by Kai Bird
As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
CIA director Richard Helms (right) greeting President Richard Nixon in 1969. Helms was Bob Ames’s mentor inside the CIA. Helms encouraged Ames to develop his clandestine relationship with Ali Hassan Salameh—even though the Nixon Administration and Henry Kissinger had banned any contact with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Corbis Bettmann
Caskets of the eleven Israeli athletes murdered at the September 1972 Munich Olympics by a team of Black September terrorists. “After that act no one would listen anymore,” Ames wrote. “All sympathy was gone. The only thought was that this should never happen again.” Corbis Bettmann
The PLO’s Yasir Arafat addressed the United Nations on November 13, 1974. Ames played a key role in getting Arafat and Ali Hassan Salameh to New York. “I’m just a middle man in all this,” Ames wrote. They stayed at the Waldorf Astoria—and before leaving, Salameh bought a postcard of the famous hotel and wrote to his son, “The PLO at the Waldorf Astoria!” Corbis Bettmann
Former Lebanese prime minister Saeb Salam (left) with Ali Hassan Salameh and Yasir Arafat (right) in 1976. Ames assigned Salameh the CIA cryptonym MJTRUST/2. By 1976, Salameh’s fedayeen from Force 17 were providing security for the U.S. embassy in the midst of the Lebanese civil war.
As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
Ali Hassan Salameh shaking hands with Pierre Gemayel, a Lebanese power broker and founder of the right-wing Phalangist Party. His son Bashir Gemayel (center), a Maronite Christian warlord, was elected president in 1982—but was assassinated within weeks. As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
Bashir Gemayel (left) and Ali Hassan Salameh were enemies who admired each other. Ames called Bashir “our brutal warlord.” As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
The Imam Musa Sadr (far left) with Ali Hassan Salameh (right, wearing a leather jacket) in 1975. Musa Sadr, the spiritual leader of Lebanon’s Shi’a Muslims, vanished mysteriously in 1978 on a trip to Libya. Ames asked Salameh to investigate the Imam’s disappearance. As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
Georgina Rizk with Bob Barker in Miami Beach upon being selected Miss Universe of 1971. “She is Lebanon’s queen, Lebanon’s goddess.” Ali Hassan Salameh began dating Rizk in 1976, and that year Ames arranged for the couple to visit Washington, D.C.; Disneyland in Anaheim, California; and Hawaii. Associated Press
Ali Hassan Salameh with his two boys by his first marriage, to Nashrawan Sharif. Ames frequently visited Salameh at his home with wife Nashrawan, and he frowned on Salameh’s affair with Georgina Rizk: “This affair is ruining his reputation.” Salameh nevertheless married Rizk in June 1977.
Courtesy of Mustafa Zein
In the autumn of 1978 Ames was promoted to National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. It was a big step up and a step away from clandestine operations. “Bob had a reputation in the DO [Directorate of Operations] of being too smart, too much of an intellectual.” Courtesy of Yvonne Ames
In November 1978 Ames flew to Beirut to warn Salameh that Mossad was once again targeting him for assassination. “I know that I’ll die,” Salameh said fatalistically. On January 22, 1979, his convoy passed a Volkswagen packed with explosives. When it blew up, Salameh was killed together with eight other people. As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
Mike Harari, the head of Mossad’s Caesarea clandestine unit in the 1970s, tried to assassinate Ali Hassan Salameh in Norway in 1973, but his team mistakenly killed an innocent Moroccan immigrant. Harari succeeded in 1979. Mossad officer Erika Chambers pushed the remote-control button that ignited the explosives just as Salameh’s car passed her balcony. Haaretz newspaper / credit: Dudu Bachar
Yasir Arafat (center with keffiyeh headdress) at Ali Hassan Salameh’s funeral. His arm is draped across Ali’s son Hassan, who is holding an AK-47 Kalashnikov gun in his hand. As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
Yasir Arafat kissing a pregnant Georgina Rizk, one of Ali Hassan Salameh’s two widows. “The day Ali Hassan Salameh was killed was a very bad day,” recalled one of Ames’s colleagues.… “Bob was clearly stunned when he heard the news.” As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
Dewey Clarridge (left), George Cave (center), and Alan Wolfe (right). All three senior clandestine officers worked closely with Ames.
Courtesy of Henry Miller-Jones
William Casey brought to the CIA a fiery Catholicism and Cold Warrior certitudes. Courtesy of Corbis Bettmann
Ames (wearing his trademark tinted aviator glasses) enthralled Casey with his spycraft stories. Casey promoted him to become the CIA’s chief analyst for the Middle East. Courtesy of Yvonne Ames
Paul Wolfowitz (left), President Ronald Reagan, and Ames (second from right) at Camp David. Ames regularly briefed Reagan about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982. “It is a tricky business,” recalled one of Ames’s colleagues. “Do you try to stay true to your views or do you try to remain effective? At some point, people stop listening to you.” Courtesy of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon (right) with his troops in Lebanon. When asked how far he intended to advance into Lebanon, Sharon replied, “As far as we have to.”
Corbis Bettmann
After Arafat and the PLO were expelled from Lebanon, Phalangist militiamen massacred more than 1,000 Palestinian and Shi’ite Lebanese refugees in Sabra and Shatila. Ames was then working closely with Secretary of State George Shultz, who said, “The brutal fact is we are partially responsible.” Corbis Bettmann
Janet Lee Stevens, age thirty-two, was an American reporter who was known in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps as “the Little Drummer Girl.” She served as John le Carré’s guide in the camps and spent the rest of her life investigating the massacre. Courtesy of Kristen Stevens
At 1:04 P.M. on April 18, 1983, a truck bomb destroyed the U.S. embassy in Beirut. “The smoke had cleared, but blood and body parts were everywhere. It is a smell you never forget.” Corbis Bettmann / credit: Claude Salhani
Sixty-three people died, including seventeen Americans and thirty-two Lebanese embassy employees. Eight of the Americans were CIA officers.
Getty Images
U.S. Marines form a perimeter around the destroyed U.S. embassy. “Bob Ames among the dead in Beirut,” wrote a White House official in his diary. “We believe Iran involved. Felt very sad about Bob.”
Getty Images
President Reagan and Nancy Reagan walk by sixteen caskets at Andrews Air Force Base. “Nancy and I met individually with the families of the deceased,” the president noted in his diary. “We were both in tears—I know all I could do was grip their hands—I was too choked up to speak.” Ames was the only victim Reagan had known personally. Courtesy of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Yvonne Ames at Andrews Air Force Base, standing with her brother, a U.S. Navy officer. She was not told which casket contained Bob’s body. “Bob’s death fractured our family,” she later explained. “It’s like when you take a photograph and rip it. You can try to piece it back together, but it’s never the same.” Courtesy of Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Imad Mughniyeh (left) with Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah. Ali Hassan Salameh recruited Mughniyeh into Force 17 in the 1970s. But by 1983 Mughniyeh was working for the Iranians in Beirut—and he was thought to be involved in the U.S. embassy bombing: “When in doubt, and we are always in doubt about this, blame Mughniyeh.”
As-Safir newspaper, Beirut
Imad Mughniyeh with his mother. He operated in the darkest of shadows. A former director general of the Mossad described Mughniyeh as “very shrewd, very talented … He was the liaison between Hezbollah and Iran.”
Courtesy of Al-Akhbar newspaper, Beirut
On February 12, 2008, Mughniyeh was assassinated in Damascus when the headrest in his booby-trapped Mitsubishi car exploded. “Mughniyeh was assassinated by the Israelis, with intelligence on his whereabouts furnished by the CIA.” Associated Press
General Ali Reza Asgari, an Iranian
Revolutionary Guard intelligence officer who defected to the United States in 2007. According to Mustafa Zein, it was Asgari who recruited Mughniyeh and planned the 1983 truck bomb attack on the U.S. embassy. “At the unclassified level, I cannot elaborate on the issue,” said a U.S. intelligence official.
Corbis Bettmann
The last photograph of Bob and Yvonne, Christmas 1982. Courtesy of Yvonne Ames
NOTES
An italicized source name signifies an anonymous source, either a CIA officer or a Mossad officer who wishes to remain anonymous.
All interviews are my own unless otherwise specified.
Prologue
1 “It was noted that this was a big day …”: Charles Englehart, e-mail to author, May 20, 2012.
2 “Okay, let’s get a bus …”: Ibid.
3 “I’m proud to say that it was my idea”: Frank Anderson, e-mail to author, May 17, 2012.
4 “We the soldiers …”: Thomas L. Friedman, “Rabin and Arafat Seal Their Accord as Clinton Applauds ‘Brave Gamble,’ ” New York Times, September 14, 1993.
5 President Clinton “took Mr. Arafat in his left arm …”: Ibid.
6 We were at Bob’s gravesite”: Frank Anderson, e-mail to author, May 17, 2012.
7 “He was no Lawrence of Arabia”: Henry Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames,” unpublished op-ed, ca. May 1983, courtesy of Miller-Jones.
8 “He came to know kings …”: Ibid.
9 “Everyone credited Ames …”: Lindsay Sherwin, interview, March 22, 2011.
10 “There was a moment of silent prayer”: Charles Englehart, e-mail to author, May 20, 2012.
11 “We were all quietly excited”: Ibid.
Chapter One: The Making of a Spy
1 “rock-bottom American-ness …”: Henry Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames,” unpublished op-ed, ca. May 1983, courtesy of Miller-Jones.
2 People prided themselves: Nancy Ames Hanlon, e-mail to author, June 12, 2013.
3 “He used to devour books”: Philadelphia newspaper clipping, “Local Mother Mourns Hero Dead in Blast,” n.d., ca. April 1983, Yvonne Ames papers.
4 “There was no money for that”: Nancy Ames Hanlon, interview, September 7, 2011.
5 “never one to travel in crowds”: Helen Ames, quoted in “Local Mother Mourns Hero.”
6 “Bob was always talking about Gola”: Jack Harmer, e-mail to author, September 21, 2010.
7 “Ames was a great player”: Robert S. Lyons, “1954 La Salle NCAA Basketball Champions,” speech delivered at the Second Annual Induction Ceremony of the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame, April 8, 2005.
8 “I’m not talking to you …”: Bob Ames, “Don’t Let the Shower Drip,” short story, n.d., courtesy of Yvonne Ames.
9 “The other sports can be fun”: Ken D. Loeffler, “I Say Basketball’s Our Best Game,” Saturday Evening Post, December 19, 1953.
10 “to bring order out of chaos”: John R. Rasmuson, ed., A History of Kagnew Station and American Forces in Eritrea (Asmara: Il Poligrafico, 1973), p. 48.
11 “I do not believe we have a more remote station …”: Ibid., p. 64.
12 Top Secret Codeword: George E. Matthias, e-mail to author, July 26, 2011. Matthias was a veteran of Kagnew. “Top Secret Codeword” was a security classification term in use in 1957, but it has been long since retired.
13 Many of the men at Kagnew Station: Rasmuson, History of Kagnew Station, p. 63.
14 “Fine-looking soldier!”: Joel Wilson, e-mail to author, July 31, 2011, with attached handwritten memo from his father, John Wilson.
15 “After a week or so of this bullshit”: George E. Matthias, e-mail to author, July 26, 2011.
16 “and see the world”: “Local Mother Mourns Hero.”
17 “repo man”: Lindsay Sherwin, interview, March 22, 2011.
18 Liv Ullmann: Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames.”
Chapter Two: The Agency
1 “Dear Mom, I have been offered …”: Ian Shapira, “At Memorial for Iran-Contra Figure Clair George, CIA Colleagues’ Loyalty Endures,” Washington Post, October 16, 2011.
2 “Initially, I couldn’t picture him as CIA”: Nancy Ames Hanlon, interview, September 7, 2011.
3 “Nixon looked horrible”: Yvonne Ames, interview, November 19–20, 2010.
4 one woman: whn, veteran DO case officer, memo to author, part 1, January 12, 2011.
5 some sixteen thousand employees: John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), p. 21.
6 “a high tolerance for ambiguity”: whn, memo to author, part 1.
7 “It was the first time I learned …”: Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, September 22, 2012.
8 “The course was a relic …”: Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002), p. 32.
9 Kirkpatrick made it clear: Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 65.
10 “Although we became almost intimately familiar …”: whn, memo to author, part 1, January 12, 2011.
11 “But the other side of the coin …”: Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, March 10, 2012.
12 just in case “any questions arise …”: Secret CIA cable, Washington to Tehran, August 3, 1979, Documents from the U.S. Espionage Den, vol. 56, http://ia600409.us.archive.org/10/items/DocumentsFromTheU.S.EspionageDen/v56_text.pdf.
13 There had to be trust: Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, p. 115.
14 “The successful and satisfactory conclusion …”: whn, memo to author, part 1, January 12, 2011.
15 “Jungle Operations Course”: Yvonne Ames, e-mail to author, April 11, 2012.
16 “the cowboy era”: Said K. Aburish, A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elites (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), p. 135. Aburish interviewed Critchfield in 1994.
17 Washington “was terribly dependent …”: Duane R. Clarridge, e-mail to author, March 16, 2013.
18 “the only man who ever used the CIA for cover”: Said K. Aburish, “Lost Victories: The CIA and the Middle East,” 2004, p. 3, www.iiwds.com/said_aburish/a_lostvictories.htm.
19 “People tended to go there and stay there”: Peter Earnest, interview, March 16, 2011.
20 When the CIA was established: Ranelagh, Agency, p. 28.
21 “Helms and Ames were very much alike”: Lindsay Sherwin, interview, March 22, 2011.
22 Dick Helms was an enigma: Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, p. 290.
23 “From the outside, espionage …”: Ibid., p. 23.
24 “Friends said he carried away …”: Ibid., p. 24.
25 “Just because a document is a document”: Kim Philby, My Silent War: The Autobiography of a Spy (New York: Modern Library, 1968), p. 200.
26 “To do the best job he can …”: Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, p. 140.
27 “the soggy mass of morality”: Ibid., p. 141.
28 “We’re not in the Boy Scouts …”: Ibid., p. 143.
29 “Our best Russian agents …”: Richard Helms, “We Believed in Our Work,” speech delivered at the Veterans of the OSS Dinner, Washington Hilton Hotel, Washington, DC, May 24, 1983, www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/45/we_belv_wrk.pdf.
Chapter Three: Arabia
1 “Bob was a very complex person”: David Long, e-mail to author, June 12, 2011.
2 “He was able to show empathy …”: Harry Simpson, e-mail to author, September 19, 2011.
3 Their job in the Dhahran Base: Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, January 20, 2011.
4 “All we could see for miles …”: Kai Bird, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956–1978 (New York: Scribner, 2010), p. 89.
5 “The oil town at Dhaharan [sic] …”: Ibid., p. 90.
6 “He said that he had plotted out a career path”: Ralph Oman, e-mail to author, Aug
ust 10, 2011.
7 one of Aramco’s Saudi desert guides: Henry Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames.”
8 “When the Arabs did not know him well”: Ibid.
9 “The house was small …”: Ralph Oman, e-mail to author, August 10, 2011.
10 Ronald Irwin Metz: Bird, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate, pp. 106–7.
11 an easygoing and fruitful relationship: Ambassador Patrick Theros, interview, October 6, 2011.
12 “Ames’ interest in the Bedu …”: Henry Miller-Jones, “Aden Assignment,” e-mail to author.
13 “I think we should leave”: Ambassador Patrick Theros, interview, October 6, 2011.
14 “Bob tended to see humor …”: Ibid.
15 Aramco told Ames he had a standing offer: Ralph Oman, e-mail to author, August 10, 2011.
16 “I felt as if my clients were running the Middle East …”: Said K. Aburish, The St George Hotel Bar (London: Bloomsbury, 1989), p. 5.
17 “Beirut is one of the liveliest centres …”: Philby, My Silent War, p. 201.
18 “It was an amazing listening post”: Aburish, The St George Hotel Bar, p. 8.
19 “He knew everyone”: Loren Jenkins, interview, April 22, 2011.
20 rumors dogged him: A retired CIA officer told the Norwegian journalist Karsten Tveit that Abu Said’s CIA cryptonym was PENTAD. Karsten Tveit, e-mail to author, May 13, 2013.
21 “It was clear to me …”: Wilbur Crane Eveland, Ropes of Sand: America’s Failure in the Middle East (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980), p. 165.
22 “For those of us lucky enough …”: Aburish, The St George Hotel Bar, p. 4.
