Historical Dictionary of Israeli Intelligence

for a flight to Urupan, Mexico, with an unidentified Italian partner.

The airplane took off in good condition, but then experienced engine

trouble and crashed. Nir was apparently killed in the crash, although

other reports maintain that Nir was killed while still in Mexico City,

before boarding the plane. The circumstances of how Nir died remain

clouded in mystery.

Six months before he was killed, in an interview with Bob Wood-

ward of the Washington Post, Nir had said that he was considering the

best way to sell the Irangate story but had not yet decided on it. He

knew more than any other Israeli about the quantities and types of

arms sent to Iran, how much was paid, where the money was de-

posited, and who profited from the sales. The Israeli government for-

bade Nir from answering questions of the U.S. Justice Department

and congressional committees. Despite his key role in Irangate, Nir

was the only person deeply involved in the affair who never testified

publicly.

NOAH’S ARK OPERATION.Code name for Israel’s “theft” of five

missile boats it had ordered—and paid for—from the French ship-

yard at Cherbourg at the end of 1969.

In late 1962 Israel decided to modernize its navy; its aging de-

stroyers were to be replaced by modern missile boats. Later, the de-

stroyer Eilat’s sinkingby two Soviet-built Egyptian missile boats on

21 October 1967 would make the need for modernization even more

pressing.

In 1962 Israel placed an order for missile boats with West German

shipyards under the umbrella of German reparations for the Holo-

caust. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer agreed that the shipyards would

build 12 missile boats for the Israeli Navy on condition that the trans-

action be kept secret so as not to incur the wrath of the Arab world.

By the end of 1964 three of the missile boats had been built and de-

livered. However, certain members of the West German government

leaked news of the deal to the New York Times, with the result that the

remaining missile boats, though still being financed by the repara-

tions scheme, would have to be built outside West Germany. The con-

tract for building the nine missile boats was given to the Cherbourg

shipyards in Normandy on the northern coast of France. The Cher-

bourg shipyards had little experience in building such boats, but with

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