Banned Book About Israel's Chief Spy Agency Details Intelligence Operations

WASHINGTON (SEPT. 13) UPI - A temporarily banned book about the Mossad, Israel's chief spy agency, says up to 27 Israeli intelligence agents operate in the United States chiefly to gather data about the Arab world but that U.S. companies and citizens have been targeted for information.

The agents recruit, organize and carry out covert activities, mainly in New York and Washington, as part of a top secret unit of the Mossad known as Al, the Hebrew word for ''above'' or ''on top,'' said the book, ''By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer.''

Further, the book said the Mossad believes that the official U.S. version of President John F. Kennedy's assassination Nov. 22, 1963, ''was pure, unadulterated hokum.''

The 361-page book by Victor Ostrovsky, who was born in Canada, has dual Canadian-Israeli citizenship and was a Mossad operative from 1984- 1986, and Claire Hoy, a Canadian journalist, discloses a host of secrets and some chilling details of the spy agency's worldwide activities. Ostrovsky's father, Syd Osten, lives in Omaha, Neb. Ostrovsky, who wrote that he quit the Mossad after it used him as a scapegoat in the failure to capture Arab terrorist leaders, is said to be hiding in Canada.

In a foreward, Ostrovsky wrote that he was ''laying my life on the line'' in publishing the account.

The book, whose distribution temporarily was blocked in New York state and Canada at the request of Israel's government, threatened to confront Israel with its biggest embarrassment since nuclear engineer Mordechai Vanunu revealed in 1986 that Israel has stockpiled weapons- grade plutonium at its nuclear plant in Dimona. Vanunu was caught by Mossad agents in Rome and has been jailed in Israel.

But galleys of the book were made available for review by its publisher, St. Martin's Press of New York City.

The spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Ruth Yaron, declined to comment about the book, citing the court action.

But she said Israel asked for the court injunction because Ostrovsky violated his contract with the Mossad by not first clearing the book for publication and because her government ''feels that there are details that could harm the security of Israel and Israelis.''

If the first person accounts of Mossad operations, training procedures and organization are true - it was virtually impossible to verify them immediately - the book provides the most complete portrait ever presented publicly of Israel's most significant intelligence agency.

''Mossad'' is an acronym for The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. The agency's operatives, who the book says number no more than 1,200, including secretaries, refer to it simply as ''the office.''

The Al unit that operates in the United States with 24 to 27 employes ''is so secretive, and so separate from the main organization, that the majority of Mossad employees don't even know what it does and do not have access to its files on the computer. But it exists,'' the book said.

''Their primary task,'' it said of the operatives, ''is to gather information on the Arab world and the PLO, as opposed to gathering intelligence about U.S. activities. But as we shall see, the dividing line is often blurred, and when in doubt, Al doesn't hesitate to cross over it.'' One example was the theft of research material from some major U.S. defense contractors to help Israel get a five-year $25.8 million contract in 1986 to supply the Navy and Marines with unmanned reconnaissance drones known as the Mazlat Pioneer I, the book said.

As for the Kennedy assassination, the book said the Mossad's ''theory was that the killers - Mafiosa hit men, not Lee Harvey Oswald - actually wanted to murder Texas Gov. John Connally. Oswald was seen as a dupe in the whole thing and Connally as the target of mobsters trying to muscle their way into the oil business.''

Connally was in Kennedy's car in the Dallas motorcade and was wounded.

The Warren Commission, the official body that investigated the assassination, said that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy and there had been no conspiracy.

Ostrovsky did not support the contention that organized crime may have been behind Kennedy's killing.

But he wrote that the Mossad carried out a simulated exercise using better, more powerful weapons than Oswald's 6.5mm rifle and telescopic sight and couldn't hit a moving target from the 88-yard distance Oswald was from the motorcade.

''A single bullet is supposed to have gone through the back of Kennedy's head, out his chest and into Connally,'' the book said. ''If you look at the film (of the assassination), you'll see those points were not aligned. If ever a bullet could do a Waltzing Matilda, that was it.''