Did Israel Try to Take out a US Ambassador?

There is strong evidence in recently released diplomatic papers that Israel’s secret police, Mossad, attempted to assassinate the US ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean, in 1979, but failed–this according to Ambassador Andrew Killgore.

Killgore writes The Dean paper–which include documents, messages, reports and telegrams–constitute hard evidence on the stultifying influence of the Israeli lobby as Dean tried to get answers from the Department of State on the Israeli assassination failure. Nobody was willing to talk with him because the subject was just too “sensitive.” The papers include documentation of efforts by the Palestinians to help the U.S. with the American hostages in Iran. They demonstrate that, unlike today, the United States administration considered the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) “valid interlocutors” in the search for a negotiated settlement of the Palestine-Israel conflict. In fact, PLO leader Yasser Arafat and an assistant made a special visit to Iran, where they succeeded in gaining the immediate freedom of several of the American diplomatic hostages. Arafat performed a real favor for the United States for which he never received any thanks—perhaps because, once again, it would have been too “sensitive.”

Another Middle East historian wrote me subsequently,

Andrew Kilgore is [unreliable]; he also believes that Mossad was behind the assassination of JFK. In Gunther Dean’s lengthy interview with Le

Monde last year, he did not allege what Kilgore was alleging.

I certainly would want to dissociate myself from the views alleged! Historians will have to weigh the allegations by sifting through Dean’s papers when they become available.

Did Israel Try to Take out a US Ambassador?

There is strong evidence in recently released diplomatic papers that Israel’s secret police, Mossad, attempted to assassinate the US ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean, in 1979, but failed–this according to Ambassador Andrew Killgore.

Killgore writes The Dean paper–which include documents, messages, reports and telegrams–constitute hard evidence on the stultifying influence of the Israeli lobby as Dean tried to get answers from the Department of State on the Israeli assassination failure. Nobody was willing to talk with him because the subject was just too “sensitive.” The papers include documentation of efforts by the Palestinians to help the U.S. with the American hostages in Iran. They demonstrate that, unlike today, the United States administration considered the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) “valid interlocutors” in the search for a negotiated settlement of the Palestine-Israel conflict. In fact, PLO leader Yasser Arafat and an assistant made a special visit to Iran, where they succeeded in gaining the immediate freedom of several of the American diplomatic hostages. Arafat performed a real favor for the United States for which he never received any thanks—perhaps because, once again, it would have been too “sensitive.”

Another Middle East historian wrote me subsequently,

Andrew Kilgore is [unreliable]; he also believes that Mossad was behind the assassination of JFK. In Gunther Dean’s lengthy interview with Le

Monde last year, he did not allege what Kilgore was alleging.

I certainly would want to dissociate myself from the views alleged! Historians will have to weigh the allegations by sifting through Dean’s papers when they become available.