Gideon's Spies -- the secret history of the mossad

so i just finished reading this book by gordon thomas, loaned to me by my brother in law, steve. it's a quite fascinating and remarkably (even surprisingly) well researched account of the history of mossad from its inception in the 1950s.

the book begins with an examination of the death of princess diana from mossad's perspective. it gives details about the conspiracy theories surrounding her death and the death of her lover dodi al fayed, and driver henri paul--who was an informant, not only for local french intelligence agencies, but also for mossad and other foreign intelligence services and the press.

the book is full of anecdotes. it tells the story of rafael eitan's kidnapping of adolf eichman in argentina, it tells stories about assassination attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) against terrorist leaders who could not be brought to justice. it also tells about mossad's involvement in the death of britain's media tycoon robert maxwell. the most annoying thing about these anecdotes is that they are often inconclusive. they tell a small part of a story, or are used as an example and then the author trails off to discuss something entirely different. for example, it tells the story of dr. ri che-woo, a north korean microbiologist who escaped from north korea along the new exodus route, revived by douglas shin--a korean-american pastor at a suburban los angeles church--, and norbert vollersten--a german doctor who completed a work term in north korea. the story is quite touching but ends abruptly when dr. ri che-woo is captured by chinese public security officers. nothing more is told about new exodus or any of its other participants, though they were painstakingly introduced.

the book made me think, though: it's hard to justify the existence of secret intelligence or security agencies in a democratic country. the very secrecy surrounding the actions of these agencies makes them inaccessible to the democratic process. the only way they can be controlled by the people is through the democratically elected head of state. but, these are often untrustworthy. furthermore, how can we even know that we can trust our democratically elected heads of state if some of the actions that they approve are forever cut off from public knowledge?

it is our fear of the 'other' that necessitates secret agencies: fear of terrorism, fear of enemy nations, fear of friendly nations... it was fear of the soviet union that brought on the need for secret agencies in canada and the usa, and much of the western world.

gideon's spies does not vilify mossad but neither does it lionize it. it simply "tells it like it ... is" (in the words of meir amit, former director general of mossad 1963-1968).

i think the main lesson from the book is that human intelligence (called "humint" in the book) is better than electronic intelligence, gathered by satellites and computers. mossad relies almost exclusively on human intelligence through its katsas (field agents) and sayanim (sleeper agents or informers). they have a relatively small number of katsas, but many thousands of sayanim in almost every country. mossad's model is contrasted with american intelligence agencies such as the nsa and the cia who rely heavily on satellites and space age computer technology.

the book should be required reading for anyone who wants to study modern history and the role of secret intelligence and security agencies around the world in the cold war era and the post cold war era.