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2
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Abul Abbas.md
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@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ location: "Yarmouk Camp, Syria"
[[Abul Abbas]] was a Palestinian terrorist. He was involved in the 1985 [[Achille Lauro]] attack, which was an [[Israel|Israeli]] "black" propaganda operation designed to show the world the perceived brutality of Palestinians.[^1]
[[Abul Abbas|Abbas]] received orders from [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]], who was relaying instructions from [[Rafi]]. He was reportedly receiving millions from [[Israel|Israeli]] intelligence officers posing as Sicilian dons. [[Abul Abbas|Abbas]] gathered a team to attack the cruise ship, with instructions to make the attack severe to highlight Palestinian demands.[^1]
[[Abul Abbas|Abbas]] received orders from [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]], who was relaying instructions from [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]]. He was reportedly receiving millions from [[Israel|Israeli]] intelligence officers posing as Sicilian dons. [[Abul Abbas|Abbas]] gathered a team to attack the cruise ship, with instructions to make the attack severe to highlight Palestinian demands.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.

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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/David Ben-Gurion.md
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---
aliases:
- David Ben-Gurion
- Ben-Gurion
- Ben Gurion
- David Ben Gurion
- Prime Minister Ben-Gurion
- Prime Minister Ben Gurion
- the Old Man
created: 2025-01-09
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
- KeyFigure
- Person
- Nuclear
- KeyFigure
- Israel
summary: "David Ben-Gurion, often referred to as the 'Old Man,' was a central figure in the establishment of Israel and served as its first Prime Minister and Defense Minister from 1948 to 1963, with one brief interlude."
- Nuclear
- Dimona
- Mapai
- Rafi
- Mossad
- Kennedy
- SamsonOption
summary: "Israel's first prime minister and defense minister, who started the Dimona project, described it to Washington as peaceful, and resigned on June 16, 1963, the day an American inspection ultimatum was to reach him."
born: 1886-10-16
died: 1973-12-01
location: "Płońsk, Poland (then Russian Empire)"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Israel]]"
start: 1948
end: 1963-06-16
role: "prime minister and defense minister, with an interval from December 1953 to February 1955"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Mossad]]"
start: 1949
role: "directed the creation of the central coordinating institute under Reuven Shiloah"
fn: 17
- type: appointed
with: "[[Shimon Peres]]"
start: 1953
role: "director general of the Ministry of Defense"
fn: 1
- type: appointed
with: "[[Moshe Sharett]]"
start: 1953
role: "prime minister during his retirement at Sdeh Boker"
fn: 4
- type: appointed
with: "[[Moshe Dayan]]"
start: 1953
role: "army chief of staff"
fn: 4
- type: appointed
with: "[[Pinhas Lavon]]"
start: 1953
role: "defense minister"
fn: 4
- type: head_of
with: "[[Mapai Party]]"
start: 1953
end: 1965-06
role: "retained control of the party from Sdeh Boker; resigned from it in June 1965"
fn: 4
- type: founded
with: "[[Rafi]]"
start: 1965
end: 1968
role: "led the list in the 1965 elections"
fn: 13
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Dimona]]"
start: 1955
end: 1963-06-16
role: "approved the French agreement and the cover story; correspondent of John F. Kennedy on inspections"
fn: 6
---
David Ben-Gurion (born October 16, 1886 in Płońsk; died December 1, 1973) led the Israeli government as prime minister and minister of defense from 1948 to June 1963 with one interval of retirement, and was the principal sponsor of the nuclear complex at [[Dimona]]. The American record of that project consists of his public assurances of peaceful purposes, the discovery of the site in 1960, and a 1963 exchange of letters with President [[John F. Kennedy]] that ended with his resignation.[^1][^2][^3]
David Ben-Gurion, often referred to as the "Old Man," was a central figure in the establishment of [[Israel]] and served as its first Prime Minister and Defense Minister from 1948 to 1963, with one brief interlude. He was a strong advocate for [[Israel]]'s self-defense and self-reliance, driven by a private nightmare of a second Holocaust at the hands of the Arabs. He believed that [[Israel]]'s security would come through its own capabilities, repeatedly linking the nation's security to its progress in science.[^1]
### Retirement and return, 1953 to 1955
Ben-Gurion was a key proponent of [[Israel]] developing its own atomic reactor, utilizing indigenous natural uranium and locally manufactured heavy water. He publicly stated that nuclear energy would soon produce electricity and desalinated water to make the [[Negev Desert|Negev]] desert bloom. However, his primary goal was the development of a nuclear bomb, with the public statements serving as a cover. He oversaw this effort with the aid of his protégé, [[Shimon Peres]], and [[Ernst David Bergmann]], who headed the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission under the direct jurisdiction of the defense ministry.[^1]
[[Seymour Hersh]] wrote that Ben-Gurion, "white-maned" and known as the Old Man, repeatedly told visitors in the early 1950s that Israel would build its own reactor from native uranium and locally made heavy water and that nuclear energy would make the Negev bloom; that he oversaw the effort through [[Shimon Peres]], whom he made director general of the defense ministry in late 1953 at age thirty, and [[Ernst David Bergmann]]; and that the three accepted from the beginning that the project would have to be privately financed by wealthy American and European Jews.[^1] Hersh wrote that Ben-Gurion had unsuccessfully sought for years to be included under an American nuclear umbrella, that he secretly offered Israeli troops to the [[United Nations]] forces in the [[Korean War]], which President [[Harry S. Truman]] declined apparently from fear of a security arrangement, and that most senior members of the [[Mapai Party]] regarded an Israeli bomb as suicidal, too expensive and too reminiscent of the Holocaust.[^1][^2]
Ben-Gurion, Peres, and Bergmann sought international allies and private financing from wealthy American and European Jews to fund the secret nuclear program, believing any other approach would compromise its secrecy.[^1]
In late 1953 he retired to the kibbutz at [[Sdeh Boker]] in the [[Negev Desert]], near the future site of Dimona, while retaining what Hersh called total control of Mapai. He divided his two offices, appointing [[Moshe Sharett]] prime minister and [[Pinhas Lavon]] defense minister, and arranged for [[Moshe Dayan]] to become chief of staff; Peres stayed at the defense ministry.[^4] Hersh wrote that when the Egyptian arrest of an Israeli sabotage ring in mid-1954 produced the [[Lavon Affair]], Sharett accepted Lavon's resignation in January 1955 and Ben-Gurion was recalled from retirement as defense minister; that six days after his return, on February 28, 1955, he authorized a retaliation against an Egyptian camp at [[Gaza Strip|Gaza]] led by Lieutenant Colonel [[Ariel Sharon]], which killed thirty-six Egyptians and Palestinians and ended the secret contacts between Sharett and [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]]; and that Lavon, whom a cabinet committee exonerated, accused Ben-Gurion, Peres and Dayan of undermining civilian control of the military.[^4][^5] In Hersh's account, Ben-Gurion refused Lavon's request for exoneration, resigned once again and demanded a judicial inquiry; Sharett's diaries, which Hersh cites, convinced him that Dayan was involved in the original operations.[^4][^5]
Despite publicly supporting the American position in the [[Korean War]], Ben-Gurion's attempts to secure a regional security pact or inclusion under the American nuclear umbrella were unsuccessful. He even offered to send Israeli troops to fight alongside [[United Nations]] forces in South Korea, an offer declined by President [[Harry S. Truman]] due to fears of backing into a security arrangement with [[Israel]]. Throughout [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]]'s presidency, [[United States|America]] maintained an embargo on arms sales to [[Israel]], further solidifying Ben-Gurion's conviction that [[Israel]] needed an independent nuclear arsenal.[^1]
### France and the reactor, 1955 to 1960
Ben-Gurion's vision for [[Israel]]'s nuclear program was not without internal opposition. Many senior members of the ruling [[Mapai Party]] viewed an Israeli bomb as suicidal, too expensive, and too reminiscent of the horrors of the Holocaust. However, Ben-Gurion held firm, especially regarding the French-Israeli nuclear cooperation. He believed that [[Israel]]'s needs coincided perfectly with [[France]]'s, particularly in the early 1950s when both nations lacked the technical capacity to build a bomb independently.[^1]
[[Avner Cohen]] and [[William Burr]] wrote that in 1955, soon after Ben-Gurion returned as prime minister and defense minister, he launched a secret feasibility initiative and delegated it to Peres, and that by 1958 France was to be the supplier, Norway the source of heavy water, and the United States the source of a small "Atoms for Peace" reactor "that could serve as the camouflage for the whole project."[^6] Hersh wrote that Ben-Gurion had picked a site for the first Israeli reactor in the basement of an abandoned winery at [[Rishon LeZion]] near the [[Weizmann Institute of Science]], and that in mid-September 1956, six weeks before the [[Suez Crisis]] war, he sent Peres with Bergmann to [[Paris]] to ask the government of [[Guy Mollet]] for a reactor.[^7] Cohen and Burr wrote that Peres signed the Dimona agreement in Paris in October 1957.[^6]
In late 1953, a disillusioned Ben-Gurion retired to his desert kibbutz at Sdeh Boker, near the future site of [[Dimona]]. He believed he could revive the pioneering spirit of Israeli society by resettling in the desert. His political control over the [[Mapai Party]] remained absolute, and he decreed that his jointly held positions of prime minister and defense minister be separated and filled by his chosen successors, [[Moshe Sharett]] as the new prime minister and [[Pinhas Lavon]] as defense minister. Ben-Gurion also arranged for [[Moshe Dayan]] to become the new army chief of staff, ensuring that Sharett's dovish policies would not go unchallenged.[^2]
In May 1960, Hersh wrote, French foreign minister [[Maurice Couve de Murville]] told the Israeli ambassador that France wanted a public announcement of the reactor and inspection like that at Nahal Soreq, or it would withhold uranium; Ben-Gurion flew to Paris to meet President [[Charles de Gaulle]]. From the notes of [[Bertrand Goldschmidt]], Hersh reported that de Gaulle feared the international scandal of being the only country helping Israel, wanted French help on the underground reprocessing plant to stop, and offered more fighter aircraft; de Gaulle's memoirs say that he ordered the work near Beersheba halted, and Hersh wrote that the order was ignored, [[Saint-Gobain]]'s work was delayed more than two years until a new French contractor finished it in 1962, and that Peres arranged a compromise in which Israel assured the French that it would not make a bomb or reprocess plutonium and would announce the reactor. Hersh wrote that Ben-Gurion "did nothing to change the status quo at Dimona" and that French firms stayed until 1966.[^8]
Ben-Gurion's immediate public mission after returning to office in 1955 was to restore the army's morale and public confidence. He was more convinced than ever that a policy of military reprisal was essential. Six days after taking office, on February 28, 1955, he authorized a large-scale retaliation against an Egyptian military camp at [[Gaza]], led by [[Ariel Sharon]], in response to a cross-border attack by Palestinian guerrillas. This raid escalated tensions and ended secret contacts between Sharett and [[Gamal Abdel Nasser|Nasser]].[^2]
### The cover story, December 1960 to January 1961
In late 1955, Ben-Gurion once again served as both defense minister and prime minister. With no international protest over the Canadian reactor sale, he decided in mid-September to formally seek French help for the Israeli bomb. He had already picked a location for the Israeli reactor in the basement of an old deserted winery at Rishon LeZion. He sent [[Shimon Peres]] with [[Ernst David Bergmann]] to [[Paris]] to negotiate for a reactor.[^2]
The documents published by Cohen and Burr show Ben-Gurion's public line after the American discovery. In the Knesset on December 21, 1960 he said that Dimona was "exclusively for peaceful purposes."[^9] On December 24, 1960 Ambassador [[Ogden Reid]] reported a long conversation in which Ben-Gurion, "plainly irritated," asked "Why in [the] States is everything being told everybody?", justified the secrecy by the Arab boycott, said the reactor would not produce power but was for research and training, and said that on plutonium safeguards Israel was "three or four years" away from the problem and "we won't be behind any power in the world in respect to safeguards."[^9] An embassy telegram of December 23 recorded an unidentified official "close to" Ben-Gurion telling the Canadian ambassador that the secrecy was "a stupid mistake on the part of Israel."[^9] In early January 1961, according to a State Department chronology, Ben-Gurion told Reid that Israel "has no plans for producing nuclear weapons," would not accept [[International Atomic Energy Agency]] inspection "until all reactors are treated as equals," would permit visits by "friendly powers," and had no plan for a third reactor; the department's telegram of December 31, 1960 had called his earlier explanations "evasive" and the "lack of candor" hard to reconcile with traditional confidence.[^9][^10]
Ben-Gurion was pleased with [[Charles de Gaulle]]'s promises of continued military aid, but he was not willing to trade an Israeli bomb for French warplanes. He did nothing to change the status quo at [[Dimona]] after his meeting with de Gaulle, and privately owned French construction firms continued their vigorous presence at [[Dimona]] until 1966.[^2]
Hersh wrote that the [[Knesset]] "was only too eager to accept any government statement denying the intent to produce nuclear weapons," and that Bergmann's categorical public denial was accepted although his involvement was widely known.[^11] In the May 30, 1961 meeting in New York, Cohen and Burr wrote, Ben-Gurion gave Kennedy the same account: the project was for the development of the Negev, and he assured Kennedy that the program was for peaceful purposes.[^9][^12]
### The letters of 1963
The National Security Archive's 2019 posting records the confrontation. In April 1963 Kennedy asked through Ambassador [[Walworth Barbour]] for semiannual American visits to Dimona; Ben-Gurion on April 2 asked to postpone the discussion until after Passover.[^12] On April 17, 1963 [[Egypt]], [[Syria]] and [[Iraq]] signed the Arab Federation Proclamation, and on April 26 Ben-Gurion wrote to Kennedy proposing a joint United States and Soviet guarantee for the Middle East while ignoring the inspection request; on May 12 he sent a nine-page personal letter that compared Nasser to [[Adolf Hitler]] ("knowing them I am convinced that they are capable of following the Nazi example") and asked for a bilateral security agreement and arms equal to those the Arabs received; the diplomat [[Gideon Rafael]] advised against sending it because it "looks sick," and Cohen and Burr suggested that the letter was Ben-Gurion's indirect statement of why Israel needed Dimona.[^12] A [[Central Intelligence Agency]] digest of May 7 reported his statement that "neither a guarantee nor any alliance is sufficient for Israel's protection without adequate independent strength"; on May 14, according to a summary, he asked Barbour whether semiannual visits would be made to Egyptian sites and observed that it was to Israel's advantage if the Arab governments were "worried rather than reassured on Israeli nuclear program."[^12] Kennedy's letter of May 17 warned that American "commitment to and support of Israel" would be "seriously jeopardized" if the government could not obtain "reliable information" on the character of Israel's nuclear effort, and his letter of June 15, setting out conditions for visits, was to be delivered by Barbour on June 16, the day Ben-Gurion announced his resignation; it was held and sent instead to [[Levi Eshkol]], who took more than six weeks to reply.[^12] At the White House on April 2, 1963 Peres told Kennedy "we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first," a formula Cohen and Burr said was consistent with what Ben-Gurion had already told Israeli newspaper editors.[^12]
### Rafi and Sdeh Boker
Hersh wrote that Eshkol's deferral of the nuclear decision in return for American offensive arms "enraged" Ben-Gurion, who compared him to [[Neville Chamberlain]], and that in June 1965 he resigned from Mapai and formed [[Rafi]] (the Judaica entry dates the new list to July 1965) with a "reluctant but loyal" Peres and Dayan, hoping for as many as twenty-five Knesset seats.[^13] Rafi won ten seats in November 1965; Rafi joined [[Mapai Party|Mapai]] and Ahdut HaAvoda in the merger that created the [[Labor Party]] on January 21, 1968, and the State List, led by Ben-Gurion and composed largely of Rafi supporters, won four seats in 1969.[^14][^15] Hersh noted that [[Myer Feldman]], waiting with [[Teddy Kollek]] while Ben-Gurion wrote in his notebook in his last years, asked what he was doing and was told by Kollek, "Oh, he's falsifying history."[^16]
### Intelligence services
The official site of the [[Mossad]] carries an image of Ben-Gurion's directive on the creation of the institute and lists [[Reuven Shiloah]] as its head from 1949 to 1952 and [[Isser Harel]] from 1952 to 1963; the National Security Archive records that in the spring of 1963 Harel, with the support of Foreign Minister [[Golda Meir]], led a campaign of leaks to the Israeli press about German scientists working on missiles and radiological weapons in Egypt.[^17]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 2.
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 3.
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M., *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*, Random House, 1991, chapter 2, "The Scientist," pp. 19-21. Full text read at https://archive.org/details/Sampson_Option
[^2]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 2, pp. 21-22 and 27 (Korea, Mapai opposition).
[^3]: Burr, William, and Avner Cohen, eds., "The Battle of the Letters, 1963," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 671, May 2, 2019. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-05-02/battle-letters-1963-john-f-kennedy-david-ben-gurion-levi-eshkol-us-inspections-dimona
[^4]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 3, "The French Connection," pp. 33-35.
[^5]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 9, "Years of Pressure," pp. 121-122 (the Lavon Affair and the cabinet committee).
[^6]: Cohen, Avner, and William Burr, "The Eisenhower Administration and the Discovery of Dimona: March 1958-January 1961," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 510, April 15, 2015. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb510/
[^7]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 3, pp. 35-40.
[^8]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 5, "Internal Wars," pp. 68-70 (the June 1960 meeting with de Gaulle).
[^9]: Cohen and Burr, EBB No. 510: the introduction (Knesset statement of December 21, 1960) and documents 15 (Embassy Tel Aviv telegram 574, December 23, 1960) and 16 (Embassy Israel telegram 577, December 24, 1960).
[^10]: Cohen and Burr, EBB No. 510, documents 21 (State Department telegram 502, December 31, 1960) and 22 (summary of Embassy Tel Aviv telegram 625, January 4, 1961, in the chronology enclosed with Benjamin Read to McGeorge Bundy, March 18, 1964, EBB No. 432, document 9).
[^11]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 6, "Going Public," p. 78.
[^12]: Burr and Cohen, EBB No. 671, introduction and documents 15, 16, 19 through 21, 23, 25, 26 and 28.
[^13]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 10, "The Samson Option," pp. 138-139.
[^14]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 10, "The Samson Option," pp. 139-141; Israel Democracy Institute, "Rafi," election results for 1965 (95,328 votes, ten seats). https://en.idi.org.il/israeli-elections-and-parties/parties/rafi
[^15]: "Rafi," Encyclopaedia Judaica (entry by Misha Louvish), on Encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/rafi
[^16]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 10, p. 140 (footnote on Ben-Gurion's diaries; Feldman's account).
[^17]: Mossad, "History," mossad.gov.il. https://mossad.gov.il/en/history ; Burr and Cohen, EBB No. 671, document 17 (the Isser Harel campaign of spring 1963).

107
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ernst David Bergmann.md
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@ -1,35 +1,112 @@
---
aliases:
- Ernst David Bergmann
- Ernst Bergmann
- David Bergmann
- David Ernst Bergmann
- David Ernest Bergmann
- Ernst D. Bergmann
- E. D. Bergmann
- Professor Bergmann
- Bergmann
created: 2025-01-09
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Scientists & Researchers"
tags:
- KeyFigure
- Person
- WW2
- Nazi
summary: "Ernst David Bergmann was a German-born Israeli organic chemist, widely considered the scientific father of the Israeli nuclear bomb."
- KeyFigure
- Israel
- Nuclear
- Dimona
- Chemist
- AtomsForPeace
- WeizmannInstitute
- Rafi
summary: "German-born organic chemist, founding director of the Sieff Institute at Rehovot and chairman of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission from 1952 to 1966, called the scientific father of the Israeli bomb in the American record."
born: 1903-10-18
died: 1975-04-06
location: "Karlsruhe, Germany"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Weizmann Institute of Science]]"
start: 1934-01-01
end: 1951
role: "founding director of the Daniel Sieff Research Institute at Rehovot; scientific director of the Weizmann Institute from 1949"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Israel Atomic Energy Commission]]"
start: 1952
end: 1966
role: "chairman, sole remaining member by the late 1950s"
fn: 2
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Israel Ministry of Defense]]"
start: 1948
end: 1966
role: "head of the first defense research institute; scientific adviser to the minister and director of research and planning"
fn: 2
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]]"
start: 1952
role: "professor of organic chemistry"
fn: 1
- type: reported_to
with: "[[Shimon Peres]]"
start: 1953
end: 1966
role: "the Atomic Energy Commission stood under the jurisdiction of the director general of the Defense Ministry"
fn: 2
- type: member_of
with: "[[Rafi]]"
start: 1965
role: "founding member"
fn: 8
---
Ernst David Bergmann (born October 18, 1903 in Karlsruhe; died April 6, 1975 in Jerusalem) was an organic chemist who directed the Daniel Sieff Research Institute at Rehovot, chaired the [[Israel Atomic Energy Commission]] from its creation in 1952 until 1966, and held two defense posts under [[David Ben-Gurion]] and [[Shimon Peres]]. [[Seymour Hersh]] called him "the scientific father of the Israeli bomb, its J. Robert Oppenheimer"; the American documents published by [[Avner Cohen]] and [[William Burr]] record that Peres kept Bergmann and his commission largely outside the negotiations for [[Dimona]].[^1][^2][^3]
Ernst David Bergmann was a German-born Israeli organic chemist, widely considered the scientific father of the Israeli nuclear bomb. A refugee from Nazi Germany, he became director of the chemistry division at the [[Weizmann Institute of Science]] after [[Israel]]'s War of Independence in 1948. He was also chairman of [[Israel]]'s Atomic Energy Commission, established in 1952, and publicly advocated for nuclear research for peaceful purposes.[^1]
### Berlin, Rehovot and the war years
Bergmann's dream of nuclear power plants served as an effective cover for his drive to develop nuclear weapons. He worked closely with [[David Ben-Gurion]], then Prime Minister and Defense Minister, and [[Shimon Peres]], director general of the ministry of defense. Bergmann's Israeli Atomic Energy Commission was under the direct jurisdiction of Peres and the defense ministry, indicating its true purpose was not solely peaceful.[^1]
Bergmann began doctoral research in chemistry at the University of Berlin in 1924 under Wilhelm Schlenk, took the doctorate in 1927 and became a Privatdozent in 1928; the Nazi civil service law of April 7, 1933 ended his teaching rights.[^1] Hersh wrote that he had been introduced to nuclear research as a student at the Emil Fischer Institute, that [[Herman F. Mark]] was a colleague with whom he published joint papers on the chemical structure of rubber, paint and adhesives, and that his father, a rabbi in Berlin, was a close friend of [[Chaim Weizmann]], who arranged a place for him at Manchester University in England.[^2] He reached Palestine on January 1, 1934 as founding director of the Daniel Sieff Research Institute at Rehovot, the body that became the [[Weizmann Institute of Science]].[^1] Hersh, citing a Weizmann biography, wrote that in 1936 the [[Haganah]] asked Weizmann for a chemist to develop a high explosive, that Weizmann assigned Bergmann, who then joined the Haganah's technical committee, and that in 1939 Bergmann carried his findings to Paris for the French.[^2]
In the early 1950s, Bergmann also held the portfolios of scientific adviser to the minister of defense and director of research and planning for the defense ministry. These roles positioned him as a key advocate for nuclear weapons, directly contributing to [[Israel]]'s status as a nuclear-weapons state by the end of the 1960s, in collaboration with the French.[^1]
Two accounts exist of the war years. The Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography places him in London from 1939 on war work for the Ministry of Supply, studying Weizmann's "catarole process" for aromatic compounds at the Manchester Oil Refinery, then in the United States from 1942 with Commercial Solvents at Terre Haute, Indiana, on fermentation isoprene for synthetic rubber, returning to the Sieff Institute in 1946.[^1] Hersh wrote that Bergmann left England shortly after the invasion of Poland for a chemistry laboratory in Philadelphia that "didn't work out," and that Herman Mark took him to the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, where Weizmann also stayed.[^2]
Bergmann's early exposure to atomic science came as a student at the Emil Fischer Institute of the University of Berlin in the 1920s. He was part of a circle of eminent scientists, including [[Herman F. Mark]], who were at the forefront of nuclear fission research. In 1933, due to Nazi decrees, [[Chaim Weizmann]] arranged for Bergmann to join the faculty at Manchester University in England. He later moved to Philadelphia and then Brooklyn, continuing his research and maintaining connections with scientists involved in nuclear fission.[^1]
The Dictionary records his appointment as scientific director of the new Weizmann Institute in 1949, his departure in 1951, a professorship at the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]] in 1952, and his marriage that year to Hani Itin.[^1] Hersh wrote that Weizmann's wife Vera objected to Bergmann as institute director because of his long relationship with her husband's private secretary Hani, whom he eventually married, and that he was made head of the organic chemistry division; that Bergmann moved at Ben-Gurion's request after 1948 to the [[Israel Ministry of Defense]] to establish the first defense research institute; and that more than forty years later Peres told an Israeli reporter that Bergmann was speaking of a missile capability in 1948: "I might be ready to tell the full truth about him in one hundred years, maybe."[^2] The Dictionary adds that from 1952 Bergmann also contributed to chemical and biological research under the [[Institute for Biological Research]].[^1]
After the defeat of Hitler, Bergmann migrated to Palestine to help establish the [[Weizmann Institute of Science]]. At [[David Ben-Gurion]]'s request, after [[Israel]]'s Independence in 1948, he moved to the ministry of defense, where he established the nation's first institute for defense research under [[Shimon Peres]]. Peres later stated that Bergmann was constantly speaking about a missile capability for [[Israel]] even in 1948.[^1]
### The Atomic Energy Commission
According to [[Herman F. Mark]], Bergmann was central to the development of the Israeli bomb, completely understanding nuclear fission and explaining it to others. Mark, who served on planning boards for the [[Weizmann Institute]], shared Bergmann's view on the inevitability of Israeli nuclear weapons research, believing that nuclear energy, whether for desalination, power, or a bomb, still involved fission.[^1]
According to the Dictionary, Ben-Gurion founded the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission in 1952 "on Bergmann's recommendation," with Bergmann as first director; Bergmann wanted a French-style, state-sponsored, project-oriented program.[^1] Hersh wrote that Bergmann told friends by 1947 that the Negev phosphate fields held recoverable traces of uranium, that a department of isotope research was set up at the Weizmann Institute within two years, that Weizmann researchers had devised a heavy water process by 1953, and that he announced the commission in a radio address in November 1954, two years after its creation, without saying that it stood under the jurisdiction of Peres and the defense ministry.[^2] According to the businessman [[Abraham Feinberg]], in New York in the fall of 1947 Bergmann said over dinner "There's uranium in the desert"; Feinberg told Hersh he "shushed him up."[^2] Hersh also reported that [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]]'s papers show a visit to Israel in May 1958 for the opening of the Institute of Nuclear Science at Rehovot and a military flight with Bergmann and Peres to Eilat, while Israeli officials who worked at Dimona in 1958 recalled no visit by him.[^2]
Bergmann's role in developing [[Israel]]'s nuclear arsenal remains a state secret. After his death, he became a virtual nonperson due to stringent Israeli security and self-censorship. Despite this, [[Shimon Peres]] eulogized him as one of the seven founders of the State of [[Israel]] in a 1979 book, though without mentioning nuclear weapons.[^1]
The American record of Bergmann's own requests is documentary. Cohen and Burr wrote that after the July 12, 1955 "Atoms for Peace" agreement Bergmann tried in 1955 and 1956 to obtain from the United States a ten-megawatt natural uranium and heavy water reactor and ten tons of heavy water; that his formal request was a letter of July 1956 to the Atomic Energy Commission chairman [[Lewis L. Strauss]]; that in September the Commission replied that it could be done only under a new power agreement with stricter safeguards because of "plutonium production capabilities"; and that Israel dropped the probe. They wrote that Bergmann pressed the Israeli government from 1955 for twenty tons of heavy water, wrote in August 1956 to his friend [[Gunnar Randers]], director of the Norwegian Institute for Atomic Energy, asking for ten tons, and that Israel and [[Norway]] exchanged documents on the sale on February 25, 1959.[^3] Hersh wrote that in mid-September 1956 Peres and Bergmann went to [[Paris]] to ask for a reactor, and that on September 17 they dined with Francis Perrin and Pierre Guillaumat at the home of the Israeli ambassador Jacob Tzur; Bertrand Goldschmidt told Hersh that the decision to help was taken in those mid-September meetings.[^4]
By mid-1960, when rumors of a possible French pullout from [[Dimona]] circulated, many Israelis, including Bergmann, were ready for the French to leave, believing they could complete the project themselves. Bergmann was a founding member of the Rafi party, and continued to influence [[David Ben-Gurion]] regarding the dangers of not initiating the production of a nuclear arsenal.[^2]
### Peres, the commission and the bypass
By the spring of 1966, Bergmann resigned under pressure as director of the commissionerless Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, as well as from his two high-level defense science posts. Many in the [[Levi Eshkol]] cabinet viewed his departure as long overdue. A pouting Bergmann retreated, with the aid of [[Lewis L. Strauss]], to the Institute of Advanced Studies at [[Princeton University]].[^2]
Cohen and Burr wrote that Peres "decided to compartmentalize and bypass Bergmann and the IAEC almost entirely" in the Dimona negotiations with France; that in February 1958 all seven members of the commission except Bergmann resigned, in an episode "obscure" but possibly a protest against the exclusion; that there was a time when Bergmann was not allowed to visit the site; and that Bergmann was "known among Israelis as being loose on secrecy."[^3] Hersh wrote that the six other members had left by the mid-1950s, that scholars and American files had cited the departures as evidence of disagreement over Bergmann's plans "for the most part" wrongly, and that the members moved to the Weizmann Institute's physics department because ministers hostile to nuclear development, [[Levi Eshkol]] and [[Pinhas Lavon]], refused to allocate research funds, leaving Bergmann "chairman and sole member" of a commission with no commissioners.[^5] Hersh cited the diary of [[Moshe Sharett]], which records Sharett writing Bergmann off as "a chemist sunk in research and teaching with no ability to oversee the 'problem,'" whose lack of administrative skills would "limit and disrupt the horizons of the 'Enterprise.'"[^6]
On April 15, 1958 Bergmann met the American embassy's second secretary Lewis Townsend in Tel Aviv. He said that the French foreign minister "did not know what he was talking about" in saying that France supplied Israel's uranium, acknowledged an exchange agreement with France limited to unpublished reports and students, and said that a decision to build a power reactor "had already been taken" and that an "experimental nuclear reactor" was contemplated within two or two and a half years. The post-mortem on the National Intelligence Estimate of December 1960 listed that remark among the hints the American intelligence community had missed; Cohen and Burr wrote that Bergmann made no mention of the secret French agreement signed in Paris in October 1957 and that it was unclear how much he knew.[^3] In November 1960 the University of Michigan nuclear engineer Henry Gomberg, a guest of the commission, reported that in his last meeting with Bergmann, pressed about unnamed activities, Bergmann acknowledged that the Beersheba facility was to have been announced later in 1961 but that Ben-Gurion would make an announcement in about three weeks; the debriefing memorandum notes that a "personal friend of Ben-Gurion" who told Gomberg of the coming announcement "probably" meant Bergmann.[^3]
A memorandum of February 13, 1963 by the embassy's science attache Robert Webber, based on conversations between the Atomic Energy Commission official Abraham Friedman and members and staff of the Israeli commission including Bergmann, was summarized by the National Security Archive editors with the observation that the commission was "largely excluded from the Dimona project," so that much of the report concerned the commission's own plans for power reactors.[^7]
### Rafi, resignation and Princeton
Hersh wrote that Bergmann was a founding member of [[Rafi]] in 1965 and that "Ben-Gurion was quoting Bergmann all the time," according to an Israeli, about the dangers of not producing a nuclear arsenal.[^8] By the spring of 1966, he wrote, Bergmann resigned under pressure from the commission and his two defense science posts; a Defense Ministry official came to his apartment within the hour to retrieve his government car; Eshkol moved responsibility for the commission to the prime minister's staff and became its chairman; and Bergmann gave an interview to the newspaper Maariv, of which the New York Times reported that he spoke of the Eshkol government's lack of funds for research and "the risk of dependence on foreign sources." In that interview Bergmann said: "It's very important to understand that by developing atomic energy for peaceful uses, you reach the nuclear option. There are no two atomic energies."[^8][^9]
Hersh wrote that in the fall of 1966 Strauss used his influence at the Institute for Advanced Study at [[Princeton University]] to obtain for Bergmann a two-month visiting fellowship, although the institute rarely took chemists; that the institute's new director [[Carl Kaysen]] recalled that Strauss "had nudged me about Bergmann" and that Bergmann "was working on [the Israeli nuclear] weapons program. He was very relaxed about it"; and that neither Strauss's biographer nor his son knew the two had met.[^10] In 1968, Hersh wrote, Bergmann spoke at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg on "the move toward international collaboration," saying of Israel and South Africa that "neither of us has neighbors to whom we can speak."[^11]
### After his death
Hersh wrote that Peres eulogized Bergmann in a 1979 book as one of the seven founders of the State of [[Israel]], reporting that Weizmann saw in him "a future candidate for the presidency," without mentioning nuclear weapons; that Matti Golan's 1982 biography of Peres does not cite him and Michael Bar-Zohar's biography of Ben-Gurion does not mention him in its English edition; and that Mark said without Bergmann "there would have been no Israeli bomb": "He was in charge of every kind of nuclear activity in Israel."[^12] Mark, the "sole known survivor" of the Berlin and Brooklyn circle, told Hersh that Bergmann "was anxious, rightly so, that there shouldn't be too much talk. It was super-secret, just like the Manhattan Project."[^12]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 2.
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 5.
[^1]: "Bergmann, Ernst David," Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008 (Encyclopedia.com). http://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/bergmann-ernst-david
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M., *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*, Random House, 1991, chapter 2, "The Scientist," pp. 19-27. Full text read at https://archive.org/details/Sampson_Option
[^3]: Cohen, Avner, and William Burr, "The Eisenhower Administration and the Discovery of Dimona: March 1958-January 1961," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 510, April 15, 2015, introduction and notes 9 to 11, documents 1A-B (embassy despatch 652, April 16, 1958), 6A-C (Gomberg). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb510/
[^4]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 3, "The French Connection," pp. 38-40.
[^5]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 6, "Going Public," p. 78.
[^6]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 3, pp. 33-34, citing Sharett's personal diaries, then unpublished in full in English.
[^7]: Burr, William, and Avner Cohen, eds., "The Battle of the Letters, 1963: John F. Kennedy, David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, and the U.S. Inspections of Dimona," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 671, May 2, 2019, document 07 (U.S. Embassy Israel Airgram A-517, February 13, 1963). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-05-02/battle-letters-1963-john-f-kennedy-david-ben-gurion-levi-eshkol-us-inspections-dimona
[^8]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 10, "The Samson Option," pp. 139-142.
[^9]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 2, p. 26 (the 1966 interview).
[^10]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 7, "Dual Loyalty," pp. 85-86 (the Princeton appointment and Kaysen's account).
[^11]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 19, "The Carter Malaise," p. 264 (the Johannesburg speech of 1968).
[^12]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 2, pp. 26-27; chapter 3, pp. 44-45.

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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Menachem Begin.md
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@ -1,32 +1,138 @@
---
aliases:
- Menachem Begin
- Menahem Begin
- Begin
- Prime Minister Begin
- Menachem Wolfovitch Begin
created: 2025-01-09
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
- KeyFigure
- Person
- Nuclear
- KeyFigure
- Israel
summary: "Menachem Begin was the 6th Prime Minister of Israel, serving from 1977 to 1983."
- Nuclear
- Likud
- Irgun
- Osirak
- CampDavid
- IranIsraelArms
- OctoberSurprise
- SamsonOption
summary: "Irgun leader and Herut chairman who became prime minister in 1977, shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize, ordered the 1981 Osirak raid, and appears in the American record of 1980 Israeli arms offers to Iran."
born: 1913-08-16
died: 1992-03-09
location: "Brest-Litovsk, Russian Empire (now Brest, Belarus)"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Israel]]"
start: 1977
end: 1983
role: "prime minister"
fn: 2
- type: head_of
with: "[[Likud Party]]"
start: 1977
role: "leader of the list that won the May 1977 elections"
fn: 2
- type: participant_in
with: "[[King David Hotel bombing]]"
start: 1946-07
role: "Irgun leader"
fn: 2
- type: appointed
with: "[[Ezer Weizman]]"
start: 1977
role: "minister of defense"
fn: 7
- type: appointed
with: "[[Ariel Sharon]]"
start: 1981
role: "minister of defense"
fn: 10
- type: appointed
with: "[[Rafael Eitan]]"
start: 1981
role: "special assistant for counterterrorism; also head of LAKAM"
fn: 18
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Camp David summit]]"
start: 1978
role: "negotiated the Israel-Egypt accords with Anwar Sadat; Nobel Peace Prize 1978"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Osirak bombing]]"
start: 1981-06-07
role: "ordered and announced the raid"
fn: 15
- type: subject_of
with: "[[Kahan Commission]]"
start: 1982-09
end: 1983-02-08
role: "found to bear 'a certain degree of responsibility' for lack of interest in the Phalangists' actions at Sabra and Shatila"
fn: 19
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Iran-Israel Joint Committee]]"
start: 1980
role: "alleged by Ari Ben-Menashe to have ordered its creation in the fall of 1980"
fn: 12
---
Menachem Begin (born August 16, 1913 in Brest-Litovsk; died March 9, 1992 in Tel Aviv) led the [[Irgun]] underground before 1948, led the [[Herut]] party in opposition for the first twenty-nine years of the state, and was prime minister of [[Israel]] from the 1977 election until 1983. He shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with [[Anwar Sadat]] "for jointly having negotiated peace between Egypt and Israel in 1978."[^1] The record of his government that bears on this vault consists of the American intelligence and diplomatic documents on the Osirak raid, the House task force's account of the 1980 Israeli arms offers to Iran, the report of the Kahan Commission, and passages in [[Seymour Hersh]]'s and [[Ari Ben-Menashe]]'s books on nuclear targeting, South Africa and Iran.[^2]
Menachem Begin was the 6th Prime Minister of [[Israel]], serving from 1977 to 1983. His surprising victory in the May 1977 national elections ended twenty-nine years of [[Mapai Party|Mapai]] and [[Labor Party]] domination of the political process in [[Israel]]. This brought to power a government even more committed than Labor to the [[Samson Option]] and the necessity of an Israeli nuclear arsenal. Begin and his political followers represented a populist-nationalist view of a greater [[Israel]] with a right to permanent control of the [[West Bank]].[^1]
### Irgun, Herut and the Labor establishment
Begin's successful [[Camp David Accords|Camp David summit]] with Egyptian President [[Anwar Sadat]] in 1978 was seen by some American intelligence officials as a reason for [[Jimmy Carter]]'s decision to provide [[Israel]] with access to [[KH-11]] satellite photographs.[^1]
Hersh wrote that as a leader of the Irgun Begin was involved in the July 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in [[Jerusalem]], headquarters of the British military; that the explosion killed eighty-two people, "including forty Arabs and seventeen Jews"; and that after the British hanged three suspected Irgun members a week later, Begin ordered the execution of two British sergeants held captive, whose bodies were booby-trapped and left hanging.[^2] He wrote that Begin and his family fled to eastern [[Poland]] in 1939, were arrested by Soviet troops and expelled to a Siberian camp, and were released in 1941 into a Polish contingent of the Red Army after the German invasion.[^2]
Begin's decision to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor at [[Osirak bombing]] in June 1981 was a significant event. Despite opposition from some within the Israeli intelligence community, including [[Yitzhak Hofi]], the director of [[Mossad]], and Major General [[Yehoshua Saguy]], chief of military intelligence, Begin proceeded with the attack. He unilaterally announced the successful bombing, stunning his colleagues, and defended the operation by stating that another Holocaust would have occurred if the reactor had not been destroyed.[^1]
In the 1950s the labor establishment treated his party as an opponent. Hersh wrote that in the mid-1950s the most hawkish factions in military policy were those of [[Moshe Dayan]] and [[Shimon Peres]], Ahdut HaAvoda and Herut; that Herut under Begin held that Israel's primary task was the redemption of biblical lands and a Greater Israel; and that [[David Ben-Gurion]], Dayan and Peres were "adamantly opposed to the fundamentalist views of Begin and his Herut Party." Herut's gains in the 1955 election came at the expense of [[Mapai Party]]; the General Zionists merged with Herut in 1966 to form Gahal, which merged in 1973 with three other right-wing factions to create the [[Likud Party]].[^3] According to Hersh, Ben-Gurion and Peres treated Begin "with contempt and ridicule throughout his career," and in 1977 Begin would not approach Peres directly about what Peres had arranged in South Africa.[^4]
Following the Osirak bombing, Begin made a controversial statement at a British diplomatic reception, claiming that the Israeli planes had also destroyed a secret facility buried forty meters below the reactor at Osirak, which was intended for the assembly of Iraqi nuclear bombs. Israeli officials knew this description was not of a facility in [[Iraq]], but rather of a secret underground facility in [[Israel]] at [[Dimona]]. They attempted to downplay his remarks by stating he had misspoken and that the facility was only four meters deep.[^1]
### The 1977 election and the nuclear establishment
In August 1981, the newly reelected Begin government appointed [[Ariel Sharon]] as defense minister. Begin and Sharon traveled to [[Washington, D.C.]] in September to advocate for a U.S.-Israeli strategic cooperation against the [[Soviet Union]].[^1]
Hersh wrote that Likud's victory in May 1977 ended twenty-nine years of Mapai and [[Labor Party]] control and "brought to power a government that was even more committed than Labor to the Samson Option and the necessity of an Israeli nuclear arsenal," and that Begin's followers viewed the mainstream Zionists as having fought three wars without a grand strategy.[^2] By all accounts, he wrote, Begin had never visited [[Dimona]] before becoming prime minister and was not well informed about it, and his first briefings on national security were given by the outgoing prime minister [[Yitzhak Rabin]].[^2] In his chapter on Osirak Hersh wrote that Begin had since visited the underground facility at Dimona at least once and, according to Israeli officials, received a detailed memorandum on it in the days before the raid.[^5]
Unlike many Israelis who had immigrated from Eastern Europe, Begin had a strong hatred of Communism and the [[Soviet Union]]. He and his family had fled to eastern [[Poland]] after the 1939 German blitzkrieg and, like many Zionists, were arrested by Soviet troops and expelled to a Siberian gulag, only to be released into a hastily assembled Polish contingent of the Red Army after the 1941 Nazi invasion of [[Russia]].[^1]
Ben-Menashe, a civilian official in the External Relations Department of the Israeli defense ministry from 1977 to 1987 whom Hersh quoted, said that Begin "strongly endorsed Dimona's plans for the nuclear targeting of the Soviet Union" and "gave orders to target more Soviet cities"; in his own book Ben-Menashe wrote that one of Begin's first orders after taking office from Rabin was to target southern [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] cities including [[Yerevan]] and [[Baku]], and that Begin, who regarded [[South Africa]] as a pariah, sent [[Ezer Weizman]] to Pretoria in 1978.[^6] Hersh quoted Ben-Menashe that Weizman came back and said "We've promised these guys nuclear warheads," and that Begin answered in effect "Yes. Do it!"; another unnamed Israeli with access to defense ministry files said that Weizman signed an agreement before the 1979 tests for the sale to South Africa of technology for 175mm and 203mm nuclear artillery shells.[^7] Ben-Menashe is the only named source for the passages so cited on Begin's orders. Hersh also wrote, citing Israeli officials, that when Sadat met Begin in Jerusalem in November 1977 his first questions concerned the Israeli arsenal, that he sought a pledge of non-use against Egypt in a treaty, and that Begin did not reply.[^8]
By all accounts, Begin had never visited [[Dimona]] before becoming prime minister, nor was he especially well informed about it. His initial briefings on sensitive national security matters were provided by the outgoing prime minister, [[Yitzhak Rabin]]. [[Ari Ben-Menashe]], a former Israeli signals intelligence expert, recalled that Begin strongly endorsed [[Dimona]]'s plans for the nuclear targeting of the [[Soviet Union]]. Begin went a step further, according to Ben-Menashe, by giving orders to target more Soviet cities. This increased targeting created a heightened demand for American satellite intelligence.[^1]
### Camp David, the KH-11 and Washington
---
Hersh wrote that in March 1979 President [[Jimmy Carter]] decided to give Israel access to [[KH-11]] satellite photographs, and that some American intelligence officials suspected it was a reward for Begin's success at the [[Camp David summit]] with Sadat; he also wrote that in the Israeli view the agreement was made inevitable by the failure of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] to anticipate the fall of the Shah, and that it was the twenty-eighth in a series of formal Israeli and American intelligence ventures since the 1950s.[^9] In September 1981, Hersh wrote, Begin brought [[Ariel Sharon]] to the White House, where, according to Ambassador [[Samuel W. Lewis]], Begin proposed a formal alliance to President [[Ronald Reagan]], who said yes, to the shock of [[Alexander Haig]], [[Richard V. Allen]] and [[Caspar Weinberger]]; Sharon's plan included formal access to the KH-11, which Hersh wrote Israel wanted for its nuclear targeting of the Soviet Union, and the negotiation led by Weinberger "turned out a mouse."[^10]
### Iran, 1978 to 1981
The House October Surprise Task Force report of January 3, 1993 records the American-side documents on Israeli arms offers to Iran. On April 13, 1980 a high-level Israeli official told Carter in Washington that Israel had contacts in Iran that could help with the hostages if it were allowed to sell certain military equipment; Carter rejected the offer and obtained an assurance that Israel would observe the embargo, with Israel to advise the United States before changing its policy. On October 22, 1980 the Israelis told Ambassador Lewis that a deal for 200 tires for F-4 aircraft had been negotiated, and the State Department instructed the embassy to convey a message to Begin that the American government "recognize[d] the long-term significance" of an Israeli relationship with Iran but that Western allies prohibited exports to Iran while hostages were held. The Israeli government's own report to the task force stated that Begin raised the arms question with Carter and Secretary of State [[Edmund Muskie]] during his visit to the United States in November 1980, stressing that deliveries might help release the hostages, and that on November 21, 1980 he ordered that arms would not be supplied directly or indirectly to Iran until the hostages were released. On February 4, 1981 Begin told Lewis that future deliveries would use only Israeli equipment without United States components.[^11]
Ben-Menashe's account differs. He wrote that Begin sent the emissary Ruth Ben-David, an old friend of the Ayatollah [[Ruhollah Khomeini]], to him in Paris in December 1978; that in April 1980 Begin gave "the green light for the sale to Iran of non-American military equipment," tires rather than technical parts, after which Carter telephoned Begin on April 27 to complain; that in September 1980 Begin sent Ben-David to Tehran to seek release of the hostages in exchange for Israeli arms guarantees; that in the fall of 1980 Begin ordered the military intelligence chief [[Yehoshua Sagi]] and the Mossad's acting director [[Nachum Admoni]] to create the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee]]; and that Begin "had secretly reached in principle" a cooperation agreement with [[William J. Casey]] in August 1980.[^12] Ben-Menashe is the sole source for these passages. The House task force wrote that credible testimony and documents showed Ben-Menashe "to be totally lacking in credibility" on the Casey and Karrubi meetings, that [[Rafael Eitan]] and Saguy told the Israeli government they had never met him, and that his Israeli military file showed work as a translator; Ben-Menashe was acquitted in New York in November 1990 on charges of conspiring to sell Israeli-owned C-130 aircraft to Iran.[^13] The Mossad's own list of directors gives Yitzhak Hofi as head from 1974 to 1982 and Admoni from 1982.[^14]
### Osirak
On June 7, 1981 the Israeli Air Force destroyed the reactor at Osirak. Hersh wrote that Begin "stunned his colleagues" by announcing the raid himself on June 8, and on June 9 said that "if the nuclear reactor had not been destroyed, another Holocaust would have happened in the history of the Jewish people"; that Mossad head [[Yitzhak Hofi]] and military intelligence chief [[Yehoshua Saguy]] had opposed the attack, "primarily because there was no evidence that Iraq was as yet capable of building a bomb," as had Deputy Prime Minister [[Yigael Yadin]]; that Saguy was not told of the mission until June 4; and that two weeks later Hofi gave a newspaper interview, cited only by title under censorship, complaining about politicians who compromised secret intelligence.[^15] Two days after the raid, at a British diplomatic reception, Begin said that the planes had also destroyed a secret facility forty meters below the reactor where Iraqi bombs were to be assembled; Hersh wrote that Israeli officials knew the description fitted a facility at Dimona and that government spokesmen said the next day that Begin had misspoken and the depth was four meters.[^15] Ben-Menashe wrote that Israeli intelligence had advised against admitting responsibility and that Begin, who had scheduled elections for June 30, made the announcement anyway.[^12]
The Wilson Center's Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, publishing documents from the Reagan Library and the Israeli State Archives in 2021, reported that when the raid took place the administration was surprised; that Haig told the Israelis that the raid was a "serious complication" for the United States and that "President Reagan thinks the same"; that the Israelis learned that Weinberger favored a tough response; that the administration suspended delivery of F-16 aircraft pending a legal review; that Haig then proposed that Washington condemn Israel harshly but "draw the line on punishment"; and that a week after the raid Allen informed Reagan that the administration was "not required to make a legal determination on whether Israel violated US law" and that the issue should be treated "as a political rather than a legal question."[^16] Hersh wrote that Allen recalled Reagan as "delighted" and that the suspension of F-16 deliveries was lifted two months later.[^15]
### Lebanon and the Kahan Commission
Hersh wrote that Sharon, after the American refusal of the strategic plan, led Israel with Begin's support into the invasion of [[Lebanon]] in 1982; that before doing so Sharon placed loyalists in the intelligence services and the nuclear establishment; and that [[Binyamin Blumberg]] was replaced as head of [[LAKAM]] by Rafael (Rafi) Eitan, "Begin's special assistant for counterterrorism," who kept both jobs.[^17][^18] The Commission of Inquiry into the events at the refugee camps in Beirut, reporting on February 8, 1983, recorded that the [[Mossad]] had been "made responsible for the link with the Phalangists." It found that Begin first heard of the Phalangists' entry into the camps about thirty-six hours after the decision, that it was "not incumbent upon" him to object, but that "for two days after the Prime Minister heard about the Phalangists' entry, he showed absolutely no interest in their actions in the camps," and that his "lack of involvement in the entire matter casts on him a certain degree of responsibility"; it considered it sufficient to determine his responsibility without further recommendation, and recommended that Sharon draw "the appropriate personal conclusions" and, if necessary, that the prime minister consider removing him.[^19] The commission also described the Mossad's approach to the Phalangists as more favorable than that of military intelligence, and wrote that the director of military intelligence knew that the defense minister, the chief of staff "and perhaps also the Prime Minister" accepted the Mossad's approach.[^19] See [[Sabra and Shatila massacres]].
Ben-Menashe wrote that Begin resigned in 1983 three days before the visit of Chancellor [[Helmut Kohl]], that he said he had personally let down the nation over the Lebanese war, and that Sharon had disappointed him.[^20] Ben-Menashe also wrote that after the death of Yekutiel Adam in Lebanon, whom Begin had picked as Mossad chief in 1981, Begin appointed a professional Mossad bureaucrat, Admoni, to shift power toward military intelligence, and that Rafael Eitan told him Adam's death was an inside job.[^12]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 19.
[^1]: "Menachem Begin, Facts," Nobel Peace Prize 1978, NobelPrize.org. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1978/begin/facts/
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M., *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*, Random House, 1991, chapter 19, "The Carter Malaise," pp. 259-260 and footnote. Full text read at https://archive.org/details/Sampson_Option
[^3]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 3, "The French Connection," p. 38 footnote.
[^4]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 20, "An Israeli Test," p. 274.
[^5]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 1, "A Secret Agreement," p. 11.
[^6]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 19, p. 260 and footnote (Ben-Menashe's service); Ben-Menashe, Ari, *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*, TrineDay, 2015 reprint of the 1992 edition, passages on the South African relationship. https://archive.org/details/profits-of-war-1992-ari-ben-menashe
[^7]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 20, pp. 274-276.
[^8]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 19, p. 269 footnote.
[^9]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 1, pp. 3-6.
[^10]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 21, "Israel's Nuclear Spy," pp. 286-288.
[^11]: U.S. House of Representatives, *Joint Report of the Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in 1980*, H. Rept. 102-1102, January 3, 1993, section X, "Alleged Quid Pro Quo Deliveries of Arms," pp. 197-206, quoting the report of the Government of Israel. https://archive.org/details/14148-h.rp.-1102
[^12]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War*, passages on Ruth Ben-David and Khomeini (December 1978), the sale of tires (April 1980), the Joint Committee (fall 1980), the Casey agreement (August 1980), Osirak, and the Mossad directorship. https://archive.org/details/profits-of-war-1992-ari-ben-menashe
[^13]: *Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force*, section on Ben-Menashe (p. 97 of the report); Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 19 footnote on Ben-Menashe's service, arrest in 1989 and acquittal in November 1990.
[^14]: Mossad, "History," list of directors. https://mossad.gov.il/en/history
[^15]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 1, pp. 8-12.
[^16]: Rabinowitz, Or, and Giordana Pulcini, "The Israeli Raid Against the Iraqi Reactor - 40 Years Later: New Insights from the Archives," Wilson Center, Sources and Methods, June 3, 2021, citing the Ronald Reagan Library and the Israel State Archives. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/israeli-raid-against-iraqi-reactor-40-years-later-new-insights-archives
[^17]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 21, p. 287.
[^18]: Hersh, *The Samson Option*, chapter 21, pp. 288-289.
[^19]: Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut, Report, February 8, 1983, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Historical Documents, vol. 8: 1982-1984, document 104, sections on the background, the Prime Minister, the head of Mossad and the Director of Military Intelligence. https://syriaaccountability.org/content/images/wordpress/ISRAELMFA_Commission-Inquiry-Beirut_1983_EN.pdf
[^20]: Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War*, chapter on the 1983 political upheaval.

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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Mohammed Radi Abdullah.md
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@ -11,9 +11,9 @@ Colonel [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]] was a former colonel in the [[Jordan|Jordania
[[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]] became known as a businessman who championed [[Arab]] and [[Palestinians|Palestinian]] causes in [[Europe]]. To recoup gambling and other losses, he began working for [[Anthony Pearson]], who supplied intelligence information to [[Israel]]. Unwittingly, [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]] helped [[Anthony Pearson|Pearson]] acquire intelligence about Palestinian organizations in [[Europe]] by selling arms to them. This intelligence was then passed to [[Mossad]], leading to the elimination of 14 or 15 Palestinians over a two-month period.[^1]
[[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]] was recruited by [[Rafi]] in 1978 to work for an antiterrorist group in [[Israel]], after [[Anthony Pearson|Pearson]] made it clear that the £200,000 loan he offered [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]] came from an [[Israel|Israeli]] source.[^1]
[[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]] was recruited by [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] in 1978 to work for an antiterrorist group in [[Israel]], after [[Anthony Pearson|Pearson]] made it clear that the £200,000 loan he offered [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]] came from an [[Israel|Israeli]] source.[^1]
[[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]] was a key player in [[Israel|Israeli]] "black" operations, including the 1986 plot to bomb an [[El Al]] plane, which was designed to discredit [[Syria]]. He instructed his cousin, [[Nezar Hindawi]], in this plot. He was also involved in the [[Achille Lauro]] attack in 1985, which was an [[Israel|Israeli]] "black" propaganda operation to portray Palestinians as ruthless terrorists. [[Rafi]] passed instructions to [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]], who then relayed orders to [[Abul Abbas]] to carry out a cruel attack.[^1]
[[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]] was a key player in [[Israel|Israeli]] "black" operations, including the 1986 plot to bomb an [[El Al]] plane, which was designed to discredit [[Syria]]. He instructed his cousin, [[Nezar Hindawi]], in this plot. He was also involved in the [[Achille Lauro]] attack in 1985, which was an [[Israel|Israeli]] "black" propaganda operation to portray Palestinians as ruthless terrorists. [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] passed instructions to [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah|Radi]], who then relayed orders to [[Abul Abbas]] to carry out a cruel attack.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.

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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Richard Bissell.md
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@ -1,57 +1,139 @@
---
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-05-15
title: Richard Bissell
aliases:
- Richard Bissell
- Richard M. Bissell
- Richard M. Bissell Jr.
- Richard Mervin Bissell Jr.
- Dick Bissell
- Richard Bissell Jr.
created: 2026-05-15
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
- Person
- CIA
- U2
- CORONA
- BayOfPigs
- ZRRIFLE
- ChurchCommittee
- Lumumba
- ColdWar
- 1950s
- 1960s
category: "Intelligence & Government"
summary: "Richard Bissell was the CIA's Deputy Director for Plans from 1958 to 1962, managed the U-2 program, authorized ZR/RIFLE under William Harvey, organized the Bay of Pigs invasion and resigned in February 1962."
summary: "CIA Deputy Director for Plans from January 1, 1959 to February 17, 1962, who ran the U-2 and CORONA programs, the Bay of Pigs operation, and the 1960 Lumumba and Castro assassination preparations."
born: 1909-09-18
died: 1994-02-07
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Marshall Plan]]"
start: 1948
end: 1951
role: "deputy director"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Central Intelligence Agency]]"
start: 1954-01
end: 1962-02-17
role: "Special Assistant to the DCI for Planning and Coordination; head of the Development Projects Staff; Deputy Director for Plans from January 1, 1959"
fn: 1
- type: reported_to
with: "[[Allen Dulles]]"
start: 1954-01
end: 1961-11
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Directorate of Plans]]"
start: 1959-01-01
end: 1962-02-17
role: "Deputy Director for Plans"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Project AQUATONE]]"
start: 1954-12
end: 1962-02
role: "approving officer and project chief for the U-2 overflight program"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[CORONA]]"
start: 1958
end: 1962-02
role: "senior CIA representative of the CIA-Air Force photosatellite project"
fn: 2
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Operation PBSUCCESS]]"
start: 1954
role: "coordinated support within the CIA"
fn: 1
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Bay of Pigs]]"
start: 1960
end: 1961-04
role: "Deputy Director for Plans responsible for the CIA operation"
fn: 4
- type: participant_in
with: "[[ZR RIFLE]]"
start: 1960
end: 1962-02
role: "DDP under whom the Executive Action capability was established"
fn: 3
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Church Committee]]"
start: 1975-06-09
end: 1975-09-10
role: "testified June 9, June 11, July 17, July 22 and September 10, 1975"
fn: 3
---
Richard Mervin Bissell Jr. (September 18, 1909 to February 7, 1994) was an economist who joined the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] in January 1954 and became its Deputy Director for Plans (DDP), head of the clandestine service, on January 1, 1959. Until his resignation on February 17, 1962 he also kept personal control of the [[U-2 Spy Plane|U-2]] overflight program, the first photographic reconnaissance satellite project, and the design of the OXCART aircraft. Under him the agency organized the 1961 [[Bay of Pigs]] operation and, in 1960, made the first preparations in the [[Patrice Lumumba|Lumumba]] and [[Fidel Castro|Castro]] assassination plots later examined by the [[Church Committee]].[^1][^3]
Richard Mervin Bissell Jr. (September 18, 1909 - February 7, 1994) was the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s Deputy Director for Plans (DDP) - the clandestine service - from 1958 to 1962, responsible for the agency's most significant covert operations of the early Cold War period: the [[U-2 Spy Plane|U-2]] reconnaissance program, the [[Bay of Pigs]] invasion, and the authorization of the assassination planning infrastructure that became [[ZR RIFLE|ZR/RIFLE]].[^1]
### Education and early career
### Early Career and CIA Entry
The CIA's official history of the U-2 program describes Bissell as a graduate of Groton and [[Yale University]] who studied at the [[London School of Economics]] for a year and took a doctorate at Yale in 1939. He taught economics at Yale and, from 1942, at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], where he became a full professor in 1948. During [[World War II]] he managed American shipping as executive officer of the Combined Shipping Adjustment Board; after the war he was deputy director of the [[Marshall Plan]] from 1948 until the end of 1951, when he joined the staff of the [[Ford Foundation]].[^1]
Bissell came from an upper-class New England family and was educated at Groton and Yale. He earned a PhD in economics from Yale in 1939 and taught at MIT and later worked in government, including wartime shipping administration. He joined the CIA in 1954 as a special assistant to Director [[Allen Dulles]], his personal friend.
His first association with the agency came in late 1953 with a contract study of how the United States might respond to a rising in the Soviet bloc like the East Berlin riots of June 1953. He concluded, in his later words, that "very little could be done" by clandestine operations against the bloc, a view the CIA historians say made him a leading advocate of technical rather than human collection. He joined the agency in late January 1954 as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence, [[Allen Dulles]], for Planning and Coordination, and was soon occupied with coordination for the operation against Guatemalan President [[Jacobo Arbenz]] ([[Operation PBSUCCESS]]).[^1]
The combination of his economic and administrative skills, his connections to the scientific and industrial establishment, and his willingness to think boldly about operational problems made him exceptionally valuable to Dulles. Within two years he had become the CIA's most important covert operations organizer.[^1]
### The U-2 and the Development Projects Staff
### The U-2 Program
On November 26, 1954 Dulles told Bissell that [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] had approved a secret program and that Bissell was to run it; on December 3 Bissell and Herbert Miller of the Office of Scientific Intelligence went to the Pentagon for the first interagency meeting. Dulles had no answer to the questions who would run the project or pay for it ("You'll have to work that out"). Bissell built a self-sufficient project staff, Project AQUATONE, with its own contracting, finance, logistics, communications and security personnel and funds kept separate from the agency's regular accounts, and reported directly to the DCI, though the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, General [[Charles Pearre Cabell]], supervised its daily affairs. On April 29, 1955 he signed an agreement with the [[U.S. Air Force]] and, to keep work moving at [[Lockheed]], wrote Kelly Johnson's company an advance check. The first test flight was in August 1955.[^1]
Bissell's most technically significant achievement was managing the development of the Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft from 1954 onward. Working with Lockheed's Kelly Johnson and the [[Skunk Works]] division at a secret facility ([[Area 51]] at Groom Lake, Nevada), Bissell managed the program from concept to operational deployment in approximately eighteen months. The U-2 conducted its first operational overflight of the Soviet Union in June 1956.
The first flights over the Soviet Union began on Wednesday, July 4, 1956 (a June 20, 1956 mission had covered Poland and East Germany). Bissell gave the "Go" decision at the project headquarters just before midnight Washington time on July 3. When Dulles asked on July 5 whether the overflights of Moscow and Leningrad had been wise the first time, Bissell replied: "Allen, the first is the safest." The program continued, with Bissell bringing maps of proposed routes to Eisenhower in the Oval Office, until [[Francis Gary Powers]] was shot down near Sverdlovsk on May 1, 1960; the Paris summit that opened on May 16 ended when Eisenhower refused [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s demand for an apology.[^1]
By 1960, the U-2 program had produced invaluable intelligence on Soviet nuclear and missile programs, bomber deployments, and military-industrial infrastructure. The program was ended as a Soviet overflight tool when [[Francis Gary Powers|Gary Powers]] was shot down over Sverdlovsk on May 1, 1960. The diplomatic crisis that followed - [[Dwight Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] first denied then admitted U.S. responsibility, collapsing the Paris Summit - was a direct consequence of the program Bissell had managed.[^1]
Bissell became DDP on January 1, 1959 and on February 16, 1959 turned the Development Projects Staff into a division of the Directorate of Plans, placing all agency air activities under himself; the history states he kept personal control of the U-2, the photosatellite project and OXCART. [[Edwin Land]] and [[James Killian]], his supporters among the presidential science advisers, came to fear he was too involved in covert action to give the reconnaissance programs enough time. The CIA's CORONA history names him the "recognized leader of the early CORONA program" and the senior CIA representative beside Air Force Brigadier General Osmond Ritland; Bissell recalled learning of his role "in an odd and informal way" from Land in 1958, and the first successful recovery, of mission 9009 (DISCOVERER XIV), came on August 19, 1960.[^1][^2]
### Congo, 1960
According to the Church Committee's interim report, DDP Bissell in the summer of 1960 asked the Chief of the Africa Division, [[Bronson Tweedy]], to explore the feasibility of assassinating Lumumba, and asked a CIA scientist given the pseudonym Joseph Scheider, then Special Assistant to the DDP for Scientific Matters, to prepare to assassinate or incapacitate an unspecified "African leader." Scheider testified that Bissell told him he "had direction from the highest authority" and that he understood this to mean the President. Scheider reviewed a list of materials at the Army Chemical Corps installation at [[Fort Detrick]], chose one that "was supposed to produce a disease" indigenous to the region, and in late September delivered the lethal substances to the CIA station officer in Leopoldville with instructions to assassinate Lumumba.[^3]
On August 19, 1960 Bissell signed a cable to Leopoldville stating "You are authorized proceed with operation," and on September 19 Bissell and Tweedy sent the station a cryptic message through a restricted channel. Bissell testified that it was "entirely probable" he discussed the assassination with Tweedy and "very probable" he discussed it with Scheider, that he "most certainly" approved the cables, and that his belief in presidential authorization "has to be described as inference." He read the Special Group minutes of August 25 as meaning that "if it had to be assassination, that that was a permissible means." He told the committee the August 26 cable from Dulles was, in his belief, a circumlocution for the President's wish that Lumumba be killed.[^3]
A July 1981 clipping in the CIA's reading room from the London *Daily Telegraph* reported that Madeleine Kalb's *The Congo Cables*, then about to be published, named the scientist who brought the poison kit to the Congo as [[Sidney Gottlieb]], "the CIA's top scientist at the time"; a separate clipping in the same collection describes Gottlieb as head of the agency's [[Technical Services Division]], which, the clipping says, ran the drug experiments of the [[MKULTRA]] program and stored toxins. The Church report's description of Scheider's post as Bissell's science adviser is the record connecting the DDP's office to that division.[^3][^6]
### Castro, the Office of Security and ZR/RIFLE
The Church Committee found the earliest concrete evidence of the CIA's gambling-syndicate plot against Castro in a conversation between Bissell and Colonel [[Sheffield Edwards]], Director of the Office of Security, which the Inspector General placed in August 1960 and Bissell remembered as late summer or early autumn. Bissell testified that he asked Edwards to find someone to assassinate Castro and believed Edwards raised the idea of contacting members of a gambling syndicate; Edwards assigned the task to the chief of the Office of Security's Operational Support Division (the "Support Chief" of the report), who engaged [[Robert Maheu]], who recruited [[Johnny Roselli]], who in turn brought in "Sam Gold" ([[Sam Giancana]]). Edwards told Bissell contact had been made. On October 18, 1960 [[J. Edgar Hoover]] sent Bissell a memorandum reporting that Giancana had told friends Castro would be "done away with very shortly," in November. The Support Chief testified that Colonel [[J. C. King]] gave $50,000 in Bissell's office to be paid to a Cuban contact for the assassination and that Bissell authorized the delivery of communications equipment; Bissell did not recall the meeting and considered it unlikely, though he knew poison pills had been prepared. The Inspector General placed the money passed at $10,000.[^3]
In early 1961, per Bissell's own account, [[William Harvey]] was assigned responsibility for a general capability within the CIA for disabling foreign leaders, with assassination as a last resort, called Executive Action and later covered by the cryptonym ZR/RIFLE. Bissell described it to the committee as "internal and purely preparatory" and said he was "quite certain" Dulles had full knowledge of it. Harvey's notes record that on November 16, 1961 Bissell asked him to take over the gambling-syndicate operation from Edwards and that they discussed the "application of ZR/RIFLE program to Cuba"; Bissell testified the operation was not reactivated until after he left in February 1962. Bissell and Harvey briefed [[Richard Helms]], who replaced him as DDP, and Bissell did not recall briefing [[John McCone]], who had succeeded Dulles as DCI; McCone testified he had no knowledge of the project. The committee records Bissell as DDP under McCone for three months, November 1961 to February 1962.[^3]
### Bay of Pigs
As DDP, Bissell organized and directed the plan for a [[Cuba|Cuba]]n exile invasion of Cuba designed to overthrow [[Fidel Castro]]. The plan evolved from a relatively modest guerrilla-infiltration program into an amphibious landing operation similar to the [[Operation PBSUCCESS|1954 Guatemala coup]], which had overthrown [[Jacobo Arbenz]] with a paramilitary force. President Kennedy approved the operation but insisted on removing air strikes intended to destroy Castro's air force on the ground before the landing.
The CIA's official history of the Bay of Pigs operation records Bissell's direct involvement in the Guatemalan base arrangements. [[Jake Esterline]], Chief of WH/4, the Cuban task force, told the CIA historian [[Jack B. Pfeiffer]] that he went to Guatemala in 1960 "on specific instruction from Bissell and Dulles" to draw up a status-of-forces agreement with President Ydigoras; on November 14, 1960, when Ydigoras asked to borrow part of the Brigade to put down an uprising at Puerto Barrios, Bissell told Pfeiffer in 1975 that he was called at 2:30 in the morning and sent a cable saying "Yes" on his own responsibility because he did not think the decision should be left to the station. His Assistant DDP for Action was [[Tracy Barnes]].[^4]
The Bay of Pigs invasion of April 17-19, 1961 was a catastrophic failure. Castro's surviving air force destroyed supply ships and sank the brigade's reserve ammunition. The expected popular uprising did not materialize. Within seventy-two hours the 1,400-man exile brigade was captured. The CIA's intelligence assessment that Castro was deeply unpopular and that the invasion would trigger internal resistance had been wrong.
The agency's post-mortems pitted Bissell's directorate against its Inspector General. The Inspector General's survey of October 1961 was transmitted on November 20, 1961 with a 150-page report and ten recommendations; the Deputy Director, General Cabell, called it deficient in a memorandum of December 15, 1961. An unsigned memorandum to the DCI of December 1, 1961 in the same file listed three factors to which the failure should be charged: the government's lack of recognition of the operation's scale, its failure to plan for using regular U.S. forces, and its unwillingness to commit the resources needed. The DDP's analysis of January 18, 1962 blamed factors outside the agency's control and the failure of the air drops on Cuban reception crews; an agency memorandum of January 26, 1962 replied that it was "preoccupied with interdepartmental policy-making and military strategy" while the survey was concerned with the failure to build internal resistance in Cuba, and that its discussion of Miami activities was inaccurate. The Taylor Committee's conclusion, summarized in an August 15, 1961 memorandum, was that the operation's leaders "did not always present their case with sufficient force and clarity to the senior officers of the government" particularly concerning the cancellation of the D-Day strikes. In his memorandum of February 15, 1962 Dulles wrote that the Inspector General had not requested information from him or from the DDP, that the Brigade had reached the landing area on schedule and with complete surprise, and that the failure to land ammunition and supplies "was due to circumstances beyond the control of the Brigade commander."[^5]
Kennedy publicly accepted responsibility. He privately blamed the CIA and specifically Bissell for misleading him about the operation's prospects. Bissell resigned in February 1962 and was replaced by [[Richard Helms]].[^1]
### Departure
### ZR/RIFLE Authorization
The CIA's U-2 history states that the Bay of Pigs "discredited Bissell with the Kennedy administration," that Dulles resigned in November 1961, and that Killian and Land pressed for removing the overhead reconnaissance programs from the DDP into a science-oriented directorate, which Bissell resisted. He resigned on February 17, 1962 after refusing McCone's offer to become the CIA's first Deputy Director for Research, and the new directorate absorbed the Development Projects Division two days later. Helms succeeded him as DDP.[^1][^3]
Before his resignation, Bissell had authorized the development of ZR/RIFLE under [[William Harvey]]. The [[Church Committee]] established that Bissell had directed Harvey to develop an executive action (assassination) capability and had managed the early relationship with organized crime figures recruited for the anti-Castro plots. Like Helms, Bissell did not fully disclose the assassination programs to the [[Warren Commission]].[^1]
### Later life
### Later Career
After leaving the CIA, Bissell worked at the [[Institute for Defense Analyses]] (IDA) and other positions. He wrote his memoirs, *Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs*, which were published posthumously by Yale University Press in 1996. The memoir provided a careful but incomplete account of his CIA career; some of the most sensitive material about ZR/RIFLE and the organized crime relationships remained unaddressed.
Bissell died in Hartford, Connecticut, on February 7, 1994.[^2]
After the CIA he worked at the [[Institute for Defense Analyses]] and in industry, and wrote *Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs*, with Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo, which Yale University Press published in 1996 after his death on February 7, 1994.[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Thomas, Evan. *The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA.* Simon & Schuster, 1995. Weiner, Tim. *Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.* Doubleday, 2007.
[^2]: Bissell, Richard M. Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo. *Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs.* Yale University Press, 1996.
[^1]: Pedlow, Gregory W., and Donald E. Welzenbach, *The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974* (CIA History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1998), chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 9 and 10 and biographical glossary, including interviews of Bissell by Welzenbach (November 8, 1984) and Pedlow. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA355539
[^2]: Ruffner, Kevin C., ed., *CORONA: America's First Satellite Program* (CIA History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1995), including Kenneth E. Greer, "CORONA," *Studies in Intelligence*, Spring 1973 supplement. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA499635
[^3]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report*, 94th Cong., 1st sess. (1975), sections on the Congo and on Cuba, citing Bissell's testimony of June 9, June 11, July 17, July 22 and September 10, 1975, and Scheider, October 7 and 9, 1975. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit. The report states that pseudonyms were used for some individuals.
[^4]: CIA History Staff, *Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation*, Volume II, "Participation in the Conduct of Foreign Policy" (Jack B. Pfeiffer), citing Oral History Interview, Richard M. Bissell by Jack B. Pfeiffer, October 17, 1975. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001237696
[^5]: CIA Reading Room: Memorandum from Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick to John McCone, "Survey of the Cuban Operation," November 20, 1961 (CIA-RDP80B01676R001900160016-0); memorandum of December 1, 1961 and C. P. Cabell memorandum of December 15, 1961 (CIA-RDP80B01676R001900160013-3); "The IG's Cuban Survey and the DD/P's Analysis of the Cuban Operation," January 26, 1962 (CIA-RDP80B01676R001900160009-8); "Taylor Report," August 15, 1961 (CIA-RDP80B01676R001900160002-5); Allen W. Dulles, "The Inspector General's Survey of the Cuban Operation," February 15, 1962 (CIA-RDP80B01676R001900160008-9). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r001900160008-9
[^6]: Hugh Davies, "Eisenhower 'ordered Congo assassination,'" *The Daily Telegraph* (London), August 7, 1981, CIA-RDP90-00552R000403870002-9; "CIA Secrecy," CIA-RDP90-00965R000705910017-5 (reading room clipping). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000403870002-9
[^7]: Bissell, Richard M. Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo, *Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs* (Yale University Press, 1996).

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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Yehuda Ben-Hanan.md
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@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ summary: "Owner of Software and Engineering Consultants in Chatsworth, Californi
[[Yehuda Ben-Hanan]] was the owner of Software and Engineering Consultants, a small computer company based in Chatsworth, [[California]]. He was a childhood friend of [[Ari Ben-Menashe]].
[[Rafi]] selected Ben-Hanan to develop a "trap door" for the [[PROMIS]] software, which would allow external access to the computers of intelligence agencies using the program. Ben-Hanan was given blueprints and set about his work for a $5,000 fee, unaware of the true purpose of the project.[^1]
[[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] selected Ben-Hanan to develop a "trap door" for the [[PROMIS]] software, which would allow external access to the computers of intelligence agencies using the program. Ben-Hanan was given blueprints and set about his work for a $5,000 fee, unaware of the true purpose of the project.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.

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@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ died: 1982-06-10
location: "Tel Aviv, Israel"
---
General [[Yekutiel Adam]] was an [[Israel|Israeli]] military leader who was in line to take over as Director of [[Mossad]] in 1981. However, he was assassinated by his own people, according to [[Rafi]], who claimed it was an inside job. The old guard in [[Mossad]] were reportedly afraid of him because he had told people in the [[Prime Minister's Office]] that he would make a clean sweep of the intelligence network.[^1]
General [[Yekutiel Adam]] was an [[Israel|Israeli]] military leader who was in line to take over as Director of [[Mossad]] in 1981. However, he was assassinated by his own people, according to [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]], who claimed it was an inside job. The old guard in [[Mossad]] were reportedly afraid of him because he had told people in the [[Prime Minister's Office]] that he would make a clean sweep of the intelligence network.[^1]
Prior to his assassination, [[Yekutiel Adam|Adam]] lost a number of top-secret documents when he left his briefcase behind in a [[Los Angeles]] gas station, which caused a huge internal row within [[Mossad]] and an unsuccessful attempt to stop his appointment.[^1]

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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Ann-Marie Murphy.md
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@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ summary: "Ann-Marie Murphy was the Irish girlfriend of Nezar Hindawi."
location: "Sallynoggin, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland"
---
Ann-Marie Murphy was the Irish girlfriend of [[Nezar Hindawi]]. She was unwittingly used in a 1986 plot to bomb an [[El Al]] plane. Hindawi, acting on instructions from [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]] as part of an [[Rafi|Israeli]] "black" operation, intended for her to board the plane with explosives in her bag, leading to her death and the deaths of all other passengers.
Ann-Marie Murphy was the Irish girlfriend of [[Nezar Hindawi]]. She was unwittingly used in a 1986 plot to bomb an [[El Al]] plane. Hindawi, acting on instructions from [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]] as part of an [[Israel|Israeli]] "black" operation, intended for her to board the plane with explosives in her bag, leading to her death and the deaths of all other passengers.
The plot was foiled by [[Israel|Israeli]] security. Ann-Marie Murphy was interrogated by British security, where she revealed Hindawi's involvement. She later gave birth to their daughter in [[Ireland]].[^1]

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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Baldur K. Kleine.md
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@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ summary: "Business partner tasked by Rafi Eitan to receive the PROMIS software w
[[Baldur K. Kleine]] was a business partner of [[Manfred Herrmann]] and the representative in Maitland, [[Florida]], for [[Ora Group|Ora]], an [[Israel|Israeli]] arms-running company. He coordinated [[Israel|Israeli]] activities in [[Central America]].[^1]
[[Baldur K. Kleine|Kleine]] was tasked by [[Rafi]] to receive the [[PROMIS]] software, complete with its "trap door," from [[Earl Brian]] in Maitland. He then passed the program to [[Manfred Herrmann]] in [[Guatemala]], who, in conjunction with [[Robert Maxwell|Maxwell's]] [[Degem]], implemented it for intelligence purposes.[^1]
[[Baldur K. Kleine|Kleine]] was tasked by [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] to receive the [[PROMIS]] software, complete with its "trap door," from [[Earl Brian]] in Maitland. He then passed the program to [[Manfred Herrmann]] in [[Guatemala]], who, in conjunction with [[Robert Maxwell|Maxwell's]] [[Degem]], implemented it for intelligence purposes.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.

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@ -5,9 +5,9 @@ tags:
summary: "LAKAM representative in Washington D.C. who served as an intelligence conduit between Robert McFarlane, Jonathan Pollard, and Rafi Eitan."
---
[[Iris]] was a representative of [[LAKAM]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]. She served as a conduit for intelligence reports between [[Robert McFarlane]] and [[Jonathan Pollard]] in the [[United States|U.S.]], and [[Rafi]] in [[Israel]].[^1]
[[Iris]] was a representative of [[LAKAM]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]. She served as a conduit for intelligence reports between [[Robert McFarlane]] and [[Jonathan Pollard]] in the [[United States|U.S.]], and [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] in [[Israel]].[^1]
[[Iris]] would receive requests for computer access codes for certain intelligence items from [[Rafi|Eitan]]. She would then pass these requests to [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]], who would provide her with the specified access codes. [[Iris]] would then give these codes to [[Jonathan Pollard|Pollard]], who would retrieve the information, photocopy it, and return the copies to [[Iris]]. This process was designed to distance [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] from [[Jonathan Pollard|Pollard]].[^1]
[[Iris]] would receive requests for computer access codes for certain intelligence items from [[Rafael Eitan|Eitan]]. She would then pass these requests to [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]], who would provide her with the specified access codes. [[Iris]] would then give these codes to [[Jonathan Pollard|Pollard]], who would retrieve the information, photocopy it, and return the copies to [[Iris]]. This process was designed to distance [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] from [[Jonathan Pollard|Pollard]].[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.

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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Manfred Herrmann.md
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@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ summary: "Herrmann was recruited to represent Ora, an Israeli arms-running compa
[[Manfred Herrmann]] was a German expatriate in his 60s who owned an automobile spare-parts company in [[Guatemala City]] known as [[Sedra]]. He was involved in [[Israel|Israeli]] intelligence operations in [[Guatemala]].[^1]
Herrmann was recruited to represent [[Ora Group|Ora]], an [[Israel|Israeli]] arms-running company, in [[Guatemala]]. His partner, [[Baldur K. Kleine]], was the representative in Maitland, [[Florida]], coordinating activities in [[Central America]]. After [[Robert Maxwell]] took over [[Degem]], [[Rafi]] asked [[Earl Brian]] to provide [[Baldur K. Kleine|Kleine]] with the [[PROMIS]] software, complete with its "trap door." [[Baldur K. Kleine|Kleine]] then passed the program to Herrmann, who also received the [[Israel|Israeli]] version of [[PROMIS]].[^1]
Herrmann was recruited to represent [[Ora Group|Ora]], an [[Israel|Israeli]] arms-running company, in [[Guatemala]]. His partner, [[Baldur K. Kleine]], was the representative in Maitland, [[Florida]], coordinating activities in [[Central America]]. After [[Robert Maxwell]] took over [[Degem]], [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] asked [[Earl Brian]] to provide [[Baldur K. Kleine|Kleine]] with the [[PROMIS]] software, complete with its "trap door." [[Baldur K. Kleine|Kleine]] then passed the program to Herrmann, who also received the [[Israel|Israeli]] version of [[PROMIS]].[^1]
Herrmann's Sedra company, in conjunction with [[Robert Maxwell|Maxwell's]] [[Degem]], played a key role in implementing [[PROMIS]] in [[Guatemala]]. This involved setting up terminals in offices, railway stations, airports, and even remote roadblocks, as part of a system to track suspected dissidents. This venture was a major success from an intelligence perspective, enabling the tracking of individuals even under false names.[^1]

2
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Nezar Hindawi.md
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@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ born: 1954
location: "Baqura, Jordan"
---
[[Nezar Hindawi]] is a Syrian national who was involved in a 1986 plot to bomb an [[El Al]] plane. He was recruited by his cousin, [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]], as part of an [[Rafi|Israeli]] "black" operation designed to discredit [[Syria]].
[[Nezar Hindawi]] is a Syrian national who was involved in a 1986 plot to bomb an [[El Al]] plane. He was recruited by his cousin, [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]], as part of an [[Israel|Israeli]] "black" operation designed to discredit [[Syria]].
Hindawi was instructed to ensure his pregnant Irish girlfriend, Ann-Marie Murphy, boarded an [[El Al]] flight with explosives in her bag. He was led to believe the money for this operation came from "Syrian brothers on behalf of the Palestinians." He arranged for her to receive the bomb package in the [[Heathrow Airport|El Al]] departure lounge after passing through security, expecting her to die in the explosion along with other passengers.

2
10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Wilma Hall.md
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@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ summary: "Secretary to Robert McFarlane at the NSC and mother of Fawn Hall who h
[[Wilma Hall]] was the secretary to [[Robert McFarlane]] at the [[National Security Council]]. She is also the mother of [[Fawn Hall]], who was [[Oliver North|Oliver North's]] secretary.[^1]
[[Wilma Hall|Hall]] assisted [[William Odom|Gen. William Odom]] in proving that [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] was an [[Israel|Israeli]] mole working for [[Rafi]]. She did this by taping a phone conversation between [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] and [[Rafi|Eitan]].[^1]
[[Wilma Hall|Hall]] assisted [[William Odom|Gen. William Odom]] in proving that [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] was an [[Israel|Israeli]] mole working for [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]]. She did this by taping a phone conversation between [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] and [[Rafael Eitan|Eitan]].[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.

2
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Abu Nidal.md
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@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Abu Nidal, whose real name was Sabri al-Banna, was a Palestinian terrorist and t
Ben-Menashe wrote that Radi later presented his case to Nidal in [[Baghdad]], claiming he had been unwittingly used by Pearson. Nidal believed his story and put out the word that Radi was "clean," placing the blame on [[Yasser Arafat|Yasser Arafat's]] group.[^1]
Ben-Menashe also wrote that Nidal was involved in the [[Achille Lauro]] attack in 1985, which he described as an Israeli "black" propaganda operation. In his account, [[Rafi]] passed instructions to Radi, who then relayed orders to [[Abul Abbas]] to carry out a cruel attack. Abbas was reportedly receiving millions from Israeli intelligence officers posing as Sicilian dons.[^1] These accounts rest on Ben-Menashe's book alone.
Ben-Menashe also wrote that Nidal was involved in the [[Achille Lauro]] attack in 1985, which he described as an Israeli "black" propaganda operation. In his account, [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] passed instructions to Radi, who then relayed orders to [[Abul Abbas]] to carry out a cruel attack. Abbas was reportedly receiving millions from Israeli intelligence officers posing as Sicilian dons.[^1] These accounts rest on Ben-Menashe's book alone.
### BCCI

2
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Amiram Nir.md
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@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ location: "Israel"
---
[[Amiram Nir]] was a former [[Israel|Israeli]] TV newsman and a counterterrorism adviser to [[Shimon Peres]]. He was originally a military officer in the tank corps and lost an eye in a training accident. He married [[Judy Moses]], the daughter of the owner of [[Yediot Ahronot]], a major [[Israel|Israeli]] newspaper chain.[^1]
Nir resigned from his TV job to work as a public relations adviser for [[Shimon Peres|Peres]] during the 1981 elections. After [[Shimon Peres|Peres]] became prime minister in 1984, he appointed Nir as his counterterrorism adviser. Nir found documents related to [[Rafi|Eitan's]] [[United States|U.S.]] spy network and the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee|Joint Committee's]] arms sales to [[Iran]].[^1]
Nir resigned from his TV job to work as a public relations adviser for [[Shimon Peres|Peres]] during the 1981 elections. After [[Shimon Peres|Peres]] became prime minister in 1984, he appointed Nir as his counterterrorism adviser. Nir found documents related to [[Rafael Eitan|Eitan's]] [[United States|U.S.]] spy network and the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee|Joint Committee's]] arms sales to [[Iran]].[^1]
[[Shimon Peres|Peres]] and Nir faced challenges from the [[Likud Party]]-controlled intelligence community and the lack of financial power within the [[Labor Party]]. [[Shimon Peres|Peres]] decided to open a competing arms channel, run by Nir, to gain control over the profitable [[Iran]] arms sales and to undermine the existing intelligence-community channel. Nir, despite his lack of experience in intelligence or business, sought support from individuals like [[Al Schwimmer]] and [[Yaacov Nimrodi]].[^1]

2
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Anthony Pearson.md
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@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ According to [[Mossad]] files, Pearson could also arrange assassinations for $50
Pearson recruited [[Nicholas Davies]], the London *[[Daily Mirror]]* foreign editor, for Mossad in the 1970s. He also worked with [[Mohammed Radi Abdullah]], a former colonel in the [[Jordan|Jordanian]] Army. Pearson used Radi's unwitting help to acquire intelligence about Palestinian organizations in [[Europe]] by selling arms to them. This allowed Pearson to pass intelligence to Mossad about the groups' movements and weapons. Based on Radi's tips, 14 or 15 Palestinians were eliminated over a two-month period.[^1]
In 1978, Pearson offered Radi a £200,000 loan, making it clear the money came from an Israeli source, and recruited him to work for an antiterrorist group in Israel run by [[Rafi]].[^1]
In 1978, Pearson offered Radi a £200,000 loan, making it clear the money came from an Israeli source, and recruited him to work for an antiterrorist group in Israel run by [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]].[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.

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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Cheri Seymour.md
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@ -2,24 +2,68 @@
title: Cheri Seymour
aliases:
- Cheri Seymour
- Cheri Seymour (author)
- Seymour, Cheri
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-05
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
- Person
- PROMIS
- Journalist
- Author
- OrganizedCrime
summary: "Cheri Seymour is an investigative journalist and author whose book The Last Circle documented Danny Casolaro’s investigation into the PROMIS software scandal and the alleged criminal network he called The Octopus."
- Casolaro
- Inslaw
- PROMIS
- Octopus
- ChristianIdentity
- Mariposa
summary: "Mariposa, California newspaper reporter who wrote Committee of the States (1991) on William Potter Gale's Identity movement and The Last Circle (2010), a 599-page account of Danny Casolaro's Octopus investigation."
location: "Mariposa, California"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Mariposa Gazette and Miner]]"
start: 1986
role: "reporter covering the October 1986 arrests of Committee of the States members"
fn: 1
- type: investigated
with: "[[The Octopus]]"
start: 1991
end: 2010
role: "researched and interviewed sources on the Casolaro investigation, the Inslaw/PROMIS dispute and the Octopus"
fn: 3
---
Cheri Seymour is an author who was a reporter on the *[[Mariposa Gazette and Miner]]* in [[Mariposa]], California, in the 1980s. She wrote *Committee of the States: Inside the Radical Right* ([[Camden Place Communications]], Mariposa, 1991), a study of the [[Christian Identity]] movement built on the case of Colonel [[William Potter Gale]], and *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal* ([[TrineDay]], 2010), a 599-page account of the death of [[Danny Casolaro]] and of the network he called [[The Octopus]]. An interviewer on Radio Free Kansas introduced her in 2010 as a former private investigator and non-fiction journalist whose book took 18 years to complete.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
Cheri Seymour is an investigative journalist and author. She is the author of *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* Seymour was a reporter for a small newspaper in a remote community near Yosemite Valley. Her work on *The Last Circle* involved extensive investigation into organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, and pirated software, following the trail of [[Danny Casolaro]]’s investigation into what he termed "[[The Octopus]]."[^1]
### Committee of the States, 1991
### Bibliography
Seymour's first book carries the copyright of Seymour and the imprint of Camden Place Communications, Inc., 4859 Morningstar Lane, Mariposa (ISBN 0-9628772-0-4, Library of Congress card number 90-92264), with editing and production by Rapp Publishing and Typographic Services; the acknowledgments thank reporters at the *San Francisco Chronicle*, the *Arizona Republic*, the Fargo *Forum* and the *Davis Enterprise*, and the *Mariposa Gazette and Miner*, the *[[Las Vegas Review-Journal]]* and the *[[Los Angeles Times]]*, and reprint material from the *Sacramento Bee*, *California Magazine*, James Corcoran's *Bitter Harvest*, the [[Anti-Defamation League]]'s *The Arizona Patriots* and the *Washington Post*.[^1]
- *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal* (TrineDay, 2010) - ISBN-13: 978-1-9362960-0-2
The foreword says she attended a "Soldiers Ransom" ritual in the [[Aryan Nations]] compound, a midnight Ku Klux Klan cross burning and a Skinhead rally in Napa Valley, and a three-week Committee of the States trial in Las Vegas, and accumulated "an entire file cabinet of court transcripts and discovery material" from a two-year federal investigation called Operation Clean-Sweep, which ended in a Fort Smith, Arkansas courtroom where thirteen leaders from several states were acquitted of sedition.[^1]
The book opens with the arrests of October 23, 1986. Seymour writes that she was awakened at 10 p.m. on October 22 by the executive editor of the *Gazette*, who had been told by the district attorney's office that Gale and Fortunato "Slim" Parrino would be arrested at their homes the next morning, and that Commander Rod Sinclair of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Department told her to stay out of the area. On the 23rd federal agents seized Gale, still in pajamas, on his porch in Mariposa County and took him to a detention hearing in Fresno; Parrino was arrested at Bootjack and five other members of the Committee of the States in Arizona and Nevada, on a ten-count indictment from a Las Vegas grand jury charging threats to kill four [[Internal Revenue Service]] agents and a Nevada judge by "Constructive Notices." She describes the Committee's compact, filed in Mariposa County on July 13, 1984 after a signing at the Manasseh Ranch, and writes that the case grew out of two years of undercover work by the IRS and five years of earlier FBI investigation, and that the federal government had "declared war on the radical right."[^1]
### The Casolaro investigation
*The Last Circle* is organized as Seymour's own account of research that began after Casolaro was found dead on August 10, 1991 in a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia. It states that she interviewed Robert Booth Nichols at his home on February 13, 1992 and the U.S. Customs agent Scott Lawrence on February 5, 1993, and she places the murders of Neal Abernathy on February 19, 1997 among events of her investigation. Chapter 17, "The Inslaw Affair," summarizes House Judiciary Committee Report 102-857 (released September 10, 1992), the committee's three-year investigation of the Justice Department's treatment of the Hamiltons' [[Inslaw]] and its PROMIS software, with the investigators James E. Lewin and John D. Cohen, and adds [[Bill Hamilton]]'s account. In the same chapter she reproduces what she describes as a packet from a confidential source in Washington containing Judiciary Committee memoranda by Cohen, including the committee's contacts with the FBI agent [[Thomas Gates]], the prosecutors [[Marvin Rudnick]] and [[Richard Stavin]], and Casolaro's brother Dr. Anthony Casolaro.[^3][^5]
According to that chapter, the memoranda record Gates telling Cohen that "the FBI feels Danny Casolaro's death was an ITAR murder" (Interstate Travel in Aid of Racketeering) and that Casolaro told him three days before his death that Nichols had visited Casolaro in Martinsburg. Seymour writes that Stavin told her by e-mail: "I never believed for a moment that Danny Casolaro committed suicide. I spoke to him for about 45 minutes the week before and this was not a despondent man," and that Stavin said Casolaro first asked whether he had to be concerned for his safety because he was going to meet Nichols. She records Stavin's opinion that the MCA prosecution of three suspects "never went forward because no one at the DOJ in Washington D.C. wanted all the wiretap affidavits in the case to be released," and that Dan Moldea was copied on her e-mail exchanges with Stavin and Rudnick.[^5]
Chapter 22, "The Octopus Exposed," reports a four and a half hour meeting on February 14, 2001 at the home of [[Peter Zokosky]] and his wife Regina, with the journalist [[Kelly O'Meara]] of *Insight* magazine. Seymour attributes to Zokosky the statements that Nichols did contract work for the NSA and NSC, that the Lebanese company FIDCO was an NSA front whose directors included [[Robert Maheu]] and Glenn Shockley, and that Nichols was in Vietnam working for [[Ross Perot]]. She records that Zokosky said he believed Casolaro committed suicide, while Regina Zokosky "frowned and said she thought her husband had said otherwise at previous times." Zokosky let the two visitors read a manuscript by Nichols dated November 22, 1991, "Danny Casolaro's Octopus," and gave them a three-page FBI Los Angeles report dated December 2, 1982, which Seymour quotes: a confidential source alleged on March 16, 1978 that Nichols was "an international money launderer of money derived from both narcotics and organized crime activities," and the report concluded that Nichols "should be considered armed and dangerous."[^6]
### The Cabazon killings and the final chapter
Chapter 25, "Rachel's Resolution," follows [[Rachel Begley]], daughter of Ralph Boger, who was shot with Fred Alvarez, vice-chairman of the [[Cabazon Band of Mission Indians|Cabazon]] tribal council, and Patricia Castro in Rancho Mirage, California on June 29, 1981. Seymour records the autopsy finding of a single .38 caliber bullet to each head, Alvarez's prior statements to a reporter that they were marked for death, and the 2007 assignment of the cold case to Detective John Powers of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. She reports the arrest of James "Jimmy" Hughes at Miami airport on September 26, 2009 on a California fugitive warrant for three counts of murder, and the stalling of his extradition by his Miami lawyer as of December 1, 2009. She reprints a translated *La Prensa* (Honduras) article of October 5, 2009 by Jessica Figueroa headed "Jimmy Hughes - From CIA operative and mafia hitman to evangelical pastor," and closes the chapter with Begley's statement to the court, delivered on the day Seymour records Hughes as being released, asking that he remain in custody "at least until another DOJ prosecutor who is less timid can be assigned," and that the case go to another jurisdiction or a special prosecutor.[^7]
### Publication
TrineDay published *The Last Circle* in September 2010 (ISBN 978-1-936296-00-2; a second ISBN, 978-1-936296-38-5, appears in library records). Chapters 17, 22 and 25 were posted on the internet with Seymour's permission from the site ark-roundtable.com. Radio Free Kansas broadcast an interview with her on October 20, 2010, whose notes say the book follows "a story that took 18 years to develop" with a "surprise conclusion that even she did not anticipate" and that the title refers to the last circle of Dante's *Inferno*, reserved for traitors.[^3][^4][^5]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. TrineDay, 2010.
[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *Committee of the States: Inside the Radical Right.* Camden Place Communications, Mariposa, California, 1991, copyright page, acknowledgments, foreword and chapter "The Arrests." https://archive.org/details/seymour-cheri-committee-of-the-states
[^2]: Radio Free Kansas, interview "Cheri Seymour 'The Last Circle,'" October 20, 2010, program notes. https://archive.org/details/CheriSeymourtheLastCircle
[^3]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010; Open Library records 1936296004 and 9781936296002 (599 pages). https://openlibrary.org/search?q=last+circle+seymour+casolaro
[^4]: Same as note 2.
[^5]: Seymour, *The Last Circle*, chapter 17, "The Inslaw Affair," pp. 247 ff. https://archive.org/details/TheInslawAffair. Sole source for the passages so cited (Gates, Stavin and Rudnick statements as she records them).
[^6]: Seymour, *The Last Circle*, chapter 22, "The Octopus Exposed," pp. 337 ff. https://archive.org/details/TheOctopusExposed. Sole source for the Zokosky meeting.
[^7]: Seymour, *The Last Circle*, chapter 25, "Rachel's Resolution," pp. 393 ff. https://archive.org/details/RachelsResolution

4
10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Pat Price.md
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@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ Schnabel's account of the end of the trip is the fullest. In mid-July 1975 Price
Schnabel wrote that when "Richard Kennett" and others tried to find out what had happened, they learned that no autopsy had been performed, although autopsies were normal for out-of-town deaths outside hospitals; they were told that a friend of Price, not Alvarez, had arrived with a briefcase of his medical records, which with the emergency-room physician's statements led Las Vegas officials to waive the autopsy. Kennett could not identify the man with the briefcase. Schnabel recorded the rumors that followed: that the man was from the CIA, that Price had been murdered by the Soviets, that he was alive under a new identity, and that a friend had a vision in which Price's ghost said he had been poisoned. He recorded the view of those who knew of Price's heart disease that "there was no real mystery," and that a CIA official who worked with Price told him the Agency "had no connection with any of the events surrounding Price's death, including the (alleged) appearance of the mysterious man with the medical records." As late as 1994, Schnabel wrote, Targ told him: "I don't know how Pat Price died."[^24]
In late summer 1977, Schnabel wrote, the day after [[The Washington Post]] published an article by [[John L. Wilhelm|John Wilhelm]] on government psychic research, [[Stansfield Turner]], the Director of Central Intelligence, was asked about the subject at a meeting with reporters and, "clearly referring to Pat Price," said that the CIA had once worked with a man who seemed to have some psychic ability, whose drawings of foreign targets he had not seen were reasonably accurate but rudimentary: "he died, and we haven't heard from him since." When the Office of Technical Service briefed the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] on November 17, 1977, it left with the staff "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price."[^25] A [[Defense Intelligence College]] thesis of 1992 quotes Turner at a breakfast for journalists in 1977 as saying the CIA "had an individual who from time to time was able to draw very elementary sketches of street scenes in foreign countries where he had never been," and that "this subject died in 1975, and we haven't heard from him since."[^26]
In late summer 1977, Schnabel wrote, a few weeks after the Parade section of [[The Washington Post]] of August 7, 1977 carried an article headed "Psychic Spying," [[Stansfield Turner]], the Director of Central Intelligence, was asked about the subject at a meeting with reporters and, "clearly referring to Pat Price," said that the CIA had once worked with a man who seemed to have some psychic ability, whose drawings of foreign targets he had not seen were reasonably accurate but rudimentary: "he died, and we haven't heard from him since." When the Office of Technical Service briefed the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] on November 16, 1977, a briefing the Agency's memorandum of November 17 says "was occasioned by" the Parade article, it left with the staff "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price."[^25] A [[Defense Intelligence College]] thesis of 1992 quotes Turner at a breakfast for journalists in 1977 as saying the CIA "had an individual who from time to time was able to draw very elementary sketches of street scenes in foreign countries where he had never been," and that "this subject died in 1975, and we haven't heard from him since."[^26]
### The 1995 review
@ -150,6 +150,6 @@ The American Institutes for Research report of September 29, 1995 described the
[^22]: Schnabel, *Remote Viewers,* 1997, chapter on Swann's return and Price's departure.
[^23]: Schnabel, *Remote Viewers,* 1997, chapter on the embassy tests; pseudonyms as listed in the book.
[^24]: Schnabel, *Remote Viewers,* 1997, chapter "The Shamans" and its footnotes, including the footnote recording the statement by a CIA official who worked with Price. The pseudonym list in the same book includes Bill and Judy Alvarez and Richard Kennett.
[^25]: Schnabel, *Remote Viewers,* 1997, chapter on the summer of 1977, naming Wilhelm's Washington Post article; the Wilhelm piece also survives in CIA files as "The Search for Superman," CIA-RDP96-00788R001100040006-1. Brandwein, David S., Director, Office of Technical Service, memoranda "Stanford Research Institute Parapsychology Research," February 20, 1976 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020001-9), and "OTS Support to Research in Parapsychology," October 7, 1976 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020016-3); memorandum for the record, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," OTS memo 287-77, November 17, 1977 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8), at which OTS left with the committee staff "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price." Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^25]: Schnabel, *Remote Viewers,* 1997, chapter on the summer of 1977, on Turner's remark; OTS/BAB Memo #287-77, November 17, 1977 (CIA-RDP79-00999A000400050014-1), on the Parade article "Psychic Spying," Washington Post, August 7, 1977; reading notes on John L. Wilhelm's book *The Search for Superman* are in CIA-RDP96-00788R001100040006-1. Brandwein, David S., Director, Office of Technical Service, memoranda "Stanford Research Institute Parapsychology Research," February 20, 1976 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020001-9), and "OTS Support to Research in Parapsychology," October 7, 1976 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020016-3); memorandum for the record, "Briefing for House Permanent Select Committee re OTS Involvement in ESP Research," OTS memo 287-77, November 17, 1977 (CIA-RDP96-00787R000200020020-8), at which OTS left with the committee staff "a brief article on Mr. Pat Price." Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^26]: Zarbo, Michael E. (Captain, U.S. Army), *Remote Viewing: Parapsychological Potential for Intelligence Collection?,* master's thesis, Defense Intelligence College, November 1992, CIA-RDP96-00789R002600250001-6, quoting Turner. Read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.
[^27]: Mumford, Michael D., Andrew M. Rose, and David A. Goslin. *An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications.* American Institutes for Research, September 29, 1995, chapter 3, p. 3-77 and following, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180005-5, read in the archive.org mirror of the CIA FOIA Reading Room STARGATE collection.

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10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Yitzhak Shamir.md
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@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ location: "Ruzhany, Belarus"
### Coalition Government and Arms Trading
[[Yitzhak Shamir|Shamir]] was a key figure in the [[Likud Party]]. He formed a bizarre coalition government with [[Shimon Peres]] of the [[Labor Party]] in 1984, sharing the roles of prime minister and foreign minister. [[Yitzhak Shamir|Shamir]] had a close relationship with [[Rafi]], who served as his counterterrorism adviser and later ran the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee]]. [[Yitzhak Shamir|Shamir]] was involved in the decision to supply [[Iran]] with arms in its war with [[Saddam Hussein|Saddam Hussein's]] [[Iraq]], believing it was in [[Israel|Israel's]] national security interest.[^1]
[[Yitzhak Shamir|Shamir]] was a key figure in the [[Likud Party]]. He formed a bizarre coalition government with [[Shimon Peres]] of the [[Labor Party]] in 1984, sharing the roles of prime minister and foreign minister. [[Yitzhak Shamir|Shamir]] had a close relationship with [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]], who served as his counterterrorism adviser and later ran the [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee]]. [[Yitzhak Shamir|Shamir]] was involved in the decision to supply [[Iran]] with arms in its war with [[Saddam Hussein|Saddam Hussein's]] [[Iraq]], believing it was in [[Israel|Israel's]] national security interest.[^1]
### Pollard Espionage Case

2
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Craig Unger.md
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@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ summary: "In July 1992, *The Village Voice* printed a long article by Unger that
born: 1949-03-25
---
[[Craig Unger]] is an [[United States|American]] journalist and author. In October 1991, his article in *Esquire* magazine repeated [[Ari Ben-Menashe|Ben-Menashe's]] allegations that [[Robert McFarlane]] had been recruited by [[Rafi]] and named [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] as "Mr. X" in the [[Jonathan Pollard]] case. [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] subsequently sued the magazine, but the suit was dismissed in June 1994.[^1]
[[Craig Unger]] is an [[United States|American]] journalist and author. In October 1991, his article in *Esquire* magazine repeated [[Ari Ben-Menashe|Ben-Menashe's]] allegations that [[Robert McFarlane]] had been recruited by [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]] and named [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] as "Mr. X" in the [[Jonathan Pollard]] case. [[Robert McFarlane|McFarlane]] subsequently sued the magazine, but the suit was dismissed in June 1994.[^1]
In July 1992, *The Village Voice* printed a long article by [[Craig Unger|Unger]] that quoted [[Moshe Hebroni]], a former colleague of [[Ari Ben-Menashe|Ben-Menashe]], confirming [[Ari Ben-Menashe|Ben-Menashe's]] access to very sensitive material while working for the Foreign Flow desk in External Relations.[^1]

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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/John Tower.md
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@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ location: "Houston, Texas"
[[John Tower]] was a [[United States|U.S.]] Senator and a prominent figure with connections to [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] circles. He served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.[^1]
[[John Tower|Tower]] was introduced to [[Rafi]], then counterterrorism adviser to [[Menachem Begin]], in 1978. Eitan sought to build a network within the [[United States|United States]] to obtain information about Palestinian terrorists. [[John Tower|Tower]] and his senior aide, [[Robert McFarlane]], developed a close relationship with Eitan, and much information reaching the Senate Armed Services Committee found its way to Eitan's desk.[^1]
[[John Tower|Tower]] was introduced to [[Rafael Eitan|Rafi]], then counterterrorism adviser to [[Menachem Begin]], in 1978. Eitan sought to build a network within the [[United States|United States]] to obtain information about Palestinian terrorists. [[John Tower|Tower]] and his senior aide, [[Robert McFarlane]], developed a close relationship with Eitan, and much information reaching the Senate Armed Services Committee found its way to Eitan's desk.[^1]
[[John Tower|Tower]] was involved in the secret negotiations concerning the [[Iran-Contra Affair]]. He was present at a meeting in [[Santiago]], [[Chile]], in late 1986 with [[Carlos Cardoen]], [[Robert Gates]], and [[Pieter Van Der Westhuizen|Gen. Pieter Van Der Westhuizen]] (South African Military Intelligence), where the [[United States|U.S.]] reaffirmed its intention to maintain arms channels to [[Iraq]].[^1]