the main channel through which the CIA and
the Israeli intelligence service. known as Mossad, have exchanged imorec.M
matters of mutual --r?-?-sc aw.,1, nraD states, and other
concern.
But past and present CIA officers say the account has another
side. "Everything in the relationship between intelligence services is
like a double-edged sword," Stephen C. Mullett, who handled the Is-
raeli account for almost two decades, said in a rare interview a few
weeks before his death this past spring. "On the one hand, there is
the fnei dly aspect. But on the other, there is the counterintelligence
aspect - in which you try to get as much as you can and keep others
from getting things from you."
This is the story of the Israeli account. Pieced together from six
months of interviews with dozens of current and former government
officials, most of whom would not allow their names to be used, it is a
story that has unfolded almost entirely outside the public view. It is a
drama in which the CIA's counterintelligence efforts have, at tunes,
overshadowed its friendly cooperation with Israel.
Understanding this helps makes sense of the debate over Israeli
espionage in the United States. Like any drama, this story is in some
ways about the strong personalities involved But more often. it re-
flects larger matters: strengths and weaknesses in US-Israeli ties.
objectivity in American perception of Israel, and a possible shift in the
nature of the United States' intelligence relationship with IsraeL
L'S SECURITY CONCERNS DATE BACK TO THE VERY BEGIN-
rungs of the CIA's relationship with Israel, For almost 25 years, that
relationship came under the aegis of James Jesus Angleton, the aeen-
cy's legendary chief of counterintelligence from the late 1940s until
1974. A veteran of the wartime Office of Strategic Services. Angle-
ton led the postwar remnants of the spy organization in Italy while he
was only in his late 20s. Working with the Jewish underground. he
helped Jewish refugees emigrate to Palestine. Those efforts would
give him a special stature among Israelis for years to come.
Three years after the war. Angleton returned to Washington from
Italy and quickly took charge of counterintelligence in the CIA. the
organization that evolved out of the OSS. His counterintelligence staff
was responsible for protecting CIA operations from detection.
Within the huge bureaucracy. Angleton was the quintessential in-
dependent operator whose blend of charm and forcefulness won him
great respect - and power. In late 1951, Angleton established a
formal liaison with Israeli intelligence and set up the Israeli account
within the counterintelligence staff. He was motivated in part.
sources say, by the belief that the Moesad, the Israeli intelligence
service, could provide a rich lode of information about Soviet oper-
ations.
Initially, Angleton handled the account personally in Washington.
His first Israeli counterpart was Teddy KoUek, then a minister at the
Israeli Embassy, now mayor of Jerusalem. Kollek was enormously
to those who did not work on it at the CIA This may not ha have always
been so. One former CIA officer tells a story, perhaps apocryphal. of
the early days of the account For a time, this man saps, the work of
the staff handling Israeli operations was out in the open, just Ike that
involving any other country.
Joe day, however, staff mew
bets arrived at CIA headquar-
ters to find that thew gift the
deslm, and everything else had
Vanished. and that they were to
be transferred to other sec-
Donc Only later did they learn,
accorbng to the story, that
Angleton had taken over.
The CIA's clandestine Ser-
Vices. which caries am ego.
oage and other covert oper-
ations, consists of separate
staffs - of which the camter-
111telli8rocie staff is aoe - and a
?0? of g pla?al dtvt-
sio The geograpelcaj divr-
gon, am further dimided into
hranches,and the branches into
deskL Each may
in o
the L bas whirs-
signed a separate desk and
each desk is sad to handle its
own country .ariount-
Uoder Angleton. the Near
East di-von of the CIA's clan-
destine Sernces had a desk to
ha each ty - except
l.sraeL Israel was, in effect.
Angletoa's special domain o-
side the agency and thus nasal,
MOT a part of be camtetmt'i-
gence staff. There was no d,
rect contact between CIA offi-
cers handbag Isaei and others
responsible for other Mideast
countries - a situation that lat-
er fed REPOons that Angleton
crated Israel favorably.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
Secrecy was the essence of
the Israeli account. By its na-
t are, Angleton's co terintedi-
gence staff was one of the
CIA's moat secretive eompo-
neats. Adding to the secrecy,
Angleton held the Ewa* ac-
"in his hip pocket?" ac-
cording to a farmer colleague.
Angleton himadf kept a low
emenballY invisible out-
side the agency and little known
even to CIA colleagues.
To help with operations
concerning Israel, Angleton
brought in Stephen 110lett, a
former OSS colleague who was
even more invisible than Angle-
ton. Charles Rockwell. Milieu's
brother-in-law and a Cambridge
rodent, reca lls the day Millett
met his family in 1960. "My fa-
ther asked him what he did for
a living. 'I can't tell you,' was
Steve's reply."
Throughout the 1950s and
'60s, MIDett traveled widely,
handling sensitive matters for
Angleton. Israel was only one of
those matters, According to a
former me nber of the counter-
intelligence staff, Millett was in
regular contact with Jay Love-
stooe, the longtime bead of the
international wing of the AFL-
CIO, who is called "a link man"
to the CIA in John Ranelagh's
recent book The Agency Ang-
leton had a number of agents in
Europe, working independently
of the Western Europe division,
and M51lett was responsible for
many of them.
But Israel was a primary re-
sponsibility, and some col-
leagues say that for many years
the Isaeb account was basically
a two-man operation, wfth only
Angleton and Hulett (and per-
haps Bertha Dasenburg, Angle-
ton's secretary) knowing its full
story-
n the 1950s; the assumption
grew at the CIA that Angie-
tan's interests were Israel's
interests, and that the CIA had
adopted a hands-off attitlde to-
wand Angleton and Israel. Sev-
eral of Angleton's ooleagues,
however, dispnrte this. "Angk-
tan certainly wasn't going off as
a rogue elechant" says a for-
mer bigb CIA nffia1 who over-
saw Angleton's work. Sam Pa-
pich, who handled many cases
related to Israel as the FBrs li-
aison with the CIA from 1950
to 1970, says: "AD I can say is,
show me a case where Angleton
was taken in or overly symp-
thetic to Israel"
Several former CIA people
say they assumed that Angleton
was sympathetic toward Israel
because he valued his contacts
in the Israeli government and
wanted them to continue, and
because he wanted the state to
remain noncommunist. Few,
however, are able to cite specif-
ic cases where Angleton was
actually taken in or overly sym-
pathetic.
One case that did emerge
involves the US response to the
attack on Egypt in 1956 by Is-
rael, France, and Britain,
known as the Suez crisis Ac-
carding to Robert Amory, then
the CIA's deputy director of in-
telligence, Washington first
learned of the imminent inva-
sion when a US military attache
in Tel Aviv reported that his
jeep driver, a severely diabled
Israeli atizzen, had been called
to tactave hat a duty. Amory conclud-
ed mobiiaation
was in effect and that an attack
would occur soon, probably two
after the Jewish Sabbath.
He recalls that he went to no-
tify CIA director Allen Dupes
and that Angleton walked in
soon after Dulles and Amory
began talking Aabout the ngleton matter.
Amory
disagreed over Amoryrs predic-
tion, with Angleton insisting
that his Iwaeb COMM had just
told him that would be no at-
tack on Egypt. Exasperated,
Amory recalls that he finally In-
sisted to Dulles: "Fihrr you
trust my people and me, or you
trust this co-opted Israeli
agent."'
Amory says he believed that
Dulles agreed with him. But
two days later, as press reports
of a possible Israeli attack on
Egypt began to come in, Dulles
conveyed Angleton's version to
a special meeting called by
President Dwight Eisenhower.
according to documents recent-
ly =covered at the Eisenhower
Lnbkary in Ahehne, Kansas. Ac-
cording to the minutes of that
meeting, Dupes suggested that
the troop movements could be
simply a "probing action" and
not an actual attack. "Which
proves to me that sometime in
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved
[between] Angleton got back to
him and resold it," says Amory,
who only recently learned the
contents of the mom, and
who believes that Angleton was
duped and not dupfidtoos. Ang-
leton, who is in his late 60s and
fives outside Washington, re-
fines to comment about any
matters related to Israel.
Despite the lingering
doubts about Angleton's
posture toward Israel,
former CIA employees say his
unit took anything but a hands-
nff aaoraach to that country.
One CIA intelligence reports veteran who
saw during 1950s and 1960s says
the Unit.
ed States conducted both "ho-
man and communications intelii-
gence operations" against Isra-
el. Human operations involve
agents who collect information
against a country without that
country's knowiedg, communi-
cations operations involve the
Interception of cable traffic and
other electronic sigaats In the
begging, this iota vet-
eran says, these operations
were comparable in scope those directed at other coun-
tries.
In the interview this past
wring, Angleton's deputy Ste-
acknowledged
the
eastenoe of some US ntem-
ence % w that - a Israel
but tha
they were fewer in
number than those Israel
mounted against the United
States. 11ere was less need for
US operations against Israel
than for Israeli efforts minst
this country, Millen said, and,
in any case, conducting espo.
nage operations inside Israel
was ddficatt. "Israel is much
sn2Des than the United States.
Its people more tightly knit. Ev-
erybody knows each other."
This made human InteJSgence
operations inside Israel difficult.
The United States appar-
ently relied heavily on commu-
nications inteWgence. Accord-
ing to a former government of-
ficial who handled Israeli mat-
ters, the United States broke
Israel's codes - the rules that
govern the way messages are
encrypted - soon after the
country was created.
b._- ..
for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
In Angleton's time, commu-
aications-intercept operations
were com'diinated among Angle-
ton's Israeli desk, the National
Security Agency, and the CIA's
Division D, its liaison unit with
the NSA. Two former employ.
ees of the NSA recall its "He-
brew desk," which they say was
like the CIA's Israeli unit - cretive physically separated
from other units
handbag
Middle East. the
W bile the United States
was conducting its es-
pionage operations,
the Israelis were also mounting
their Own operatms
the United States, outside their
liaison with the CIA. As a re-
sult. the United States stepped
up its counterintelligence ef-
forts and took measures to pro-
tect the security of its commu-
nications. Those efforts -
which included suppressing
some reports for fear they
would fall into Israeli hands -
contributed to the US intelli-
gence failure in the months be-
fore the Sues crisis in 1956.
The caooern was not un-
focmded. Telephone taps were
discovered in the borne of the
US military attache in Tel Aviv
in 1956, according to a 1979
CIA counterintelligence staff
report on Israeli espionage
found by Iranian militants in the
US Embassy in Tehran.
Stephen Koczak, a former
foreign service officer armed
to Tel Aviv, says the situation
was worse than that. According
to Koczak, Donald John Saone,
the CIA's man in Israel from
1953 to 1956, informed his suc-
cessar, Harold G. Williams, that
the Phones in the CIA station in
the US Embassy in Israel were
tapped. Koczak says that
Sanne, in the months before
leaving, also told his successor
that Koczak and Williams were
u
nder surv 1lance by the Israe-
Lis.
But of even greater concern
to the CIA and the State De-
partment was the possibility of
theft of diplomatic commw=.
tions. Because the US Embassy
in Tel Aviv refused to send cer-
tarn messages out of fear these
messages might find their way
to the Israeli Embassy in Wash-
ington, events preceding the
Suez crisis were inadequately
reported, Koczak recalls. For-
eign service officers sought to
avoid controversy, and the
CIA's men, Sanne and Williams,
would not risk offending the
State Department with their
own differing reports.
There was particular con-
cern over leaks from State De.
partment intelligence, accord.
ing to several sources. The CIA
took an interest in such cases
because State Department ana-
lysts, as consumers of CIA and
NSA intelligence, were in a po-
sition to compromise the secu-
rity of the entire intelligence
community.
One set of allegations from
the late 1950s involved Helmut
gene analyst for the State De-
partment who later became a
key National Security Coma
aide to Henry Kissinger and
who is now a guest scholar at
the Brookings Institutes,
In early 1959, soon after re-
turning to CIA headquarters
from his tour of duty in Tel
Aviv, Harold Williams contacted
Kock, who had returned to
the United States from Israel
the year before. According to
Koczak, Williams told him that
besides the security breaches
that had troubled the two in Tel
Aviv, there were other leaks of
information, that the Israeli
government had the leaked in-
formation, and that one of his
problems was communicating
information to Washington.
Williams told Koczak that
some breaches of security con-
cerned the US intervention in
Lebanon in July 1958. Koczak
recalled an incident he had ob-
served around that time. Koc-
zak had been invited to a party
at the home of an Israeli whom
he had known while in Tel Aviv
and who was then assigned to
Washington. Most of the others
invited were Israelis. Since
Kok was then with the Ger-
man division of State Depart-
ment intelligence, be was re-
q
from his uired to obtain prior clearance
with foreigners, to socialize
and he did so.
These were personal as well
as Official
had deaft, " Kfi ok sad later. I
sympathized with said . their prob.
lens, their
and they knew my friend-
ly feelings."
nenfeldtw who worked with him
3.
in the intelligence bureau. There, Koczak alleges.
he watched Sonnenfeldt disclose to a group of
Israelis information from classified CIA and State
Department cables detailing sensitive discussions
between US and Lebanese officials on arrange-
ments for the landing of US troops.
Koczak made this allegation in sworn testimo-
ny to Congress in 1973 and reaffirmed and elabo-
rated on it in recent interviews. "It became clear
to me then," Kock told Congress, "that this
was ... Part of the whole problem as to why the
American embassy in Israel felt so totally inse-
cure[ d] why the information went back so fast
that e Koczak later found out, he says,
attending the party did M have and e failed clearance for
meeting with foreigners after the fact. report his
Reached in Washington last month, Sonnen-
feldt denied Koczak's allegations, as he did when
they were first made public in 1973. He said that
they had been investigated thoroughly and that
they had had no impact on his subsequent career.
Koczak says he told his story to Williams, who
was alarmed and took it back to CIA headquar-
ter& to two sources, one investigation
of SOtmedeldt, conducted by the FBI and the
Jneice Department at the behest of the CIA,
commenced but was suspended when the CIA
and State Department balked at declassifying the
allegedly compromised cables, as they would
have needed to do for any public hearing.
Other such episodes involving the CIA and
the State Department were cited in interviews.
The counterintelligence staffs secret 1979 study
on Israeli intelligence listed "collection
f i
f
o
n
or
-
mation on secret US policy and decisions" as sec-
ond among Israel's intelligence priorities.
B y the 1960s the Israeli account had
changed in subtle ways. No longer a two-
man operation, it had taken over an office
down the hall from Angleton's. But Angleton's
"hip pocket" approach is said to have continued,
even after Millett left and was replaced by Harold
Williams.
Despite the independence in Tel Aviv that
had impressed Koczak, Williams "was not totally
'in' on the [Israeli] thing when he was in Washing-
ton," a CIA friend of Williams says. "Hal did a
good job in managing day-to-day affairs, but he
realized that he was,held at arms' length by Ang-
leton. Whether he cared, I don't know."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
The counterintelligence aspect persisted as
well, and despite the expanded offices, the ac-
count was kept small and compartmented. Even
inside the counterintelligence staff, there was
strict secrecy. One source recalls that the Israeli
files, located in the Israel office, were one of sev-
eral "special collections" in counterintelligence
with restricted access. The central registry was
fined with a number of "blind cards"; each con-
tanned no more than a name and an instruction
that directed researchers to one of these collec-
tions. Access to information in the Israeli files
was thus carefully monitored.
By this time, a security measure allowing only
non Jews to work on Israeli matters had been ap-
plied to the CIA's analysis and covert operations
components. Jesse Leaf, a Jewish analyst who
headed the Iran desk during the late 1960s and
early 1970s, says that even though his university
training had been in Israeli politics, the CIA
would never have put him on the Israeli desk.
The concern went beyond security. "They
didn't want judgments totally prejudiced in favor
of Israel." says Leaf. Asked if this would have
been a concern in his case, he says, "Probably,
yes. But there is no objectivity in the agency any-
how."
There were disputes between the CIA and
other government branches when the CIA
blocked the appointments of American Jewish
military attaches to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv.
"The ambassador would accuse us of anti-Sem-
itism," a former CIA officer recalls, "but we
would say, 'Appointing this man would be unfair
to you, Mr. Ambassador, to him, and to his coun-
try.' " If the appointment went through, the for-
mer officer says, the CIA believed the attache's
credibility, his loyalty, and his own peace of mind
would be jeopardized.
Former CIA director William Colby says that
these security measures were taken to facilitate
liaison with Moesad and Arab intelligence ser-
vices. "The idea was that ... you had to assure
each side that its information wasn't going to the
other side - in other words, the Arabs weren't
getting the benefit of information about the Is-
raelis and vice versa," Colby says.
A former US diplomat in Tel Aviv says the
CIA man there gave a different account. "He said
[the Israeli operation] was kept small to prevent
penetration or pressure from American Zion-
ists."
One Angleton associate also disputes Colby's
version. "What Arab intelligence services?" he
asks. "I've never heard of any. Colby was being
discreet-" Acimowiedging that such a.statement
might be construed as anti-Semitic, he says,
?The Israel desk was compartmented to keep Is-
raelis [Mossad liaison officers] from wandering
through the halls of CIA."
A former CIA officer argues that these ar-
rangements were to the benefit of the Israelis as
well as the other parties concerned He illus-
trates his point with the example of one US am-
bassador to Israel who became so supportive of
Zionist causes and so identified with support for
Israel in the minds of his superiors in Washington
that his advice on matters pertaining to Israel
came to be disregarded, losing Israel an effective
advocate. 'But you could never convince the Is-
raelis of this," he adds.
t was under Williams' tenure as head of the
Israeli desk that the CIA launched its most
sensitive investigation of Israel ever: an inqui-
ry to determine if the Jewish state had acquired
nuclear weapons. By early 1967, according to
William Dale, then the second-ranlting US diiplo-
mat in Tel Aviv, the embassy had concluded that
Israel "had or would in the very near future
have" them. The CIA's investigation was kept
secret, however, from the embassy and most of
the rest of the government.
Some of the CIA's information came from
Jewish Americans who. after visiting Israel, came
to believe that Israel was developing weapons
that required a supply of highly enriched urani-
um, according to sources who studied the matter
in the late 1970s. Dale recalls that two Jewish
Americans, one a scientist, once came to the em-
bassy in Tel Aviv to report their dismay at what
they had seen in Israel and their dismay over Is-
raeli requests that they not tell US officials.
These two Americans. Dale recalls, said Israelis
had told them that "their fast loyalty, as Jews,
[should be] to Israel."
According to several sources, sensitive in-
struments were secretly sent to Israel to test air,
soil, and water samples around Israel's nuclear
reactor at Dimona, not far from the southern end
of the Dead Sea, where the CIA believed that the
weapons program was based. Physical evidence
of the material was reportedly obtained.
In early 1968, the CIA concluded that Israel
had gone nuclear. The mystery was where Israel
had obtained the highly enriched uranium, since
Israel was not known to be able to produce it.
Attention focused on the Nuclear Equipment and
Materials Corporation, or NUMEC, of Apollo.
Pennsylvania, a manufacturer of highly enriched
uranium that had a curious history of poor record
keeping, lax security, missing uranium, and close
ties to Israel.
"The clear consensus in CIA was i"that] NU-
MEC material had been ... used by the Israelis in
fabricating weapons " Carl Duckett, then the
agency's deputy director for science and technol-
ogy, told ABC News five years ago. "I believe
that all my senior analysts agreed with me."
The CIA asked the Justice Department to in-
vestigate NUMEC for a variety of reasons, ac-
cording to sources. One involved the intelligence
question of whether uranium had in fact been di-
verted to Israel. Another was the counterintelli-
gence question: If uranium had been diverted to
Israel, who in NUMEC or the US government had
committed a security violation.'
There was a third concern. Angleton's staff
was worried "that this was something they didn't
know about, and that this lack of knowledge could
be dangerous," says a source who later inter-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
viewed Angleton in connection with an investiga-
tion into CIA handling of the NUMEC affair.
"They believed that information could be com-
promised to the Soviets if they did not control
it."
There was even suspicion within the CIA,
based in part on FBI electronic intercepts, that a
high official of the Atomic Energy Commission
had aided the Israelis. The suspicions were never
proved. But the matter was taken seriously. If
such a story were true and would have come out,
says one Angleton colleague, it
would have put pressure on the
Arabs and greatly contributed
to instability throughout the
Middle East. Moreover, he
adds, "the Soviets would be
able to prove the US gave Isra-
el the bomb."
Aiding Williams with
these issues and later
succeeding him was John
Haddon, whose work on NU-
MEC has been commended by
Richard Helms, then director of
the CIA, and others who
worked with Hadden. One
source recalls a memo prepared
by Hadden. "a 5-foot memo on
NUMEC that just kept getting
added to." Says another col-
league, "Hadden was disturbed
because of what he thought was
the free hand the Israelis had in
the US." Contacted at his home
in Maine, Hadden refused to
discuss matters related to the
CIA.
But others interviewed say
Hadden and his colleagues came
to suspect that the Mossad had
a number of "cells" around the
country for collecting scientific
and technological intelligence.
These "cells" were thought to
be run from Israel and insulated
from one another in case any
one was discovered.
According to congressional
investigators familiar with the
case, one theory at the CIA,
never proved, was that Zalman
Shapiro, NUMEC's founder and
former president, was a key
player in such a cell. Although
there are no documented cases
of Shapiro passing any classified
information to Israel, he toured
the United States soliciting and
receiving information from sci-
entists friendly to Israel, ac-
cording to FBI documents and
other sources. The FBI report-
edly monitored a meeting of sci-
entists at Shapiro's home in
Pittsburgh at which a suspected
Israeli agent asked the scien-
tists to get certain information.
Recently released FBI docu-
ments on the NUMEC investiga-
tion reveal that in September
1968, Shapiro met with a dele-
gation of Israeli officials, includ-
ing Rafael Eitan, a high Mossad
officer. Eitan was reported last
year to have headed LEKEM,
the scientific intelligence unit in
the Israeli government that
handled Pollard, the Navy ana-
lyst convicted of spying for Is-
rael earls this year.
Reached at 11118 home outmde
Fittsburgh, Shapiro ed
the di
IA theory. "Where
tour?' he asked. "What infor-
mation did I send and receive?'
He said he had had a meeting
"with a Ic zG6c comeelor,
but would not identify the sub.
ject discussed because he did
not "want to help terrorists."
He said he did not recall meet-
ing Eitan but stressed that he
would not have known Eitaa's
background and that the FBI
documents make clear that if he
did meet such a person, "it was
not done surrepfibotialy.11
'1)0 you think if that was
any troth to any of this stuff
that I'd be walking the
streets?' he asked.
Israeli scientific attaches
also came under suspicion of be-
ing Mossad agents using their
Pis as a cover. One such atta-
cbe, Avraham Hermon, was re-
Ported to have been in contact
with NUMEC officials and to
have accompanied Eitan on his
1968 visit to NUMEC.
Despite circumstantial evi-
dence, no violations of the law
were proved. FBI investigations
into the activities of NUMEC,
Shapiro, and the alleged "cells"
are said to have ended by 1971.
Government investigators
who later talked to Hadden and,
his colleagues Pant a portrait of
dal,, nn eat within the CIA
over the Firs investigation.
The CIA felt that the FBI took
a law-enforcement approach to
the investigation instead of a
more preventive, coente e&
8vone approach. "The FBI is a
nationab po& a fora," one CIA
P psat is said to have coin.
pied. "We have no domestic
And despite their high re-
gard for Sam Papich, the FBI
liaison man. there was a strong
feeling among CIA officers and
otbeta working with them that
FBI &ector J. Edgar Hoover
had caved in to political pres-
sures in waiting until 1968 to
investigate NUMEC and later in
concluding the investigation
without iacbctments. Says one
former CIA officer, "There
were political limitations on
how far the FBI could go."
I n 1972 Haddon left the CIA
Former colleagues say that
Hadden was more involved
in the inner workings of the Is-
raeli account than Harold Wil-
liams had been. Still, some
things were apparently kept
even from him. Two former as-
sociates say he had "crises of
confidence" with Angleton
from time to time, although
other sources, including investi-
gators who interviewed Angle-
ton and Hadden about NUMEC,
say that the two had high re-
gard for each other.
The next year CIA veteran
William Colby took over as di-
rector of the agency. Angle-
ton's tendency to conceal his Is-
raeb contacts from everyone
else, even those who worked
with h= contributed to an ear-
ly decision by Colby to seek
changes in the Israeli account.
In his autobiography, HonoraNe
Men, Colby wrote: "The segre-
gation of the CIA's contacts
with Israel, which inevitably ac-
companied Angleton's secretive
management style, from its offi-
cers working in the Middle East
as a whole and to a considerable
extent the analysts, was impos-
sible at a time when the Middle
East had become one of the
crucial foreign-policy problems
of the United States.
"So I resolved to move the
Israeli account from the Coun-
terintelligence Staff. . I
hoped Angleton might take the
hint and retire.
"But he dug in his heels,
and marshaled every argument
he could think of to urge that
such an important contact not
be handled in the normal bu-
reaucratic machinery."
Initially, Colby yielded be-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3
ease, be says, he "feared that
Angleton's profesional integri-
ty and perwoall mtmsity might
have led him to take dire mea-
sures if I forced the inane."
But Colby became more
he wrote, when he
was "shocked" to learn after
the Yom Kippur Warm October
1973 that the CIA station in Is-
rael was not allowed to ca?r-
nicat with stations in neighbor-
ing Arab countries. "I had come
to the conclusion that I was not
doing my job ... imleae I insist-
ad that I, rather than Angleton,
make the decisions about Israeb
relations and counterintelli-
game-"
Colby offered Angleton a
"separate status," which in-
cluded being a consultant on.
but no longer in charge of, the
liaison with Israel Angleton
turned him down and retired.
Colby succeeded in taking
the Israeli account out of Angle-
ton's hands, thereby getting rid
of Angleton's secretive style,
his "hpocktet" approach to Is-
raeli matters. However, with
Angleton also went the elabo-
rate security measures sur-
rounding the account.
The Israeli desk was moved
into the CIA's Near East Divi-
sion, and officers responsible
for Israel both at headgtmters
and abroad now freely commu-
nicate with their colleagues
working on other countries.
Sometimes the Mossad even
conducts joint operations with
CIA field officers in Mideast
countries other than Israel -
contacts that were umbeard of
under Angleton. Instead of
eoIutmeating the Israeli ac-
count, the CIA has made it like
every other omit in the division
- separately responsble for its
own semity and coumterinte
gence. CIA ties with Arab
states are protected not by the ac.M
ban rules that roc h n
the flow at i f ' i to Noa-
sad liaison officers. Jewih em-
ployees Cl the US government
now may work at the US em-
bassy in Tel Aviv.
For the most part, the tran-
sition was made smoothly.
'There was a less severe inter-
ruption than many who were in-
volved at the time women
there would be," said an officer
who has worked on Israeli mat-
ters since Angleton's depar-
ture.
Yet the transition was not
made without at least one pouli-
ble disruption, reflected by dif-
feres>ces of opinion over the re-
cent Pollard case. Under Angle-
ton, the essence of counterin-
telligence, according to one
source, was institutional mem-
ory .overview and continuity."
The split over Pollard suggests
that in the case of Israel, some
of that continuity may have
been lost.
Veterans such as Stephen
Mullett, with long experience on
Israeli matters, emphasize that
Pollard was "part of a pattern."
They point out parallels to the
past: that Rafael Eutan, Pol-
lard's handler, visited NUMEC,
that in both cases allegations
were made about Israeli science
attaches, and that Pollard stole
classified documents as been acoth-
cused of doing. -
By contrast, current CIA of-
ficers and recent retirees tend
to call the Pollard case an aber-
ration and to play down any
links to the past. The changes
Colby instituted seem to have
led to a decrease in the CIA's
concern with security measures
against Israel as well as with
the history of intelligence con-
flicts with that nation. They re-
flected a "reevaluation of the
total relationship between the
US and Israel ... including the
intelligence aspect," as a for-
mer CIA officer who handled Is-
raeli matters during the Carter
administration puts it. He and
others suggest that the growing
strategic links between the two
e since Sn early including Cooper-
ation, have led many CIA offi-
cials to devalue - some would
say overlook - the sic
of in Indeed, conflicts President
I
Ban's "secret diplomatic initia-
tive" with Iran, in which the
CIA helped arrange arms ship-
ments via Israel to Iran in ex-
change for efforts to help free
American hostages in Lebanon,
is but one example of bow heav-
>ly the United States now relies
encoo with Israeli in-
goals in the Mid East its
It is in this contem without
continuity and overview, that
the Pollard case can be viewed
as a blunder, an aberration. or,
as one former official recently
involved with Israeli matters
puts it, a "flash in the Pan.-
G
JEFF McCONNp1. WHO LIVES IN SOI~RVTLLE, WRITES ASOLT ~A TIO!IAL SEC'R~'~
ISSUES RICHARD NIGGDIS LS A XD MU of THi GCOSE STAFF
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402870001-3