By Joe Spier
CALGARY, Alberta, Canada — On July 29, 1977, at Kfar Habad, a village near Tel Aviv, a bar mitzvah was in progress. After reading from the Torah, 13 year old, Shai Cohen spoke, “I promise you, father, that in my life I will never fail you. I will do my duty with all my strength and my devotion for the nation of Israel. I will be a faithful son of an admired hero. I will try to be like you, father. That is my pledge.”
In addition to Shai’s family and friends, in attendance were Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, Chief of Staff Motta Gur and several strangers to most present. They were members of the Mossad, Israel’s Secret Intelligence Service and were there to honor the memory of Shai’s father, their fallen colleague Eli Cohen, Israel’s greatest spy.
Eli Cohen was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on December 26, 1924, the second of eight children in a family of orthodox Jews.
In his late teens, Cohen became an ardent Zionist and at the same time, as World War II ended, Egypt was increasingly persecuting its Jews. As a result, there sprung up in Egypt a branch of the Jewish organization set up in Palestine to smuggle Jews into the territory. Cohen joined. Cohen at first acted as a courier but later took on the more dangerous job of bribing Egyptian officials for cooperation. In 1950, Cohen’s family, with his help, emigrated to Israel but he stayed.
In 1951, Cohen was recruited to do undercover work for Israel and was sent to Israel for a three-month course to train as a spy. On his return to Egypt, Cohen worked as a radio operator, transmitting intelligence to Israel. Cohen was twice taken into custody by the Egyptian Intelligence Service on suspicion of clandestine activities but both times was released for lack of evidence. Nevertheless, after his second incarceration, Cohen was expelled from Egypt and so in 1956, at the age of 32, Cohen arrived in Israel joining the thousands of Jews that he had helped make aliyah.
Eli Cohen’s adjustment to Israel was not easy. He was a loner, spent several months traveling around the country and did not work for almost a year. Finally, he was offered a job in the Ministry of Defense translating Arab newspapers into Hebrew and analyzing their contents. The job was tedious and after a year, Cohen went to his superiors requesting fieldwork. After all he had espionage experience, was born in an Arab country, had oriental features and spoke English, French and Arabic. He was refused. The Mossad has a policy of not accepting volunteers as field agents fearing that they may be adventurers. Angry, Cohen quit and took a job as an accountant with a department store chain. In 1959, Eli met and later married his wife, beautiful, Iraqi born, Nadia. They would have three children, Sophie, Irit and Shai.
The Mossad never really forgot Cohen. They knew of his undercover work in Egypt and his language skills. They also knew that he was daring and fearless, of superior intelligence and possessed an exceptional memory. They waited for Cohen to settle comfortably into life in Israel so that the only motive to join the Mossad would be desire to serve country. In 1960, the Mossad felt that Cohen was ready. He was recruited by a Mossad operative nicknamed ‘the Dervish’ who, after a long period of questioning and a battery of medical and psychological tests, invited Cohen to join. Cohen accepted.
Cohen now embarked upon an extensive and grueling 6-month training course. He learned weapons proficiency, unarmed combat, sabotage, radio transmission, cryptography, surveillance, evasive techniques and because he was selected to operate in Syria, to change his Egyptian accented Arabic to the Syrian dialect.
At the beginning of 1961, Eli Cohen was driven to the airport where he boarded a flight to Europe after saying goodbye to his wife, Nadia, who was only told that her husband would be working for the Ministry of Defense in some vague job.
On February 6, 1961, Syrian expatriate, Kamil Amin Taabes, a bachelor and bon vivant Muslim businessman who had inherited a large fortune and whose lifelong dream was to return to Syria to contribute to its growth and work toward the destruction of Israel, boarded a Swissair flight from Zurich to Buenos Aires. Taabes was in fact Eli Cohen, now traveling under the persona invented for him by the Mossad who had determined that the best way for Cohen to infiltrate into Syria was through Argentina, home to a large and affluent Syrian community. Cohen’s assignment was to penetrate into the Syrian power structure.
Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, Cohen (Taabes) opened an account in an Arab bank, wore flashy clothes, drove a luxury car and hung out at the favorite haunts of the Syrian elite. He became part of the social and cultural life of the local Syrian community. Through a series of lavish dinner parties, Cohen formed connections with Syrian diplomats and military officials including Amin al-Hafez, Syria’s military attaché to Argentina, Cohen, as a result of his cultivation of diplomatic contacts, in short order, was invited to Syria to set up business operations.
In February 1962, Cohen arrived in Damascus. He carried with him a powerful miniature radio transmitter hidden in the false bottom of a food mixer, the cord of his electric razor serving as the antenna, cyanide tablets disguised as aspirin, high explosive chemicals hidden in toothpaste tubes and cans of shaving cream and the finest camera equipment. He rented an apartment purposely located across the street from Syrian Army headquarters and went about setting up an import-export business, the hollowed out legs of his shipped furniture serving as hiding places for microfilm and written notes, which circuitously made their way to Israel.
Cohen spent his days cultivating his friends who were increasingly becoming the most influential and powerful men in Syria. In 1963, as a result of a coup, Cohen’s old friend from Argentina, Amin al-Hafez became President of Syria. Cohen was completely trusted and even at one time considered for the post of Minister of Information and Propaganda. Cohen’s parties were legendary and were attended by Syria’s power elite who talked freely of their work. These high placed Syrians particularly enjoyed the use of his bachelor pad for assignations with various women. Cohen spent his nights conveying the information that he had learned to Israel using his radio transmitter or secreted in his exported furniture.
Much of the intelligence that Eli Cohen forwarded to Israel remains classified but some has become public.
One of Cohen’ earliest reports warned of an imminent armored attack into Israel. As a result, a preventative assault by planes and artillery was ordered upon the Syrian base thus thwarting the attack.
Cohen learned that Nazi war criminal Franz Rademacher, responsible for the extermination of tens of thousands of Jews, was hiding in Syria. This information was relayed to Germany who eventually extradited him to stand trial.
Cohen passed on information regarding the modernization, equipping and retraining of the Syrian military by Russia including close-up photographs of Russia’s newest MIG 21 fighter, data on the arrival into Syria of the advanced Soviet T54 tank, and a complete set of Russian made plans for how Syria could cut off Northern Israel in a surprise attack.
Cohen forwarded to Israel, detailed plans of Syria’s scheme to starve Israel of water by diverting the headwaters of the Jordan River. As a result, Israel was able to foil their plans by bombing the earthmoving equipment. Syria understood the message.
For 19 years, Northern Israel had been under constant threat of Syrian barrage from a series of fortified concrete bunkers housing long-range artillery constructed on the slopes of the Golan Heights. Cohen was the only civilian permitted to tour these installations and was even permitted to take photographs. His remarkable memory permitted him to map what he had seen all of which made its way back to Israel. The Syrian military officers even thought that Cohen’s suggestion to plant eucalyptus trees around the artillery emplacements for camouflage and to give the gunners some needed shade was a good idea.
During each of his first three years in Syria, Cohen took an extended business trip abroad. In reality, he returned home to Israel to spend time with his wife and children, to rest and relax and to undergo thorough in-person debriefing by his Mossad handlers. At the end of his last visit, Cohen told Nadia that he had to go abroad again but when he returned he would never leave her. One more time and then he was determined to retire from field duty.
On January 18, 1965, eight Syrian security officers burst into Cohen’s Damascus apartment while he was transmitting. He was caught red handed. Cohen’s capture was mere chance. The Syrians in trying to track down security leaks were using a state of the art Soviet wireless scanner in Cohen’s neighborhood just at the time he was transmitting.
Syrian Intelligence at first attempted to use Cohen to send false information via his transmitter to Israel but his keystroke change of cadence alerted the Mossad to his capture. The game ended when President al-Hafez, who had personally been duped by Cohen, ordered a show trial. When the two met, Cohen re-introduced himself, “I am Eli Cohen from Tel Aviv a soldier in the Israeli Army”.
On May 8, Cohen was sentenced to death. Israel, desperate to save his life, offered to exchange all Syrian spies and criminals in their custody for Cohen. They offered to purchase the life of Eli Cohen. They had foreign governments including Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker plead for mercy. Even the Pope intervened. All efforts were in vain.
Shortly after 3:30 A.M. on May 18, 1965 Cohen was publicly hanged before a vast crowd of jeering Syrians, his body left to dangle for the next six hours and then cut down to be buried in an unmarked grave at an undisclosed location somewhere inside Syria.
Two years after the death of Eli Cohen, the six-day war erupted. Israel captured the Golan Heights in two days but first had to destroy the Syrian gun emplacements and fortified bunkers of the Golan escarpment. Not too difficult a job for the Israeli pilots, as all they had to do was aim for the eucalyptus trees planted at Cohen’s suggestion.
The last chapter is yet to be written. In the 50 years since Cohen’s death, his family and successive Israeli governments, who have never forgotten their fallen warrior, have pleaded for the return of his remains. All pleas have been rejected.
Someday Eli Cohen may find his eternal rest in Israel. On that day Eli Cohen, soldier of Israel, who bravely toiled in solitude far from home, his payment being the cruciality of his work, will come in from the cold.
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Spier is a retired lawyer with a keen interest in Jewish history. You may contact him via joe.spier@sdjewishworld.com, or post your comment on this website provided that the rules below are observed.
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