Israel's man in Tehran

Conversations with Yaacov Nimrodi, israeli agent, arms dealer and businessman,

who helped start the Irangate affairs - and ended up tripping over it.

By JENS NAUNTOFTE

The midday sun is baking the city landscape og makes these old citywalls from Richard Lionheart's time look like a black
and white backdrop in a play out of the Middle Ages. But Yaacov Nimrodi can chase away unwanted associations swiftly.

He immodestly throws out his hand - "Do you like my view?" - which was this 180 degree panorama painting on his wall.

But the truth is, we are standing on the terrace of his luxury apartment with the old Jerusalem at our feet.

The Omar mosque's gold plated cone stands before us like a raised fist; framed by the Gethsemane garden and the
onionshaped church dome in the distance.

What we can't see from Nimrodi's penthouse on the upper echelons of Hotel King David, is that there is a general strike
all over the arabic sector of the city and West Bank. Businesses are closed, curtains are pulled out - the busy merchant
stands in the old city are empty; even the exchange booths at the Damascus gate are closed.

But that hardly makes Yaacov Nimrodi lose sleep at night. Since his arrival in Jerusalem as a child, 62 years ago, jews and
palestinians have been fighting over the inherent right to the land in Palestine. Nimrodi is on the winning side,
something that permeates his entire compact round being, as he eagerly points out over the arabian district and
confides:
"In 1967, when we conquered east Jerusalem, we should have forcibly removed the entire arabic population from the
city.It could have been done within a day and Israel would have been rid of the most bitter part of this conflict. The
challenges here in Jerusalem are harder than all the other territorial disputes in the West Bank and Gaza.

Spies and weapon trades

Yacoov Nimrodi is already a living legend. He was the israeli Mossad's agent in Tehran during the Cold War in the fifties,
where he helped the Shah build their intelligence organisation. Afterwards, Israel's prime minister David Ben-Gurion
made him his military attach to Tehran and he personally handled the israeli weapons exports to Iran. This gave way
for Israel to begin buying iranian oil; resulting in a strategic alliance that benefitted both nations greatly.

But the crown jewel of Nimrodi's work came in the golden 70's, when he as a private businessman in Tehran sold the
Shah's men everything from weapons to desalination equipment. With the Petrodollars building up in Iran's treasury,
this israeli had gotten himself a straw into the moneybag and it made him a multi millionaire.

In December 1978, a month before the Shah's fall, the Nimrodi family packed their bags and along with 34 other jewish
associates, left a Tehran that neither the Shah's army, the CIA or the Mossad could preserve - in the "peacock-
emperor's" hands.

Khomeini stood ready to take power and Tehran had become a wimping kennel of revolutionary hatred against the
Shah, the U.S. and Israel.

Irangate

Because of this it becomes doubly ironic that later in 1985, Nimrodi would go on to become Israel's middleman in
"Irangate". The fiercly discussed scandal was in reality - a brilliant israeli plan, where Saudi Arabia played a role as
middleman. The idea was that the U.S. and Israel would sell weapons to the Khomeini regime in hopes of getting both
american hostages in Beirut released aswell as establish a strategic alliance between Tehran, Jerusalem and
Washington.

"It all started in early 1985 with Adnan Khashoggi(saudi arms dealer) suggesting they try to open the door to Iran. It
sounded fantastic. Right away I liked the proposal", Nimrodi says as he pours a cup of coffee.

"We are of course going to sell our weapons", Nimrodi continues.

He knows what he is talking about. "You see, every fifth israeli worker is employed in the armament industry and today
Israel is the world's sixth largest weapons exporter. Similar to nations such as France, Israel is not picky about the
recipients of its weapons. The show must go on.

We have built a armament policy which is 20 times bigger than what we ourselves have use for, so it is logical to export
our goods." Nimrodi has fired up a fat cigar and requests a fresh cup of coffee from his personal chauffeur and chef,
who subserviently commutes with him between residences in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The U.S. takes the bait

It is obvious that Nimrodi is interested in the subject: "The israeli government has never denied that we sold weapons to
the iranians", he remarks with a assuring smile. "The main question here was whether or not the american government
had given their approval for these sales."

Nimrodi apparently knows that Washington gave their stamp of approval, which is also confirmed in the final report that
the U.S. Congress released in November of last year. "If opening up for trades with Iran was beneficial in the eyes of
president Reagan - so too, would it be beneficial to Israel.

There are 25 000 jews in Iran. But our endeveours were halted", Nimrodi proclaims with a sense of pity, unable to to
hide that during the initial stages of the arms trades in Iran in 1985, he knew he had been handed a golden egg. "We
wanted to create connections that would remain until the day Khomeini died."

Khashoggi, Nimrodi and their israeli colleague, Al Schwimmer, were actually counting on entering the vast iranian trade
market while their war with Iraq was in full effect so that they would be able to reap what they sowed the day peace
came about. Because then, Iran with their profits from oil exports would become one of the best markets in the Middle
East.

Oliver North

These days Nimrodi is bitter over the brutal way that the Prime Minister at the time, Shimon Perez, pushed him and his
american colleague, Schwimmer, aside during the new year of 1986 - and instead let terrorism adviser Amiram Nir take
over control of the continued arms trade with Iran.

Out of the six shipments containing american made arms which "Irangate" describes as spanning from the summer of
1985 until the year after in 1986 - Nimrodi, Schwimmer and David Kimche were involved during the 3 first ones. In
January of 1986 the second fase had begun and new players were entering the field. Amiram Nir releaves the director of
foreign affairs, David Kimche, at the same time that Nimrodi and Schwimmer are releaved of their duties. In similar
fashion, back in Washington, Robert McFarlane who was Reagan's safety advisor, gets releaved and it is John Poindexter
and his assistant, Oliver North, who takes the charge of directly controlling fase 2 of the Iran affairs, which is
characterized in weapons now being sent by the CIA as opposed to Israel.

This second fase also consisted of 3 separate arms shipments.Yaacov Nimrodi found that the first fase was structured
just right. The fact that it was himself and Schwimmer who oversaw the shipments gave the Peres cabinet a case for
plausible deniability, as it were, something which Oliver North and Poindexter made famous during the congressional
hearings last summer. What Nimrodi is saying is that Peres, in case of being exposed, could essentially write off any
knowledge of any private affairs that people such as Nimrodi and Schwimmer may have had. It is a coldly calculated
trick. It is not a coincidence that Israel has approximately a thousand active weapons dealers, the majority of which are
former military officers who have licenses to trade arms as private actors on the international market. According to
Nimrodi everything started going south from the moment PM Peres let his advisor, Amiram Nir, take the stage on the
secret project. At that point the arms trade became a directly controlled government affair with Peres right at the top.

Nimrodi's argument seems valid. But why would Peres give control of the operation to Amiram Nir? The answer is a
simple one. The arms shipments to I ran were on the verge of ceasing. Reagan's safety advisor, Robert McFarlane, had
gotten cold feet. The iranians didn't release all the american hostages located in Beirut - as McFarlane had initially
demanded. He felt deceived by the iranians and recommended all arms trades with Iran be stopped.

The Contras

But in December 1985, McFarlane is replaced by John Poindexter. This opened up new possibilities for the iraelis, as the
adviser on terrorism, Amiram Nir, had close contact with his counterpart in Washington; terror advisor Oliver North. In
January of 1986, Nir persuaded Poindexter/North in continuing new arms trades. Now, the argument was no longer
related to freeing hostages in Beirut. There was, however, a strong consensus on demanding higher prices from Iran and
transfer the surplus to the contra movement in Central America. Thusly, Irangate morphed into including the Iran-
Contra affair.

The israeli interests were at one point deviating from those of Washington. Since the year after Khomeini's revolution,
Israel had been selling military spare parts and weaponry to Iran, despite the american embargo. In January 1986,
through linking Washington in on the direct arms sales to Tehran, Israel was able to maintain an ideal situation in which
it could continue to covertly sell its own armaments to Iran. If the U.S. could break its own terms their arms embargo on
Iran (Operation Staunch), why should Israel have a bad conscience? That's why Yaacov Nimrodi fell off the wagon as the
cynics in the Tehran-Jerusalem-Washington triangle continued their covert operations. "Israel's main role was in
creating a connection between the americans and the iranians but the the people in Reagan's staff, along with Amiram
Nir, derailed this important initiative by mixing it with their contra politics", Nimrodi says in dissapointment. "The arms
trades with Iran would have yielded political bonuses for us aswell as the americans and it was a straightforward trade
with clear guidelines put in place. It had never would have had to become revealed." Nimrodi clenches his teeth down
hard on his cigar while his gaze wanders out into the eastern horizon, where he could glean through his inner vision, his
beloved Tehran, 3000km away.

Through the Desert

Yaacov Nimrodi is not, contrary to popular belief, an iranian jew. He was, however, born in Baghdad in 1926. Merely 10
days after his birth his family emigrated from Iraq to Palestine. From Baghdad, via Aleppo in Syria, and through caravan
and transport trucks via Beirut and Haifa, they arrived in Jerusalem. Yaacov Nimrodi's mother is still alive to this day, still
living in Jerusalem at the age of 94, having 75 children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. That her son would
emerge from deep penury as the son of an immigrant tailor from the lower caste on the israeli status ladder to become
one of Israel's richest men, with friends in the highest of places, is something she would never even have dared dream.

Many iraqi jews have done well in Israel but Yaacov Nimrodi has them all beat. Half a century later, Nimrodi is sitting in
his luxury apartment in Jerusalem, surrounded by great paintings and antiques he has procured from Tehran. He has a
powerful charisma and a well mannered being which switches from vanity to quick thinking. Nimrodi doesn't take the
time to tell this story to a foreign reporter because he yearns for eager listeners. He does it first and foremost because
he sees the documenting of his accounts as a confirmation of his worth. The world will know how important his life has
been.

Any eventual misunderstandings regarding his person can also at the same time conveniently be swept out of the way.

But we constantly meet limitations regarding what he can say due to his secretive past work practices.

[Picture caption: NIMRODI - "These days I trade only in property and real estate"]

Arms for the Kurds

The next day in his massive villa in Savyon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, he pulls me from one glass case display to the next,
where medals and gifts from the Shah and iranian generals is on display along with miniature models of the weapons he
sold them throughout his lifetime. In a small video library he has copies of the tv programs he has taken part in. "Do you
want to se some of them?", he asks but proceeds to pull me along further before I can answer, to a shelf where photo
albums stand lined up. One of the albums is particularly interesting. It displays his own snapshots from the 50's and 60's,
when he was a Mossad agent and military attach, traveling to kurdish locations in north-western Iran. There, he
trained with israeli instructors on handling of guns such as the ones they supplied to the kurdish "peshmergas" in their
battle against the irani government.
A night in February, 1986, when I interviewed the legendary kurdish chief, Mustafa Barzani, the so-called Red Mullah in
northern Iraq near Haj Omran, a question he refused to answer was precisely Israel's role. He wouldn't in any regard
comment on the circumstances relating to a possible israeli involvement in the supply of weapons for his war with the
central government in Baghdad. 17 years later, in Savyon, I see photos of the same Barzani in the company of Nimrodi
and the israeli instructors. The photo album shows a young Nimrodi in his fourties, drinking tea with a likewise young
Mustafa Barzani somewhere in the kurdish highlands. Here is the documentation of a secret israeli foreign policy at
work, archived at the aging former agents villa in Savyon.

The White House in Tel Aviv

The villa in Savyon is in and of itself and expression of Nimrodi's power. It is a smaller copy of the White House in
Washington, painted in a blinding white with entrance columns, a rosegarden , swimmingpool, tenniscourt and garden
areas. When you further hear that Nimrodi also has a couple of apartments in Manhattan in New York and London, you
pretty much get a good picture of his standard of living - he is a israeli version of his buddy and multi millionaire, Adnan
Khashoggi. But contrary to "the world's richest man"(at the time), there are no starlets or blondes in Nimrodi's wake -
and he sparingly ever pops the french champagne. Nimrodi is a jewish familyman who takes care of as many of his
daughters and sons in law that he can at the daily dinner feasts. He has big plans for a family empire but it would be a
israeli one and soon his son will return from Harvard Business School to take on the position of CEO in his new venture.
Nimrodi has pulled back all his assets to Israel, where he has bought a primary stockholder status in the 75 year old
company "Hachsharat Hayishuv".

It goes back to the first years of zionism and Jewish Agency is also a shareholder in the company, which owns vast land
plots, hotels, factories and more.

This is the new image that our former spy and arms dealer wishes to convey and be identified with.

The widespread coverage of his role in "Irangate" has left his reputation in the dirt and he is desperate to wash it off. He
wants to be a respectable israeli business matador, dressed in the zionist motherland's colors of white and blue.

The Mossad Agent

While he is in the middle of sharing is visions for the future, I ask him fankly how he fared during his training of the
Shah's intelligence agency SAVAK, known for its hands bloody during the years before 1979. The israeli lashes out with
his hand as he seemingly wades off a couple of flies:

"I didn't train SAVAK. That was not my task. I built the irani military intelligence from scratch. In that endeavor I had
utilized young israeli instructors who spoke fluent farsi and their iranian students never realized they were israeli. The
iranian chief of intelligence, General Leutenant Ali Khia, encouraged my government in 1960 to extend my stay and this
is part of why I was made a military attach to Tehran. We sold alot to Iran. I got the Uzi introduced to the iranian army
and over the years those numbers became enormous. Nimrodi pulls me over to the glass displays again, where we study
models of canons, patrolboats, tanks and Soltram mortars of 81, 120 and 160mm kalibers. "I saw through contracts
worth many hundreds of millions of dollars. Iran was one of our very best customers. On a yearly basis, Israel sold for
over 500 million dollars worth of goods to Iran alone, of which about a 20% where weapons. But by then I had been
called back home. I wanted to be general in chief of the army in occupied West Bank. When that proved impossible I left
the service."
After that the veteran left for Tehran again. His formidable network of contacts spanned from the Shah at the top to the
military intelligence and his previous work history served him well. He now organized at his own expense what he had
previously done for the israeli government.

"I represented all israeli weapons factories in Iran. They knew my connections were solid."

What followed were bountyful years where Nimrodi was able to line his pockets.

The road to Washington

But in the previous year of 1985, the pretext to Irangate starts to form, long before president Reagan's advisors had
come into play. The Iranian businessman and former SAVAK agent, Manucher Ghorbanifar, was frustrated over the fact
that he could not get a proper conversation started in regards to doing arms trades with the U.S.- via his secret weapon
channels in Western Europe. Ghorbanifar contacted Adnan Khashoggi and requested advice. Khashoggi had ambitious
plans of his own where he sought to bring about a peaceful relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

To this end, Israel could be useful and Khashoggi personally was on good footing with people such as Shimon Peres,
Ariel Sharon and David Kimche.

Khashoggi's cunning plan was to combine Iran's needs for armaments with Israel's particular connection with Reagan's
government. The result would turn out to be a duet between Tehran and Washington. Ghorbanifar claimed that
surrounding Prime Minister Musavi and head of parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani were people who were interested in re-
opening connections to the West. They feared that the Soviet Union, in case of Khomeini's death, would gain a foothold
in Iran.

Weapons don't snitch

Now Khashoggi and Ghorbanifar went to Nimrodi, Schwimmer and Kimche in Israel and with the blessing of PM Peres,
Kimche contacted Robert McFarlane in Reagan's national security advisory. Here too, they got bingo because, despite
both minister of defence, Caspar Weinberger and foreign minister George Schultz's defiant opposition, Reagan's
personal advisors went all in with the arms trades. We know that after the Iran-Contra scandal became evident in
November, 1986 - Tehran tried unabatedly to buy new weapons from the U.S. No one has been in a position to hinder
Iran in obtaining armaments from the West, despite the embargo. Through the most shady and suspect channels, the
weapons flow freely and we cannot deny the possibility that the may have been additional american arms sales after
November, 1986. But what about the israeli trades with Tehran? Are they still ongoing?

Yaacov Nimrodi stares at me with cold, brown eyes and gently lifting his shoulders in a gesture of uncertainty before
humming with his cigar in his mouth.

"How should I know? I have changed profession. These days I trade in businesses and real estate. If you wanna buy a
hotel and can afford it, we can talk. Iran remains only in my dreams."

What Lord Palmerstone once said about the british empire pertains to Nimrodi's motherland, aswell; Israel has no
permanent friends, only permanent interests!

Iran is such a permanent interest. What Nimrodi with great professional devotion created through widespread
connections as an unofficial council in Tehran stands out despite the revolution and governmental changes. As I drive
down the gravel road, Nimrodi stands in the doorway of his millionaire palace.

If I am gleaning this right from the rear view mirror, his smile is gone. What remains is a little 62 year old man waiting
for the rush of from when the story hits the public. It is said that you can get high off of it when it happens.
Jens Nauntofte is a reporter for the radio channel "Orientering"

This winter he published the book "Reagan's last tango - The U.S. Middle Eastern Policy Under Critical Light" under
publisher Vindrose, where he describes the background for Reagan's Irangate.