The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames
Page 47
118 “Distinguished Intelligence Certificate”: Yvonne Ames, e-mail to author, April 11, 2012.
119 “I saw Ames in early 1983”: Clair George, interview, March 23, 2011.
Chapter Twelve: Beirut Destiny
1 The Little Drummer Girl: The novel had an advance print run in the United States of 450,000 (Monday Morning, April 1983).
2 Ames told his NSC counterpart: Geoffrey Kemp, diary, April 19, 1983, courtesy of Geoffrey Kemp.
3 “ground truth”: Bob Layton, interview, September 20, 2011.
4 “We Israelis said, ‘This is a Gemayel era’ ”: Hillel Katz, interview, Tel Aviv, November 11, 2012. Katz rose to become a high-ranking Mossad officer and was deeply involved in brokering Israel’s relations with the Maronite warlords.
5 “Oh, you have to drop by the station”: Sam Wyman, interview, March 28, 2011.
6 “We had our differences”: Lindsay Sherwin, interviews, March 22 and September 15, 2011.
7 “We think we can smooth the whole thing over …”: “Local Mother Mourns Hero Dead in Blast,” Philadelphia newspaper clipping, ca. April 1983.
8 “He told me he thought, ‘Things are falling apart’ ”: Bruce Riedel, interview, March 30, 2011.
9 “Keep your head down”: Thomas Braman, e-mail to author, August 25, 2011.
10 “He had this way about him”: “Local Mother Mourns Hero.”
11 “He coached their basketball teams”: Yvonne Ames, civil suit testimony, April 15, 2003, Washington, DC, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, Civil Action No. 01-2224, vol. 5.
12 “He was exhilarated to be back”: Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 391.
13 “delighted to see Bob”: Susan M. Morgan, “Beirut Diary,” Studies in Intelligence, CIA, Summer 1983, classified secret, declassified April 2003, p. 1.
14 a dozen or more explosions: Charles Allen Light Jr., civil suit testimony, April 10, 2003, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 9.
15 “over my dead body”: Richard Halloran, “A Marine, Pistol Drawn, Stops 3 Israeli Tanks,” New York Times, February 3, 1983.
16 On his very first day in Beirut: Charles Allen Light Jr., civil suit testimony, April 10, 2003, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 9.
17 a car bomb exploded and knocked him flat on his back: Earl Vincent McMaugh, civil suit testimony, April 10, 2003, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 59.
18 someone fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the embassy: Robert Dillon, civil suit testimony, April 7, 2003, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 112.
19 “There was a lot of socializing”: Anne Dammarell, testimony, February 4, 2004, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, hearing, p. 34.
20 “first real love …”: Arlette Johnston, e-mail to author, September 6, 2012, with attached diary notes.
21 “I spoke Arabic”: Arlette Johnston, e-mail to author, September 10, 2012.
22 “She was a lovely woman”: Clair George, interview, March 23, 2011.
23 “very vivacious young woman”: Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, hearing, February 4, 2004, p. 11.
24 “this guest [Ames] seems to have bad news …”: Arlette Johnston, e-mail to author, September 6, 2012, with attached diary notes.
25 “for a visiting dignitary from Washington”: Anne Alison Haas, testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, hearing, February 4, 2004, p. 35.
26 Arlette didn’t sleep very well: Arlette Johnston, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, February 4, 2004, p. 12.
27 “Maybe you can come home …”: Arlette Johnston, e-mail to author, September 6, 2012, with attached diary notes.
28 “I’ll give you three hundred Lebanese lira …”: Ronnie Tumolo, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, February 6, 2004, p. 86.
29 “These are very thick papers …”: Zein, “Deceit with Extreme Prejudice,” p. 318; Mustafa Zein, interview, Amman, October 4, 2012.
30 “contentious”: Anne Alison Haas, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, February 4, 2004, p. 37.
31 “That was a big one”: Ibid., p. 38.
32 It’s almost believable: David Ignatius, “A Blast Still Reverberating: 25 Years Ago a New Kind of War Began in Beirut,” Washington Post, April 17, 2008.
33 A green Mercedes sedan was parked: Karsten Tveit, interview, Beirut, October 20, 2012. Tveit, a Norwegian journalist, lived just three hundred yards from the embassy. He was sliding his key into his car door when he saw the explosion. Like a good reporter, he started running toward the embassy.
34 She died with him: Karsten Tveit met with John le Carré two days after the embassy bombing. Le Carré autographed a copy of The Little Drummer Girl for him. See also Judy Huskey, “Tribute Paid to Venice Woman,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, November 1, 1984.
35 It would be five hours: Ambassador Robert Dillon, interviewed by Martin Smith and Peter Taylor in their BBC documentary States of Terror.
36 Anne Dammarell thought she was dead: Anne Dammarell, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, April 7, 2003, p. 38.
37 Ambassador Dillon saw her: Ambassador Robert Dillon, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, April 7, 2003, p. 115.
38 Staff Sgt. Charles Light had just left: Charles Allen Light Jr., civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, April 10, 2003, p. 17.
39 A Lebanese army tank that had been parked on the corniche: Cheryl Lee Sheil Pienkowski, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, February 10, 2004, p. 57.
40 “momentary feeling of vertigo …”: Ignatius, “Blast Still Reverberating.”
41 “I was watching them bring out dead bodies”: Cheryl Lee Sheil Pienkowski, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, February 10, 2004, p. 55.
42 “It was the only time I felt completely speechless”: Nora Boustany, interview, Beirut, October 19, 2012.
43 “The day seemed night”: Arlette Johnston, e-mail to author, September 6, 2012, with attached diary notes.
44 the grim story of how he’d been found: Ted Gup, The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives (New York: Anchor Books, 2001), p. 280.
45 “They were not mangled”: Ibid., p. 281.
46 “He looked like he’d just probably been leaving …”: Karen Ames, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, April 15, 2003. Nevertheless, for years afterwards, a far more gruesome story became part of the Ames legend inside the CIA: it was said that Ames’s severed hand was found floating in the Mediterranean Sea, and that it was identified by the wedding band on his finger. Baer, See No Evil, p. 67. Pete Gallant, a thirty-four-year-old security expert, arrived in Beirut the next day from Athens. Gallant says that navy divers found the hand and that it probably belonged to another victim. He confirmed that Ames’s body was intact. Pete Gallant, interview, April 23, 2012.
47 “I retrieve Bob’s wedding ring …”: Morgan, “Beirut Diary.”
48 “I really, really lost it that day”: Mustafa Zein, e-mail to author, July 11, 2012.
49 “The smoke had cleared”: Pete Gallant, interview, April 23, 2012.
50 “He was standing straight up, bent over”: Brian Korn, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, January 26, 2004, p. 148.
51 It was Mustafa Zein: Yvonne Ames, e-mail to author, January 23, 2013; Zein, “Deceit with Extreme Prejudice,” p. 320.
52 Kristen, eighteen, was upstairs watching television: Kristen Ames, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, April 15, 2003.
53 “It’s the kind of scream you hear”: Kevin Ames, “Remembering Bob Ames,” CBS News, April 17, 2003.
54 “ ‘Does anyone know what to do?’ ”: Clair George, interview, March 23, 2011.
55 “I broke down”: Sam Wyman, interview, July 27, 2010.
57 “The word spread that there had been an explosion”: Dov Zeit, interview, Tel Aviv, October 10, 2012.
58 “Bob Ames among the dead in Beirut”: Geoffrey Kemp, diary, April 19, 1983.
59 “It was a moving experience”: Reagan, Reagan Diaries, p. 219.
60 “There was definitely a marked sadness …”: Karen Ames, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, April 15, 2003.
61 “We lost [name deleted] our top research man …”: Reagan, Reagan Diaries, p. 218.
62 Mustafa Zein had hastily flown in: Yvonne Ames, e-mail to author, January 22, 2013.
63 “I was there in body …”: Yvonne Ames, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, April 15, 2003.
64 “I guess the way we put it in our minds”: Kristen Ames, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, April 15, 2003.
65 3,100 diplomats, government employees, and private citizens: Ken Ringle, “Thousands Honor Beirut Dead at Memorial Services,” Washington Post, April 27, 1983.
66 “The [1979] Iranian revolution …”: civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, John D. Bates, U.S. District Judge, Memorandum of Opinion, Findings and Conclusions, September 8, 2003, courtesy of Stu Newberger.
67 “We were very much identified with the Israelis”: Ambassador Robert Dillon, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, quoted in John D. Bates, U.S. District Judge, Memorandum of Opinion, Findings and Conclusions, September 8, 2003, courtesy of Stu Newberger.
68 “I was not astonished”: Robert B. Oakley, civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, March 31, 2003, p. 15.
69 “vicious … cowardly act”: Naftali, Blind Spot, p. 130.
70 “Lord forgive me for the hatred I feel …”: Reagan, Reagan Diaries, p. 146.
71 “the closest thing to an irreplaceable man”: William Casey, “Remarks of the Director of Central Intelligence at the Memorial Ceremony held at Headquarters on 29 April 1983,” Studies in Intelligence, CIA, Summer 1983, classified secret, declassified April 2003, p. 11; Persico, Casey, p. 315.
72 “his men had come out here John Wayne–style …”: Morgan, “Beirut Diary,” p. 6.
Chapter Thirteen: The Enigma of Imad Mughniyeh
1 “Terrorist targets had shifted”: Persico, Casey, p. 316.
2 The intercepts merely hinted: Ibid., p. 316; Ronen Bergman asserts, “The NSA also picked up phone calls from the Revolutionary Guards in Baalbek requesting a green light for the attacks from the embassy in Damascus.” Ronen Bergman, The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Power (New York: Free Press, 2008), p. 71. See also Woodward, Veil, p. 231. Woodward writes about Jack Anderson’s scoop.
3 twenty-one thousand pounds of TNT: Steven O’Hern, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2012), p. 56. O’Hern is citing a Department of Defense commission report on the marine-barracks bombing.
4 “We all believe Iranians did this bombing”: Reagan, Reagan Diaries, p. 278.
5 “We were too paralyzed by self-doubt”: George Shultz, interview, Martin Smith and Peter Taylor BBC documentary, States of Terror.
6 “It criticized the State Department’s security policies …”: Frederick Hutchinson, interview, December 5, 2011.
7 But they were released two days later: Thomas Friedman, “Lebanon Holding 4 in Embassy Attack,” New York Times, April 21, 1983, and “Lebanon Frees 4 Witnesses Held in Bombing,” New York Times, April 22, 1983.
8 “principal grunt on the ground …”: Frederick Hutchinson, interview, December 5, 2011.
9 “took part without hesitation …”: Mark Bowden, “The Dark Art of Interrogation,” Atlantic, October 2003.
10 “appears to have been a double, triple, a geometric-multiple agent …”: Christopher Dickey, “Snowland: Calling Captain Crunch,” Newsweek, April 17, 2003. See also Captain Crunch, a History Channel DVD released on November 25, 2005, in which Keith Hall describes his experiences in Beirut.
11 Hall taped Nimr’s confession: Robert Baer says he read the Hall report and thought it “ludicrous.” Robert Baer, e-mail to author, April 26, 2013.
12 Nimr had died in his jail cell: Baer, See No Evil, p. 71. Baer does not write about Captain Crunch, and he doesn’t name Elias Nimr as the suspect who died. But he does confirm that “Lebanese investigators beat a suspect to death during questioning.” Robert Hatem, an associate of Elie Hobeika, the intelligence chief for the Lebanese Forces, claims in his memoirs that Hobeika had Elias Nimr killed in his jail cell. Hatem, From Israel to Damascus, p. 31.
13 “No one was punished for it”: Bowden, “Dark Art of Interrogation.”
14 “Iran ordered it”: Baer, See No Evil, p. 267.
15 “I was asked to keep tabs …”: Sam Wyman, interview, July 27, 2010.
16 “We still do not have actual knowledge …”: Roger Morris, “A Death in Damascus,” Counterpunch, February 25, 2008.
17 born on July 12, 1962: Bilal Y. Saab, an academic who interviewed some of Mughniyeh’s relatives, reports that Mughniyeh was actually born on January 25, 1962. O’Hern, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, p. 49; Bilal Y. Saab, “Imad Mughniyeh: Lebanese by Birth, Palestinian by Heart,” Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Jane’s Defense Weekly, April 11, 2011; Bilal Y. Saab, “Israel, Hizb Allah, and the Shadow of Imad Mughniyeh,” Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel, June 1, 2011.
18 “very smart”: Blanford, Warriors of God, p. 28.
19 “Imad stood out from the others”: Ibid., p. 28. Naqqash remained a lifelong friend of Mughniyeh.
20 Mughniyeh was recruited: Baer, See No Evil, p. 99; O’Hern, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, pp. 49–51; Saab, “Imad Mughniyeh”; Blanford, Warriors of God, pp. 27–29, 46, 73.
21 first visit to postrevolutionary Iran: Saab, “Imad Mughniyeh.” Saab’s source for Mughniyeh’s 1979 trip to Iran is Ibrahim Al-Amin, editor-in-chief for the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.
22 hijacking of TWA Flight 847: O’Hern, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, p. 63. O’Hern reports that the FBI identified Mughniyeh’s fingerprint from a bathroom on the plane.
23 “When in doubt …”: Roger Morris, “Death in Damascus.”
24 “gather information and details …”: Jaber, Hezbollah, p. 82.
25 “He wanted some explosives”: Blanford, Warriors of God, p. 53.
26 “We knew Mughniyeh was later responsible …”: Yoram Hessel, interview, Tel Aviv, October 10, 2012.
27 Mughniyeh drove to Damascus: Jaber, Hezbollah, p. 82. See also Bergman, Secret War with Iran, p. 70.
28 “Imad was a very handsome young man …”: Mustafa Zein, interview, Amman, October 8, 2012.
29 “He’s no great saint …”: Bergman, Secret War with Iran, p. 68. In 1983, Mughniyeh married Sa’ada Badr al-Din, a sister of Mustafa Badr al-Din, a Force 17 officer and later a military commander for Hezbollah. But he later acquired a second wife and set her up in a nice apartment in the Hamra district of Beirut.
30 Mughniyeh underwent plastic surgery: Thomas, Gideon’s Spies, pp. 658–63.
31 But this piece of his legend is apocryphal: Blanford, Warriors of God, p. 355.
32 “Mughniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative …”: David Kohn, “Shadow Warriors,” CBS News, February 11, 2009.
33 “very shrewd, very talented …”: Meir Harel, interview, Tel Aviv, October 18, 2012.
34 The Iranians even gave him citizenship: Jaber, Hezbollah, p. 119.
35 “Operation Bob Ames”: Harry C. Batchelder Jr., “Sentencing Memorandum on Behalf of Mustafa Zein,” 88 Cr. 99 (J.E.S.) United States District Court Southern District of New York, United States v. Mustafa Zein, p. 39.
36 He passed these photos to the CIA: Ibid., p.
46.
37 “When Bandar saw the news account”: Woodward, Veil, pp. 396–98.
38 Zein also believes that Casey ordered the assassination attempt: Mustafa Zein, e-mail to author, June 12, 2013; For more on the B’ir al-Abed car bombing, see Persico, Casey, p. 443; Blanford, Warriors of God, pp. 74–75; Odd Karsten Tveit, Goodbye Lebanon: Israel’s First Defeat (Oslo: H. Aschehoug, 2010, 2012), p. 101; Bergman, Secret War with Iran, pp. 71–73.
39 “It was [Ali Reza] Asgari’s operation”: Mustafa Zein, memo, March 2011. Asgari was brought to America in February or March 2007 and debriefed in a CIA safe house outside Washington, D.C. He was admitted to the United States under Public Law 110, which allows the CIA to bring into the country up to one hundred foreign nationals annually.
40 A suicide driver was found: Robert Baer makes a circumstantial case that the suicide driver was a young Shi’a Lebanese man named Muhammad Hassuna. Baer, See No Evil, pp. 120–22.
41 The court determined: Judge Bates cited the testimony of Ambassador Robert Oakley, who said it was “very clear that Islamic Jihad [Hezbollah] was behind the bombing in 1983.” Civil suit testimony, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, quoted in John D. Bates, U.S. District Judge, Memorandum of Opinion, Findings and Conclusions, September 8, 2003, p. 21, courtesy of Stu Newberger. Ambassador Oakley further expressed “confidence that the government of Iran was involved directly in the Hezbollah organization, which was created, armed, trained, protected, and provided technical assistance by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.” Another expert witness, Dr. Patrick Clawson, estimated that Iran had spent in the range of $50 million to $150 million in 1983 on various terrorist projects (pp. 5–8).
42 raw, “bulk” form of PETN: See Warren Parker, expert testimony, Deborah D. Peterson, Personal representative of the Estate of James C. Knipple, v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Civil Action No. 01-2684, filed May 30, 2003, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, p. 17. Parker was testifying about the PETN used in the October 23, 1983, attack on the U.S. marine barracks, but the same type of PETN was used in the U.S. embassy attack.