"A meeting between Miles Copeland and Israeli intelligence officers was held at a Georgetown house in Washington, D.C.," Ben-Menashe wrote. "The Israelis were happy to deal with any initiative but Carter's.
"David Kimche, chief of Tevel, the foreign relations unit of Mossad, was the senior Israeli at the meeting. ... The Israelis and the Copeland group came up with a two-pronged plan to use quiet diplomacy with the Iranians and to draw up a scheme for military action against Iran that would not jeopardize the lives of the hostages."
Arms Dealing
In late February 1980, Seyeed Mehdi Kashani, an Iranian emissary, arrived in Israel to discuss Iran's growing desperation for spare parts for its U.S.-supplied air force, Ben-Menashe wrote.
Kashani, whom Ben-Menashe had known from their school days in Tehran, also revealed that the Copeland initiative was making inroads inside Iran and that approaches from some Republican emissaries had already been received, Ben-Menashe wrote.
"Kashani said that the secret ex-CIA-Miles-Copeland group was aware that any deal cut with the Iranians would have to include the Israelis because they would have to be used as a third party to sell military equipment to Iran," according to Ben-Menashe.
In March 1980, the following month, the Israelis made their first direct military shipment to Iran, 300 tires for Iran's F-4 fighter jets, Ben-Menashe wrote.
Ben-Menashe's account of these early Israeli arms shipments was corroborated by Carter's press secretary Jody Powell and Israeli arms dealer William Northrop.
In an interview for a 1991 PBS "Frontline" documentary, Jody Powell told me that "there had been a rather tense discussion between President Carter and Prime Minister Begin in the spring of 1980 in which the President made clear that the Israelis had to stop that [arms dealing], and that we knew that they were doing it, and that we would not allow it to continue, at least not allow it to continue privately and without the knowledge of the American people."
"And it stopped," Powell said. At least, it stopped temporarily.
Meanwhile, Carter also was learning that Begin was siding with the Republicans.
Questioned by congressional investigators in 1992, Carter said he realized by April 1980 that "Israel cast their lot with Reagan," according to notes I found among the unpublished documents in the files of a House task force that had looked into the October Surprise case.
Carter traced the Israeli opposition to his reelection to a "lingering concern [among] Jewish leaders that I was too friendly with Arabs."
Closer Enemies
Carter also may have had political enemies who had penetrated his inner circle.
Jamshid Hashemi, an Iranian businessman who was recruited by the CIA in January 1980 along with his brother Cyrus, said that in spring 1980, he encountered Donald Gregg, the CIA officer serving on Carter's National Security Council staff, at Cyrus's Manhattan office.
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