Jerusalem Diary: Monday 31 December

By Tim Franks
BBC News, Jerusalem

SPOOKS AND THEIR BOOKS:1

One quality that spies are supposed to share is a certain anonymity, a certain invisibility.

On that level, I imagine that - even before retirement - Efraim Halevy was not the best in the game.

Trying to keep to the shadows: Halevy in 1998 when he became Mossad chief

While the former director of Mossad has such hauteur, precision of language and clarity of thinking, that he seems to fit perfectly the image of spy agency boss, he might also be a university vice-chancellor.

The last time I saw Mr Halevy, there was also a twinkle of pleasure in his eyes.

On his desk was a copy of the Arabic translation of his memoirs, Man In The Shadows.

It has just been published, and is available, he told me, in Cairo and Beirut.

He is particularly tickled by the publisher's comment, in Arabic, on the front cover: "Know the enemy."

There have been two reviews, in Arabic newspapers. Were they favourable?

Mr Halevy puts it this way: "Compared to other (Arab) critiques of other books by other Israelis, they would be enough to encourage people to buy it."

SPOOKS AND THEIR BOOKS: II

Uzi Arad may not have published his memoirs, but he has his own treasured book reference, from his career as a spy.

He, too, was once a senior figure in Mossad.

For a time, he was their man in London. Arad recalls using the box office at the Royal Opera House for more than just the purchase of tickets.

An extensive library sprawls through Uzi Arad's comfortable house in Tel Aviv.

Surrounded by the biographies and memoirs of Marshal Petain, Abba Eban, Ernest Hemingway and George Brown, is Mandarin - the diaries of Nicholas Henderson, a former British ambassador in Washington.

On the inside cover, there is an inscription in green ink: "To Uzi with the thanks and appreciation of your British friends for your co-operation and help and best wishes for the future."

It is signed "C" - the initial that denotes the head of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service.

THE BOOK AS A GIFT

The following week, I was in Beirut, trying to make sense of the attempts - still unfulfilled - to elect a new president for Lebanon.

I was in the office of the ineffably urbane Hanna Anbar, associate publisher of the Lebanese newspaper, The Daily Star.

He had talked with immense confidence and, it turned out, with immense accuracy, about how the constitutional confusion would play out.

They are the collected thoughts and photos of Emile Lahoud. I've been desperate to get rid of them Hanna Anbar

It was at the end of my tutorial that I noticed, over his right shoulder, a book entitled Sexuality in Arab Countries.

I asked him if the book had been chosen and placed as a test for supplicants such as me, to see if our eyes wandered.

Hanna Anbar, for the first and only time, seemed mildly flustered, and insisted it was an academic study.

He showed me that he also had a copy of the Quran on his shelves. He also had the last laugh.

"Here, I've got something for you," he told me, as I was about to leave.

He passed me two books. They were in Arabic, thick-bound and impressively heavy.

I thanked my host. But what were they?

Hanna grinned widely.

"They are the collected thoughts and photos of Emile Lahoud (the outgoing Lebanese president, who was pretty much boycotted by Western countries, on account of his behaviour). I've been desperate to get rid of them. You're the only person who's said thank you before asking what they are."

We had spent the best part of an hour with him telling me in rich and certain detail why his country will not rescue itself.

But by the time we had walked to the lift outside his office, Hanna Anbar was wiping away tears of laughter.

And the books? I gave them to the taxi driver that night - having checked first that he would not be offended.

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Read previous diaries by Tim Franks:

5 November

12 November

19 November

26 November

3 December

10 December

17 December