The CIA officer who secretly met the PLO's spymaster for ten years | WHO KILLED THE PEACE? Part 3

History Onion · Part 3 · 2:58

In 1969 America refused to speak to the Palestine Liberation Organization — no recognition, no meetings, no contact of any kind. (The formal ban came later: Kissinger's 1975 no-negotiation pledge, and Congress declaring the PLO a terrorist organization in 1987.) So when a CIA officer began meeting the PLO's intelligence chief in Beirut, he did it in secret, and kept doing it for ten years. Robert Ames was the CIA's leading expert on the Arab world. Ali Hassan Salameh was Yasser Arafat's intelligence chief — a playboy who married a Miss Universe, and to Israel one of the men behind the Munich Olympics massacre. Each had something the other needed: the PLO could keep Americans alive in the most dangerous city on earth, and Ames could give a movement with no embassy and no recognition a private hearing in Washington. Langley wanted Salameh recruited and put on a salary; Ames refused to even make the offer, and said why. The channel still delivered — when America evacuated its citizens from Beirut by sea in 1976, the PLO guarded the route (US Navy history records the dockside security). Then Israel, hunting the men behind Munich, asked Washington one question about Salameh — and got silence. Part 3. Follow for Part 4 — The Handshake.