The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran by David Crist Page B
Authors: David Crist
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his pseudonym, Reza Kahlili. From an upper-middle-class family, he had attended school in California, where an aunt lived. He’d joined the guard withsome friends out of youthful enthusiasm. While one friend went on to a senior position in the guard’s intelligence unit, Kahlili served in a propaganda unit, which prized his English-language skills.
His disillusionment had occurred after a visit to Evin Prison. While he witnessed repeated beatings of political prisoners or their family members, the most repugnant act he viewed was the deliberate rape of two women before their execution. Their crimes were little more than being related to the wrong person. But according to religious belief, virgins could go to heaven despite their crimes. The head of the Revolutionary Court, Ayatollah Mohammad Gilani, ordered the guards to rape the two women to deprive them of any chance of salvation. 20 Repulsed, Kahlili flew back to California to visit his aunt. After briefly contemplating defecting, he decided to contact the FBI and offer his services and information. They passed him on to the CIA, which after the usual polygraph and background checks formally brought him into the agency’s stable of agents.
Analysts back in Washington generated a laundry list of questions for these agents: How was the Revolutionary Guard Corps organized, and what were its military tactics? Who were the rising religious leaders? What were people worried about domestically? What was the political situation in Kurdistan and other provinces? 21
In Frankfurt, Tehfran employed several means of communicating with its agents inside Iran. A few agents received specialized equipment that allowed for encrypted burst transmissions to be sent over regular phone lines back to Tehfran. For Kahlili and others, they purchased standard shortwave radios on the black market and, at predetermined times, listened for Morse-coded messages that came across the airwaves as blocks of numbers. A separately provided paper cipher translated those numbers into individual letters. 22
The CIA’s prime means of communicating with agents was an old trick, dating back a century: invisible ink. Its various formulas remained some of the oldest secrets held at the National Archives, with some not declassified until 2011. 23 The Iranian spies would respond using more-or-less-invisible (MLI) writing tools—plastic pens and other items coated with a special chemical that left a hidden residue that could be retrieved by applying the proper solution. Kahlili used specially treated writing paper. On the front, he would write innocuous letters to fictitious friends in Frankfurt. On the back, using a special MLI pencil, he wrote his message, which remained invisible until the CIA officer in Tehran washed the paper with a special solution. 24 Hundredsof these letters traveled between Iran and Germany—one air force officer admitted to sending 110 letters himself back to Tehfran. 25
The spy network produced a mixed bag of rumor and fact. None of the recruited spies was senior enough to influence the regime or shed much light on Iran’s position toward the superpowers, as Casey had hoped. They frequently reported erroneous information. 26 One agent told his American handlers that Iran had provided helicopters to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and intended to arm it with missiles. To confirm the report, the CIA consulted all its Iranian sources, including debriefing an Iranian pilot who had recently defected to Iraq. In the end, intelligence officials concluded that the report was false, based on little more than barroom gossip picked up in the Iranian officers’ club.
But the agents did provide useful information that helped Washington undermine Iran’s military adventures. One agent tipped off the CIA to an attempt by Iran to purchase French-made Exocet antiship missiles, allowing the State Department to intervene and scuttle the sale. An aircraft mechanic
His disillusionment had occurred after a visit to Evin Prison. While he witnessed repeated beatings of political prisoners or their family members, the most repugnant act he viewed was the deliberate rape of two women before their execution. Their crimes were little more than being related to the wrong person. But according to religious belief, virgins could go to heaven despite their crimes. The head of the Revolutionary Court, Ayatollah Mohammad Gilani, ordered the guards to rape the two women to deprive them of any chance of salvation. 20 Repulsed, Kahlili flew back to California to visit his aunt. After briefly contemplating defecting, he decided to contact the FBI and offer his services and information. They passed him on to the CIA, which after the usual polygraph and background checks formally brought him into the agency’s stable of agents.
Analysts back in Washington generated a laundry list of questions for these agents: How was the Revolutionary Guard Corps organized, and what were its military tactics? Who were the rising religious leaders? What were people worried about domestically? What was the political situation in Kurdistan and other provinces? 21
In Frankfurt, Tehfran employed several means of communicating with its agents inside Iran. A few agents received specialized equipment that allowed for encrypted burst transmissions to be sent over regular phone lines back to Tehfran. For Kahlili and others, they purchased standard shortwave radios on the black market and, at predetermined times, listened for Morse-coded messages that came across the airwaves as blocks of numbers. A separately provided paper cipher translated those numbers into individual letters. 22
The CIA’s prime means of communicating with agents was an old trick, dating back a century: invisible ink. Its various formulas remained some of the oldest secrets held at the National Archives, with some not declassified until 2011. 23 The Iranian spies would respond using more-or-less-invisible (MLI) writing tools—plastic pens and other items coated with a special chemical that left a hidden residue that could be retrieved by applying the proper solution. Kahlili used specially treated writing paper. On the front, he would write innocuous letters to fictitious friends in Frankfurt. On the back, using a special MLI pencil, he wrote his message, which remained invisible until the CIA officer in Tehran washed the paper with a special solution. 24 Hundredsof these letters traveled between Iran and Germany—one air force officer admitted to sending 110 letters himself back to Tehfran. 25
The spy network produced a mixed bag of rumor and fact. None of the recruited spies was senior enough to influence the regime or shed much light on Iran’s position toward the superpowers, as Casey had hoped. They frequently reported erroneous information. 26 One agent told his American handlers that Iran had provided helicopters to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and intended to arm it with missiles. To confirm the report, the CIA consulted all its Iranian sources, including debriefing an Iranian pilot who had recently defected to Iraq. In the end, intelligence officials concluded that the report was false, based on little more than barroom gossip picked up in the Iranian officers’ club.
But the agents did provide useful information that helped Washington undermine Iran’s military adventures. One agent tipped off the CIA to an attempt by Iran to purchase French-made Exocet antiship missiles, allowing the State Department to intervene and scuttle the sale. An aircraft mechanic
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