Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

Klingberg contacted the Soviet Union for the first time in 1957,

and soon afterward he started his espionage activity. The Israeli Se-

curity Agency(ISA) and the Mossadbegan to suspect Klingberg of

espionage, but shadowing him brought no results. At one point Kling-

berg took a lie detector test, which he passed.

In January 1983, during Klingberg’s vice presidency of the Nes

Tsiona institute, ISA officers devised a plan to detain him. Imperson-

ating Mossad officials, they informed him that they wanted to send

him as a consultant to Malaysia, where a chemical plant had suppos-

edly exploded.

A few days later, he was taken ostensibly to the Tel Aviv airport but

actually to an apartment where he was interrogated. For some 10 days,

the ISA interrogators browbeat Klingberg and finally wrung from him

a detailed confession of his relations with the Soviet Union. He as-

serted that he had received no payment for the information he pro-

vided. He was arrested, tried for passing secrets to the Soviet Union,

and sentenced to 20 years in prison. His arrest and conviction were

kept secret from the public for a decade.

In 1989, Israeli attorney Amnon Zichroni, representing Klingberg,

received permission to negotiate an agreement whereby East Ger-

many and the Soviet Union would exchange Klingberg, as well as

Shabtai Kalmanovitch, for hard information about Israeli navigator

Ron Arad who had been captured when his aircraft was shot down in

Israel’s military operation in Lebanon in 1986. The deal came to

naught with the collapse of the Communist bloc.

In 1997 Amnesty International called on the Israeli government to

release Klingberg or transfer him to a less stressful environment be-

cause of his failing health. A year later, Klingberg was moved to

house arrest. A camera was installed in his apartment, which was con-

nected to the director of security for the Defense Establishment

offices in Tel Aviv. His telephones were wiretapped, with his knowl-

edge. Klingberg also signed a commitment not to speak about his

work. After his release from custody in 2003 he left Israel for Paris,

where his daughter Sylvia and his granddaughter were living.

KNIZER, ZUSIA (ZIZI) (1938– ).A veteran intelligence expert, Ma-

jor Knizer headed the basic research section and the Egyptian army

section in Branch 6(the Egypt, Sudan, and North Africa desk) in the

KNIZER, ZUSIA• 151

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