Ari Ben-Menashe
Encyclopedia
Ari Ben-Menashe is the author of Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network, a book purporting to describe his involvement in Iran-Contra and other intelligence operations. An Iraqi Jew who was educated in Israel
, he is a former Israeli government
employee, and has said that he worked for the intelligence services. He has also said he was a "troubleshooter" for former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir
. Ben-Menashe now runs an international commodity exporting firm, Traeger Resources and Logistics Inc., which is registered in Montreal
, Canada
, where he lives.
Ben-Menashe came to the attention of the international media in 2002, when he alleged that Morgan Tsvangirai
, leader of Zimbabwe
's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, had asked him to help to "eliminate" President Robert Mugabe
. Ben-Menashe produced a videotape of conversations between himself and Tsvangirai in London
, England
, and Montreal, where the latter appeared to ask for Ben-Menashe's help as a political consultant. Unbeknownst to Tsvangirai, Ben-Menashe's Montreal consultancy firm at the time, Dickens and Madson, was working for Mugabe, and tapes of the ambiguous conversation were passed to the Zimbabwean authorities, who charged Tsvangirai with treason
, which is punishable by death in that country.
Tsvangarai was acquitted in 2004 when a court in Harare
accepted he had not used the word "eliminate" to mean that he wanted Mugabe to be assassinated
. Judge Paddington Garwe described Ben-Menashe, who was the prosecution's star witness, as "rude, unreliable, and contemptuous."
The Jerusalem Post, quoting an "authoritative" source, wrote on March 27, 1990 that Ben-Menashe had not worked for the Israeli government in any capacity, and that the Israeli defense establishment had had "no contact" with him. Documents subsequently obtained by American journalists showed that Ben-Menashe had, in fact, worked for the External Relations Department of Israeli military intelligence from 1977–87, though his critics say he was a low-level translator. However, Moshe Hevrony clearly stated:
Documents obtained in 2002 by Canadian journalists under Canada's freedom of information legislation
indicate that Ben-Menashe has supplied consultancy services to the Canadian government. Time Magazine has called him a "spinner of tangled yarns."
with having violated the Arms Export Control Act when he attempted to sell three Israeli C-130 transport planes to Iran using a false end-user certificate, in what turned out to be an FBI
sting operation
. He did not deny having tried to make the sale, but claimed in his defence that he was an Israeli intelligence officer, and that the sale was linked to Iran-Contra. The court accepted his story, and he was acquitted on November 28, 1990.
During subsequent meetings with journalists in the US and UK, Ben-Menashe made a number of claims about Mossad and individuals alleged to work for the agency.
He said that Robert Maxwell
, then owner of Mirror Group newspapers in the UK, was a Mossad agent, and that Maxwell had tipped off the Israeli embassy in 1986 about Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu
, after Vanunu and a friend approached the Sunday Mirror
and The Sunday Times
in London with a story about Israel's nuclear
capability. Vanunu was subsequently lured by Mossad from London to Rome, kidnapped, returned to Israel, and sentenced to 18 years in jail. Ben-Menashe also claimed that the Daily Mirror's foreign editor, Nick Davies
- not to be confused with Guardian journalist Nick Davies
- worked for the Mossad and had been involved in betraying Vanunu.
No British newspaper would publish the Maxwell allegations because of his well-known litigiousness
. However, Ben-Menashe was used as a key source by Pulitzer Prize
-winning New York Times journalist Seymour Hersh
for his book about Israel's nuclear weapons, The Samson Option: Israel, America and the Bomb
, published in Britain in 1991 by Faber and Faber
. Hersch included the allegations about Maxwell and Vanunu in his book, but still no British newspaper would run with the story.
On October 21, 1991, two Members of Parliament
, Labour
MP George Galloway
and Conservative
MP Rupert Allason
(who writes spy novels under the pseudonym Nigel West)
agreed to raise the issue in the House of Commons
, which enabled newspapers to claim privilege
and report the allegations. Nick Davies was subsequently fired from the Daily Mirror for gross misconduct. Robert Maxwell issued a writ for libel against Faber and Faber and Seymour Hersh, allegedly telling Davies that the Mirror editor had threatened to resign if Davies was not fired, but that he would get his job back when the dust settled (Davies 1992).
Two weeks later, on November 5, 1991, Maxwell died when he fell off his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, during the night. Ben-Menashe subsequently said that Maxwell had been assassinated by the Mossad because Maxwell had tried to blackmail
them.
On November 12, Matthew Evans, the chairman of Faber and Faber, called a press conference in London, to say he had evidence that Ben-Menashe had been telling the truth about Nick Davies. Evans read out a statement from Seymour Hersh, who said he had documentation showing meetings between Davies, unnamed Mossad officers, and the woman, "Cindy" (Cheryl Bentov), who had lured Vanunu to Rome. It transpired that Matthew Evans and Seymour Hersh had themselves been the subject of a sting operation by Joe Flynn, Fleet Street
's most celebrated con man
. Evans had met Flynn in Amsterdam, paying him £1,200 for the forged documents. No subsequent evidence emerged to support Ben-Menashe's allegations about either Maxwell or Davies.
attend a meeting with members of the Iranian government in Paris in October 1980, as part of a covert Republican Party
operation — the so-called October Surprise
— to have the 52 U.S hostages then held in Iran remain there until President Jimmy Carter
, who was negotiating their release, had lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan
.
in 1992, said of Ben-Menashe:
, Australia
in 1992, then to Canada, where he married a Canadian woman and became a citizen. He was arrested in 2002 during acrimonious divorce proceedings, and charged with assault, following complaints by his wife and mother-in-law, but was subsequently acquitted. He set up Carlington Sales Canada Corporation, which was accused of taking payments for shipments of grain that allegedly never materialized, according to Canada's National Post (July 25, 2005). Ben-Menashe's American business partner, Alexander Legault, was arrested in October 2008 while being deported back into the United States after a failed refugee claim in Canada. He had been wanted on $10,000,000 bond by the FBI since 1986 on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, organized fraud, mail fraud and unregulated security in Florida and Louisiana.
In June 2005, Alexander Vassiliev of Sonox International, a Florida-based food export company, told the National Post that he had wired a deposit of U.S.$336,000 to Ben-Menashe's former company, Albury Grain Sales, which undertook to ship 12,000 tonnes of soybeans from North America to a Sonox agent in Uzbekistan
. Vassiliev alleged that the soybeans did not arrive. The case went to court and was dismissed then referred to arbitration, where it was again dismissed.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, he is a former Israeli government
Politics of Israel
The Israeli system of government is based on parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of government and leader of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Knesset. The Judiciary is independent of the executive...
employee, and has said that he worked for the intelligence services. He has also said he was a "troubleshooter" for former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir
Yitzhak Shamir
' is a former Israeli politician, the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, in 1983–84 and 1986–92.-Biography:Icchak Jeziernicky was born in Ruzhany , Russian Empire . He studied at a Hebrew High School in Białystok, Poland. As a youth he joined Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement...
. Ben-Menashe now runs an international commodity exporting firm, Traeger Resources and Logistics Inc., which is registered in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, where he lives.
Ben-Menashe came to the attention of the international media in 2002, when he alleged that Morgan Tsvangirai
Morgan Tsvangirai
Morgan Richard Tsvangirai is the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. He is the President of the Movement for Democratic Change - Tsvangirai and a key figure in the opposition to President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe on 11 February 2009...
, leader of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, had asked him to help to "eliminate" President Robert Mugabe
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...
. Ben-Menashe produced a videotape of conversations between himself and Tsvangirai in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and Montreal, where the latter appeared to ask for Ben-Menashe's help as a political consultant. Unbeknownst to Tsvangirai, Ben-Menashe's Montreal consultancy firm at the time, Dickens and Madson, was working for Mugabe, and tapes of the ambiguous conversation were passed to the Zimbabwean authorities, who charged Tsvangirai with treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
, which is punishable by death in that country.
Tsvangarai was acquitted in 2004 when a court in Harare
Harare
Harare before 1982 known as Salisbury) is the largest city and capital of Zimbabwe. It has an estimated population of 1,600,000, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area . Administratively, Harare is an independent city equivalent to a province. It is Zimbabwe's largest city and its...
accepted he had not used the word "eliminate" to mean that he wanted Mugabe to be assassinated
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
. Judge Paddington Garwe described Ben-Menashe, who was the prosecution's star witness, as "rude, unreliable, and contemptuous."
The Jerusalem Post, quoting an "authoritative" source, wrote on March 27, 1990 that Ben-Menashe had not worked for the Israeli government in any capacity, and that the Israeli defense establishment had had "no contact" with him. Documents subsequently obtained by American journalists showed that Ben-Menashe had, in fact, worked for the External Relations Department of Israeli military intelligence from 1977–87, though his critics say he was a low-level translator. However, Moshe Hevrony clearly stated:
Ben-Menashe worked directly under me... He had access to very, very sensitive material.
Documents obtained in 2002 by Canadian journalists under Canada's freedom of information legislation
Freedom of information legislation
Freedom of information legislation comprises laws that guarantee access to data held by the state. They establish a "right-to-know" legal process by which requests may be made for government-held information, to be received freely or at minimal cost, barring standard exceptions...
indicate that Ben-Menashe has supplied consultancy services to the Canadian government. Time Magazine has called him a "spinner of tangled yarns."
Iran-Contra
Ben-Menashe's first exposure to the Western media was in 1989, when he was charged in the U.S.United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with having violated the Arms Export Control Act when he attempted to sell three Israeli C-130 transport planes to Iran using a false end-user certificate, in what turned out to be an FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
sting operation
Sting operation
In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person committing a crime. A typical sting will have a law-enforcement officer or cooperative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather...
. He did not deny having tried to make the sale, but claimed in his defence that he was an Israeli intelligence officer, and that the sale was linked to Iran-Contra. The court accepted his story, and he was acquitted on November 28, 1990.
Robert Maxwell
He said that Robert Maxwell
Robert Maxwell
Ian Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
, then owner of Mirror Group newspapers in the UK, was a Mossad agent, and that Maxwell had tipped off the Israeli embassy in 1986 about Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu
Mordechai Vanunu
Mordechai Vanunu ; is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was drugged and kidnapped by...
, after Vanunu and a friend approached the Sunday Mirror
Sunday Mirror
The Sunday Mirror is the Sunday sister paper of the Daily Mirror. It began life in 1915 as the Sunday Pictorial and was renamed the Sunday Mirror in 1963. Trinity Mirror also owns The People...
and The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
in London with a story about Israel's nuclear
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
capability. Vanunu was subsequently lured by Mossad from London to Rome, kidnapped, returned to Israel, and sentenced to 18 years in jail. Ben-Menashe also claimed that the Daily Mirror's foreign editor, Nick Davies
Nicholas Davies
Nicholas Davies, also known as Nick Davies, is a journalist and author, formerly foreign editor at the Daily Mirror. He was closely associated with Robert Maxwell, and was the centre of considerable UK media attention in 1991 after he was accused in Seymour Hersh's book The Samson Option of...
- not to be confused with Guardian journalist Nick Davies
Nick Davies
Nick Davies is a British investigative journalist, writer and documentary maker.Davies has written extensively as a freelancer, as well as for The Guardian and The Observer, and been named Reporter of the Year Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards...
- worked for the Mossad and had been involved in betraying Vanunu.
Slander and libel
Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander , and libel —is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image...
. However, Ben-Menashe was used as a key source by Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning New York Times journalist Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
for his book about Israel's nuclear weapons, The Samson Option: Israel, America and the Bomb
The Samson Option (book)
The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations...
, published in Britain in 1991 by Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
. Hersch included the allegations about Maxwell and Vanunu in his book, but still no British newspaper would run with the story.
On October 21, 1991, two Members of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
MP George Galloway
George Galloway
George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...
and Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
MP Rupert Allason
Rupert Allason
Rupert William Simon Allason is a military historian and former Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997...
(who writes spy novels under the pseudonym Nigel West)
agreed to raise the issue in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
, which enabled newspapers to claim privilege
Privilege
A privilege is a special entitlement to immunity granted by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth or on a conditional basis. It can be revoked in certain circumstances. In modern democratic states, a privilege is conditional and granted only after birth...
and report the allegations. Nick Davies was subsequently fired from the Daily Mirror for gross misconduct. Robert Maxwell issued a writ for libel against Faber and Faber and Seymour Hersh, allegedly telling Davies that the Mirror editor had threatened to resign if Davies was not fired, but that he would get his job back when the dust settled (Davies 1992).
Two weeks later, on November 5, 1991, Maxwell died when he fell off his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, during the night. Ben-Menashe subsequently said that Maxwell had been assassinated by the Mossad because Maxwell had tried to blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
them.
On November 12, Matthew Evans, the chairman of Faber and Faber, called a press conference in London, to say he had evidence that Ben-Menashe had been telling the truth about Nick Davies. Evans read out a statement from Seymour Hersh, who said he had documentation showing meetings between Davies, unnamed Mossad officers, and the woman, "Cindy" (Cheryl Bentov), who had lured Vanunu to Rome. It transpired that Matthew Evans and Seymour Hersh had themselves been the subject of a sting operation by Joe Flynn, Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
's most celebrated con man
Confidence trick
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
. Evans had met Flynn in Amsterdam, paying him £1,200 for the forged documents. No subsequent evidence emerged to support Ben-Menashe's allegations about either Maxwell or Davies.
Other claims
Ben-Menashe also testified in 1991 that he had personally witnessed George H. W. BushGeorge H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
attend a meeting with members of the Iranian government in Paris in October 1980, as part of a covert Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
operation — the so-called October Surprise
October surprise
In American political jargon, an October surprise is a news event with the potential to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the U.S. presidency...
— to have the 52 U.S hostages then held in Iran remain there until President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
, who was negotiating their release, had lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
.
Lie-detector test
Several news organizations tried to ridicule Ben-Menashe's claims. Time Magazine published a two-page story about him in 1991, calling him a "spinner of tangled yarns." ABC News put him through a lie-detector test, which concluded that, on a scale of reliability from zero to minus eight "on every major question Menashe was recorded either minus eight or minus seven ..." American journalist Craig Unger, writing in The Village VoiceThe Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
in 1992, said of Ben-Menashe:
Ari has put five or six dozen journalists from all over the world through roughly the same paces. His seduction begins with a display of his mastery of the trade craft of the legendary Israeli intelligence services. A roll of quarters handy for furtive phone calls, he navigates the back channels that tie the spooks at LangleyCentral Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
to their counterparts in Tel AvivTel AvivTel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
. His astute analysis and mind-boggling revelations can stir even the most jaded old hand of the Middle EastMiddle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
... Listen to him, trust him, print his story verbatim — then sit round and watch your career go up in flames.
Recent events
Ben-Menashe moved to SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1992, then to Canada, where he married a Canadian woman and became a citizen. He was arrested in 2002 during acrimonious divorce proceedings, and charged with assault, following complaints by his wife and mother-in-law, but was subsequently acquitted. He set up Carlington Sales Canada Corporation, which was accused of taking payments for shipments of grain that allegedly never materialized, according to Canada's National Post (July 25, 2005). Ben-Menashe's American business partner, Alexander Legault, was arrested in October 2008 while being deported back into the United States after a failed refugee claim in Canada. He had been wanted on $10,000,000 bond by the FBI since 1986 on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, organized fraud, mail fraud and unregulated security in Florida and Louisiana.
In June 2005, Alexander Vassiliev of Sonox International, a Florida-based food export company, told the National Post that he had wired a deposit of U.S.$336,000 to Ben-Menashe's former company, Albury Grain Sales, which undertook to ship 12,000 tonnes of soybeans from North America to a Sonox agent in Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
. Vassiliev alleged that the soybeans did not arrive. The case went to court and was dismissed then referred to arbitration, where it was again dismissed.
Further reading
- Cohen, Julie. "Who Will Unwrap the October Surprise?", Columbia Journalism Review, September 1991.
- Hersh, Seymour. The Sampson Option, 1991.
- Malloy, Sean. Fact or fiction? The claims of Ari Ben-Menashe, The Green Left Weekly, February 5, 1992.
- Unger, Craig. Saving the Saudis, Vanity Fair, October 1, 2003.
- Weinberg, Steve. The October Surprise: Enter the Press, Columbia Journalism Review, March 1992.
- "Ben-Menashe strikes again", The Review, March 2002.
- "Ari Ben-Menashe, Israeli spy and arms dealer", CBC, March 5, 2002.