Critics Call Him ‘Ambitious Amateur’ : Israeli Arms Coordinator Is Controversial Figure

The man who coordinated Israel’s part in the Reagan Administration’s U.S. arms-to-Iran program for the last 11 months is a wealthy former television journalist who may owe his selection for the job to professional help he gave a year earlier to Vice President George Bush’s task force on combating terrorism.

Amiram Nir, 36, counterterrorism adviser to the prime minister’s office, has refused to comment publicly on his role in the Iran arms affair. But he has nonetheless emerged in recent days as a key, and controversial, figure.

Critics here have branded him an ambitious “amateur” whose ill-considered actions--including a trip with U.S. officials to Tehran last May, disguised as a member of the flight crew--contributed to the ultimate exposure of the sensitive program.

Briefing Described

More seriously, a news report here Wednesday quoted “authoritative U.S. officials” as saying that Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the National Security Council aide fired last week for his part in the affair, has told U.S. investigators that he fully briefed Nir on the diversion of Iranian arms money to the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan rebels.

The report in the English-language Jerusalem Post brought a quick denial from a spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who, along with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, issued a government statement last week insisting that Israel knew nothing of the connection with the contra rebels.

“If indeed North told investigators of the Department of Justice what was reported in the press, then it must be stated that there is no foundation whatsoever to the story,” Shamir’s spokesman said Wednesday. “From what North told Amiram Nir, the latter did not have any idea that the funds . . . were destined for the contras.”

Dates Coincide

Nir became the Israeli coordinator of the arms-to-Iran effort late in 1985, about the same time that North took control of the American end of the operation.

The switch marked a new phase in the program, in which the Israeli arms dealers who had played key roles as middlemen in the first stage were cut out of the picture. The goal, according to Israeli sources, was to tighten control over the operation by running it on a direct government-to-government basis, with arms shipped directly from the United States instead of coming out of Israeli stockpiles.

A senior Israeli source said the American side suggested that Nir coordinate the Israeli part of the program. Previously, this source said, Nir had worked closely with Vice President Bush’s blue-ribbon panel on terrorism, established in June, 1985, in the aftermath of the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in Beirut.

‘Lots of Good Material’

“He gave Bush’s people lots of good material,” the source said, earning Nir several commendations that were passed on to Israeli leaders.

Initially, Nir knew nothing of the Iran arms program; the first shipments were arranged through Jacob Nimrodi, a prominent Israeli arms dealer, former intelligence agent and military attache in Iran.

According to one disputed account, Nir became aware of the operation from a talkative American official who discussed it freely in front of him in the belief that Nir was fully involved.

In any event, the switch from Nimrodi to Nir late in 1985 apparently generated bad blood. Nir’s supporters criticized the early phases of the program as unwieldy and riddled with clumsy mistakes, such as the shipment in November, 1985, of outdated versions of the Hawk missile, which Iran angrily returned later. They also suggest that Nimrodi made millions of dollars on the arrangement--a contention he flatly denies.

Controversy Not New

Nimrodi’s friends, including powerful politicians such as former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, have ridiculed Nir as an “amateur” who drew Israel too directly into what has become a damaging scandal.

Controversy is not new to Nir.

A former paratrooper wounded in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he later served briefly in the standing army before becoming Israel television’s military correspondent.

He quit television in 1981 amid reports that Peres promised to make him chief of his personal staff if he won that year’s elections and became prime minister. Nir has denied the account.

As it turned out, Peres lost anyway, and Nir became a staff member at Tel Aviv University’s prestigious Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, where he concentrated on national security doctrine and Israel’s Lebanon policy.

Unpopular Appointment

Three years later, when a new Prime Minister Peres tapped him to become his anti-terrorism adviser, the appointment was so unpopular in defense circles here that Peres had to defend it on television. “What’s so wrong with giving a chance to a young armored corps battalion commander?” he asked rhetorically, referring to Nir’s job in the army reserves.

Critics suggested that Peres was playing politics, and they cited Nir’s 1982 marriage into the family of the country’s most powerful publishing family. (He and his wife, Judy Moses, have two sons, the youngest born just three weeks ago.)

However, an independent defense source said that while Nir was initially viewed as unprepared for the job, he won the grudging respect of many as he proved to be an intelligent and efficient staff man, capable of distilling vast amounts of information into cogent reports for the country’s decision-makers.

May Be Immune

Shamir had nonetheless been expected to replace Nir with one of his own people as soon as possible. But the current scandal may have given the anti-terrorism adviser a new lease on his job.

Israel claims to be innocent of any wrongdoing in the Iran arms affair, noted one Peres intimate. And to fire Nir now would only throw doubt on that claim. “If now he’s removed, everybody will say it’s for his part in the Iranian thing,” the Peres associate said.

Meanwhile, Nir adds a certain symmetry to the scandal. His rank in the army reserves is lieutenant colonel--the same as Oliver North’s.