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Unexchanged Spies
Unexchanged Spies
December 12, 1997 - Ha'aretz
IDF officer Yosef Amit was convicted of spying for the United
States in the 1980s. Yossi Melman asks why Israel did not try to
use this affair to help convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, who was
caught during the same period.
"No, I don't remember the incident," former Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir said in response to questions about whether Israel, under
his leadership in the later half of the 1980's, missed a rare
opportunity to mitigate Jonathan Pollard's punishment. "Maybe
Shimon Peres remembers more," he suggested., Peres, who was
deputy prime minister and foreign minister at the time, did not
respond to questions posed to him.
The Israeli leadership might have been unable to help Pollard, who
was exposed as an Israeli spy, even if it had tried. It did, however,
have the means to take more aggressive action. And the leverage
was Military Intelligence Major Yosef Amit.
Amit's story was partially covered by the press in the past, but here,
for the first time, is the full story of his espionage and of the
linkage that could have been made to Pollard., Jonathan Pollard,
who worked at the American naval intelligence center in Maryland,
was arrested on Nov. 21, 1985. Four months later, on March 24,
Amit was arrested at his home in Haifa, on suspicion of spying for
the United States. The fact that it was the United States he was
accused of spying for was not even noted on the indictment he was
served, and Israel never made that aspect of the affair public.
Yosef Amit was born in Haifa in 1945. In 1963, he enlisted in the
IDF, and completed officer's course with distinction. Later,
according to Foreign Report, he joined Intelligence Unit 504. The
unit, according to the foreign press, is an intelligence gathering unit
responsible for activating Arab agents in neighboring countries.
Amit was given command of a military intelligence base on the
Lebanese border. In 1978, he was arrested for drug dealing.
According to Foreign Report, Unit 504 paid agents in drugs given
to it by the police.
Journalist Uzi Mahanaimi, a former military intelligence officer
who today writes for the London Sunday Times, wrote in 1996 that
Israel also had a plan to swamp Egypt with drugs.
Amit attempted to sell some of the drugs from his base for personal
profit. He was brought in to military court but was declared
psychologically unfit to stand trial. He was hospitalized at the
Mizra psychiatric hospital near Acre upon being discharged from
the IDF.
Three years later, he was released and began to work as a private
investigator. During that time, Amit befriended an American naval
officer whose ship had docked at the Haifa port. They met at a pub,
and Amit boasted about his experience in intelligence. The officer
told his supervisors. At one point, the American officer told Amit
that he wished to retire from the service, settle in Germany, and
start a business. Amit hinted at his strong desire to make money
and suggested that they do business together. The American agreed.
Sometime later, Amit went to Germany and met with his new
friend. The American officer introduced him to some "friends," who
turned out to be members of the U.S. intelligence community,
officers from the CIA station at the U.S. embassy in Bonn. It is not
clear whether the naval officer had been recruiting for American
intelligence from the start, or whether he simply passed Amit's
history on out of patriotic loyalty. The contacts, which all took
place in Germany, continued for several months.
The Americans called upon Tom Waltz, a Jewish officer at the CIA
station of their embassy in Israel, to find out just how much Amit
had to offer. Coincidentally, Waltz and Amit flew to Germany on
the same plane. Waltz came to his first meeting with Amit
disguised. During his interrogation, however, Amit noted that he
had recognized his flight companion anyway: The CIA officer had
indeed changed his clothes and his appearance, but he had
forgotten to change his shoes. In any event, Waltz became Amit's
direct handler. The American intelligence officer instructed Amit
on the types of materials the Americans would be interested in. In
particular, the Americans requested information on Israeli troop
movements and intentions in Lebanon and in the occupied
territories. The contacts continued until just before Amit's arrest in
1986.
It was information given to the Shin Bet general security services
and the police by a friend of Amit's that aroused suspicion. The
friend reported that Amit spoke of ties he had with American
intelligence. Amit cooperated with his interrogators during
questioning and gave complete details of his relationship with the
CIA. He noted meeting places, dates, and names of individuals he
had met with, including Tom Waltz. He revealed the information he
had given to the Americans and admitted that he had received
several thousand dollars from the CIA in exchange for his services.
Classified military documents, as well as secret material belonging
to the Shin Bet, were found when Amit's house was searched.It
turned out that a childhood friend of Amit's had received material
from the Shin Bet research department in his capacity as Shin Bet
coordinator in the Galilee. Amit had convinced his friend to give
him some of the material, claiming he needed it for some private
investigations against Arab citizens. Copies of such material were
found in Amit's house.
The Shin Bet quickly arrested the friend, who admitted his guilt,
expressed remorse and claimed that he did not know Amit was
using the materials for other purposes. He was dismissed from the
Shin Bet, tried, and sentenced to three months in prison and a one-
year suspended sentence. In April 1987, Amit was convicted on the
basis of his confession and sentenced by the Haifa district court to
twelve years in jail. His trial was held in closed chambers, and
aside from a few brief and inexact stories that appeared in the
foreign press (The Israeli emigrant newspaper Israel Shelanu in
New York reported the arrest of a Military Intelligence officer for
spying for Syria), the military censor prevented any mention of the
incident from being reported in Israel.
Even more surprising was the fact that the Israeli government did
not decide to use the Amit affair with the Americans. The United
States was not even asked to remove Waltz from the embassy in Tel
Aviv, and about two months after Amit's arrest, Waltz even
accompanied a Shin Bet and Israeli Military Intelligence delegation
to a meeting in Washington. The delegation was briefed by Shin
Bet official Yossi Ginosar shortly before its departure and told to
refrain from even hinting at any knowledge of Waltz's activities.
The delegation was also warned against discussing Pollard. At the
time, Ginosar was head of the Shin Bet department in charge of
counter-espionage and foreign liaison.
Members of the intelligence community were silenced when they
tried to question why Israel did not use the issue to offset the
Pollard affair.
The only step that was taken was a meeting between Shin Bet head
Yosef Harmelin and the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv, in which the
Shin Bet official presented the facts and asked for an explanation.
The CIA chief informed the Shin Bet a few days later that Amit had
approached the Americans on his own initiative and had been
turned away.
In 1992, an opportunity to link the Pollard affair with the Amit
affair once again presented itself. Amnon Dror, chairman of the
Public Committee for the Release of Jonathan Pollard, learned that
a former officer was serving a sentence in an Israeli jail for spying
for the United States.
The committee actually served as a "front" for the Israeli
government, which wished to hide its involvement in attempts to
free Pollard and improve his prison conditions. It was funded by
the Ministry of Finance. Dror tried to find out from his supervisors
whether the Amit affair could be utilized on Pollard's behalf, but
says "they told me to leave it alone."
He called the American embassy in Tel Aviv and spoke to the
political attache. The attache denied that the United States had
activated an Israeli in Israel. Dror later gave some of the details he
knew to an Israeli journalist.
The journalist published the story in the American newspaper
Newsday, and mentioned the possibility that Israel may be
interested in exchanging Pollard's release for Amit's. The brief story
appeared in a few papers in Israel but did not attract much
attention.
Amit, however, sent a harsh letter to Rachel Sukar of the State
Attorney's office, stating that he had no wish to be released as part
of an exchange. Sukar replied, assuring him that neither she nor
any other official party stood behind the story, and that in any event
he would not be released against his will. Amit, who claimed that
his confession was extracted illegally, was ultimately released in
1993. He was paroled for good behavior (even though he often
violated prison regulations) and because of his psychological
condition. It is highly doubtful whether a major spy like Pollard
could have been released in exchange for Amit, who was
considered a minor spy and was not important to the Americans.
It seems, however, that Amit could have been used to try to pressure
the Americans to lighten Pollard's punishment, or to try to make a
secret deal in which the Americans would at least promise to
release him in the future. But nothing was done. Why?
Those familiar with the affair suggest a number of possibilities. The
Israeli leadership of that period - Peres, Shamir, and Yitzhak Rabin
- as well as the heads of the intelligence community, feared that
demands for an exchange would only exacerbate the rage of the
Americans, who were furious enough about the Pollard affair. The
Israeli leadership wanted to placate the Americans at any cost.
They may also have feared that the issue would attract attention to
the delicate operations of Unit 504.
Perhaps it was a matter of pride. In the 1980s, the intelligence
community still felt that exposing the involvement of a former
military intelligence officer and a Shin Bet official in espionage for
the United States would embarrass them and damage their
reputation.
The Israeli leadership and heads of intelligence preferred, it seems,
to maintain their honor and professional pride rather than taking
care of a spy that had been imprisoned because of them.
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