Kimche: The Missing Link Between Iran and Contras?

It wasn’t supposed to end this way, four Americans isolated on the top floor of the old Hilton Hotel in Tehran, waiting in vain for some senior Iranian officials to share their chocolate cake. This certainly isn’t what the leader of the U.S. delegation, former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, had in mind when, years before, he began musing about a new U.S.-Iranian dialogue.

Hearing it from a number of U.S. officials, McFarlane had two men to thank for helping to bring him to this sorry state. The first was the now well-known Lt. Col. Oliver L. North. What is not so well known is that North actually brought the chocolate cake--which, by the way, was not in the shape of a key--to Tehran as a joke. Apparently one of the Iranian middlemen whom North dealt with had once suggested facetiously, “When you come to Iran bring a chocolate cake.” The other was McFarlane’s friend and sometime intellectual godfather, David Kimche.

David Kimche? At first glance this English-accented, toupee-wearing, former Israeli official is not very impressive. From 1981 until 1986, he served as director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the top civil service position.

But to Americans and Israelis who knew him well, Kimche was no ordinary career bureaucrat. North has reportedly said Kimche was the man who first suggested diverting profits from the Iranian arms sales to aid the contras in Nicaragua (an assertion Kimche vehemently denies). While other, more impartial, American officials doubt this charge, they say that Kimche provided the intellectual underpinnings for the Iran initiative. “He gave McFarlane much of what passed for an intellectual construct,” said one critical State Department official. “Of course it helped that McFarlane thought the Israelis knew everything.”

But Kimche could be easy to admire. He was seen as a man of action as well as intellect. He had spent most of his professional life in the Mossad, Israel’s CIA, rising to the No. 2 position before moving over to the Foreign Ministry. His sponsor there was Yitzhak Shamir (now Israel’s prime minister), then foreign minister under Menachem Begin and a former Mossad operative. Kimche’s appointment raised an outcry from Israel’s Foreign Service Corps--the office of director general had traditionally been reserved for a Foreign Service professional. But Begin and Shamir held firm and countered with an argument familiar to Americans over the past six years: Professionals lack the requisite toughness to promote a bold and decisive foreign policy.

Kimche was nothing if not bold and decisive. He quickly became a leading advocate of new approaches to the Maronite Christians in Lebanon, in particular an advocate of their powerful, young leader, Bashir Gemayel. “Kimche thought Israel could restructure Lebanon, eliminate the Palestine Liberation Organization and neutralize the Syrians,” said one State Department Middle East expert. “He envisioned a powerful Christian-led Lebanese state under the control of Bashir.”

With his grandiose schemes for Lebanon, Kimche alienated many former Mossad colleagues, not to mention his fellow Foreign Ministry officials. But as if to compensate for these losses, he gained some new supporters--Americans, notably McFarlane, a rising star at the State Department who was a confidant of Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr.

In early 1982, Haig sent McFarlane to Jerusalem to begin a series of meetings on strategic cooperation between Israel and the United States. The secretary was looking for a way to fashion an alliance of anti-communist, pro-Western Middle East states--Israel and Arab alike. And Kimche was the man to see.

It soon became apparent that the Arabs, particularly Saudi Arabia, would have nothing to do with an alliance that included Israel. For that matter, the Israelis had different priorities. According to Administration officials, Kimche from the beginning urged the United States to cultivate ties with Ethiopia, Turkey and Iran. This policy was in keeping with Israel’s long-standing objective of promoting non-Arab regional states.

Despite the difference in emphasis, McFarlane came away impressed. As one veteran of these meetings explains, “Kimche was that rare breed, an intellectual who was also a hard-nosed operative.” Another U.S. official who spent many hours in meetings with Kimche put it this way: “He was non-ideological, non-flamboyant, but self-confident--a pleasure to do business with.”

Before McFarlane moved over to the National Security Council staff in 1982, he arranged for Kimche to meet regularly with senior State Department officials. These spring and fall gatherings, held alternately in Washington and Jerusalem, are an opportunity for both sides, in the words of one U.S. official, “to look at the big picture.” Though no subject is off limits, the business of the peace process has rarely been raised because there are so many other opportunities for U.S. and Israeli officials to talk about it. And because of Kimche’s interest in the Third World, Africa, Latin America and Iran tended to be emphasized.

In Africa, Kimche was looking for U.S. assistance in re-establishing Israel’s diplomatic position, undermined by the 1973 Yom Kippur War and Jerusalem’s ties to the white minority regime in South Africa. But in Latin America, particularly in Central America, Kimche sought to assist the United States.

Even before the rise of the Sandinistas, Central America was a bastion of support for Israel. Moreover, Central American countries are among Israel’s few consistent supporters in the United Nations. In return, Israel provides economic assistance and arms to these countries. In fact, Sandinista opposition to Israel can be traced to Jerusalem’s unswerving military support for the Somozas (who provided a crucial arms flow to Israel during its 1948 War of Independence). And Israeli arms merchants were among the last to leave Managua after the fall of Anastasio Somoza.

Reagan Administration officials quickly recognized the potential benefits of a more active Israeli role in Central America. “It is easier for Israelis to win hearts and minds in Latin America than for us,” said one U.S. official. “They are more effective with their aid projects and they can deliver more quickly.” Politically, Kimche and his U.S. counterparts discussed ways of stopping what one Administration participant in the meetings called “the Sandinistas’ momentum.” This official cites, for example, discussions in 1985 about denying Nicaragua the chairmanship of the Nonaligned Movement.

The year 1985 was also a time for renewed discussions about an opening to Iran. Kimche, in Washington for his formal talks at the State Department, used the opportunity to meet with McFarlane. In trotting out his old arguments about the need to improve relations with non-Arab states, Kimche found a new receptivity. “Kimche was concerned about the long-term prospects in Iran. He worried aloud about the possibility of Soviet inroads after the death of Khomeini,” said one U.S. official.

This was, of course, the argument that later surfaced as the official Administration rationale for selling arms to Iran. But Kimche, according to an informed Administration source, had no illusions about the real U.S. motivation: “For better or worse Kimche knew of our obsession with the hostages but played the opening to Iran for all it was worth.” As one State Department critic said, “McFarlane needed an urbane, sophisticated rationale and Kimche gave it to him.”

Another official, who knows Kimche well, observed, “He was a hands-on guy. And he enjoyed taking risks.” This official thought for a moment and then said, “sounds a lot like Ollie North.”