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- <text id=91TT2373>
- <title>
- Oct. 28, 1991: Spinner of Tangled Yarns
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Oct. 28, 1991 Ollie North:"Reagan Knew Everything"
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 72
- Spinner of Tangled Yarns
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Who is Ari Ben-Menashe? A lowly translator who never rose
- above unimportant desk jobs, according to the Israeli
- government. A teller of "bald-faced lies," says George Bush. A
- demon peddler of arms by his own account. Seymour Hersh says
- Ben-Menashe is an expert on signal intelligence who served more
- than 10 years in the Israeli army and in 1987, so he claims,
- became an intelligence adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
- In mid-1990 he brought his story to Hersh beleaving the U.S. for
- Australia and a life of exile.
- </p>
- <p> But Ben-Menashe has been eager to put his name to all
- kinds of tales. He has told the Senate that CIA chief-designate
- Robert Gates was a central figure in secret U.S. sales of arms
- to Iraq. He claims Robert McFarlane was simultaneously
- NaSecurity Adviser and the top Israeli spy in Washington. He
- impressed one reporter who has dealt with him as a fabricator
- who nonetheless did have connecin Israeli intelligence. Some of
- his stories are unbelievable; some seem to contain a kernel of
- truth. The big question is which are which.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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