Profits of War

Book excerpt: In this seminal work originally published in 1992, an insider account from the man who paid off the Iranians for the American hostages Ari Ben-Menashe spent more than a decade in the innermost circles of Israeli intelligence. He was privy to the secret negotiations with the Iranians to delay the release of the American hostages until after the election of Ronald Reagan, he enlisted Robert Gates in the transfer of the $52 million payoff to Iran, and was Robert Maxwell's handler. Ben-Menashe brokered secret Israeli arms sales on four continents and briefed George Bush on the vast arms network. He saw Israel's own nuclear arsenal develop, and watched his masters sponsor monstrous terrorist acts in the name of a higher good. Then, as he questioned the immorality around him, he was cut off and set up. This is the full story of the man who oversaw the accumulation of hundreds of millions of dollars in CIA and Israeli intelligence slush funds.