EXPERTS SAY U.S. AND ISRAEL HAVE A HISTORY OF COOPERATION ON INTELLIGENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000604960005-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 19, 2013
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 28, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

et Declassified ar-d-AT.._,2-kved For Release 2013/02/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000604960005-5
NEW YORK TIMES
28 November 1985
Experts Say U.S. and Israel Have
a History of Cooperation on Intelligence
"y=ROBIERT-PEAR
"Special-to-Tbe-New York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 ? Relations be-
tween intelligence agencies of the United
States and Israel are normally marked by the
closest cooperation, but over the years there
have been occasional reports that Israelis
spied on Americans or engaged in clandes-
tine operations in this country.
The relationship has come in for special
scrutiny since Jonathan Jay Pollard, a civil-
ian counterintelligence analyst for the Navy,
was arrested last week and accused of selling
classified code information to the Israeli
Government.
'Pretty Clear Understanding'
If Mr. Pollard did whit he is accused of
doing, it would, by most accounts, be a devia-
tion from the norm for relations between the
two countries. William B. Quandt, a senior
fellow at the Brookings Institution who
served on the staff of the National Security
Council in the Nixon and Carter Administra-
tions, said today, "We did not run agents in
Israel, and we had a pretty clear understand-
ing that they did not run agents here."
Wolf Blitzer, Washington correspondent of
The Jerusalem Post, said in a new book, "De-
spite infractions on both sides, U.S. and Is-
raeli intelligence organizations have main-
tained a discreet arrangement since the
1950's, banning covert operations against
each other."
In the book, "Between Washington and
Jerusalem: A Reporter's Notebook," Mr.
Blitzer said that cooperation between the
Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's for-
eign intelligence service, the Mossad, was
"so close that the two organizations do not
really have to spy on each other."
American intelligence officials and former
officials who were interviewed generally con-
firmed that assessment. If anything, they
said, the working relationship has grown
closer in the last few years, with the United
States giving Israel access to more recon-
naissance satellite data.
In the Eisenhower Administration, Mr.
Blitzer said, the United States and Israel
reached an understanding to end covert
operations against each other.
A classified study prepared by the C.I.A. in
1979 said two of the principal goals of Israeli
intelligence were the "collection of informa-
tion on secret U.S. policy or decisions" con-
cerning Israel and the "collection of scien-
tific intelligence in the United States and
other developed countries."
To obtain scientific and technical intelli-
gence, it said Israeli agents had made "at-
tempts to penetrate certain classified de-
fense projects in the United States and other
Western nations." The report did not give ex-
amples.
Agents Under Cover
In addition, the study said that Israeli
agents sometimes "operate at the United Na-
tions under diplomatic and journalistic
cover." A major purpose of such operations,
it said, is to collect information on Arab coun-
tries.
Cooperation between intelligence officials
in the United States and Israel has been close
at least since the 1950's. According to some
accounts, Israeli agents obtained and pro-
vided to the C.I.A. a copy of the speech in
which Nikita S. Khrushchev, then the Soviet
leader, denounced Stalin before the 20th Con-
gress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956.
In the 1960's and early 1970's, James J. An-
gleton, who was chief of counterintelligence
operations for the C.I.A., supervised an ex-
tensive exchange of information with Israel.
He declined today to discuss the exchange.
Although the two countries still share large
amounts of information, especially about ter-
rorism, American officials said the Israelis
had been frustrated by the United States' re-
fusal to provide certain information on troop
deployments by pro-American Arab coun-
tries, including Jordan and Egypt.
Some Israelis have said the United States
did not turn over all the intelligence informa-
tion that would be helpful in protecting Is-
rael. In other cases, they said, the informa-
tion was not provided as promptly as they.be-
lieved necessary, so Israelis undertook addi-.
tional aerial reconnaissance missions over
Arab countries. The Israelis have proposed
direct transmission of pictures from Amer-
ican reconnaissance satellites to ground sta-
tions in Israel, but the United States has not
agreed to such an arrangement.
In his memoirs, Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Carter's national security adviser,
said that he had urged Mr. Carter to "bug"
the cottages of Israeli and Egyptian officials
at the summit meeting at Camp David, Md.,
in 1978.
Mr. Brzezinski reported that Mr. Carter,
"in what I felt was an excess of chivalry,
flatly forbade that." As a result, he said, "we
did not have adequate intelligence on what
transpired in the Egyptian Or Israeli delega-
tions ? though all of them took the precau-
tion of conducting their own business on the
porches of their cabins, and not inside."
In advance of the meeting, Mr. Brzezinski
said, only a handful of American officials
were informed of plans to convene the ses-
sion. Explaining the desire for secrecy before
the Camp David session, Mr. Brzezinski
wrote in his journal, "The Administration is
permeated with those who are only too eager
to share information with the Israelis." He
did not name the people he had in mind.
In another incident, critics of Israel have
asserted that Israeli intelligence may have
been connected to the mysterious disappear-
ance of weapons-grade uranium from a plant
run by a private company in Apollo, Pa., in
the 1960's.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and
other Federal agencies have exhaustively ex-
amined such allegations, but have not found
evidence to prove the charges or to show
what did happen to the uranium. Executives
of the company that ran the plant have
denied diverting uranium to Israel.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/02/19 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000604960005-5