James Jesus Angleton was the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s director of counterintelligence and was also responsible for liaison with [[Israel]]. He was known for his insistence on secrecy and his paranoia about Soviet penetration of the Agency. Angleton's increasing inability to deal with the real world eventually led to his firing in late 1974. He had worked closely with members of the Jewish resistance in [[Italy]] at the end of World War II, during a period when thousands of Jewish refugees and concentration camp survivors were being illicitly funneled from [[Europe]] into [[Palestine]].[^1] Angleton's closest colleague was [[Meir Deshalit]], an Israeli intelligence official. Angleton shared Deshalit's view of the Soviet and Arab threat to [[Israel]], and his personal contacts and strong feelings made him the logical choice to handle liaison between the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and the Israeli government. His assignment was crucial in the 1950s and early 1960s due to the continuous flow of Soviet and Eastern European refugees into [[Israel]]. Angleton and his Israeli counterparts ran the "rat lines," as the Jewish refugee link became known, which provided the West with important insights into the Soviet bloc. Some of these programs were financed off the shelf by [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] contingency funds, as part of [[KK MOUNTAIN]].[^1] Despite his love for [[Israel]] and shared views on the Arab and Soviet question, Angleton investigated any Israeli or American Jew he suspected of trafficking in classified information, particularly nuclear technology. The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] suspected that [[Israel]]'s quid pro quo for French help at [[Dimona]] included access to design information purloined from U.S. nuclear laboratories. While no evidence of such a link was found, investigators discovered Angleton's personal files revealing a long-running and questionable study of American Jews in the government, based on a "Jewishness index" that included synagogue attendance as a basis for suspicion.[^1] Angleton also sponsored a highly secret [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] operation, through the [[CHAOS program]], involving the Agency's purchase of a [[Washington D.C.]] trash collection company. This firm had contracts to pick up garbage at various Third World embassies, including the Israeli embassy, and the trash was systematically sorted and analyzed for intelligence.[^1] Angleton's first intelligence report on [[Israel]]'s plans to build the bomb was filed routinely in the late 1950s. He continued to produce intelligence on [[Dimona]] based on information from his personal contacts, but never learned or reported the full extent of [[Israel]]'s deception regarding its nuclear weapons progress. His reports on [[Dimona]], even when buttressed by [[U-2 Spy Plane|U-2]] data, did not result in an official [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] estimate that [[Israel]] was going nuclear, as analysts in the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s Office of National Estimates (ONE) did not find his HUMINT sources reliable.[^1] ### Footnotes [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 11.