EPILOGUE

Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations [Mossad Le Aliyah Bet], Headquarters of Director Levi Appleman ben Cohen, Glilot Junction on Highway 2, Ramat Aviv Neighborhood of Tel Aviv, February 28, 1964

Lev had dreaded this encounter since the debacle unfolded in Sidibel-Abbès, Algeria, almost two months previously. There was nothing new to report; “C” had already received the written after-action report. Now, Lev had to face “C” and his fellow katsas, including Abraham Levy, senior katsa [Mossad field officer] tasked with the leadership of Project Save the Generals; senior officers of the Israeli Defense Forces including Rav aluf [Lt. Gen. and Chief of the General Staff] Mordechai ben Frazier and Prime Minister Yaron Naguisa and to repeat the details of what he considered the greatest failing of his life. He knew that—in all likelihood—he would be cashiered out of the Mossad this very day.

Director Cohen’s office was somber. No chit-chat, inquiries about the health of families, or jovial banter. There was a funereal pall in the air of the small room.

“Take a seat, Lev. There is no need to stand on formality. We wish to hear about the Algerian mission and then to decide about what to do about it,” “C” said.

“Yes, sir. I will begin with a flat and simple statement: I take full responsibility for any and all mistakes that led to a failed mission.”

“What was the goal of the mission, Lev?”

“To capture the infamous SS mass murderers and recent serial killers of senior military officers around the world. The fallback plan was to kill them all if there was no way to avoid doing so. We failed in the primary goal. We did kill the SS criminals—the last remaining members of Hitler’s French division. My failure—and I accept full responsibility—was twofold. Nine elite Israeli fighters, including Mossad katsas, were killed and had to be left in the desert. The other failure is that this mission has become a potential international incident. The result is that we have lost serious ground in our efforts at detente with the French, and it will be decades before we can regain the very important trust of the French Foreign Legion.

“In all candor, we were lucky to get as many of our men out as we did. The Legionnaires reluctantly stood aside while we marched to the small Sidi Bel Abbès Airport. We helicoptered our wounded by IAF Sikorsky S-58s to Es-Sénia—Ahmed Ben Bella Airport—seventy kilometers to the north, the closest international airport. The presence of helicopters that might be traced back to the IAF was bad enough, but the airport was where we had real public exposure. We brazened it out and were able to land a big old 1933 de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide transport originally captured from the Brits and to fly out before it could become apparent who we were.”

“What could you have done differently with this mission, Lev?”

“I’m not sure. I decided against a diplomatic overture to the Legion as taking too long. We might have taken in a larger contingent of men, but I feared that the logistics would have been too complicated and cumbersome so, I decided on going in with a small group of elite soldiers and agents. Even in retrospect, I do not think I would have considered either of the other options. We could have attempted a surgical airforce strike; but, in my opinion, the risks of such an attack would have been more likely to provoke a serious incident with the nation of France. I did not then and do not now believe we could have flown IDF fighters in without casting strong suspicion on Israel.”

The PM asked, “So, Lev, give me your take on the international incident. Do you believe news of this event will come out in the future to the embarrassment of the governments of France and Israel?”

“No, Prime Minister. I believe it is contained. The French and the Legion do not want knowledge of what happened in the remote desert of Algeria to become known in the world at large any more than we do. I had a serious discussion with the Legion commander in Sidi-bel-Abbès about secrecy. I gave him my solemn promise that we would never divulge even the existence of the raid, let alone the killing of Legionnaires and Israeli commandoes. He agreed fully with me that saving face was crucial, laying blame was not.”

“You were correct, as it turns out, Lev,” the PM said. “We had a secret meeting with the President of France and with the commander of the Legion, Brigade General François Jacques de Négrier. The president and the general want nothing greater than to be able to deny that the incident ever happened. I pledged our sacred honor to the agreement that nothing would ever be reported of the incident to anyone outside this room, and they took a solemn oath that nothing would ever be learned about the Algerian incident outside the highest ranks of the French government and the Legion. It is in our mutual interest to forget that it ever happened, at least in any public forum. Privately we will mourn our dead, care for their widows and children, and lie to them. There was an unfortunate training accident in Laos. A plane crash killed everyone aboard. The news media will never be otherwise informed. Any leak about the incident will be considered a violation of both the French and Israeli National Secrets Acts.”

Lev nodded humbly.

“C” said, “Still, Lev, we need to know what happened; so, we can avoid such an incident in the future. We also need to begin the healing process. First, we mourn. Then we begin to find and to train elite armed forces personnel to be able to fill the huge gaps in our services. That will take time—ten years or more.”

“Do you wish to have my resignation, Director?”

“Certainly not. You have a fine record. Perhaps you made mistakes, but it is not for us to make judgments against you from the comfort of our armchairs. No, my friend, you must suck up your personal hurt and bring our secret forces back up to strength. We need you.”

“I cannot tell you how important that is to me, sir. I have always been fully loyal and fully dedicated to Israel’s defense. My mistakes will be studied; so, we all can benefit.”

Lev proceeded to tell the assembled officers everything he knew about the Nazi officers his men had killed. He spared himself nothing as he told of the logistics and decisions of the Project Save the Generals mission. He listed the names of the Legionnaires who were killed and the Israelis who gave their last full measure of devotion and now are becoming bleached bones in the arid desert: Moises Silverman, Eban Alpert, Micah Freiburg, Eliot Frank, Enos Lovitz, Gavriel Neuberger, Joshua Rantzen, Michael Sachs, Maurice Howard, and Danny Chomsky.

Lev bowed his head, and for a moment it did not appear that he would be able to go on.

“I don’t need to remind that you are never to divulge what took place to the military establishments whose officers were murdered and who participated in the manhunt. They will have to adjust to the reality that the criminals have vanished.”

Lev took a deep breath and said, “That will require a great deal of lying, Mr. Prime Minister. However, I find that I have been honing that skill to a high degree over these past two months.”

§§§§§§

J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] Headquarters, Office of the DFBI [Director FBI] Warren Brent Gaines, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC, later that same afternoon

Director Gaines, his personal secretary, Harriet Margolis, and the communications director, Max Brendamann, struggled with the logistics and the equipment to make the first conference call from his office. The world’s first telephone call occurred March 10, 1876, between Alexander Graham Bell—the inventor of the telephone—and his assistant, Thomas Watson. The first commercial transcontinental phone line was inaugurated Janury 25, 1915 and involved a tedious series of stops along the way in every city on the direct line. Just to get to San Francisco to hook up to the transcontinental cable took ten minutes and required massive amplifiers to get the sound from New York to San Francisco. It also required a courtesy hookup with President Woodrow Wilson. The first device useful for telephone conferencing was the Jordanphone invented by a Bulgarian in 1945. The work to accomplish successful commercial telephone conferencing began in 1956.

The DFBI groused that “you’d think they could have gotten it working better after eighty-eight years of working on the problem!”

Gaines was exceedingly impatient after a forty-five minute delay before all of the participants were hooked up.

“Gentleman,” he said, “I got a telegram from our Israeli counterpart which indicated that they have run into a dead-end in the Project Save the Generals. He believes the three Nazi perpetrators have either met deservedly bad ends or have gone into a hole somewhere and may never be heard from again. “C” made a salient observation. It may be for the best for all of us to file this case in the cold case file—the very deep cold case file. It seems that INTERPOL and the Mossad have turned over some stones which ought to be put quietly down again regarding the treatment of POWs by the Allies during and after World War II. These are things any good lawyer would use against all of our countries, and would be better kept in the past. We will no longer be able to blame it all on the Germans, and our citizens are not going to like that.

“President Johnson has ordered US investigations and fugitive searches to cease, and General Secretary Brezhnev has issued the same orders. I presume that will meet with approval by Chancellor Erhard, don’t you, Chief Schneider Graf von der Lippe?”

“Most assuredly, Director. I will inform him as soon as we get off the line,” the police chief of Wiesbaden replied.

“Is there any jurisdiction opposed to this decision?”

A chorus of ‘nos’ came from all of the chiefs on the line.

“Good. Then we can consider the Project Save the Generals to be officially closed until such time as convincing evidence leads us to reopen the investigation.”

In the background—unheard by any of the chiefs—was an undertone in nearly a dozen languages which—translated and paraphrased—was, “And politics trumps police work again,” uttered with a collective sigh of resignation and murmured invectives against politics and politicians all over the world.

-END-