The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames

by Kai Bird

Chapter Four: Aden and Beirut

  1 “Israel could defeat …”: 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.

  2 “Why don’t you ask me …”: Robert Hunter, interview, March 17, 2011.

  3 “no honey to convince me …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 4, 1967, courtesy of Yvonne Ames.

  4 “Everywhere you look …”: Ibid.

  5 one of only seven officers in the tiny post: Associated Press, “South Yemen Cuts Relations with U.S. for Backing Israel,” New York Times, October 25, 1969.

  6 “If they get you here”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 10, 1967.

  7 “I saw one Brit get wounded …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 14, 1967.

  8 “The situation in Aden …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 22, 1967.

  9 “I was pure raw material …”: Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, September 22, 2012.

  10 “It’s a good thing”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 14, 1967.

  11 He preferred root beer: Robert Ames to Yvonne, June 15, 1972.

  12 “I bet you’d like to be sitting in my office now”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 5, 1967.

  13 “He won’t have to worry …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 22, 1967.

  14 “Except for the aura of terrorism …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 4, 1967.

  15 “ugly relationship”: Dewey Clarridge, interview, November 26, 2011.

  16 “Most of them are quite friendly”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 10, 1967.

  17 “Ames admonished me …”: Henry Miller-Jones, “Aden Assignment,” e-mail to author.

  18 Ames clearly didn’t care for the Brits: Yvonne Ames, e-mail to author, March 7, 2012.

  19 “The soldiers are arrogant …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 10, 1967.

  20 “I really feel frustrated …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 28, 1967.

  21 “American Lawrence of Arabia”: William M. Freeman, “The American Lawrence,” New York Times, December 5, 1975.

  22 “He fully grasped the irrationality …”: Henry Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames,” unpublished op-ed, ca. May 1983, courtesy of Miller-Jones.

  23 “This is one of the most inaccessible kingdoms …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 14, 1967.

  24 Qaboos was allowed only a few books: Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, September 22, 2012.

  25 “The Sultan, of course, will succumb …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 1, 1967.

  26 “They’ve caught the killer”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 22, 1967.

  27 “A great quiet has fallen …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 3, 1967.

  28 “We have a full scale civil war …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 7, 1967.

  29 “Well, it looks like the NLF …”: Ibid.

  30 “I’m afraid some things must be put off …”: Ibid.

  31 he’d seen Yvonne only 20 of the past 141 days: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 22, 1967.

  32 “I’m sure I’ll be a stranger to them …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 1, 1967.

  33 “What good is a picture?”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 7, 1967.

  34 “I love you and miss you …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 25, 1967, and November 7, 1967.

  35 “Give the girls a hug …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 22, 1967.

  36 “The new government appears to be quite leftist”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 2, 1967.

  37 “sincere and hard working”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 11, 1967.

  38 “I’ve been living and breathing the Arabic language …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 2, 1967.

  39 “pathetic”: Ibid.

  40 “the whole independence bit …”: Ibid.

  41 Ames found the press people he met “interesting”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 19, 1967.

  42 “My Arabic is improving …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 28, 1967.

  43 the consulate was “one disorganized mess …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 25, 1967.

  44 “People are cautiously sticking their heads out …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 7, 1967.

  45 “I got it for under $250 …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 28, 1967.

  46 “Our contacts are so restricted”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 3, 1967.

  47 “So far, I haven’t made any real close Arab friends”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 9, 1967.

  48 “lost in the obscurity …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 2, 1967.

  49 “I have been all over Aden …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, November 28, 1967.

  50 “I don’t recall a lengthy or active list …”: Miller-Jones, “Aden Assignment.”

  51 “I used to say that Bob forgot more …”: Stephen Buck, e-mail to author, January 19, 2012.

  52 “a real down to earth fellow …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, October 9, 1967.

  53 “Abd’al Fatah told Bob of his experience …”: William Casey, speech delivered at the Metropolitan Club, New York City, May 1, 1985, Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University. See also Joseph E. Persico, Casey: The Lives and Secrets of William J. Casey (New York: Viking Penguin Books, 1990), pp. 314–15.

  54 “Most of them are just about my age”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 13, 1967.

  55 “Ames told me”: Casey, speech at the Metropolitan Club.

  56 Getting to know the right people: Persico, Casey, p. 315.

  57 “Had Ames been a public man”: Henry Miller-Jones, “A Remembrance of Bob Ames.”

  58 One day at the Gold Mohur Beach Club: A retired Foreign Service officer who wishes to remain anonymous, interview, January 21, 2012.

  59 Later, Ames casually thanked the Foreign Service officer: Anonymous Foreign Service officer, e-mail to author, May 4, 2012.

  60 His 1971 thesis: Basil Raoud al-Kubaisi, “The Arab Nationalist Movement, 1951–1971: From Pressure Group to Socialist Party” (Ph.D. diss., American University, 1971).

  61 Al-Kubaisi came from a wealthy and well-connected Sunni Muslim family: Fadl Naqib, e-mail to author, May 23, 2012. Naqib was a friend and contemporary of Al-Kubaisi’s.

  62 “Ames was good at recruitment”: Richard Zagorin, interview, March 24, 2011.

  63 a top-secret British Foreign Office memo: Research Department Memorandum, “Iraqi Nationalist Political Parties,” Top Secret, September 26, 1963, LR6/19/G, Document Reference: FO 370/2719–0007, p. 6, Public Records Office, UK.

  64 They were a natural fit: My source for the fact that it was Al-Kubaisi who was recruited by Ames is a retired Foreign Service officer who prefers to remain anonymous. He remembers that the young man he sent to Ames from the Gold Mohur Beach Club later became a ranking PFLP member and was killed in Paris by the Mossad in 1973. Only Al-Kubaisi matches this description. Furthermore, Al-Kubaisi’s 1971 Ph.D. thesis establishes that he was interviewing ANM sources in Aden in 1967–68—which establishes that he was in Aden at the same time as Ames. Finally, it is interesting to note that Bob Woodward writes in his book Veil that “during the Helms era, Ames had been the first to make a real penetration into the PLO for the CIA, developing two key sources.” Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981–1987 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), p. 230. Ali Hassan Salameh was one source; Al-Kubaisi was most probably the other one.

  65 “the most depressing and un-Christmas-like Christmas …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 25, 1967.

  66 “Aden was spartan”: Yvonne Ames, interview, November 19–20, 2010.

  67 “Her eyes got wide …”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 10, 1968.

  68 “I think half of Aden is waiting!”: Robert Ames to Yvonne, December 3, 1968.

  69 “A female police officer arrived …”: Yvonne Ames, interview, November 19–20, 2010; see also New York Times, �
��South Yemen Ends U.S. Ties,” October 25, 1969, and “U.S. Diplomats Quit Aden,” October 27, 1969.

  70 “Most of us case officers worked at night …”: Charles Englehart, interview, September 20, 2011.

  71 “We used to try to come up with Arabic puns …”: Sam Wyman, interview, July 27, 2010.

  72 “I was in awe of Bob”: Richard Zagorin, interview, March 24, 2011.

  73 The CIA station in Beirut: Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, December 16, 2010.

  74 “We case officers”: Richard Zagorin, interview, March 24, 2011.

  75 the “Green Wog”: Duane R. Clarridge, with Digby Diehl, A Spy for All Seasons: My Life in the CIA (New York: Scribner, 1997), p. 105.

  76 “a professional Irishman”: Charles Waverly, interview, March 28, 2011.

  77 “Henry was an aggressive, talented, street smart and gutsy officer”: Henry Miller-Jones, e-mail to author, May 18, 2012.

  78 “They really were very close”: Betty Bretting, e-mail to author, May 16, 2012.

  79 the “White Whale”: Yvonne Ames, e-mail to author, May 21, 2012.

  80 “Henry was a character”: Loren Jenkins, interview, April 22, 2011.

  81 “There was a period”: Richard Zagorin, interview, March 24, 2011.

  82 Ames met a twenty-seven-year-old Lebanese citizen: David Ignatius, interview, July 28, 2010; Sam Wyman, interview, November 5, 2010.

  83 “Bob and June Beckman …”: Mustafa Zein, e-mail to author, June 28, 2012.

  84 Zein was unfazed: Mustafa Zein, e-mail to author, August 11, 2012.

  85 “Zein was a player …”: Sam Wyman, interview, November 5, 2010.

  86 “This and many other incidents …”: “Jordan’s Exhibit Assailed by Jews,” New York Times, April 25, 1964; Emily Alice Katz, “It’s the Real World After All: The American-Israel Pavilion–Jordan Pavilion Controversy at the New York World’s Fair, 1964–1965,” American Jewish History 91 (March 2003): 129–55, www.thefreelibrary.com/It’s+the+real+world+after+all%3A+the+American-Israel+Pavilion—Jordan…-a0119570011.

  87 “Bob opened the meeting …”: Mustafa Zein, interview, Amman, October 4, 2012; Mustafa Zein, “Deceit with Extreme Prejudice,” unpublished memoir, ca. 2005, p. 122, courtesy of Mustafa Zein.

  88 “knew who he [Ames] was …”: Ibid., pp. 123–24.

  89 Zein made a good living: U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Mustafa M. Zein v. United States of America, Civil Action No. 99-244C, April 29, 1999, p. 3.

  90 “He was never a ‘paid agent’ ”: Sam Wyman, e-mail to author, August 6, 2012.

  91 “When I met Bob in Beirut …”: Mustafa Zein, e-mail to author, August 4, 2012.

  92 “You recruit a principal agent …”: Jack O’Connell, with Vernon Loeb, King’s Counsel: A Memoir of War, Espionage, and Diplomacy in the Middle East (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), p. 22.

  93 “I was very fond of Mustafa”: Sam Wyman, interview, November 5, 2010.

  94 “Bob really wasn’t that great …”: George Coll, interview, March 14, 2011.

  95 “He was very long on guts”: Sam Wyman, interview, November 5.

  96 “the Catalyst”: Mustafa Zein, interview, Amman, October 7, 2012.

  Chapter Five: The Red Prince

  1 Force 17: Peter Taylor, States of Terror: Democracy and Political Violence (London: Penguin Books, 1993), p. 38. Arafat’s intelligence bureau was initially called Rasd. Force 17 did not emerge until the mid-1970s.

  2 they all should be fluent in Hebrew: Mustafa Zein, interview, Amman, October 7, 2012.

  3 “He was a youthful Marlon Brando …”: Ibid.

  4 “explore the possibility of contact …”: Mustafa Zein, e-mail to author, August 11, 2012.

  5 “The man was a magnet”: Ibid.

  6 a very thin Swiss platinum watch: Zein, “Deceit with Extreme Prejudice,” p. 117. Photographs of Salameh in the 1970s show him wearing a thin silver-colored watch.

  7 Ali Hassan Salameh was born: Nadia Salti Stephan, “Abu Hassan by Abu Hassan” and “After I Die,” Monday Morning (Beirut weekly magazine), January 29–February 4, 1979, pp. 16–26. Ali Hassan Salameh says in this interview, “I was born in Iraq in 1942.” Other sources report that he was born in Qula, Palestine, in 1940.

  8 “Salameh has turned Ramla [town] into a centre of disorder”: Michael Bar-Zohar and Eitan Haber, The Quest for the Red Prince (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 1983, 2002), pp. 28–30. Bar-Zohar and Haber seem to be quoting Haganah intelligence files, but their book has no source notes.

  9 the British never caught Salameh: Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cuppers, Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews in Palestine (London: Enigma, 2010), p. 201; “Three Nazi Air Officers Caught in Palestine,” New York Times, October 28, 1944; Rick Fountain, “Nazis Planned Palestine Subversion,” BBC News, July 5, 2001.

  10 Salameh’s guerrillas allegedly carried out the attack: Bar-Zohar and Haber, Quest for the Red Prince, p. 69; Benny Morris, 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 101.

  11 During the first six months of 1948, Salameh’s force grew: Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (New York: Vintage Books, 1999, 2001), p. 194; B. Morris, 1948, p. 121.

  12 Salameh boasted to a reporter: “Tel Aviv Seizure Planned,” New York Times, March 25, 1948. “26 Jews Are Slain in Convoy Attacks,” New York Times, March 25, 1948.

  13 On June 2, 1948, he died: Bar-Zohar and Haber, Quest for the Red Prince, p. 89; Mahdi Abdul Hadi, ed., Palestinian Personalities: A Biographic Dictionary (Jerusalem: Passia, 2006), pp. 172–73.

  14 “We must mention two Palestinian commanders”: Bar-Zohar and Haber, Quest for the Red Prince, p. 89.

  15 “The influence of my father …”: Stephan, “Abu Hassan by Abu Hassan” and “After I Die.”

  16 “I wanted to be myself”: Ibid.

  17 Ali studied engineering: Abdul Hadi, Palestinian Personalities, pp. 172–73.

  18 Nasser offered scholarships: Mohammed Natour (Abu Tayeb), “The Martyrdom of Ali Hassan Salameh,” unpublished manuscript, courtesy of Mustafa Zein.

  19 Shortly afterwards he joined Yasir Arafat’s Fatah: Stephan, “Abu Hassan by Abu Hassan” and “After I Die.”

  20 “I became very attached to Fatah”: Ibid.

  21 Salameh was sent back to Cairo: Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 180.

  22 He was methodical and patient: In 1968, Ali Hassan supposedly called a press conference in Cairo and announced that he had exacted vengeance for his father’s death twenty years earlier. He announced that he had smuggled himself into occupied Jerusalem and together with other underground Fatah cadres had bought a delivery van. He had then parked it near a crowded market and rigged a two-hour timing device to explode its cargo of gasoline bottles and dynamite. “The young guerrilla spoke with undisguised satisfaction,” reported the New York Post, “of the explosion which killed twelve people and wounded fifty-three more.” The only problem with this story is that the Life magazine account of the Cairo press conference cites a nonexistent New York Post story. Neither the New York Times nor any other media reported on this alleged Cairo press conference. So perhaps the story is Mossad disinformation, planted with Life magazine to burnish Salameh’s credentials as a legendary terrorist. See Paul O’Neil, “A Charming Assassin Who Loved the Good Life,” Life, April 1979, p. 102. The reports of Andreas Baader’s dealings with Salameh can be found in Odd Karsten Tveit’s Alt for Israel: Oslo-Jerusalem, 1948–78 (Oslo: J. W. Cappelens, 1996). See also Stefan Aust’s The Baader-Meinhof Group: The Inside Story of the RAF (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 72.

  23 Ali Hassan had married well: O’Neil, “Charming Assassin,” p. 102. O’Neil erroneously reported that Nashrawan was the granddaughter of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Husseini. The families are unrelated. Nashrawan says the family s
till has the deeds to their property in Haifa. Her brother, Hisham al-Sharif, married Ali Hassan Salameh’s sister, Jihad. Mustafa Zein, e-mail to author, March 17, 2013.

  24 David Ignatius’s novel: David Ignatius, interview, July 28, 2010. Ignatius explained to the author that these details of Ames’s first meeting with Salameh were entirely factual.

  25 “Ali looked at Bob …”: Mustafa Zein, interview, Amman, October 8, 2012.

  26 “You Arabs claim your views are not heard …”: David Ignatius, “The Secret History of the U.S.-PLO Terror Talks,” Washington Post, December 4, 1988.

  27 prime minister Harold Wilson: Wilson arrived in Washington on January 27, 1970. Richard Nixon, “Remarks of Welcome to Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Great Britain,” January 27, 1970, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2502.

  28 Ames’s promising lead: David Ignatius, e-mail to author, June 11, 2013; David Ignatius, Agents of Innocence (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), pp. 82–86.

  29 “Bob had Ali Hassan over …”: Yvonne Ames, interview, November 19–20, 2010.

  30 “He moved like a panther”: Frank Anderson, interview, November 4, 2010. 94 “Love Me Tender”: Taylor, States of Terror, p. 55.

  31 an IQ of 180: O’Neil, “Charming Assassin,” p. 101, and “Death of a Terrorist,” Time, February 5, 1979.

  32 “People expect a revolutionary …”: Stephan, “Abu Hassan by Abu Hassan” and “After I Die.”

  33 “Professionally speaking”: Frank Anderson, interview, November 4, 2010.

  34 “The PLO factions were the darling …”: Hume Horan, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, November 3, 2000, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

  35 “I didn’t think the king …”: Harrison Symmes interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, Box 1, Folder 460, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

  36 was virtually alone …”: O’Connell, King’s Counsel, pp. 99–100.

  37 “Bob was just very clearly anti-Hashemite …”: Dewey Clarridge, interview, November 26, 2011. Another DO officer, Thomas Twetten, confirms that Ames’s anti-Hashemite views were long-standing. Twetten was stationed in Amman in 1980 when he met with Ames in Washington: “I was pleased to meet with Bob Ames, who had a major effect on policy at that time. And I was quite shocked to have him accuse me of a pro-Hashemite bias. He seemed quite sure I did, based on my position. And I considered myself quite balanced, based on my reporting from Amman. His irritation seemed an unwarranted provocation.” Thomas Twetten, e-mail to author, February 21, 2011.