Amiram Nir

Amiram Nir was a former Israeli TV newsman and a counterterrorism adviser to Shimon Peres. He was originally a military officer in the tank corps and lost an eye in a training accident. He married Judy Moses, the daughter of the owner of Yediot Ahronot, a major Israeli newspaper chain.¹

Nir resigned from his TV job to work as a public relations adviser for Peres during the 1981 elections. After Peres became prime minister in 1984, he appointed Nir as his counterterrorism adviser. Nir found documents related to Eitan's U.S. spy network and the Joint Committee's arms sales to Iran.¹

Peres and Nir faced challenges from the Likud Party-controlled intelligence community and the lack of financial power within the Labor Party. Peres decided to open a competing arms channel, run by Nir, to gain control over the profitable Iran arms sales and to undermine the existing intelligence-community channel. Nir, despite his lack of experience in intelligence or business, sought support from individuals like Al Schwimmer and Yaacov Nimrodi.¹

Nir met with Robert McFarlane in Washington, D.C. and threatened him with exposure if he did not cooperate with the new channel. This led to McFarlane connecting Nir with Oliver North and John Poindexter of the National Security Council. Nir, North, and Poindexter gained the support of William J. Casey, then head of the CIA, and George H.W. Bush tacitly ignored the operation.¹

Nir's operation, however, struggled to make significant inroads into the arms trade. In April 1986, North initiated a sting operation, the Hashemi sting, to discredit the original channel and its members. Nir was also involved in the leaking of the Jonathan Pollard story to the FBI to further undermine the Likud Party's credibility.¹

In May 1986, North, McFarlane, and Nir traveled to Tehran disguised as Irish technicians, carrying TOW missiles and Hawk missile spare parts. They were detained, and the military equipment was confiscated. This incident, along with the delivery of outdated Hawk missiles with Israeli markings, effectively killed off the Iran end of the second channel.¹

Nir also faced problems with his plans for supplying the Contras, as Yitzhak Rabin refused to cooperate. A mysterious $10 million contribution from the Sultan of Brunei to North's group, wired through Bruce Rappaport, was leaked by the Joint Committee, further exposing the second channel.¹

Nir was due to be a major witness in North's trial and knew a great deal about Barbouti's chemical operation in Miami. He was killed in a plane crash in Mexico in November 1988, an event that Israeli intelligence believed was a CIA operation to prevent his testimony from embarrassing Peres, Reagan, or Bush.¹