feared that a request for U.S. approval in advance would be turned
down out of hand.
In November 1979 in the early days of the Iranian revolution, Iran-
ian radicals had seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and taken 66
American diplomats hostage. The administration of President Jimmy
Carter was in fact outraged that its embargo had been blatantly vio-
lated when it learned of Israel’s secret supply of American spare parts
to the Iranians during the hostage crisis. Until the diplomats were re-
leased in January 1981, U.S. secretary of state Edmund Muskie de-
manded that Israel cease its shipments. Israeli Prime Minister Begin
promised to comply with the U.S. demands, but in fact Israel contin-
ued to sell arms to Iran without U.S. approval. Israeli officials main-
tained they were simply selling domestic Israeli-produced arms, not
embargoed U.S. weapons.
On 24 July 1981 Ya’acov Nimrodi, an Israeli businessman en-
gaged in arms sales, signed a deal with Iran’s Ministry of National De-
fense to sell Iran arms worth $135,842,000, including Lance missiles,
Copperhead shells, and Hawk missiles. A sale of such a magnitude
must have had Israeli government acquiescence. Nimrodi, a comrade
in arms of Ariel Sharon during Israel’s 1948–1949 War of Indepen-
dence and a close personal friend, won his approval for the deal.
The new U.S. administration of Ronald Reagan entered office in- Toward the end of that year, Kimche approached U.S. secre-
tary of state Alexander Haig and National Security Adviser Robert
McFarlane to discuss proposed Israeli shipments of U.S.-made spare
parts worth $10–15 million to the relatively moderate faction in Iran.
Haig did not give his approval.
In November 1981 Sharon visited Washington and asked his U.S.
counterpart Caspar Weinberger for approval to sell arms to Iran.
Weinberger referred him to Haig, who unequivocally opposed any vi-
olation of the embargo. In May 1982 a clandestine gathering took
place between Al Schwimmer, an American-Jewish billionaire who
had founded the Israeli aircraft industry, Nimrodi, Kimche, and
Sharon and his wife Lily, together with Sudanese president Gaafar
Numeiri, at a Kenyan safari resort owned by Saudi business tycoon
Adnan Khashoggi. At the meeting, Israel won Numeiri’s agreement
to allow Ethiopian Jews safe passage through Sudan when they mi-
grated to the Jewish state. In return, Numeiri required that Israel
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