Hunting Eichmann

by Neal Bascomb

  Malkin was wary of the Shin Bet interrogator's inclusion in the operation, particularly after hearing about how many risks—careless, in Malkin's view—he had taken to identify the man. Still, the results of his dogged efforts were undeniable. "Run two of them together," Malkin suggested, not sure they were the same man.

  Tabor arranged two slides in the projector and put them up on the blank wall. If they were both Eichmann, Malkin was shocked at how haggard and aged the Nazi had become since the end of the war. "It's not easy to tell, is it?"

  Aharoni explained the results of the criminal identification unit's work.

  "We can't be 100 percent sure until we've got him," Eitan said.

  "Once we're sure," Tabor growled, the massive, six-foot-two-inch frame in dark silhouette at the back of the room, "why don't we kill the bastard on the spot?"

  "We all share that feeling, I'm sure," Eitan said.

  Tabor shook his big, clean-shaven head. "What chance did he give those people at the camps? I saw them, the ones that survived. What kind of consideration did he show them?"

  Nobody in the room knew the typically reserved giant as well as Malkin. He and Tabor had recently spent several months together in West Germany on a surveillance operation of scientists who were helping the Egyptians with their missile technology. There the thirty-seven-year-old Tabor had told Malkin about his large Lithuanian family, which had been killed during the Holocaust, and about the extermination camps he had seen at the war's end as part of the Jewish Brigade. Revolted and enraged, Tabor had joined avenger groups operating in Germany and Austria, and he had hunted down, interrogated, and then killed numerous SS men. Tabor had been in his early twenties at the time. There was no question in any of the team members' minds that he would gladly kill Eichmann if given the chance.

  Eitan dismissed Tabor's suggestion again, and the matter was dropped. Over the next few hours, and during several follow-up meetings, the team ironed out the operational details. They made adjustments to their cover stories, what equipment they would need, and where they would stay. Ephraim Ilani returned from Argentina to brief them on local customs, including everything from how to rent a car or a safe house to normal behavior at cafés and hotels, traffic conditions, airport procedures, and styles of dress. Since only he and Aharoni had been to Buenos Aires, this was key information. He also detailed the intensive police presence on the streets, particularly with the March crackdown on Peronist terrorist groups in the wake of a series of bombings in the capital.

  Most of the time, however, was spent planning how and where they would seize Eichmann. Aharoni showed them his surveillance photographs, along with his sketches of the house and important landmarks (the kiosk, the railway embankment, neighboring houses, and roads). They settled on three different capture methods, knowing that they would decide on one after they had checked out the scene for themselves. The first was snatching him while he was away from the house, perhaps while in the city or before he boarded his bus to return from his job (although they still did not know where this was). The second was a commando raid on his house at night, taking him from his bed. The third focused on seizing him on the street near his house, a possibility given the desolate neighborhood. The timing depended on how they would smuggle Eichmann out of Argentina; Harel was putting together this part of the operation himself.

  Each night, Malkin returned to his Tel Aviv apartment alone and read, then reread the Eichmann file. He found himself beginning to fear this individual who had once commanded so much authority and who had executed his plans with such demonic intensity. Malkin knew that the team was relying on him to be the one to physically grab their target, because of his strength and speed, and he began to doubt his ability. Anything could go wrong. He might make a simple mistake that would jeopardize the operation, or a policeman could chance by and catch him in the act. For the first time in his thirty-three years, many spent in dangerous situations, Malkin felt a profound fear of failure.

  Malkin was eleven when the war in Europe began, and he immediately joined the Haganah. He had always been a restless youth, spending most of his time in the alleyways of Haifa, roaming the city with a band of other kids, stealing from shops, and then escaping over the ancient walls or down into cellars. The Jewish defense force focused his energies, training him as a courier, teaching him how to hide messages on his person and then conceal them in the crevices of walls. Later, Malkin graduated to breaking into safes and stealing weapons from British police stations at night. In 1947, he enrolled in a Haganah explosives course, learning how to construct makeshift bombs, set booby traps, clear mines, and blow up bridges, all of which were useful when the War of Independence broke out. He joined the Shin Bet after the war, explaining to his recruiters that he had applied because he liked adventure. His patriotism, he imagined, would have been assumed.

  Malkin's first commissions were to travel to embassies to train their personnel on the detection of letter bombs. He began to receive occasional counterintelligence assignments and discovered that he had a facility for surveillance and disguise to add to his skills with explosives and lock picking. If he was far away from whomever he was watching, he could easily change his appearance—by walking in a suit for a while, then adding an overcoat and a hat in one hand, then wearing the hat, then ditching the coat and adding an umbrella. If he was closer to his target, he would change his face, wearing a mustache, glasses, false teeth, or a wig. Often he posed as an artist, an easy disguise given his talent for painting.

  Beyond focusing on Malkin's various skills and his natural physical strength (which even the giant Tabor humbly acknowledged), Shalom had convinced Harel to use him—despite his habit of bucking authority and his lack of language skills—because he had an extraordinary operational mind. When Malkin looked at a plan, he always found ways to improve it. He saw his work as a game—a serious game, of course, but one that he enjoyed trying to master.

  This mission was different, however, and Malkin could not help but think of his older sister Fruma, who had stayed behind in Poland in 1933 when the rest of his family had immigrated to Palestine. She had had a husband and three children of her own. They had all perished in the Holocaust, a tragedy that had destroyed Malkin's father and his younger brother, both of whom had died within a few years of learning of her fate. Malkin himself had forced her memory out of his mind for more than a decade because it was too painful. He could not help thinking of Fruma as he read the Eichmann file.

  To distract himself from painful memories and his fear of failure, Malkin focused his every waking moment on the mission ahead, examining the smallest details of the operation and his role in it. He spent hours crafting different disguises for himself and the team and many more practicing the exact moves needed to grab Eichmann. He did much of this at the gym, but he also practiced on his Shin Bet colleagues at work, grabbing them without warning from behind and cutting off their ability to scream. Nobody asked what had come over him—partly because they were used to his antics—but instead just gave him a wider berth in the hallways. Apart from the operations team, only Amos Manor, the Shin Bet director, whose long, energetic stride made him a difficult catch for Malkin, knew why he was practicing his repertoire. Just before Malkin left for Argentina, Manor pulled him aside.

  Manor had questioned Harel on the wisdom of diverting many of his top agents—not to mention other resources—to a mission that did little to protect Israel from its many security challenges. Nevertheless, he had provided Harel with everything he needed. Malkin and Manor briefly discussed the operations he was leaving behind. Then Manor, who was the only member of his Hungarian family to have survived Auschwitz, wrapped an arm around his agent's shoulders and said, "Do me one favor. Give his neck an extra little squeeze for me."

  The conversation reminded Malkin once again that he absolutely had to succeed.

  With the capture plans developing well, Harel needed to devise a way to get Eichmann back to Israel. There were only two options, of cou
rse: by air or by ship. His head of administration reported that the latter option had to be ruled out. In the coming month, no Israeli merchant ship or cruise vessel was scheduled to visit South America. Changing course for any of them involved too many complications. Chartering a special ship would require a sixty-day roundtrip journey with multiple stops—too slow and too risky given the need to anchor in foreign ports. If their kidnapping was exposed before they returned to Israel, the ship would be an easy target.

  That left air travel. In December 1959, soon after Bauer had come to Israel, Harel had spoken to the manager of El Al, Yehuda Shimoni, about the possibility of sending one of their planes to Argentina. At the time, El Al, the only Israeli civilian airline, did not fly to South America. Shimoni assured Harel, whom he had known well for many years, that technically they were able to fly to Buenos Aires and that they might be able to stage a flight as a test run for future routes to South America. Harel was concerned that a "test run" was a dubious cover and said no more about it.

  This would not be the first time El Al had been enlisted in service to the Israeli state, or for covert operations. In September 1948, the civilian airline had been hastily created to transport the first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, from Geneva to the newly declared independent state. Because a military flight had been prohibited, the Israelis had transformed a four-engine C-54 military transport, which the Haganah had used to airlift arms from Czechoslovakia, into a civilian plane. They had painted the blue and white Israeli flag on the tail; slapped the name of the new company, El Al ("to the skies"), on the side; outfitted additional fuel tanks to allow a nonstop flight; and furnished the fuselage with seating for the passengers. In fact, Shimoni had been the navigator on that first flight. Since then, the airline had been used in operations to airlift Jewish refugees, sometimes covertly, from Yemen, Iraq, and Iran. There had been other missions, too—particularly when a long-range airplane was needed—and some of the El Al pilots, navigators, and engineers who were routinely recruited for the flights even had a name for themselves: "the monkey business crews."

  Now that commandeering an airplane was deemed to be necessary, Harel reopened his talks with El Al. Fortune shone on him when he learned that Argentina was celebrating its 150th anniversary of independence from Spain in late May and that official delegations from around the world had been invited to attend—including one from Israel. It was the ideal cover for an El Al plane. He immediately scheduled meetings with the airline's directors and the Foreign Ministry to arrange for a special flight.

  Once this was settled, Harel busied himself with the hundreds of other operational details filling his head. He kept track of all his thoughts by writing notes on little scraps of paper, which mounted up on his desk. Eitan kept him informed of the team's progress, and they decided to split the members' arrival into two stages. Avraham Shalom would lead the first contingent, to confirm that the operation remained a possibility and to obtain safe houses and map out routes to and from Garibaldi Street. Harel personally recruited Yaakov Medad to be the frontman for the operation—the one who arranged for the cars, safe houses, and anything else the agents needed that required presenting papers and being in the public eye. Medad, a Mossad operative, was well suited for the job. Although he was not so gifted with operational or technical abilities, he was able to assume a range of identities—and to switch back and forth between them at a moment's notice—better than anyone Harel had ever known. He took to accents easily, remembered background information to the letter, and, most significantly, had the kind of unassuming, innocent looks that won a stranger's trust in an instant. In Argentina, he would play the scion on vacation, frivolously throwing his family's money around town. Harel also considered bringing on a woman to act as Medad's wife, but he decided to wait until the entire team was in Argentina to see whether this was necessary.

  A week before the first team member was set to leave Tel Aviv, Mordechai Ben-Ari, the deputy director of El Al, came to meet with Harel at his office. The Mossad chief requested the use of one of El Al's Britannia airplanes to bring an Israeli delegation to Argentina for the anniversary celebrations. He also wanted to oversee the crew's selection and asked that Yehuda Shimoni be made available to him for all the arrangements. Ben-Ari explained that this would disrupt their regular flights and cost the company a sizable amount of money, but it was possible. Still, he needed approval from his boss.

  Two days later, he received final approval, and the Foreign Ministry, under Golda Meir, who had known of the search for Eichmann since it had begun, gave its assent as well.

  On April 18, Harel sat down with Shimoni. Tall with broad shoulders and salt-and-pepper hair, Shimoni was a Dutch Jew who had served as a navigator with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during the war and had then immigrated to Palestine, where he had joined the ragtag Israeli air force in the fight for independence. When Harel told him the purpose of the mission, Shimoni, whose parents, brothers, and sister had all died in Nazi camps, promised to do everything in his power to help. He suggested Yosef Klein to help organize the flight in Buenos Aires. He proceeded to explain exactly why Klein, the manager of El Al's station at New York's Idlewild Airport, was ideal for the assignment.

  "Okay, everyone, let's talk," Harel said, seating himself at the desk in his office. His secretary stubbed out her cigarette, leaving one last trail of smoke to dissipate into the air, and placed a stenographer's pad on her lap.

  The small office was crowded with the key members of the Eichmann operation: Rafi Eitan, Avraham Shalom, Zvi Aharoni, Peter Malkin, Ephraim Ilani, Shalom Dani, and Moshe Tabor. Only Yaakov Gat, who was traveling straight to Argentina from Paris, was absent. There was tension in the room, and even Tabor, who was not one for appearances, had worn a starched khaki uniform.

  "I want to begin by speaking to you from my heart," Harel said, after taking a deep breath. "This is a national mission of the first degree. It is not an ordinary capture operation, but the capture of a hideous Nazi criminal, the most horrible enemy of the Jewish people. We are not performing this operation as adventurers but as representatives of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Our objective is to bring Eichmann back safely, fully in good health, so he can be put to trial.

  "There might well be difficult repercussions. We know this. We have not only the right but also the moral duty to bring this man to trial. You must remember this throughout the weeks ahead. You are guardian angels of justice, the emissaries of the Jewish people."

  The men looked at one another as he spoke. They knew that Harel had dedicated his life to Israel and that everything he did was a matter of principle. He often instilled in his people the same sense of purpose, reminding them before a job that their success would serve a higher purpose. It was this passion that motivated his agents to work for him, despite the risk to their lives, the long periods away from their families, the low pay, the endless hours, and the isolation they felt at not being able to share what they did with those closest to them. But on this day, Harel was particularly fervent and eloquent, and the effect was profound.

  "We will bring Adolf Eichmann to Jerusalem," Harel said, striking the table, "and perhaps the world will be reminded of its responsibilities. It will be recognized that, as a people, we never forgot. Our memory reaches back through recorded history. The memory book lies open, and the hand still writes."

  He turned to Eitan.

  "Are your people ready?" he asked, his tone cool, no longer layered with feeling.

  "All ready," Eitan replied.

  16

  ON APRIL 24, Yaakov Gat arrived at Ezeiza Airport. Wearing an immaculately cut suit and a thin tie and carrying a briefcase, he stepped onto the portable staircase that had been rolled to the plane's side and into the harsh glare of the Argentine sun. Gat failed to notice the photographer who had already snapped several pictures of him before he reached the tarmac.

  He easily managed passport control, his lack of Spanish not a problem. Instead of taking a
taxi, whose driver might later remember where he had dropped off his passenger, he boarded a bus outside the terminal. He was scheduled to meet with Ilani in a couple of hours.

  Gat took a seat close to the doorway, as was his habit—just in case of a problem. The bus to the city center was filled to capacity, but there was still no sign of the driver. A policeman was walking around the front of the bus. After ten minutes, Gat began to worry. After twenty, he was convinced that something was terribly wrong.

  Suddenly, two men rushed onto the bus, blocking his escape. Gat recognized one of them as the driver because of his uniform. The other placed himself directly in front of Gat and rattled off some Spanish. The Israeli went cold, not understanding what was happening. Then the man showed him a photograph of himself in profile coming off the plane. A rush of panicked questions passed through his mind. Did the Argentine police know who he was? Had they been tipped off? Did they know his passport was fake? Was he about to be detained?

  Before he could react, the man had turned to the next passenger and presented him with a freshly developed picture of himself as well. It dawned on Gat that he was a photographer, hoping to cash in on some tourist business. He obviously had a relationship with the driver and the police to hold the bus until he developed his photos. When the man came back around to Gat, he gladly paid for the picture and then eased back in his seat. If he had made a run for it and had been caught, he might have compromised the mission. Such were the dangers, even from the most harmless of incidents.

  At five minutes to eleven, he arrived at a café with marble floors and high ceilings in the center of Buenos Aires. As he passed through the revolving doors, he noticed Ephraim Ilani waiting for him, a cup of coffee in his hand and a pipe in his mouth. Since arriving two days before, Ilani had rented an apartment and had stocked it with canned food and some camp beds. Twice a day, he waited at a prearranged street corner, restaurant, or café—a different rendezvous point each time to avoid suspicion—expecting to meet with one of the members of the operations team. As a precaution, he was not informed as to who would arrive or on what day. For the usually gregarious Ilani, passing this much time alone was a dreary chore.