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History As It Happens
Kai Bird on Bob Ames, Reagan, and the Two-State Solution
00:52:09
to skip ads and get bonus content. The story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is violent, full of sorrow, and littered with missed opportunities for lasting peace. The origins of the peace process might be traced to the late 1960s, when an American...
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- [00:00]
Ronald Reagan
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- [00:02]
Martin DeCaro
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Ronald Reagan
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- [00:36]
Martin DeCaro
But I'd like to offer one other perk.
- [00:39]
Ronald Reagan
We have no stores.
- [00:42]
Kai Bird
That means no small talk, crazy weather we're having. No, it's not.
- [00:46]
Ronald Reagan
It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan $15 per month equivalent required New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
- [00:59]
Martin DeCaro
Seemintmobile.com history as it happens October 10, 2025 Bob Ames Reagan and the two state solution I call on Israel to.
- [01:10]
Ronald Reagan
Make clear that the security for which she yearns can only be achieved through genuine peace, a peace requiring magnanimity, vision and courage. What is at stake now in the.
- [01:22]
Martin DeCaro
Invasion of Lebanon is the future of Lebanon itself.
- [01:26]
Ronald Reagan
I have read in some newspapers in this great country that Israel invaded Lebanon.
- [01:32]
Martin DeCaro
Did not invade any country.
- [01:34]
Ronald Reagan
The stillness of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon was shattered today by the sound of guns, bombs and planes. The government of Lebanon has requested and I have approved the deployment of United States forces to Beirut as part of a multinational force in Beirut, Lebanon. Today, a pickup truck loaded with explosives drove to the American Embassy and there was a tremendous explosion there during the lunch hour. What we do know is that the terrorists who planned and carried out this cynical and cowardly attack have failed in their purpose.
- [02:04]
Martin DeCaro
The story of the Israeli Palestinian conflict is violent, full of sorrow and littered with missed opportunities for lasting peace. The origins of the peace process can be traced to the late 1960s, when an American spy made his first clandestine contacts with the plo. Bob Ames had a vision for the Palestinians. Ronald Reagan saw an opportunity to realize it as invasion, war and terrorism swallowed Lebanon, where Bob Ames would lose his life in the country he tried to save. That's next with Kai Bird. Report History as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
- [02:39]
Ronald Reagan
Last night we reached a momentous breakthrough in the Middle east, something that people said was never going to be done. We ended the war in Gaza and really on a much bigger basis created peace.
- [02:51]
Kai Bird
Why are we talking about all this? Because this conflict is still killing tens of thousands of people, I would argue. Again, if you read the good stuff, it gives you a deep understanding of the politics, the humanitarian costs of maintaining this conflict and the missed opportunities that have always plagued the diplomacy.
- [03:20]
Ronald Reagan
Lebanon war, tragic as it was, has left us with a new opportunity for Middle east peace. We must seize it now and bring peace to this troubled area.
- [03:30]
Martin DeCaro
September 1, 1982 President Reagan delivers a nationally televised address the day after Yasser Arafat and the soldiers in his Palestine Liberation Organization completed their withdrawal from Lebanon.
- [03:42]
Ronald Reagan
If this was a sad day for Yasser Arafat, he wasn't going to let it show. Before leaving, he went to say his farewells to his most valued friends and the people of West Beirut came to.
- [03:51]
Martin DeCaro
About three months after Israel's invasion, Reagan told Americans, now was the opportunity to create lasting peace.
- [03:58]
Ronald Reagan
For once there were no premature as US diplomatic missions traveled to Mid east capitals and I met here at home with a wide range of experts to map out an American peace initiative for the long suffering peoples of the Middle East, Arab and Israeli alike. It seemed to me that with the agreement in Lebanon we had an opportunity for a more far reaching peace effort in the region and I was determined to seize that moment.
- [04:24]
Martin DeCaro
The President never mentioned the name Bob Ames, but the CIA officer had helped Reagan speechwriters and the President didn't know Ames managed to get Arafat a copy of the proposal before Reagan went on tv. As the Pulitzer Prize winning historian and journalist Kai Bird writes in his 2014 biography the Good the Life and Death of Robert Ames, Reagan began by saying bluntly that the military losses of the PLO have not diminished the yearning of the Palestinian people for a just solution of their claims.
- [04:54]
Ronald Reagan
And second, while Israel's military successes in Lebanon have demonstrated that its armed forces are second to none in the region, they alone cannot bring just and lasting peace to Israel and her neighbors.
- [05:05]
Martin DeCaro
Byrd goes on to say the President then endorsed the not very controversial notion that the Palestinian residents of the west bank and Gaza should gain full autonomy over their own affairs over the next five years, according to the terms of the 1978 Camp David Accords. This should have happened long ago but he specifically called for the immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel in the occupied territories. That Byrd says was controversial. Then again, he also specified that Washington will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the west bank and Gaza.
- [05:39]
Ronald Reagan
There is, however, another way to peace. The final status of these lands must, of course, be reached through the give and take of negotiations. But it is the firm view of the United States that self government by the Palestinians of the west bank and Gaza in association with Jordan offers the best chance for a durable, just and lasting peace.
- [06:01]
Martin DeCaro
Byrd says the speech was well received in every quarter but one. Menachem Begin was furious.
- [06:07]
Ronald Reagan
The Camp David agreement recognized that fact when it spoke of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and their just requirements. For peace to endure, it must involve all those who have been most deeply affected by the conflict.
- [06:20]
Martin DeCaro
Again, that was September 1, 1982. Within three weeks, Lebanon was falling into the abyss. Its new president, the Maronite Christian Bashir Jamail, was assassinated. Israeli forces then violated the ceasefire and reoccupied West Beirut, allowing revenge seeking Falangis militiamen into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps where Palestinian men, women and children were defenseless. And soon enough, Reagan was back on television.
- [06:47]
Ronald Reagan
In Lebanon has shifted rapidly once again from the death of Lebanon's President elect, Bashir Jamail, to what the Israelis have done here in Beirut today. What they have done is invade and occupy. Good evening. Gunmen have marauded through two Palestinian refugee camps in West Beirut, executing unarmed men, women and children in a bloody massacre. In the camps of Sabra and Shatiya, a large plot of unmarked graves bears witness to those who died in the massacre. Israel must have learned that there is no way it can impose its own solutions on hatreds as deep and bitter as those that produce this tragedy. If it seeks to do so, it will only sink more deeply into the quagmire that looms before it. Those outsiders who have fed the flames of civil war in Lebanon for so many years need to learn that the fire will consume them too if it is not put out.
- [07:34]
Martin DeCaro
This nightmare and the opportunities it created 43 years ago has been on my mind as Israel has pulverized Gaza. This episode does come to you as it appears. Israel and Hamas have agreed to President Trump's so called peace plan that will at the very least end the fighting and famine and free the hostages. But whether it leads to a lasting peace, to Palestinian autonomy or statehood is impossible to say right now. Will it be another missed opportunity? Or might we learn from the life and death of Bob Ames. As Byrd tells the story in his marvelous book, Ames remained focused on Lebanon's crisis as 1983 unfolded and he yearned to return to the country after five years away. He did so, arriving on April 17, 1983. He was killed the next day.
- [08:23]
Ronald Reagan
This is the worst attack there has ever been against the United States in the Middle East. The explosion at five minutes past one this afternoon devastated the embassy here on the edge of the Mediterranean in West Beirut.
- [08:34]
Martin DeCaro
The work we now know of Iran's Revolutionary Guard working with local Lebanese Shia who'd been radicalized by the Israeli invasion, among other things, who Kai Bird says formed a shadowy resistance group known as Islamic Amal, the precursor to Hezbollah. Among them was a former member of arafat's bodyguard, a 20 year old named Ahmad Mughnia. As Byrd writes near the end of his book, the April 1983 Beirut embassy bombing is a largely forgotten moment in the history of America's presence in the Middle East. But it was a signal moment. It was the beginning of America's deadly encounter with a political Islamist movement. It was also the birth of a Shiite political entity that we now know as Hezbollah. As a 1984 declassified CIA document noted, the Iranian revolution and the Israeli invasion of predominantly Shia southern Lebanon galvanized the Shia and set the stage for the emergence of radical groups prone to terrorism.
- [09:31]
Ronald Reagan
As a free people, we've never allowed intimidation to stop us from doing what we know to be right. The best way for us to show our love and respect for our fellow countrymen who died in Beirut this week is to carry on with their task.
- [09:45]
Martin DeCaro
63 people were killed in the embassy attack, 32 Lebanese workers, 17Americans and 14 others. Among the Americans were a journalist and eight members of the CIA, including Robert Ames. Our conversation with Kai Bird next.
- [10:00]
Ronald Reagan
Hi, I'm Chris Gethard and I'm very excited to tell you about Beautiful Anonymous, a podcast where I talk to random people on the phone. I tweet out a phone number. Thousands of people try to call you talk to one of them, they stay anonymous. I can't hang up.
- [10:12]
Martin DeCaro
That's all the rules. I never know what's going to happen.
- [10:14]
Kai Bird
We get serious ones.
- [10:15]
Ronald Reagan
I've talked with meth dealers on their way to prison. I've talked to people who survived mass shootings, crazy funny ones. I talked to a guy with a.
- [10:22]
Martin DeCaro
Goose laugh, somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends.
- [10:25]
Ronald Reagan
I never know what's going to happen.
- [10:26]
Martin DeCaro
It's a great show. Subscribe today. Beautiful Anonymous Kai Bird, welcome to the Podcast.
- [10:33]
Kai Bird
Thank you, Martin, for having me to discuss the Good Spy, which came out 11 years ago now but is still very relevant.
- [10:41]
Martin DeCaro
Yes, it's an honor to have you here. I've been wanting to speak to you for a while. I think everyone on earth wanted to talk to you when a certain movie came out two years ago. Have the requests to speak about Oppenheimer, have they finally come to an end?
- [10:56]
Kai Bird
They have not come to an end. I still occasionally talk about Robert Oppenheimer and the movie and the book. But yeah, it's wound down from the media circus that happened in the summer of 23, one would hope.
- [11:11]
Martin DeCaro
Yes, we're going to talk about the Good Spy and what's happening today in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. We're going to start though with an amazing coincidence. When you were a boy in Saudi Arabia, not quite a teenager, you lived across the street from one Robert Ames.
- [11:27]
Kai Bird
That's right. No, my father was a foreign service officer and he was stationed. He was an Arabist or learned the Arabic language. And he was stationed at one point in Dahran, Saudi Arabia in the Eastern Province. And this was 1962-65. And right across the street in this very small consulate compound in the middle of the desert lived Robert Ames with his wife Yvonne and two of their small children at the time.
- [11:58]
Martin DeCaro
And you did not know he was a CIA officer? Of course?
- [12:01]
Kai Bird
Yeah, I thought he was just a foreign service officer like my father. And my father didn't clue me in until suddenly one day in 1983, I picked up the newspaper and read about the embassy bombing in Beirut and where it was announced that one Robert Ames had died in the building and that he was in fact a very high ranking CIA officer at the time. And I called up my father and said, what? Why didn't you clue me in on this fact? And you know, he says, well, he was in a clandestine role at the time, but he was a family friend. I remember seeing him shoot basketball with the Marine guards across the street. And you know, he was a congenial, charismatic young man.
- [12:48]
Martin DeCaro
It has made him a good spy, to borrow the title of your book. So today, the Peace Process. What peace process? Two state solution? No, there's a one state reality. But as you begin the treatment of Bob Ames life in the introduction to your book, you say the peace process started really as an intelligence operation. Explain what you mean by that.
- [13:11]
Kai Bird
In 1969, Ames found himself posted in Beirut. One of his jobs was to try to recruit assets and paid informants. He had run in and befriended A Lebanese, a Shiite Lebanese businessman named Mustafa Zain. And Mustafa was himself sort of a operator, fixer, businessman. He was friends, as it happened, he was friends with Yasser Arafat's chief intelligence officer and sort of bodyguard, head of Arafat's Force 17 Bodyguard Security Force. This man's name was Ali Hassan Salameh. Mustafa told Bob Ames, you know, I can introduce you to this guy. And they arranged a very choreographed meeting at a cafe in the streets of West Beirut. And Ali Hassan Salameh was a very charismatic, cosmopolitan Palestinian who spoke fluent English and French and a very sophisticated political operative and obviously someone that Ames would want to recruit. They had several meetings, and it became clear to Ames that Ali Hassan was unrecruitable. He wasn't about to sign a contract, which is what the agency likes to have happen. And he wasn't going to take money. But he wanted to have a back channel to the US Government at a time when, because of Henry Kissinger's promise to the Israelis, no US diplomat could talk to a member of the plo, the Palestine Liberation Organization. And obviously, they were major players. And if you're going to have any diplomacy or, or intelligence in the Middle east, you needed to have contacts in the Palestinian community. And that meant the plo. So Ames sort of took it upon himself to cultivate a friendship with Ali Hassan Salameh. Again, he decided to back off on any attempt to recruit him formally. But it developed into a genuine friendship. And they trade viewpoints, argued about politics, and eventually had dinners together and traded information. And the channel, the back channel, was highly secret because this would be very controversial if it had leaked. But it started in 1969 and lasted until 1979, 10 years. And during the course of that, those years, Bob Ames told his superiors and Langley at the CIA headquarters that he had done this and that he was cultivating this as a friendship. And I argue in the book that it's quite clear that this friendship, this relationship, planted the seeds for what later became the Oslo peace process. And Ames had been encouraging Ali Hassan Salameh to think about achieving their Palestinian goals in a political context. To give up the gun, to give up revolutionary politics, to give up terrorism. And Salome influenced Arafat in this direction. So that's Origins of Oslo.
- [16:29]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, that's how it begins. An idea takes root that there's another way to maybe go about the liberation of our people. Right, because you're talking 1969, when Ames makes his first clandestine contacts with any members of the plo. That's Only five years after the formation of the plo. And as you say, that was a no, no, because of the Nixon Kissinger policy, the PLO is considered a terrorist organ. I mean, just think of today, right? The United States does not meet personally with members of Hamas. There are mediators that are present there, right? So by 1979, and I believe Salameh was assassinated, was he not? I mean, he had been taking part in terrorist activity. Ames still thought he would be valuable to maintain that relationship, despite some of Salome's activities, right? We're still even in 79, a whole decade away from the first intifada, which also helped push both sides towards reaching an accommodation in 1991, Madrid. Then 1993, Oslo.
- [17:26]
Ronald Reagan
Two years ago in Madrid, another president took a major step on the road to peace by bringing Israel and all her neighbors together to launch direct negotiations. And today, we also express our deep.
- [17:41]
Kai Bird
Thanks for the skillful leadership of President George Bush.
- [17:48]
Martin DeCaro
This is less a question, Kai. As president. It was a short history of the peace process, but it's important because you begin the book with Oslo. In this picture that you paint, there are CIA officers at Arlington Cemetery. At Ames grave, the day on the other side of the Potomac, Clinton, Rabin, and Arafat are on the White House lawn signing the Oslo Accords.
- [18:09]
Ronald Reagan
This signing of the Israeli Palestinian Declaration of Principle here today, it's not so easy, neither for myself as a soldier.
- [18:22]
Kai Bird
In Israel's war, nor for the people of Israel, nor to the Jewish people.
- [18:28]
Ronald Reagan
In the diaspora who are watching us now with great hope mixed with apprehension.
- [18:37]
Martin DeCaro
Why did you choose that scene to begin the book?
- [18:40]
Kai Bird
Well, it seemed to be a perfect opening to introduce both aims and his achievements as an intelligence officer who got the Oslo peace process started. His colleagues in the CIA were offended that they hadn't been invited to be on the White House lawn to witness the signing of these peace accords. And so they all congregated at his grave site in Arlington across the river, and listened to someone sort of talk about what Ames had done. It was a perfect cinematic opening for the book to introduce the characters and to introduce the significance of Robert Ames.
- [19:22]
Martin DeCaro
And there was a lot of hope that day. I've played clips from the Oslo signing on my podcast over the years. When you go back and listen to that, and then you juxtapose the hope of that day to what's happening now, it is quite sad.
- [19:36]
Ronald Reagan
Yesterday, a dream, today a commitment. The Israeli and the Palestinian peoples, who fought each other for almost a century, have agreed to move decisively on the path of dialogue, understanding and cooperation.
- [19:57]
Martin DeCaro
There is also a background here to Ames as to why he would pursue a relationship with somebody like Ali Hassan Salameh. He was a rare Arabist in the US government, a rare Arab speaking person. He didn't allow his own personal politics, which are still hard to discern, to really get in the way of all of this. He was kind of lukewarm toward Israel, but he wasn't an ideologue, he wasn't a crusader. So how do you explain his empathy toward the Arab situation?
- [20:27]
Kai Bird
Yeah, he wasn't an ideologue. He, politically speaking in terms of American politics, he, he was a registered Republican at one point. He certainly no radical, but as a young man in the US army, he had been stationed in Cagu Station in Africa, in Ethiopia. That's where he first heard Arabic being spoken in the street. He was a good linguist, it turns out, and he had a fascination for just the beauty of the language. And he began to teach himself Arabic while he was still in the army. Later he gets out of the army in 1960, he applies and is accepted into the CIA and he chooses to study Arabic and become proficient in the language. You know, most CIA recruitments at the time were getting people who were interested that this is at the height of the Cold War, interested in Russian and being stationed in Eastern Europe or in Russia itself. But Ames had just by accident, I think, this fascination for the language in Arabic. And so he was stationed in the Middle east throughout his career. That's not surprising that he would just sort of have a natural affinity or sympathy for the Palestinian plight, which was clear even then that they did not have a political or civil rights in Israel or outside of Israel, where they were treated by their Arab neighbors as foreigners with no civil rights and no citizenship. And obviously the Palestinian cause was an irritant throughout the Middle east, not only to Israel, but among these very conservative Arab regimes headed by generals and kings. Ames studied the language, studied the history, really one of just a handful of CIA officers who had both the language and deep knowledge of the culture and history of the region. And that made him a very effective officer.
- [22:30]
Martin DeCaro
I think in the book you say there were 12 Arab speaking people and that even included within the State Department as well.
- [22:36]
Kai Bird
On the eve of 9 11, there were only six Arabists working in the CIA. There are more in the State Department, but only six in the CIA. And so it was extraordinary that this is an really important part of the globe, a source for conflict and violence. And you know, something that US foreign policy Makers ought to have been concerned about, but they only had six CIA officers who could speak the language, incredibly.
- [23:04]
Martin DeCaro
So my most recent episode, I brought up the new cleansing politics that young Arabs at universities around this time, 1960s, 1970s, the new cleansing politics that they were seeking. And you mentioned two names before. Mustafa Zayn, who was a young Lebanese who became friends with Bob Ames. Ames was in his 30s, Zayn was in his 20s. And Zayn was very close friends with Ali Hassan Salameh, who was a key figure pretty quickly in the PLO under Arafat. And that is how this meeting comes about. Ames meets Salome with Zayn acting as the intermediary. I think it was in a restaurant in Beirut soon after this, though, in 1970, Ames has a conflict within the CIA with the station chief or the top CIA official in Jordan. And this relates directly to the Palestinian issue. Ames believed the PLO could topple King Hussein in Jordan, whereas others in the CIA thought this was crazy and they did not want King Hussein to be toppled by the plo. About half the population of Jordan was Palestinian. Right. Before we get to 1982, 1983, I think it's important that we visit what happens in 1970. Can you pick it up from there and Ames role in all of this?
- [24:19]
Kai Bird
Yeah. The PLO was largely centered in Jordan the late 60s. And by 1970 a full scale civil war broke out. The Palestinian represented more than 50, probably 60 or 70% of the population. But the regime was based on the Hashemite Kingdom which had its roots in Saudi Arabia in the previous century. The Palestinians in 1970 revolted and in that civil war they nearly toppled King Hussein, the Hashemite monarch. It's a clear tipping point. At the time, a fierce debate went on even inside the Israeli Cabinet over whether they should support King Hussein and keep him on his throne or they should allow the the PLO to succeed in toppling him. Some of the Israeli Cabinet members argued that actually Arafat taking control of Jordan would be a step forward. It would help to solve the problem of Palestinian rights because you would then have a Palestinian state east of the River Jordan. Well, it didn't happen. Ames tried to make the same argument in his cables back to Washington that we should consider supporting Arafat and essentially dump King Hussein. But the policymakers at the time, specifically Henry Kissinger, overruled this notion. And it was, yeah, it was thought to be outlandish and way too premature. If it had happened, you know, this is a counterfactual in history. If it had happened, it might actually have paved the way for a solution to the Palestinian, Israeli problem. You would have had a Palestinian state, they would have had to take responsibility for territory and governance and the PLO would have evolved from a liberation, revolutionary liberation organization into a government. So anyway, it was a missed opportunity and it didn't happen.
- [26:22]
Ronald Reagan
It was the exploits of Yasser Arafat's Fatah that first caught the imagination of the Western press operating from Jordan. They infiltrated the Israeli occupied West bank and Israel itself. The Fatah fighters swaggered through the streets of Amman, became a kind of occupying force inside King Hussein's capital.
- [26:43]
Martin DeCaro
On an intellectual level, Ames was saying this is the Palestinians home field advantage. They're the majority of the population and it was the Hashemite Kingdom that was imposed by the British on Jordan. Whereas people who opposed Ames's position within the CIA said well you got to look at the facts on the ground and that is King Hussein has modern tanks, artillery and army and the support of the US administration. So we get Black September and the PLO is driven out of Jordan and they take up their bases in Lebanon where there were of course, just like in Jordan, Palestinian refugees from 48 and 60. So during the 1970s, you mentioned how Ames is keeping up his relationship with Ali Hassan Salameh. And the Lebanese civil war breaks out in 1975. Doing the condensed version of history here. And Lebanon is disintegrating into a failed state. Sectarian war. At what point does in Ames mind, does he start to formulate an actual plan for Palestinian autonomy or a solution to the Palestinian crisis, if you will.
- [27:51]
Kai Bird
His plan, such as it was, emerged in 81, 82 in the wake of the Israeli invasion, the second invasion of Lebanon in 82, which became very bloody.
- [28:01]
Martin DeCaro
And, and we can definitely jump ahead to that in the chronology here, 82 invasion of Lebanon. So go ahead.
- [28:07]
Kai Bird
Yeah, he came up with this notion that we can't talk about a two state solution. That's politically premature. Washington isn't there, the Israelis are not there, but we can talk about Palestinian autonomy. That was clearly a code for a two or three step solution to the problem, but would end up with in the end down the road with a Palestinian state. He got Reagan and his people to sign off on this peace plan. And again it was another missed opportunity. It never went anywhere. Six months later, actually, Ames himself was assassinated and April of 83 during the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut.
- [28:51]
Ronald Reagan
In Beirut, Lebanon today, a pickup truck loaded with explosives drove to the American Embassy and there was a tremendous explosion there during the Lunch hour. The explosion at five minutes past one this afternoon devastated the embassy here on the edge of the Mediterranean in West Beirut. We're here at the orders of the President to, to accompany back to the United States the bodies of men and women who died for their country and for Lebanon. The dastardly deed, the act of unparalleled cowardice that took their lives was an attack on all of us, on our way of life, and on the values we hold dear. We would indeed fail them if we let that act deter us from carrying on their mission of brotherhood and peace.
- [29:42]
Martin DeCaro
The conversation with Kai Bird continues. So within the plo, Ames had some support for this proposal, if you will. If not from Arafat himself, he had others within the PLO who are behind his idea.
- [30:04]
Kai Bird
Yeah, through Salome, he had persuaded a number of Arafat's close advisors, including Arafat himself, that, you know, they had to begin to think strategically and politically about how to achieve their goals into, particularly in the wake of the loss of the Civil War in 1970 and then in the wake of the Israeli invasion where the PLO was expelled from Beirut. You know, they needed to talk about political means to achieve their political goals without guns. Arafat was persuaded that he needed to begin to talk about things like revising the PLO Charter, which called for the elimination of the state of Israel. You know, it was a diplomatic dancing game that continued throughout the 80s and eventually led to Oslo.
- [30:53]
Martin DeCaro
Ames was doing this in secret. He was a spy, but he was acting as a diplomat, meeting with people on all sides and then conferring with his superiors back in Washington, some of whom did not want him to meet with the plo. I know I'm jumping around in the chronology a little bit here, but that's okay. When there's a new Secretary of State appointed during the middle of the war in 1982, George Shultz, doesn't he at one point tell Ames, do not do this?
- [31:20]
Kai Bird
Yeah, Schultz was no expert in the Middle east or no expert on Palestinian Israeli politics. You know, he was very skeptical of Ames's proposal. Ames was talking about the reality on the ground. He eventually he got Reagan to support this notion of Palestinian autonomy. The whole period is sadly still very relevant. But this story is about missed opportunities. Missed opportunities in 1970, missed opportunities in 1979 when Ali Hassan Salameh is assassinated by Mossad in a car bomb attack. And why did they assassinate him? Well, they claimed that they were after Ali Hassan because he was involved in the Munich terrorist attack during the Olympics in 1970. Two, in fact, he had, I argue, nothing to do with that operation. And he had been specifically put on leave by Arafat. So he had no foreknowledge of it. But in any case, he was, you know, a member of the PLO and the Israelis considered him a target. But their real reason for going after him was that they had acquired intelligence that he was the back channel that Ames had created to the CIA. And they thought this was a very serious threat politically and a breach of Kissinger's promise that they would not talk to the plo. And that's why they went after him. That's why they killed him. Ames understood that this is why his friend Ali Hassan Salameh was killed in 1979.
- [32:57]
Martin DeCaro
1979, the year of the Camp David Accords, which were supposed to resolve the Palestinian issue. They did call for autonomy within what was it, five years for the, and the withdrawal of the Israeli military regime. But some historians have said it actually wound up undermining the Camp David Accords. Undermining the Palestinian cause.
- [33:19]
Ronald Reagan
It deals specifically with the future of the west bank in Gaza and the need to resolve the Palestinian problem in all its aspects.
- [33:30]
Kai Bird
The framework document proposes a five year.
- [33:33]
Ronald Reagan
Transitional period in the west bank and.
- [33:36]
Kai Bird
Gaza during which the Israeli military government.
- [33:41]
Ronald Reagan
Will be withdrawn and a self governing authority will be elected with full autonomy.
- [33:51]
Martin DeCaro
To what extent did Camp David influence Ames's proposals and ideas?
- [33:56]
Kai Bird
Oh, I think very heavily. He supported the notion of autonomy that Jimmy Carter put forward in, in the 78, 79 Camp David period that was a precursor to his own 1982 proposal. Why are we talking about all this? Because this conflict is still festering. It's still killing tens of thousands of people. I would argue again, you know, if you read the Good Spy, it gives you a deep understanding of the politics, the humanitarian costs of maintaining this conflict and the missed opportunities that have always plagued the diplomacy.
- [34:38]
Martin DeCaro
In the view of Ames and maybe Even Reagan, the 1982 invasion did open a window. But from the Israeli point of view, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 is meant to do a number of destroy the PLO bases, install a friendly Maronite Christian, Bashir Jamail as the President of Lebanon and eliminate Lebanon as a thorn in Israel's side. Right, but those aims were directed at an even larger goal and that is to isolate the Palestinians on the west bank by getting the PLO out of Lebanon so the west bank could be annexed. Whereas Reagan saw it differently. What were Reagan's views on the PLO or just the Palestinian cause more generally.
- [35:22]
Kai Bird
Reagan didn't have any deep understanding of the issue. But in the wake of Jimmy Carter's successful diplomacy at Camp David, it was clearly obvious to policymakers in Washington that the way forward eventually was some kind of compromise. And yes, this was going to mean Palestinian autonomy in the west bank and eventually, implicitly, the idea of a two state solution. You know, if Reagan was sympathetic to this notion, and he did get frustrated, and as we know from his conversations with Begin in the wake of the 82 invasion, he nevertheless didn't do much to try to enforce a solution. Specifically, he didn't try to stop the building of settlements in the West Bank. They had arguments about this, but they didn't read the riot act to the Israelis. Of course, Carter had the same problem. The Camp David accords had specified steps towards autonomy in the west bank had to be taken over a course of five years. And included in that, Carter believed, was a promise from Begin not to build any more settlements. Begin quickly reneged publicly on that so called promise, denying that he had ever made such a promise. And he began building settlements. And you know, 1979 there were fewer than 20,000 settlers in the West Bank. Today there are over 700,000. Yes, and making it very difficult to imagine how a Palestinian state could come about in the West Bank. But that's always been the name of.
- [37:01]
Martin DeCaro
The game in my view. Begin was a fanatic. He actually visited Washington during the war and in remarks to reporters, he preposterously stated that Israel hadn't invaded Lebanon.
- [37:13]
Ronald Reagan
I have read in some newspapers in this great country that Israel invaded Lebanon. This is a misnomer.
- [37:22]
Martin DeCaro
Israel did not invade any country.
- [37:25]
Ronald Reagan
You do invade a land when you want to conquer it or to annex it, or at least to conquer part of it. We don't covet even one inch of Lebanese territory and willingly. We will withdraw our troops, all of our troops, and bring them back home as soon as possible.
- [37:46]
Martin DeCaro
But do you agree that it was really about the West Bank? It was about isolating the Palestinians on the West Bank. The invasion of Lebanon so it could be annexed.
- [37:53]
Kai Bird
Yeah, that wasn't explicitly the goal. The goal of the invasion of Lebanon was to take out the PLO and force it to move, which happened to move to Tunisia and to destroy the PLO's influence as a militia and military force in South Lebanon. And those goals were achieved. But yes, the secondary goal was to create political room and space for Begin's notion that Judea and Samaria, as he called it, should one day become part of the Jewish state.
- [38:27]
Martin DeCaro
I'll cite my sources. That was historian William Cleveland, who said that was the ultimate goal of the invasion. You know, Reagan did, for a short time, cut off arms shipments to Israel of, I think, cluster munitions over the siege of West Beirut that was killing hundreds, if not thousands of Jordanian and Palestinian civilians. This was in August, September 1982. So ultimately, Reagan does get an agreement. He had his mediator, Phil Habib, who actually knew what he was doing, unlike Steve Wyckoff, they get a deal for the PLO to depart Lebanon. But Bob Ames is able to get a copy of his proposal to Arafat in Beirut, in his bunker in Beirut, even before Reagan is able to announce it on television. Ames was not in Beirut at the time.
- [39:15]
Kai Bird
Yeah, well, he was able to do it through Mustafa Zayn, his asset unpaid volunteer. Mustafa just did it because he was convinced that this was in the interest of both America and Lebanon and the Palestinians, and he was trying to be helpful. Regarding the embassy, ironically, when I was nine years old, I lived in that building. I lived on the third floor of the US Embassy in Beirut. My father was stationed there that year in 1961. 62, 9, 10 years old. And they had an apartment that was available on the third floor. So I remember every day, you know, taking the elevator down, waving goodbye to the Marine guards and going off to school. That's one of the reasons I wrote this book, was that I was, you know, shocked to see the headlines in 1983 that a truck bomb had been driven straight into the front doors of the US Embassy there and had brought much of the whole building down and killed over 60 people, including many Americans and Lebanese workers in the building.
- [40:25]
Martin DeCaro
Earlier in this process, the United States was afraid to tell Begin that they were going to continue to negotiate with the PLO to get them out of the. Out of Lebanon. So there's a scene that develops in the book where American negotiators on one floor of the building have couriers running notes up to a different floor. You know, basically mediation, using an elevator or a stairwell to pass messages back between the two sides. This was done because Begin utterly refused to countenance any direct US PLO talks.
- [40:54]
Kai Bird
Right, right.
- [40:55]
Martin DeCaro
That's crazy.
- [40:56]
Kai Bird
Crazy. And, you know, we're seeing the same thing happen today with Hamas. There are negotiations going on, but they're not face to face negotiations. The Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu insists that his goal is to eliminate and completely destroy Hamas, which is sort of, on the face of it, a difficult goal because it's An Hamas is not only a guerrilla force, a militia political party, but it's an idea. You can't eliminate ideas.
- [41:26]
Martin DeCaro
Two more questions. Kai Bird. I was just looking over again the text of the Ames proposal that was handed to Arafat. It does not say state, Palestinian state, but it does say autonomy. Could this have led to a state?
- [41:40]
Kai Bird
Oh, absolutely. I think that was clearly the intention. But everyone understood that you couldn't go to a full state right away, that you needed to transition, create sort of facts on the ground to show the Israeli populace that a Palestinian entity could evolve into a civil society and that it wasn't necessarily a terrorist threat.
- [42:05]
Martin DeCaro
I said two other questions. There's one other one I wanted to sneak in here. How would you compare Reagan's empathy to how, say, Donald Trump or Joseph Biden.
- [42:14]
Kai Bird
Have treated the Palestinians, the current White House leadership? Trump and his people have no empathy at all for the Palestinian cause. I think Trump has reluctantly seen the bloody headlines and the photos of complete carnage in Gaza, and he realizes he has to do something to try to wind this war down. But, you know, he essentially, early on in the war, gave a complete green light to Netanyahu and backed him in a really over the top reaction to the horrible events of October 7th. You know, there had to be some kind of response. But terrorism and terrorists, their first goal is to get the state actors to overreact. Terrorism is the weapon of the weak, and they use terrorism to provoke the state to create worse crimes than the original terrorism. And that's exactly what Hamas has achieved in Gaza. They got Netanyahu to engage in systematic war crimes. We're going to be feeling these consequences for many years to come.
- [43:23]
Martin DeCaro
I'll note that Reagan was also influenced by media images, photos he saw of the suffering in West Beirut. But by then, the Israelis, it looked like they had actually accomplished what they were setting out to do until Bashir Jamail, who was installed as the Maronite Christian leader of Lebanon. And he had a lot of blood on his hands, too. He was the head of a militia known for brutality. And Jamail was assassinated by a Syrian intelligence agent. And that was then followed by the massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Reagan had to send the multinational force, the Marines, back to Beirut. After that, he went on TV and excoriated all sides for the violence.
- [44:02]
Ronald Reagan
The scenes that the whole world witnessed this past weekend were among the most heartrending in the long nightmare of Lebanon's agony. Millions of us have seen pictures of the Palestinian victims of this tragedy. There's little that words can add. But there are actions we can and must take to bring that nightmare to an end. It's not enough for us to view this as some remote event in which we ourselves are not involved. For our friends in Lebanon and Israel, for our friends in Europe and elsewhere in the Middle east, and for us as Americans, this tragedy, horrible as it is, reminds us of the absolute imperative of bringing peace to that troubled country and region. By working for peace in the Middle east, we serve the cause of world peace and the future of mankind. For the criminals who did this deed, no punishment is enough to remove the blot of their crime. But for the rest of us, there are things that we can learn and things that we must do. The people of Lebanon must have learned that the cycle of massacre upon massacre must end. Children are not avenged by the murder of other children. Israel must have learned that there is no way it can impose its own solutions on hatreds as deep and bitter as those that produce this tragedy. If it seeks to do so, it will only sink more deeply into the quagmire that looms before it.
- [45:21]
Martin DeCaro
We know it happens in 1983. We get the embassy bombing and then later that year, in October. We are speaking in October here, the Marine barracks bombing. It is a cruel irony, isn't it, Kai Bird, that a man who had shown so much empathy and wanted to solve the dilemma of the Arabs in the Middle East, Bob Ames, was killed by Arab extremists. Who killed him?
- [45:43]
Kai Bird
Yeah, he died April 18, 1983 in the truck bomb attack. One of the reasons I tackled this story was it was a mystery who had killed him. It turned out to be not Arabs, but Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence elements. Specifically a man named Ali Reza Asgardi, who was a Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer stationed in eastern Lebanon in the wake of the 82 invasion by Israel. And he organized this truck bomb attack both of the embassy and later of the Marine barracks in October of 83. Ali Reza Askari has an interesting trajectory after this. These events in 82, 83. He remains in Lebanon for a long time and then he's eventually promoted to be Deputy Defense Minister in Iran. Then he suddenly disappears one day in 2007 on a trip to Turkey and he's never seen from again. Well, what happened was he defected. He ended up either in America or in Israel and it's still a mystery about what happened to him. He may be dead. He may be living in America under a assumed name, given asylum essentially by the CIA, which is filled with irony because of course, it would be very controversial if it was true that the mastermind of the truck bomb attack attack that killed so many CIA officers in Beirut in 1983 was in fact given a political asylum in America. It's just head spinning.
- [47:31]
Martin DeCaro
Yeah, that's even crazier than the story I believed was the case until your remarks here. So you're saying it was the Iranians who masterminded it and worked with people on the ground in Beirut to assemble the weaponry, et cetera. There was a TV show that came out in 2023, actually interviewed the director on my show. It's a fictionalized account of what happened, but it is based on real life events and the director says based on sources within Mossad and the U.S. intelligence. And that is a teenager who had been working as a bodyguard for Arafat's plo. He was a Lebanese teenager who became radicalized after the Israeli invasion, directed his anger at the US presence in his country afterward because of US support for Israel. Imad Mukhniah, who is a founding member of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
- [48:21]
Kai Bird
No, I write about Mukhnya at some length. He's a major figure in the Good Spy. He was actually recruited by Alireza Askari, the Iranian intelligence officer. This is the beginning of Hezbollah, which didn't exist in 1983. But this shadow group that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives put together in Lebanon in 83 emerged just a few years later as the organization we know as Hezbollah. Mughnia was a major figure in Hezbollah until his own assassination some years ago.
- [48:56]
Martin DeCaro
I do have the page open here in the conclusion of your book. Actually it's the Enigma of Imad Mugnia is the title of this chapter. I guess maybe when I watched that show and spoke to the director, I took away that Mughnia had more of a role in all of this than he actually did. You say here the 20 year old certainly had a role, certainly had a role in the Beirut embassy bombing that killed Bob Ames. Perhaps he came up with the idea, but many others carried it out. Do you feel like the TV show put too much of responsibility on his shoulders, made him out to be a bigger figure than he actually was, or I don't know if you've even seen.
- [49:30]
Kai Bird
The show, but yeah, I haven't seen that particular show. But it is true he was involved, he played a key role in it, but he was so young at the time, he didn't have the resources to carry off such a, you know, an expensive operation, really a 2000 pound truck bomb attack. But the Iranian Revolutionary Guard certainly had those assets. And Alireza Askari recruited Mokniya to help in the operation. And that was the beginning of Mokniya's long career with Hezbollah.
- [50:04]
Martin DeCaro
So primarily an Iranian job. There is a scene in the show where Mugnia is recruiting the suicide driver, the suicide bomber, and trying to convince him to go ahead and do this. As we wrap up here, Kai, what should we remember about Bob Ames today?
- [50:20]
Kai Bird
His life story and career gives us several lessons. You know, specifically the lesson of the missed opportunity that his life story exemplifies. And it also underscores the importance of human intelligence in the making of foreign policy. It is true we have diplomats, but there is a role for intelligence officers in dicey, difficult situations to create the elements for a negotiation for the diplomats to letter came in. That's exactly what Bob Ames did in the period 69 to 79. And he created the relationships that led to OSLO diplomacy in 92, 93. Unfortunately, in these days of high tech intelligence, the CIA has poured, you know, billions of dollars into surveillance, digital surveillance, high tech intercept intelligence, satellite intelligence. But they haven't invested, as the agencies used to be known, in human intelligence. And that means, you know, cultivating over many, many years, deep relationships. To do that, you have to know the language, you have to know the history of your target, and you have to have some empathy for these people.
- [51:48]
Martin DeCaro
You can't be friends with a drone.
- [51:50]
Kai Bird
You can't be friends with a drone.
- [51:52]
Martin DeCaro
Ames befriended people who were considered terrorists, right? But it bore fruit.
- [51:56]
Kai Bird
Yes, and that's the remarkable lesson of his tragic career.
- [52:01]
Ronald Reagan
We don't know yet who bears responsibility for this terrible deed. What we do know is that the terrorists who planned and carried out this cynical and cowardly attack have failed in their purpose. They mistakenly believe that if they're cruel enough and violent enough, they will weaken American resolve and determine us from our effort to help build a lasting and secure peace in the Middle East. Well, if they think that they don't know too much about America as a free people. We've never allowed intimidation to stop us from doing what we know to be right. The best way for us to show our love and respect for our fellow countrymen who died in Beirut this week is to carry on with their task, to press harder than ever with our peacemaking efforts. And that's exactly what we're doing. More than ever, we're committed to giving the people of Lebanon the chance they deserve to lead normal lives free from violence and free from the presence of all unwanted foreign forces. On their soil. And we remain committed to the Lebanese government's recovery of full sovereignty throughout all its territory.
- [53:13]
Martin DeCaro
We thank Kai Bird for his time here to discuss Bob Ames. And he's got a new book coming out next year about Roy Cohn. On the next episode of History as it Happens. Russia and Syria unable to break up while they have had a long relationship. Remember, sign up for my newsletter. It's free. Go to Substack and search for History as it Happens.