Dangerous Liaisons - Israel & The CIA (CSPAN, Book Notes, 1991)

Andrew Cockburn

"The premise is that there’s a side to the relationship between the U.S. and Israel which goes much beyond just the sentimental links and the links forged by supporters of Israel in this country. What we say, what we explain is that there has been since almost the earliest days of the Israeli state and the earliest days of the CIA a secret bond, a secret link between them, basically by which the Israelis — the Israeli intelligence — did jobs for the CIA and for the rest of American intelligence. You can’t understand what’s been going on around the world with American covert operations and the Israeli covert operations until you understand that the two countries have this secret arrangement."

Leslie Cockburn

"THE INSIDE STORY OF THE U.S.-ISRAELI COVERT RELATIONSHIP”: There are a number of things. For example, one particular part which I found most interesting was we talk about Israeli operations in Colombia and some of the Israeli commandos who trained the hit squads of the Medellin cartel. It turns out that they had trained us in Israel as well when they were between trips to Colombia. These were the same people who also trained most of the top commanders in the Guatemalan military and also trained the Contras. They had a firm that was under license to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and then they’d turn up in the jungles of Puerto Boyac in Colombia. So, we had a lot of adventures, I must say."