The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (60 page)

Robert Ames died during a tragic turning point in the Lebanese civil war. When the American embassy in Beirut collapsed, so too did Washington’s enthusiasm for its peacekeeping mission. After 1983, it all went downhill. By early 1984, President Ronald Reagan ordered the U.S. marines who were hunkered down on the outskirts of Beirut to retreat. Lebanon’s civil war resumed and further descended into six more years of bloody conflict. Thirty years later, the Shi’a political and military force we now know as Hezbollah dominates the Lebanese landscape and threatens to spark yet another Arab-Israeli war.

America retreated not only from Lebanon but also from any real responsibility for resolving what by any measure remains one of the world’s most dangerous sectarian, national conflicts. President Reagan never insisted on having the parties to the conflict implement the 1979 Camp David Accords. And after Ames’s death, Reagan virtually gave up on his own peace initiative. The Palestinian-Israeli dispute remains a dangerously destabilizing conflict. The events of 1983 led not
so indirectly to the collapse of the Twin Towers. Specifically, the 9/11 Commission found that in the autumn of 1993 Osama bin Laden sent a delegation of Al-Qaeda operatives to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon for training in explosives and intelligence practices: “
Bin Laden reportedly showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983.” The 1983 suicide truck-bomb attacks on American targets in Lebanon quite literally inspired Bin Laden’s suicidal assaults on America in 2001.

As the 9/11 Commission observed, “
Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians.” The Palestinian-Israeli conflict still engenders angry emotions on all sides. Robert Ames believed that a real peace was possible. The Middle East need not remain a perennial battlefield. He used his intelligence and charm to begin the peace process in the shadows of Beirut. His clandestine work was a catalyst for that symbolic handshake on the White House lawn. He was the good spy. But his work remains unfinished.

I wrote this book in Barranco, Peru. When I introduced Alonso Alegria—one of Peru’s leading playwrights—to Susan Goldmark, he later remarked that she must be a “trophy wife.” Alonso was surprised when I replied that Susan was indeed a “trophy”—but that she is my first and only wife of many years. Susan remains a treasured muse, a source of wisdom and street smarts in all things large and small. This book is dedicated to her and to two other strong women: my late mother, Jerine, and Yvonne Ames. Elsewhere I have written about the extraordinary experiences my parents, Eugene and Jerine Bird, gave me as a child throughout the Middle East and India.

My mother and Yvonne Ames were good friends in Arabia before traveling different roads. Decades later, I reappeared in Yvonne’s life and asked to tell a small part of her story as well as the extraordinary story of her late husband. Yvonne understood that I was the historian, and that I would tell Bob’s story in my own way, bringing to it my own subjective views and perspectives. I am forever grateful for her trust and kindness.

The
Washington Post
’s David Ignatius never met Bob Ames. But Ignatius was in Beirut the day Ames was murdered, and he came to know much about Ames’s story. He wrote about Ames and his relationship
to Ali Hassan Salameh in
Agents of Innocence
, the first of his many acclaimed novels. When in 2010 I first stumbled upon the notion of an Ames biography, I called upon David and asked for his counsel. He strongly encouraged me to tackle the subject and provided introductions to some of his sources in the intelligence community. Later, he took the time to comment on an early draft of the manuscript.

This book would not be what it is without the courage and generosity of Mustafa Zein. He was relentless. He gave himself up to hours and hours of my interrogations. He gave me unfettered access to his unpublished memoirs, letters, and documents pertaining to his friendship with Bob Ames. He is a
mensch
and a gentleman, a guide and a catalyst. I will forever be in his debt.

Stu Newberger, a partner at the law firm of Crowell & Moring in Washington, D.C., was the lead attorney in the civil suit brought by Anne Dammarell, Yvonne Ames, and other survivors and relatives of the Beirut embassy bombing. He shared with me the records pertaining to that civil suit. Newberger is intrepid and passionate and a wonderful raconteur. His career underscores the powerful utility of using the law as a weapon for the peaceful resolution of international disputes.

Tamar Prizan-Litani, an Israeli journalist and editor, was my guide, translator, and counselor during my research visit to Israel. She is a fount of wisdom and common sense—and a trusted friend.

Iradj Alikhani and Amir Hossein Etemadi helped me navigate Farsi language Web sources. Bart and Nancy Ames Hanlon gave me photographs from the Ames family album. Kristen Stevens provided me with letters and photographs from the estate of Janet Lee Stevens. Anne Dammarell, a survivor of the Beirut embassy bombing, gave me hours of her time and access to her diaries and her Georgetown University thesis. Steve Dryden, Joe Eldridge, and Lance Potter helped with other research. Thanks to Lokman Slim and UMAM Documentation and Research in Beirut for the Arabic-language newspaper image on the cover.

Claude Dunn and Dominique Hyde hosted me in their lovely home in Amman and listened patiently to my spy stories—as did many other
friends, including Michele de Nevers and Branko Milanovi?, Stephen Frietch and Nancy Nickerson, Rita Giacaman, Charles Glass, Helma Goldmark, Deborah Harris, Aviva Kempner, Keith and Shakun Leslie, Victor and Annie Navasky, Paula Newberg, Rabbi Micha Odenheimer, William Prochnau and Laura Parker, Caleb Rossiter and Maya Latynski, Michael Schwartz and Emily Medine, Martin and Susan Sherwin, Nilgun Tolek, and Don Wilson.

My three sisters—Christina, Nancy, and Shelly—have distant memories of Bob Ames, and so I have hope that they will be entertained by this story. My only child, Joshua, is now a creative and charming young man finishing college. As always, my ambition has been to infect him with my love of history and storytelling. Maybe this spy story will finally succeed. As my father, Eugene Bird, approaches his tenth decade, he remains intensely interested in the fate of the Middle East. He knew Bob Ames, and I benefited enormously from my father’s memories of both the man and the Agency.

I imposed on many friends and colleagues to read early versions of this manuscript. I am most grateful for the comments of Frank Anderson, Robert Baer, Brennon Jones, Arthur Samuelson, Odd Karsten Tveit, and Samuel H. Wyman. Henry Miller-Jones had his own illustrious career in the CIA as a clandestine officer. But as a friend and colleague of Bob Ames, Henry had invaluable insights into Ames’s life and career. Henry read an early version of the book and prevented me from making numerous mistakes. I promise not to hold him accountable for any further errors of commission or omission.

More than two score retired intelligence officers spoke with me about Ames. Some spoke on the record and some chose to tell their stories without use of their true names. But perhaps all of these sources implicitly understood that at least some old secrets deservedly belong to history. I am grateful for their honesty and frankness.

I relied on the works of many other historians and journalists to explain the background and context of Ames’s career in the CIA. I am particularly grateful to Ronen Bergman, Nicholas Blanford, Nora Boustany, Jon Broder, Avner Cohen, Robert Fisk, Mark Gasioroski,
David Hirst, Aaron J. Klein, David Landau, Yossi Melman, Benny Morris, Jonathan Randal, Dan Raviv, Martin Smith, Jeff Stein, Peter Taylor, and Joshua Wood.

I am particularly in debt to Adam Zagorin, my friend of more than three decades. Adam is a masterful investigative journalist with many years of experience in the Middle East and Washington. He was my sounding board on this project, and at a critical juncture he took time from his own work to help me marshal the evidence against the perpetrators of the Beirut embassy bombing.

My friends in Peru encouraged me to think that I could sit in Barranco and write about Beirut—while savoring Peruvian cuisine with them over many lovely luncheons: many thanks to Marie Arana and Jonathan Yardley of the
Washington Post;
Alonso Cueto, Peru’s much acclaimed novelist; my high-tech neighbor “Roberto” Budge; and Lucho Bello, Mark Lewis, Adolfo Figueroa, and Mike and Beatrice Glover.

Gail Ross has been my friend and literary agent for nearly a quarter century. She has been patient during the lean years and exuberant whenever I managed to finish a book. She and Howard Yoon made it possible for Crown/Random House to publish this book. My editor at Crown, Rick Horgan, immediately saw the promise in the story of Robert Ames. Rick is an astute and discerning editor who always challenged me with the tough questions. His assistant, Nathan Roberson, and the copy editor, Elisabeth Magnus, have been indefatigable throughout a meticulous editing process. Many thanks to Mark Birkey, Penny Simon, Jessica Prudhomme, and many others on the Crown team who have brought this book to publication. I am also gratified that Crown’s publisher, Molly Stern, has so strongly backed this project. May her enthusiasm be infectious.

Kai Bird

Barranco, Peru

Robert Ames, age eleven, with his sisters Patricia (left), age fourteen, and Nancy (right), age eight. They grew up in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood. Their father, Albert, was a steelworker and their mother, Helen, was the homemaker—and the disciplinarian.
Courtesy of Nancy Ames Hanlon

Bob Ames, age nineteen, worked his summers as a lifeguard on the Jersey Shore. He earned a four-year athletic scholarship at La Salle University, where his basketball team, the Explorers, won the NCAA 1954 national championship. Ames would shoot baskets for the rest of his life.
Courtesy of Yvonne Ames

In 1957, Private Robert C. Ames was stationed at Kagnew Station, Ethiopia, where the U.S. Army ran a “listening post” to intercept radio signals from around the world. While at Kagnew, Ames began to teach himself Arabic.
Courtesy of Yvonne Ames

The Ames clan, December 1959.
Left to right:
Nancy Ames Hanlon, Albert C. Ames, Grandma Amorose, Helen Amorose Ames, Bob Ames, and Yvonne Blakely.
Courtesy of Nancy Ames Hanlon

In 1959, Ames met Yvonne Blakely, the daughter of a U.S. Navy commander. She was a “Gibbs girl” secretary and he was then working as a repo man for All State Insurance Co. They wed in 1960, and that summer he interviewed for a job at the CIA.
Courtesy of Nancy Ames Hanlon

In 1962, the CIA posted Ames and his family to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where his assignment included collecting intelligence on radical Arab nationalists opposed to the Saudi monarchy.
Courtesy of Nancy Ames Hanlon

Bob Ames in Saudi Arabia, Christmas 1964, with his daughters Catherine and Adrienne. Ames was becoming fluent in Arabic. “He was one of the best spooks I ever met,” recalled a colleague.
Courtesy of Nancy Ames Hanlon

The CIA sent Ames to Aden in South Yemen in 1967. It was a war zone. “Everywhere you look there are soldiers with guns,” Bob wrote home. “Kind of creepy.” But he grew to love Yemen’s backcountry: “I got some frankincense which I’ll send home some day, hopefully by Christmas.”
Courtesy of Yvonne Ames

In 1969, Ames met Mustafa Zein, a young Lebanese businessman. Zein was an Arab Zelig—he seemed to be everywhere and to know everyone in Beirut. Ames nicknamed him the Catalyst, and Zein called Ames the
Munir
—Arabic for “enlightener.”
Courtesy of Mustafa Zein

Ali Hassan Salameh, age twenty-seven, was Yasir Arafat’s PLO security chief in 1969 when his friend Mustafa Zein arranged a clandestine meeting with Bob Ames in Beirut’s Strand Café. “Ali looked at Bob, and then pointed to me,” Zein recalled, “and said, ‘This is my man.’ ”
As-Safir
newspaper, Beirut

CIA director Richard Helms (right) greeting President Richard Nixon in 1969. Helms was Bob Ames’s mentor inside the CIA. Helms encouraged Ames to develop his clandestine relationship with Ali Hassan Salameh—even though the Nixon Administration and Henry Kissinger had banned any contact with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Corbis Bettmann