Gideon's Spies

“Thomas meticulously documents the shadowy world of spies and covert operations. Espionage buffs will love every page.”

—Booklist

“What he says is always ominous—but never judgmental. That is what makes this book one of the most trusted on the world of secret intelligence.”

—European

(Spain)

“A compelling read, with any number of disturbing revelations.”

—FHM

“Reveals for the first time that all too often the truth exceeds all the fantasies that Mossad has attracted.”

—Bolton Evening News

(UK)

NOTES ON SOURCES

I have had access at a sufficiently high level within the Israeli intelligence community to have made this an authoritative account. As with my previous books, I came to the subject of Mossad with no baggage. I have used information its members provided in the way any writer does when dealing with an intelligence service: checked it, checked it, checked it.

Some eighty hours of taped recollections were made, including repeated interviews with persons connected directly or indirectly with Mossad. Others were with persons Mossad had tried to kill. They included Leila Khaled, who came to notoriety during the spate of aircraft hijackings by the PLO in the 1970s, and Abu Al-Abbas, who masterminded the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in which a crippled American Jewish passenger was hurled over the side of the cruise liner to his death. I met them in May 1996 in Gaza City, where they had been permitted to visit Israel as part of its rapprochement with the PLO. I also spoke to Yasser Arafat, himself once a prime target for Mossad assassination.

I was introduced to the business of writing on intelligence matters in 1960 when I worked with Chapman Pincher, then Britain’s foremost writer on the subject. We were both employed by the Daily Express in London. A number of our stories—notably the Burgess and Maclean debacle for British intelligence—helped to change the perception of how such matters should be reported. It is a position I have tried to maintain with such books as Journey into Madness, Pontiff, and Chaos Under Heaven. The Black Book of the CIA, Secrets & Lies, and Secret Wars; the latter title published by the publisher of this book.

I have reported on the secret intelligence wars being waged against Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, areas in which Mossad remains directly involved. I have also written extensively on Mossad’s relationship with the Vatican. My own contacts with the Holy See were useful in conducting further background interviews for this book.

In 1989 I was in China at the height of the student unrest. Once more I witnessed the machinations of intelligence agencies and detected the hand of Mossad over its concern that China’s exporting of weapons to both Iran and Iraq could pose a serious threat to Israel. I went on to write about the role of Mossad in the Persian Iraqi War and in the aftermath of Soviet Communism.

In August 1994 I received a call from Zvi Spielmann. Spielmann is something of a legend in Israel: he fought with distinction in its War of Independence and went on to create Israel’s United Film Studios. He has produced a raft of films, many of them Hollywood coproductions. Spielmann asked if I would write and present a documentary on Mossad. He assured me I would have a completely free hand, that the only restriction on the information I obtained would be the questions I asked to obtain it; the more I asked, the more I would learn.

I discovered that, apart from Victor Ostrovsky’s books, and the work of Ari Ben-Menashe, there was precious little to read about Mossad in the way of hard information. This was in marked contrast to the CIA, which has some two hundred books devoted to its work. The British Secret Intelligence Service has close to fifty, and similar numbers are in print for the KGB and the German and French intelligence agencies. But a check on their contents showed where there were gaps in the secret wars they had waged. It became clear that Mossad could fill many of these.