The late Rafi Eitan was – as the title Capturing Eichmann: The Memoir of a Mossad Spymaster suggests – an intelligence operative, a maverick with a finger in many pies.
Eitan’s odyssey is a mirror image of the history of the state.
His father fought in Trotsky’s Red Army, while he himself was a member of the Palmah, operating against Fawzi al-Qawuqji and participating in the Battle of Malikiya during the War of Independence.
Eitan was involved in the arrests of Aharon Cohen, Kurt Sitte and Israel Beer, all accused of being engaged in Soviet espionage. He believed that the Americans were fighting “a futile war” in Vietnam and attempted to explore contacts with the Chinese leadership through the good offices of Morris Cohen, a one-time consultant to Mao’s intelligence services and representative of British companies in China.
He regarded president Jimmy Carter’s unwillingness to intervene in Iran to stop the ascent of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamists as “one of the most serious and tragic mistakes since World War II.”
Source: Jerusalem Post - Photo: Reuters