By Way of Deception

BY WAY OF DECEPTION 67The next major course lecture was given by Amy Yaar, departmenthead of the Far East and Africa in Tevel (liaison). His story was sofascinating that when it was over, everybody said "How do we signup?"Yaar's department had people positioned throughout the Far Eastwho did little real intelligence; instead they set the framework forfuture business and diplomatic ties. They had a man with aBritish passport living in Djakarta, for example, working undercover. That meant the Indonesian government knew he was withthe Mossad. He had an escape route ready, and a gold coin belt ifhe needed it, among other security measures. His main task wasto facilitate arms sales in the region. They also had a man inJapan, one in India, one in Africa, and occasionally, people in SriLanka, and in Malaysia. Yaar's annual convention for his staff wasin the Seychelles. He was having a lot of fun with very littledanger.Yaar's officers in Africa were also dealing in millions of dollars inarms sales. These liaison men worked in three stages. First, theymade contact to find out what the country needed, what it feared,whom it regarded as enemies — information gathered throughtheir on-site activities. The idea was to build on those needs,create a stronger relationship, then make it known that Israelcould supply the government in question with weapons andtraining — whatever they needed. The final step in the process,once a country's leader had been hooked on the arms, was for theMossad man to tell him that he must take, for instance, someagricultural equipment as well. The leader was then put in theposition of saying he could expand ties with Israel only if they setup formal diplomatic relations. It was essentially a way of creatingthose relations through the back door, although in most cases thearms deals were so lucrative, the liaison men never bothered tofollow up with the next step.They did in Sri Lanka, however. Amy Yaar made the connection,then tied the country in militarily by supplying it with substantialequipment, including PT boats for coastal patrol. At the sametime, Yaar and company were supplying the warring Tamils withanti-PT boat equipment to use in fighting the government forces.The Israelis also trained elite