Post by pjotr on Nov 11, 2010 15:53:25 GMT 1
What is the Shin Bet still hiding about a certain Polish-Israeli double agent?
TheShin Bet has been more open about its past in recent years, but not about Lucjan Levi, whose job was to report to Polish intelligence on his mates in the Zionist movement.
By Yossi Melman
In 1958, Col. Jerzy Bryn arrived in Israel to visit his daughter and ex-wife. Bryn was a Polish intelligence officer and was serving in his country's embassy in Tokyo. During his visit, he defected to Israel and was transferred to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He gave the Americans everything he knew, but a year later he defected again - this time back to his homeland. The Poles tried him for treason and sentenced him to death in 1962. This was commuted to life in prison, and Bryn died in his cell in 1978.
His life story is told in a study by Canadian historian and researcher Leszek Gluchowski, who uncovered a raft of documents in Polish archives; some of them relate to another spy affair that took place in Israel: the case of Levi (Lucjan ) Levi of the Shin Bet security service's operations unit. Levi was in effect a double agent operating for the Polish security service.
Mossad head Harel, who ordered an investigation into the Levi affair.
Photo by: Naor Rahav
Levi's story has already been published by the journalists Moshe Lichtman and Eitan Haber (disclosure: Haber was my co-author in the Hebrew-language book "The Spies" ). But with the documents discovered by Gluchowski, new facts come to light. One document contains Levi's testimony after his release from an Israeli prison. In that testimony to a Polish intelligence officer, Levi discussed his fascinating life story.
He was born Lucjan Levi in Radom, Poland, in 1922. When World War II broke out, he fled with his family to the Soviet Union, enlisted in the Red Army, was wounded and discharged. Until the end of the war, he was a theater manager and the head of a Red Cross branch. In the meantime, he maintained contacts with the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB.
At the end of the war, he returned to his native country, married and was divorced three years later. He joined the Zionist youth movement Gordonia in the city of Lodz. Thanks to his military experience, he was appointed the chief of "self-defense." The movement also made him its representative to the Haganah, which operated clandestinely in Poland as well.
Ratting on Zionist mates
In December 1947, the Polish intelligence agency blackmailed him and forced him to serve as an agent and informer under an Armenian code name. This happened after Levi submitted a false statement on the circumstances in which he was wounded. His job was to report on his mates in the Zionist movement.
In 1948, while his friends were preparing to immigrate to Israel, Levi suggested to his handlers that they allow him to join his friends so he would continue to serve as an intelligence agent in Israel. They agreed, changed his code name to Samuel and assigned him to join Israel's security service.
Upon his arrival, he hebraicized his first name, changing it from Lucjan to Levi, and did an abbreviated tour of duty in the Israel Defense Forces. He then worked for a construction company, and in 1950, thanks to his contacts with old friends in the Haganah, joined the Shin Bet. He entered the organization's inner sanctum - the operations unit.
According to the documents, he was appointed the commander of a team responsible for monitoring and breaking into the offices of Western countries. During these break-ins, Levi and his colleagues photographed documents and installed cameras and wiretapping devices. Everything he did, heard and knew was relayed to his handlers in the Polish intelligence agency.
Over the seven years he worked for the Poles, he had four handlers, all of them Polish diplomats in Tel Aviv. His meetings were conducted during visits to the Polish embassy. His Shin Bet commanders let him visit the embassy after he convinced them he had to go there to take care of family matters.
His Shin Bet commanders' gullibility and confidence in him was so great they also allowed him, without asking too many questions, to travel in 1955 to France for meetings with another handler, Capt. Wladyslaw Mroz. One document states that Levi reported on a break-in into the hotel room of a VIP from the United States, whose name is not noted in the report.
In another case, "Samuel" disclosed that an employee of the Bulgarian embassy in Israel was a Shin Bet agent. The Polish security service relayed this to Bulgarian intelligence. In their reports, Levi's Polish handlers praise his achievements and describe how he "he related valuable operational information regarding a ) the structure, manpower and operating methods of Israel's counterespionage efforts, b ) the successes and failures of the counterespionage efforts against our agencies (break-ins, searches, wiretapping, enlisting agents, etc. ), c ) the names of intelligence people in Israeli representations in Socialist countries."
All for 6,000 Israeli lira
The Polish intelligence agency relayed Levi's information to the other Eastern Bloc agencies, mainly the KGB. According to the report, Levi was paid 6,000 Israeli lira for all his years of service. In 1957, after the immigration wave from Poland, two Jews arrived in Israel from Poland who knew Levi from when he worked for the Polish security service. One of them, Jefim (Jozef ) Gildiner, turned him in to the Shin Bet. At the order of Mossad chief Isser Harel and Shin Bet head Amos Manor, an investigation began.
Isser Harel
Amos Manor
Levi was placed under surveillance, but the Shin Bet was not able to get any evidence, so he was dismissed and even allowed to leave for France. He remained there for two months, but his handlers in Polish intelligence ordered him to return to Israel and demand that the Shin Bet reinstate him. Levi returned to Israel and threatened to reveal the corruption in the Shin Bet if he was not reinstated. His request was turned down.
Levi, who was desperate, renewed his contacts with his handlers from the Polish embassy, even though he was being monitored by his former Shin Bet colleagues. Against this backdrop, he was arrested and interrogated by Zvi Aharoni and Manor. Gildiner identified him in a lineup, but Levi refused to confess.
Zvi Aharoni
His trial took place behind closed doors; the Polish documents correctly attribute this to the Israel intelligence leaders' "confusion and embarrassment" over the affair. But they were mistaken when they thought Manor was forced to leave his position because of this incident.
At the height of the trial, Mroz defected to France and French intelligence relayed the information to Israel. Manor traveled to Paris, met with Mroz and got him to state that Levi was indeed an intelligence officer with the Polish security service. On that basis, the Tel Aviv District Court sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
After serving two-thirds of his sentence, he was released and put on a ship to Cyprus, from where he continued to Australia, where he was reunited with his family and later died. Even though in recent years the Shin Bet has been uploading information on past incidents onto its legacy page, there is no mention there of the Levi episode.
Polish link: pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucjan_Levi
;D