THE ISRAELI ACCOUNT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100120001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 14, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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()N yA`'t '~' _ 14 December-1986
THEIs~uAccouNr
By JEFF
CCONNELL n October of last year, Uri Simchoni, then Israel's chief military attache in
AND Washington, sat in the White House situation room with US intelligence
officials. Hours earlier, the Palestinian hijackers of the Ach ille La u ro
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 lane d
p own In Slcuy.
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 imnr e-l
? ? -. -unvilage activines, Arab states, and other
matters of mutual 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 friet,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 times,
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
US SECURITY CONCERNS DATE BACK TO THE VERY BEGIN-
rungs of the CLA's relationship with Israel. For almost 25 years, that
relationship came under the aegis of James Jesus Angleton, the aeen-
Iy'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 Kollek, then a minister at the
Israeli Embassy, now mayor of Jerusalem. Kopek was enormously
The Israeli a000Ur1[ an origtnaj trunker." for to those who did not work on it a e CIA This may noott ha a aiwa
been so. One former CIA officer tells a story, perhaps apocryphal. of
the early days of the account. For a time, this man says, the work of
the staff handling Israeli operations was out in the open, lust ike that
involving any other country.
Joe day. however, staff men ,-
ben arrived at CIA headquar-
ters to find that then film tbw
desks. and everything else had
vanished. and that they were to
be tranderred to other sec-
tions. Only Later did they learn.
according to the story, that
Angleton had taken over.
The CIA's C laodesttm Ser-
vices. winch emrYS out espo-
Wage and other covert oper-
ations, consists of separate
staffs - of which the coumter-
intelliBence staff is one - and a
` ?on of g aphid divi-
srons. The g cal div -
sons are turtber 6rmches, and the branches iinto
nto
dew Each country m wtocli
the CLA has an interest is as-
sped a separate desk. and
each desk is and to handle its
own country 'account
Under Angleton. the New
East division at the CIA's Clan-
destine Services had a desk to
Israel el couwas, ntry - ~e cept
Israel- Angletoa's vocal domain in-
side the agency and thus tic -
ealy a pet of be cotmtermte&
gence staff. There was no d-
rest contact between CIA offi-
cers handling Israel and others
responwhle for other Mideast
countries - a situation that lat-
er fed sttapkodns that Angleton
treated Israel favorably.
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Secrecy was the essence of
the Israeli account By its na-
ture, Angletan's camterthte1h-
gence staff was one of the
CIA's most seavt* cameo-
netts. Adding to the secrecy
Angleton held the Ism* ac-
- In his hip pocket," ac-
carding to a formes colleague.
Angleton h?sdf kept a low
profile, essentially invisible out-
side the agency and little known
even to CIA colleagues.
To help with operations
concerning Israel, Angleton
brought in Stephen Milett, a
former OSS colleague who was
even more invisible than Angle-
ton. Charies Rockwe4 Mdlett's
brother-m-law and a Cambridge
resident, recalls the day Mrbett
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, MHktt traveled widely,
handling sensitive matters for
Angletm Israel was only one of
those matters. According to a
former member of the counter-
intelligence staff, Millett was in
regular contact with Jay Love-
stone the longtime head 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 Mullett was responsible for
many of them
But Israel was a primary re-
sponsibility, and some col-
leagues say that for many years
the Israeli account was basically
a two-man operation, wfth only
Angleton and Mullett (and per-
haps Bertha Dasenburg, Angle-
ton's secretary) knowing its fun
story
n the 1950s; the assumption
grew at the CIA that Angie-
ton's interests were Israel's
interests, and that the CIA had
adopted a hands-off attitude to-
ward Angleton and Israel. Sev-
eral of Angleton's colleagues,
hoororevQ, dinpute this. "Angle-
ton certainly wasn't going elf as
a rogue elephant" says a for-
mer high CIA affisak who over-
saw Angletun's work. Sam Pa-
pich, who harmed many cam
related to Israel as the FBrs li-
aison with the CIA from 1950
to 1970, says: "All I can say is,
show me a case where Angleton
was taken in or overly sympa-
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 uses where Austen 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-
cording 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 disabled
Israeli atizen, had been called
active duty. Amory conclud-
ed that ageneal mobilization
was in effect and that an attach
would occur soon, probably two
days after the Jewish Sabbath.
He recalls that he went to no-
tify CIA director Alien Dulles
and that Angleton walked in
soon after Dulles and Amory
began talking about the matter.
Amory and Angleton strongly
disagreed over Amorys predic-
tion, with Angleton insisting
that his Israeli contacts had just
told him that would be no at-
tack on Egypt. Exasperated,
Amory recalls that be finally in-
sisted to Dui 'F 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 uncovered at the Eisenhower
Lbrary in Abrieme, I mink Ac-
cording to the miunutes of that
meeting, Dulles suggested that
the troop movements could be
simply a "probing action" and
not an actual attack. "Which
proves to me that samet~e in
[between] Angleton got back to
him and resold it," says Amory,
who only recently learned the
contents of the minutes, and
who believes that Angleton was
duped and not dupiiatous, Ang-
leton, who ism his late 60s and
lives outside Washingtao, re-
fuses to comment about nay
matters related to Israel.
Despite the lingering
doubts abort Angleton's
posture toward Israel,
former CIA employees say his
unit took anything but a hands-
nff aeuroach to that country.
One intelligence veteran who
saw CIA reports
the
1950s
and 1960s says the Unit-
ed States conducted both "hu-
man and communications intelli-
gence operations" against Isra-
el. Human operations involve
agents who rollers information
against a country without that
eowmtry's knowledge, commrmi-
cations operations involve the
1nterception of cable traffic and
other dectroaic sigoais. In the
beginning, this let! voce vet-
eran says, these operations
those dcomparable in irected at of c
tries.
In the interview this post
Milled tt acknowledged the
existence some, US inteIIi-
genc a operations agaamt Israel
but said that they were fewer in
number than those Israel
mounted against the United
States. There was less need for
US operations against Israel
than for Israeli efforts against
this country, Mullett said, and,
in any case, conducting espio-
nage operations inside Israel
was d0cult. "Israel is much
smapQ than the United States,
its people more tightly knit. Ev-
erybody knows each other."
This made human intdbgence
operations inside Israel difficult.
The United States appar-
ently relied heavily on commu-
nications intelligence. 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.
s1
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In Angleton's time, commu-
nications-intercept operations
were coordinated among Angle-
toe's Israeli desk, the National
Security Agency, and the CIA's
Division D, its liaison twit 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 - se-
from other =its separated
handling the
Middle East.
W bile the United States
was conducting its es-
pionage operations,
the Israelis were also mounting
their own operatim
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 bands -
contributed to the US intelli-
gence failure in the months be-
fore the Suez crisis in 1956.
The concern was not un-
founded. Telephone taps were
discovered in the home 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 after assigned
to Tel Aviv, says the situation
was worse than that. According
to Koczak, Donald John Sane,
the CIA's man in Israel from
1953 to 1956, informed his suc-
cessor, Harold G. W'i rams, that
the phones in the CIA station in
the US Embassy in Israel were
tapped. Koczak says that
Saone, in the months before
leaving, also told his successor
that Koczak and Williams were
under suave lance by the Israe-
lis.
But of even greater concern
to the CIA and the State De-
partment was the possibility of
theft of diplomatic communica-
tions. Because the US Embassy
in Tel Aviv refused to send cer-
3
tam messages out of fear these quired to obtain prior clearance
messages might find their way from his
socia
to the Israeli Embassy in Wash- with den foreigners, and to be did so.
so.
ington, events preceding the "These were personal as well
Suez crisis were inadequately as official friends with whom I
reported, Kock recalls. For- had dean," . Kock said later. "I
sign service officers sought to sympathized with their pry
avoid controversy, and the lems, and they knew my friend-
CIA's men, Sanne and Williams, ly feelings "
would not risk offending the
Son-
State Department with their nenfeldt, ed with him
own differing reports.
There was particular con- in the intelligence bureau. There, Koczak alleges.
cern over leaks from State De- he watched Sonnenfeldt disclose to a group of
partment intelligence, accord- Israelis information from classified CIA and State
ing to several sources. The CIA Department cables detailing sensitive discussions
took an interest in such cases between US and Lebanese officials on arrange-
because State Department ana- ments for the landing of US troops.
lysts. as consumers of CIA and Koczak made this allegation in sworn testimo-
NSA intelligence, were in a po- ny to Congress in 1973 and reaffirmed and elabo-
sition to compromise the sue- rated on it in recent interviews. "It became clear
rity of the entire intelligence to me then," Koczak told Congress, "that this
community.
was ... part of the whole problem as to why the
One
the late se5 of allegations from American embassy in Israel felt so totally inse-
Helmut cure [and] why the information went back so fast
Sonnenfeldt, a Soviet intelli- [to the Israeiisj." Kok later found out, he says,
Part hen Who lorter Sb~ a that veldt did not have prior clearance for
key National Security Cocmcil g the party and even failed to report his
kids to H meeting with foreigners after the fact.
aide it now en a Henry Kissinger and Reached in Washington last month, Sonnen-
e i guest scholar at feldt denied Koczak's allegations, as he did when
Brookings Institution they were first made public in 1973. He said that
In early 1959, soon after re- they had been investigated thoroughly and that
turning to CIA headquarters they had had no impact on his subsequent career.
from his tour of duty in Tel
Aviv, Harold Williams contacted
Koczak, 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
Koczak says he told his story to William
wh
o
s,
was alarmed and took it back to CIA headquar-
ters. According to two sources, one investigation
of Sonnenfeldt, Justice conduct the by the FBI and 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 staff's secret 1979 study
on Israeli intelligence listed "collection of infor-
mation on secret US policy and decisions" as sec-
ond among Israel's intelligence priorities.
Lebanon in July 1958. Koczak By the 1960s the Israeli account had
recalled incident he had Koczak changed in subtle ways. No longer a two-
served around that time. Koc- man operation, it had taken over an office
se
zak e had been invited to a down the hall from Angleton's. But Angleton's
at the home of an Israeli whom ship pocket" approach is said to have continued,
he had known while in Tel Aviv even
uii after Millets left and was replaced by Harold
and who was then assigned to
Washington. Most of the others had Despite the independence in Tel Aviv that
invited were Israelis. Since impressed Koh Williams "was not totally
'in' on the [Israeli] thing when he was in Washing-
Koc zak was then with the Ger- ton," a CIA friend of Williams says. man division of State Depart- good job in managing day-to-day affairs, but he
ment intelligence, he was re- realized that he was,heiid at arms' length by Ang-
leton. Whether he cared, I don't know."
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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
flied with a number of "blind cards"; each con-
tained 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 Mossad 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." Acknowledging 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 tor
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
I 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-ranking US diplo-
mat in Tel Aviv, the embassy had conchxded 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 first 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 (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-
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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
Hadden, 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 earlier this year.
Readied at his home outside
Pittsitong ShapQV ctnlleaged
the CIA theory. "Where did I
tour?' be asked. "What infor-
mation did I send and receive?,
He said he had had a meeting
"with a scientific rntmsek r"
but would not identity 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 Eitan's
background and that the FBI
documents make clear that if he
did meet such a person, "it was
not done surreptitiouety."
`Do you think if there was
any truth 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
posts as a cover. One such atta-
che, Avraham Hermon, was re-
ported to have been in contact
with NUMEC ofcialss 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 1'971.
Government investigators
who later talked to Hadden and.
his Colleagues point a P it of
disappointment within the CIA
over the FBrs investigation.
The CIA felt that the FBI took
a law-forcemeat approach to
the investigation instead of a
more preventive, co e .
gwCe approach, "The FBI is a
national Pace force," one CIA
fm tici is said to have coca.
pittioed. "We have no domestic
MM' Re= P
And despte then high re-
gard for Sam Papich, the FBI
haison man, there was a strong
feeling among CIA officers and
others wonting with them that
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
had caved in to political pres-
sures in waiting until 1968 to
investigate NUMEC and later in
concluding the investigation
without indictments. Says one
former CIA officer. "There
were political limitations on
how far the FBI could go."
I n 1972 Hadden 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-
raeli contacts from everyone
else, even those who worked
with him, contributed to an ear-
ly decision by Colby to seek
changes in the Israeli account.
In his autobiography, Honorable
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-
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came, he says, he "feared that
Aogietm's professional ntegri-
ty and personal intensity might
have led him to take dire men-
sores 1 1 forced the issue."
But Colby became more
adamam he wrote, when he
was "shocked" to lean after
the Yam Kippur War in October
1973 that the CIA station in Is-
rael was not allowed to commu-
nicate with station in neighbor-
ing Arab countries. "I had come
to the coocluaim that I was not
doing my job ... unless I insist-
ed that I, rather than Angleton,
make the de =ons about Israeli
relations and counterintelli-
gence.
Colby offered Angleton a
"separate status," which in-
cluded berg 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 at Angle-
ton's hands, thereby getting rid
of Angleton's secretive style,
his ?hip-pocket" 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 headquarters
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 tmheard of
under Angleton. Instead of
compartmmting the Israeli ac-
count, the CIA has made it hit
every other omit in the division
- separately respaoainl m for its
own security and camte iote&-
gence. CIA ties with Arab
states are protected not by
compsrtmenting the account
but by ad hoc rules that oont=d
the flow of iofocmation to Not
sad haia.n officers. Jewish em-
pio7ees of the US government
now may work at the US em-
busy in Tel Aviv.
For the most pat, the tran-
sition was made smoothly.
"There was a less severe inter-
ruption than many who were in-
volved at the time wornea
there would be," said an affiloer
who has worked on Israeli mat-
ters since Angleton's depar-
ture.
Yet the transition was not
made without at least one pos?-
ble disruption, reflected by dif-
ferences of opinion over the re-
cent Pollard case. Under Angle-
ton, the essence of counterin-
telligence, according to one
source, was institutional mem-
orr "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
Millett, with long experience on
Israeli matters, emphasize that
Pollard was "part of a pattern."
They point out parallels to the
past: that Rafael Eitan, Pol-
lard's handler, visited NLTMEC,
that in both cases allegations
were made about Israeli science
attaches, and that Pollard stole
classified US documents as oth-
ers before him have been ac-
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
countries since the early 1970s,
including intelligence cooper-
ation, have led many CIA offi-
cials to devalue - some would
say overlook - the significance
of mtelhg conflicts with Is-
rael- Indeed, President Rea-
gan'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 how heav-
ily the United States now relies
on cooperation with
e Israeli in-
gence services to urther its
goals in the hfiddk EaSL
It is in this Gong, without
continuity and overv., 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. ?
EFF MKONNt?LL. WHO LIVES IN SOMERVTLLE. WRITES k8OL7 NAT1n' _EC: R
:"'~
SSIIES. RICHARD HIGGD S IS A MEMO OF THE GLOBE STAFF
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