States. The benefit to the United States from supporting Nativ was
access to intelligence about the Soviet Union and other Communist
Bloc countries, which the Israelis obtained from questioning new im-
migrants in order to detect any Soviet spy that might attempt to enter
Israel in the guise of a new immigrant. In fact, Nativ, with its inter-
viewing of new immigrants, was the main instrument of the intelli-
gence community in its efforts to gather information about the Soviet
Union and its satellites. The Mossad played no part here and did not
operate any case officers in Eastern European countries.
Prior to the Six-Day Warof June 1967, Nativ representatives were
stationed in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries as en-
voys with diplomatic passports and diplomatic immunity. After the
severance of relations with those countries in the wake of the war,
Nativ continued to send emissaries, assisted by anyone who had ac-
cess to the Eastern Bloc. The organization was behind the worldwide
propaganda and information campaign whose slogan was “Let My
People Go.” For about 30 years, Nativ secretly organized the emi-
gration of Jews from Romania through an agreement with the regime
of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Ceausescu and other senior officials
in his regime received bribes in return for this agreement, which over
time amounted to tens of millions of dollars deposited in secret bank
accounts in Austria and Switzerland.
Nativ’s clandestine operations to bring immigrants from the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe largely terminated with the end of the
Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the renewal of
diplomatic relations between Israel and the Eastern Bloc countries at
the end of the 1980s, and still more with the disintegration of the
USSR, Jews were increasingly able to emigrate freely from those
countries. Occasionally, the old methods of using connections with
authorities through the transfer of funds still had to be employed. In
September 1992, Nativ organized an operation to take Jews out of the
city of Sukhumi, Georgia, which was under attack by Muslim rebels.
That same month, it operated an airlift of Jews from Dushanbe, the
capital of Tajikistan, which was also being attacked by members of
an extremist Muslim rebel group.
Still, the overall change raised questions about the need for a clan-
destine organization like Nativ. At its peak, Nativ had about 500 em-
ployees operating from its Tel Aviv headquarters and from branchNATIV• 20106-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 201