In the secret world of spies and covert operations, no other intelligence service continues to be surrounded by myth and mystery, or commands respect and fear, like Israel's Mossad. Formed in 1951 to ensure an embattled Israel's future, the Mossad has been responsible for the most audacious and thrilling feats of espionage, counterterrorism, and assassination ever ventured.Gideon's Spies draws from classified documents, confidential sources, and closed-door interviews with Mossad agents, informants, and spymasters to reveal the organization's deepest secrets. This fifth edition is completely updated with new information, including the Mossad hospital raid that eventually uncovered sleeper cells in Britain, the assassination of the world's second most-wanted terrorist, the discovery of an unknown nuclear facility in Iran, the intricate relationship between Israeli intelligence and the Bush administration's war on terror, and why one former Mossad chief says, "We are looking down the barrel of World War III unless the world wakes up."
Meir Amit
Juval Aviv
Ari Ben-Menashe
Barry Chamish
Eli Cohen
Jaakov Cohen
Meir Dagan
Alex Doron
Ran Edelist
Raphael Eitan
Efraim Halevy
Isser Harel
Wafa’a Ali Ildris
David Kimche
Michael Koubi
Amiran Levine
Ariel Merari
Reuven Merhav
Danniy Nagier
Yoel Ben Porat
Uri Saguy
Zvi Spielman
Mohamed al-Fayed
Ehud Barak
Alice Baya’a
John A. Belton
Richard Brenneke
Sean Carberry
Ahmad Chalabi
Sebastian Cody
David Dastych
Art Dworken
Heather Florence
Ted Gunderson
William Hamilton
Cheryl Hanin Bentov
Amanda Harris
Barbara Honegger
Diana Johnson
Emery Kabongo
Gile Kepel
Otto Kormek
Zahir Kzeibati
Emer Lenehan
Lewis Libby
John Magee
Paul Marcinkus
John McNamara
Laurie Meyer
Muhamed Mugraby
Daniel Nagier
John Parsley
Samir Saddoui
Samira Shabander
Christopher Story
Susannah Tarbush
Michael Tauck
Elizabeth Tomlinson
Richard Tomlinson
Jacques Verges
Colin Wallace
Russell Warren-Howe
Catherine Whittaker
Stuart Winter
Marcus Wolff
David Yallop
When the red light blinked on the bedside telephone, a sophisticated recording device was automatically activated in the Paris apartment near the Pompidou Center in the lively Fourth Arrondissement. The light had been wired in by an Israeli communications technician who had flown from Tel Aviv to install the recorder, intended to allay any suspicions neighbors would have about the phone ringing at ungodly hours. The technician was one of the
The one in Paris was like all the others. It had a bombproof front door and window glass which, like the panes in the White House, could deflect scanners. There were scores of such apartments in all the major cities in the world, either purchased outright or rented on long leases. Many were left unoccupied for lengthy periods, ready for the time they would be needed for an operation.
One had been conducted from the Paris apartment since June 1997, when Monsieur Maurice had arrived. He spoke fluent French with a slight Central-European accent. Over the years his neighbors had encountered others like him: men, and occasionally women, who arrived without warning, spent weeks or months among them, then one day were gone. Like his predecessors, Maurice had politely discouraged interest in himself or his work.
Maurice was a
Physically he was nondescript; it had been said that even on an empty street he would pass virtually unnoticed. He had been recruited in what was still a halcyon time for Mossad, when its legend remained largely intact. His potential was spotted during Israel’s compulsory military service, when, after boot camp, he had been drafted into air force intelligence. An aptitude for languages (he knew French, English, and German) had been noted, along with other qualities: he was good at filling gaps in a case study and drawing fact out of speculation, and he knew the limits of informed conjecture. Above all, he was a natural manipulator of people: he could persuade, cajole, and, if all else failed, threaten.
Since graduating from the Mossad training school in 1982, he had worked in Europe, South Africa, and the Far East. At various times he had done so under the guise of a businessman, a travel writer, and a salesman. He had used a number of names and biographies drawn from the library of aliases maintained by Mossad. Now he was Maurice, once more a businessman.
During his various postings he had heard of the purges back in “the Institute,” the name its staff used for Mossad: corrosive rumors of disgraced and ruined careers, of changes at the top, and each incoming Mossad director with his own priorities. None of them had stemmed the loss of morale within the service.
This had increased with the appointment of Benyamin Netanyahu as Israel’s youngest prime minister. A man with a proven intelligence background, he was supposed to know how things worked on the inside ; when to listen, how far to go. Instead, from the outset, Netanyahu had astonished seasoned intelligence officers by dabbling in operational details.
At first this was put down to unnecessary zeal, a new broom showing he was ready to look into every closet to make sure there were no secrets he should know. But matters had become alarming when not only the prime minister but his wife, Sara, wanted to peer behind the looking glass into Israel’s intelligence world. She had invited senior Mossad officers to call on her at home and answer her questions, claiming she was following the example of Hillary Clinton’s interest in the CIA.
