Spinner Of Tangled Yarns

Who is Ari Ben-Menashe? A lowly translator who never rose above unimportant desk jobs, according to the Israeli government. A teller of "bald-faced lies," says George Bush. A demon peddler of arms by his own account. Seymour Hersh says Ben-Menashe is an expert on signal intelligence who served more than 10 years in the Israeli army and in 1987, so he claims, became an intelligence adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. In mid-1990 he brought his story to Hersh before leaving the U.S. for Australia and a life of exile.

But Ben-Menashe has been eager to put his name to all kinds of tales. He has told the Senate that CIA chief-designate Robert Gates was a central figure in secret U.S. sales of arms to Iraq. He claims Robert McFarlane was simultaneously National Security Adviser and the top Israeli spy in Washington. He impressed one reporter who has dealt with him as a fabricator who nonetheless did have connections in Israeli intelligence. Some of his stories are unbelievable; some seem to contain a kernel of truth. The big question is which are which.