The KGB's Man ["I invented the hijackings"]

Wall Street Journal ^ | Sept 22, 2003 | ION MIHAI PACEPA

[The Raven]

The Israeli government has vowed to expel Yasser Arafat, calling him an "obstacle" to peace. But the 72-year-old Palestinian leader is much more than that; he is a career terrorist, trained, armed and bankrolled by the Soviet Union and its satellites for decades.

[Just mythoughts]

How long will we have to wait for the "book" on Clintons involvment with the "KGB"?

I heard James Baker say that Israel choose Air-a-fat to be the negotiator in 1993. That being the case and the play actor bjclintons fell hook line and sinker for the Olso plan, set it in motion, maybe it was a "KGB"/Clinton/ world play. Equalize all nations.

[1066AD]

The book "The Black Book of Communism" has a chapter on Communism & Terrorism, Arafat gets a mention as a KGB favorite.

[Constitutional Patriot]

"Terrorism has been extremely profitable for Arafat. According to Forbes magazine, he is today the sixth wealthiest among the world's "kings, queens & despots," with more than $300 million stashed in Swiss bank accounts. "

I wonder what the "Palestinian" people think about this, or do they even know?

[aculeus]

He was an Egyptian bourgeois turned into a devoted Marxist by KGB foreign intelligence. The KGB had trained him at its Balashikha special-ops school east of Moscow and in the mid-1960s decided to groom him as the future PLO leader. First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat's birth in Cairo, replacing them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth.

Another Said?

[headsonpikes]

"Arafat's innovation was the suicide bomber..."

Lest we forget.

[general_re]

Another Said?

If it will make peace more likely, I'm willing to help get Yasser off the front lines by kicking a few bucks towards an endowment just for him, at the Ivy League university of his choice. That's what's keeping Cynthia McKinney out of trouble at the moment, after all...

[Valin]

For more on the KGB
The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
by Christopher M. Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin
Hardcover - 720 pages (September 15, 1999)
Basic Books; ISBN: 0465003109

Editorial Reviews


Amazon.com
In early 1992, a Russian man walked into the British embassy in a newly independent Baltic republic and asked to "speak to someone in authority." As he sipped his first cup of proper English tea, he handed over a small file of notes. Eight months later, the man, his family, and his enormous archive had been safely exfiltrated to Britain. When news that a KGB officer had defected with the names of hundreds of undercover agents leaked out in 1996, a spokesperson for the SVR (Russia's foreign intelligence service, heir of the KGB) said, "Hundreds of people! That just doesn't happen! Any defector could get the name of one, two, perhaps three agents--but not hundreds!"

Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin worked as chief archivist for the FCD, the foreign-intelligence arm of the KGB. Mitrokhin was responsible for checking and sealing approximately 300,000 files, allowing him unrestricted access to one of the world's most closely guarded archives. He had lost faith in the Soviet system over the years, and was especially disturbed by the KGB's systematic silencing of dissidents at home and abroad. Faced with tough choices--stay silent, resign, or undermine the system from within--Mitrokhin decided to compile a record of the foreign operations of the KGB. Every day for 12 years, he smuggled notes out of the archive. He started by hiding scraps of paper covered with miniscule handwriting in his shoes, but later wrote notes on ordinary office paper, which he took home in his pockets. He hid the notes under his mattress, and on weekends took them to his dacha, where he typed them and hid them in containers buried under the floor. When he escaped to Britain, his archive contained tens of thousands of pages of notes.

In 1995, Mitrokhin, by then a British citizen, contacted Christopher Andrew (For the President's Eyes Only), head of the faculty of history at Cambridge University and one of the world's foremost historians of international intelligence. Andrew was allowed to examine the archive Mitrokhin created "to ensure that the truth was not forgotten, that posterity might some day come to know of it." The Sword and the Shield is the earthshaking result. The book details the KGB's foreign-intelligence operations, most notably those aimed at Great Britain and the "Main Adversary"--the United States. In the 700-page book, Andrew reveals operations aimed at discrediting high-profile Americans, from Martin Luther King to Ronald Reagan; secret arms caches still hidden--and boobytrapped--throughout the West; disinformation efforts, including forging a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald in an attempt to implicate the CIA in the assassination of JFK; attempts to stir up racial tensions in the U.S. by sending hate mail and even bombs; and the existence of deep-cover agents in North America and Europe--some of whom were effectively "outed" when the book was published.

Mitrokhin's detailed notes are well served by Andrew, who writes forcefully and clearly. The Sword and the Shield represents a remarkable intelligence coup--one that will have serious repercussions for years to come. As Andrew notes, "No one who spied for the Soviet Union at any period between the October Revolution and the eve of the Gorbachev era can now be confident that his or her secrets are still secure." --Sunny Delaney

[Kenny Bunk]

Good post, just for the reminders.

But S, all of this has been known forever. None other than Oriana Fallaci tipped off the world to Arafat's provenance (and sexual orientation) in the 1970's.

Arafat was actually "run" by the East Germans, with help from the rest of the COMBLOC, as directed by the KGB. Also, British sources estimate Arafat's personal fortune as close to $9 BILLION! That should be enough to set up every Palestinian refugee with a chicken ranch and a new car!

[Valin]

Please see reply # 27.
I'd like to say this post suprises me..but I recall reading Claire Sterling's The Terror Network about this back in the early 80s

[GeorgeWBiscuit]

bump for later

[philosofy123]

Once terrorism was Arafat’s invention, but now the Islamic fanatics are dominating the world as they terrorizing the world in the name of their religion. Their only aim is to convert the whole world to Islam. They are afraid of changing to a civilized way of life, it may take away from their barbaric privileges as men oppressing women in the name of god.

The US, and the American people MUST acknowledge that all Islamic terrorism is evil ANYWHERE! The idea that we sometime call the Chechnya Moslems freedom fighters, or the Afghanis (during the Reagan administration) freedom fighters, or the Philippines Moslems, an independent movement, or the Karachi Moslem terrorists as seekers of independence, or the Sudanese Islamic government, which is terrorizing of its own Christian population a civil war; all is a stupid Washington political pundits terminologies. The reality is Islam is on a war path with the rest of the world. It was not organized or financed in recent history, but now thanks to the petrodollars windfall to the evil Saudis, we have a grass-root well motivated to kill, and convert the rest of us. If we don’t understand it in these terms, we will continue to put a band aide to stop flood of a big dam.

[Gritty]

Excellent article.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

Why doubt Pacepa? He's simply reminding us of a transparent history. If there is any justice, Arafat would have been snuffed long ago.

[Ditto]

Bookmark bump

[FierceDraka]

Fascinating article. Jimmeh strikes again. I'd forgotten that Ceausescu was on his list of beloved dictators.

I did too. But one thing I'll never, ever forget was the Romanians rising up, dragging that son of a b!tch Ceausescu and his bejewelled cow wife into a tiny courtyard, and sending them to hell to the tune of AK-47 in F-minor.

Good times...

[Prince Charles]

A lot of the voters today have no clue what an imbecile Jemmah was when he was POTUS. Whether it was consulting his 8-year old daughter Amy on issues of nuclear disarmament, or trying to corral his booze-soaked brother Billy, Jemmah always managed to disgrace this nation each month of his presidency.

[The Raven]

The other day on the History channel - there was another story like this. A KGB archivist who smuggled out a couple of decades of Cold War shenanigans....there was a lot of propaganda aimed at the gullible left wingers coming from Moscow.

Somebody needs to re-write the 20th century history as our history books have it all wrong.

[Pagey]

"I invented the hijackings [of passenger planes]," Arafat bragged when I first met him..."

For this reason alone, forget every other negative thing he's ever done in his life for a minute, he deserves to assume room temperature.

[NYC GOP Chick]

In April 1978 I accompanied Ceausescu to Washington, where he charmed President Carter. Arafat, he urged, would transform his brutal PLO into a law-abiding government-in-exile if only the U.S. would establish official relations. The meeting was a great success for us. Carter hailed Ceausescu, dictator of the most repressive police state in Eastern Europe, as a "great national and international leader" who had "taken on a role of leadership in the entire international community." Triumphant, Ceausescu brought home a joint communiqué in which the American president stated that his friendly relations with Ceausescu served "the cause of the world."

That's our Jimmy! Never met a left-wing, totalitarian, vicious, sadistic dictator that he didn't gush over to the extreme.

I was almost 11-years-old when he was elected and at first, my mother couldn't understand my unbridled hostility toward him -- although she also learned to loathe him, after he pardoned the draft dodging, cowardly traitors. But even as a child, I could see that he was up to no good.

[NYC GOP Chick]

A lot of the voters today have no clue what an imbecile Jemmah was when he was POTUS. Whether it was consulting his 8-year old daughter Amy on issues of nuclear disarmament, or trying to corral his booze-soaked brother Billy, Jemmah always managed to disgrace this nation each month of his presidency.

Don't forget such great Late 70s Classics as:

1. The really bad Mr. Rogers imitation, when he went on national tv in a cardigan sweater and told us, essentially, that it was our duty to freeze our asses off.
2. When he hectored us about "national malaise."
3. The battle with the Killer Rabbit.
4. How he politicized the Olympics and destroyed the dreams and years of hard work for countless athletes.
5. The failed rescue attempt of the hostages in Iran.