F.B.I. Inquiry: Is Israel Using Mole in U.S.?

By STEVEN ERLANGER
8 May 1997
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
Page 15, Column 1
c. 1997 New York Times Company

WASHINGTON, May 7 -- The F.B.I. is investigating an intercepted conversation that suggested the
Israeli Government has an intelligence source that can obtain confidential American diplomatic
material, United States officials said today.
But they said the investigation, which arose after American intelligence eavesdropped on a
conversation between the Israeli Embassy here and Tel Aviv, has so far been inconclusive.
Officials said the inquiry has not yet determined whether the possible intelligence source, referred to in
the conversation by what appeared to be a code name, is from another country or the United States.
One official suggested that the F.B.I. has identified no suspect in the case.
Israeli officials today flatly denied allegations that they are engaged in espionage in the United States
or that Israel has a mole in the American Government handing over documents.
''Israel does not indulge in any kind of illegal action in information gathering in the United States,'' said
David Bar-Illan, the chief spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The existence of the intercept was first disclosed by a report today in The Washington Post, which
described the intercept of a conversation between an Israeli intelligence officer in Washington and his
superior in Tel Aviv.
Quoting ''sources with direct knowledge of the inquiry,'' The Post said the Washington-based Israeli
wanted guidance on whether he should go to ''Mega'' for a copy of a letter written by Warren M.
Christopher, then Secretary of State, to the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.
According to The Post, the Washington-based Israeli said in Hebrew that ''the Ambassador wants me to
go to Mega to get a copy of this letter.'' The supervisor in Tel Aviv reportedly said: ''This is not
something we use Mega for.''
An American Government official today confirmed that the F.B.I. is investigating the intercept ''and
what it means.'' Among the many possibilities under investigation, officials said, are whether Mega
refers to an American citizen or someone from a third country.
One Israeli official acknowledged that in mid-January ''a lot of people wanted this letter,'' which was
published two weeks later in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. But this official said that ''to jump to the
conclusion that there is an American official manipulated by Israel or paid by them is a jump too far.''
The official confirmed that Israeli officials often used code names in trans-Atlantic conversations and
said: ''Maybe that's not the exact code name. Maybe it's not a person, but a code name for an
organization or a method.''
American officials said they would have no official comment on the report. After the usual consultation
among agencies, a State Department spokesman, John Dinger, said: ''We don't comment as a matter of
policy on alleged intelligence matters.''
The Israeli Ambassador here, Eliahu Ben Elissar, also denied the allegations of spying in vehement
terms. ''The story is absolutely baseless,'' he said. ''Israel is not involved in any kind of espionage or
trying to obtain intelligence from the United States. We work only in diplomatic channels in the
framework of friendly relations with the United States.''
And in Jerusalem, a senior official in Mr. Netanyahu's office said: ''Israel does not use intelligence
agents in the U.S. Period.''
Still, senior Western diplomats expressed skepticism about the blanket Israeli denial of espionage here,
and one American official who did not want to be identified pointed to the case of Jonathan Pollard.
Mr. Pollard, an American who was working as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Navy, was arrested
in 1985 and pleaded guilty in 1986 to spying for Israel and remains in prison serving a life sentence.
Israeli officials insisted then that Mr. Pollard had been recruited in an operation run outside normal,
authorized channels by Rafael Eitan, who worked for the Defense Ministry and the Prime Minister's
Office.
But the Pollard case did great damage to relations between the United States and Israel, one Israeli
official said, He noted that there has been no formal accusation since of Israel spying against the United
States.
The letter in question was a set of assurances given to Mr. Arafat by Mr. Christopher on Jan. 16 and
represented part of the accords reached with American mediation about the withdrawal of Israeli troops
from most of the West Bank city of Hebron. A parallel letter to the Israelis was made public by Mr.
Netanyahu, but Mr. Arafat did not do the same. The letter assured the Palestinians that Israeli
commitments to them were viewed by the Americans as commitments to them, as well.
FBI hunts for Israeli spy in White House.
By James Adams, Washington.
11 May 1997
The Sunday Times

IT SOUNDS like an episode of the cold war. But this time it is not the Russians who are up to their
tricks. For the past two months, several senior officials in President Bill Clinton's administration have
been under round-the-clock surveillance by the FBI amid suspicions that one of them is spying for
Israel.
According to intelligence sources, the hunt for the agent codenamed Mega has narrowed to include a
senior official on the National Security Council, the body that advises the president on intelligence and
defence-related matters. Its office is in the White House.
The hunt began after the interception of a message last January between Israeli intelligence officers in
Tel Aviv and Washington. It suggested the existence of a spy who might be able to get a copy of a
secret letter signed by Warren Christopher, then secretary of state, that spelt out American
commitments to the Palestinians in the Middle East peace process.
"The ambassador wants me to go to Mega to get a copy of this letter," the Mossad agent in Washington
said in Hebrew. But his supervisor in Tel Aviv said: "This is not something we use Mega for."
Israel angrily denied the existence of such a spy. "The story is absoloutely baseless," said Eliahu Ben
Elissar, the Israeli ambassador in Washington. "Israel is not involved in any kind of espionage or trying
to obtain intelligence from the United States."
But intelligence sources claim Israel's espionage activities are much more successful than those of
China or Russia. "I've read a two-inch-thick file on Israel's spying against America," said one
intelligence source. "Make no mistake, Mega is just the latest visible sign of a big business."
In Tel Aviv, a damage-limitation exercise was launched last week. One Israeli maintained that Mega
was an incorrect decoding of the word "Elga" which is Mossad slang for America's Central Intelligence
Agency. Other officials claimed that Megawatt and Kilowatt were longstanding code names for
methods of sharing intelligence. In fact, Kilowatt is a communications system for sharing terrorist data
but Megawatt is not a term familiar to American intelligence officials.
The FBI's counter-intelligence division has launched two parallel investigations, one to uncover Mega
and the other to find out who leaked the news that communications between the Israelis had been
intercepted by the National Security Agency (NSA). The revelation that Israel's classified
communications are routinely intercepted is an embarrassment to the Americans and a source of
concern to all of its allies.
Both investigations have involved trawling back through the records to find who had access to the
secret information at what time. In theory, the leak should be the easiest to track down as the NSA
carefully limits distribution of all intercepts. However, in this case the record of the conversations
seems to have been widely distributed within the administration before being recalled after 12 hours.
Janet Reno, the attorney-general, has confirmed the investigation: the FBI has established two lists of
suspects.
In 1986, Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former navy analyst, was convicted of spying for Israel. He passed
over dozens of documents, satellite photographs and top-grade intelligence on the Middle East, some of
which the CIA believes eventually found its way to the Soviet Union.
After initially denying Pollard was their source, the Israelis later claimed he was a rogue agent and that
there would be no more spying against Israel's closest ally.
In fact, successive investigations by the FBI and the CIA have revealed that a massive Israeli spying
operation continues in America. What makes Mega interesting is not just the question of his identity
but the reasons behind the leak of a highly classified NSA intercept.
Since Pollard, the FBI has investigated a number of suspected cases of spying by Israel, including one
in which an Israeli agent attempted to recruit a man who went directly to the FBI and was run as a
double agent for several months. One intelligence source with access to that file said the evidence was
totally convincing. "There was video and audio of the Mossad guy receiving top-secret documents from
the trunk of a car. I expected to see the arrest announced but nothing happened."
This lack of action is a tribute to the power of the Jewish lobby in America and the reluctance of any
administration to seek an open confrontation with such a powerful political ally. But as the memory of
the Pollard case has faded, the Israelis have become bolder, forcing the Pentagon to introduce rules that
specifically control the actions of Israeli nationals who visit American military bases.
Last year, the CIA named Israel as one of six countries that are "extensively engaged in economic
espionage". The CIA believes not only that Israel routinely steals American secrets but that defence
technology passed to Israel is sold on to other countries.
As for Mega, intelligence sources believe there is little chance of discovering his identity. All
communication between him and his handlers will no doubt have ceased.
Opinion
Spying on friends
URI DAN and DENNIS EISENBERG
15 May 1997
The Jerusalem Post
(Copyright 1997)

The attempt by US security circles to smear Israel's good name has mega-boomeranged, following the
Washington Post's "disclosure" of a high-level mole working for Israel operating in US intelligence
circles.
Senior American intelligence specialists are deeply dismayed at the results of what was clearly a
botched hatchet job against the Jewish state.
As a result of the newspaper's "leak," one of the National Security Agency's most precious secrets has
been blown: The world now knows that NSA had perfected a superbly efficient and complex intercept
technique, one beyond the imagination even of spy thriller writers.
Shock waves of seismic proportions were felt by officials at agency headquarters when they opened the
paper and read all about their interception of a phone call between a senior Mossad agent in
Washington and his superior in Tel Aviv.
Israeli and European security chiefs alike were astonished by the startling expose. "They thought
somebody at NSA must have had a brainstorm," said a now-retired senior intelligence official with
much experience in US security matters. "NSA does not disclose anything whatsoever about its
activities.
When the Washington Post broke the shattering news that an Israeli mole codenamed Mega had been
asked to procure the secret letter of assurances sent by former secretary of state Warren Christopher to
PLO chief Yasser Arafat following the Hebron withdrawal, Israeli intelligence chiefs could hardly
believe their ears.
For the lion that roared mightily from the Post's printing presses had given birth to a very small mouse
indeed. The contents of Christopher's letter had, after all, appeared in Ha'aretz not long after it was sent.
However, of far greater import than the amateurish "scoop" that would have shamed the editor of a
comic book, what alarmed security highups in Israel was the fact of the intercept itself.
It had only one meaning... that Israel's much- vaunted electronic code system, called Silon (geyser in
Hebrew) had been broken by NSA specialists.
About Silon, a French diplomat at one time strongly connected to Israeli military and security circles
had this to say:
"The Israelis have such a wealth of computer and electronic expertise, it was clear to me without
anyone giving away any secrets that their variable communication system was foolproof, and totally
secure. To keep it that way it was constantly checked and upgraded.
This is still the opinion of specialists we have spoken to, one of whom told us: "The Americans are
terrific when it comes to interception. But even so, there was only one way they could have broken
Silon. And that is through a NSA mole operating inside Israeli intelligence.
"I am certain that the Israelis are working full blast right now, weighing the consequences of the NSA
interception."
The very same fears are jolting European intelligence services - particularly in Paris, where there has
been a strong suspicion of NSA spending huge sums in bribing local security operatives worldwide to
hand over top-secret electronic codes.
For the clue to the secret of the NSA penetration we need to go back over a decade, when the Russians
shot 25 CIA local communication operatives. The man who betrayed them was CIA agent Aldrich
Ames, who hid his treachery by telling his superiors that it was Jonathan Pollard who had revealed the
operators' identities, via Israel, to the Soviet Union.
The possibility that there is an Israeli traitor in our intelligence community cannot be disregarded, for it
has happened before.
Foreign newspapers revealed that an Israeli intelligence officer had been imprisoned in 1986 for selling
secret information to Washington. He was tried secretly, and sent to prison.
Shimon Peres, then prime minister of a national unity government, agreed, with the backing of Yitzhak
Rabin, to keep the matter quiet so as not to jeopardize relations with the US.
In 1982, during the Lebanese war, another Israeli was caught doing the same thing.
And Mordechai Vanunu betrayed his county by selling atomic secrets for a large sum of money. It was
later dwarfed by the $12 million-plus Brig.-Gen. Rami Dotan took from an American aircraft
manufacturer to purchase jet engines that were not necessarily the right ones for Israel's needs.
In short, there are native-born Israelis who are willing to sell their souls and endanger their country.
THE top priority now for Israeli and European intelligence chiefs following the Washington Post fiasco
is to examine every aspect of a new situation in which their secret codes are an open book to the US.
Almost certainly the codes will have to be changed. There will also need to be a fresh staff screening
operation. It all adds up to much work and heavy expense.
As for NSA, it will have to write off the many millions spent on creating sophisticated interception
techniques, and start afresh recruiting an expanded informer network.
The FBI is said to be holding an investigation into the Mega mole theory.
There have been suggestions that despite the commotion over Mega, it was in reality just an ordinary
telephone conversation. But the FBI is investigating what it calls an "intercept communication."
NSA bosses will also want to know why the "leak" to the Washington Post was not carefully vetted to
avoid embarrassing the organization and revealing a key secret.
What troubles Israel's intelligence services is that NSA's main preoccupation seems to be
eavesdropping on conversations between friendly powers, when its real task should be keeping watch
on hostile nations and amassing vital information on international terror.
The Mega foulup will make this job even more difficult, since now the West's foes will also be taking
precautions to protect their communication methods.
The National Security Agency is working so hard eavesdropping on Israel that it neglects its real job:
tracking the West's enemies. The writers are authors of The Mossad: Secrets of the Israel Secret Service
and other books on the Middle East.