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But the Israelis, my own people, my own government that I’d served for all my adult working life 舑 that was hard to swallow. I’d started working for the government as a codebreaker on the Iranian desk in Signals Intelligence during my three years of compulsory military service, 1974 to 1977. Then, as a civilian, I’d put in ten years with Israel’s military intelligence, in the prestigious External Relations Department; from 1980 I also served on the Joint Committee for Iran-Israel Relations. Finally, I had spent two years as a roving troubleshooter for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, working directly out of his office, with the title of special intelligence consultant.

We were interrogated about Rohan for hours, and when I mentioned the Jewish Defense League, my interrogators jumped. They said it was vital I not say anything about Rohan, particularly his connections with the JDL. “There should be no traces of Jewish hands in this,” said one of the senior officers. Rohan never had a trial. He pleaded guilty at a public hearing and was sent for psychiatric observation, and was later declared by the court to be mentally ill. He was committed to a psychiatric hospital south of Haifa.

For “security reasons,” Iranian diplomatic pouches had to lay over for 24 hours at Ben-Gurion Airport before the embassy received them. This allowed the SHABAK to get into the pouches. These pouches are sealed, but the SHABAK people were experts at breaking the seals and then repairing them after the black book had been “borrowed” and photocopied. On one occasion a sloppy job was done on the resealing, but that was quickly overcome 舑 the Iranian communications officer was also the man in charge of picking up the pouch.