Kimche, former deputy director of the Mossad and then director-
general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, with a lasting penchant for clan-
destine activity; Al Schwimmer, an American-Jewish billionaire who
had founded the Israeli aircraft industry and was a close friend of Shi-
mon Peres; and the Saudi tycoon Adnan Khashoggi. These men be-
came key figures in an arms deal with revolutionary Iran known later
as the Irangate Affair. Nimrodi is now in retirement but still has many
varied investments in Israel.NINIO, MARCELLE VICTORINE (1929– ).A Cairo-born Jew,
Ninio was the daughter of a man who had fled from Bulgaria to
Egypt on the eve of World War I. She worked in Cairo for a French
water construction company. She was cosmopolitan and educated but
she joined Ha’Shomer Ha’Tsair, the Jewish youth movement in
Cairo, and Ha’Koach, the Jewish basketball team. In 1951 Ninio was
recruited by Major Avraham Darof Unit 131to the Cairo cell of the
Jewish espionage network in Egypt.
On Dar’s instructions, Ninio set up a travel agency in Cairo called
Grunberg Travel; she was in charge of ticketing. This enabled mem-
bers of the espionage network to buy tickets to Europe without arous-
ing the suspicions of any other travel-agency clerk. Ninio was ar-
rested together with all the other members of the network in Egypt
after the Bad Businessin 1954. Undergoing brutal interrogations,
she attempted suicide but failed. She gave her interrogators informa-
tion identifying Max Binnet, which led to his arrest.
Ninio was tried and on 27 January 1955 sentenced to 15 years in
prison. After 14 years in jail, the prisoner exchange following the
1967 Six-Day Warsecured her release, together with the rest of the
network’s prisoners. They were allowed to leave Egypt for Europe,
and thereafter they traveled to Israel. Their presence in Israel was an
official secret until 1971, when on the occasion of Ninio’s wedding
Prime Minister Golda Meir decided that her presence and that of the
other members of the network should no longer remain secret. On 30
March 2005 she was accorded recognition by Israel’s president Moshe
Katsav and the chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Moshe
Ya’alon, for her services to the state and for her years of suffering.NIR, AMIRAM (1950–1988).Nir, who was born in Israel, was ap-
pointed in late 1984, age 34, to the newly created post of adviser on210 • NINIO, MARCELLE VICTORINE06-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 210