Agents of Innocence by David Ignatius

stupid.”
    Rogers paced the room. He stopped at the bar, poured a whisky, and then put it down.
    “I wonder,” said Rogers. “Is it possible that our new recruit imagines that he is recruiting us?”
    Fuad clucked his tongue. That was how Lebanese answered questions for which they hadn’t any answer.
    “I’ll tell you a secret,” said Rogers. “The secret is that it doesn’t matter what Jamal thinks he’s doing. So long as he plays the game.”
     
     
    When he returned to the embassy that evening, Rogers set in motion some discreet inquiries about Jamal. The answers came back several days later from a Lebanese agent who worked in the registry of the Deuxième Bureau.
    The Lebanese intelligence service, it turned out, had a thick file on Jamal Ramlawi. He was a security officer, with what appeared to be wide-ranging responsibilities. He was respected and feared by his subordinates. He was, just as Fuad had said, a favorite of the Old Man, who invited him to meetings with the senior Fatah leadership and solicited his advice. The Old Man, it was said, was cultivating Jamal as a leader of the younger generation of Fatah, someone who could work easily with the new wave of Palestinian exiles studying and working in Europe and the Arab world.
    The evidence strongly suggested that whatever Jamal was doing, he had the Old Man’s approval.
    There was another interesting tidbit. Jamal was reputed to be sex-crazy. He was currently having an affair with a blond German woman who was the mistress of a very rich, but aging, Lebanese banker.
     
     
    The third meeting, a week after the luncheon at Quo Vadis, was more discreet. They met at a prearranged time in a park on the grounds of the American University of Beirut. The smell of the sea mingled with the scent of the eucalyptus and pine trees.
    This time, Jamal brought a surprise of his own. He proposed regular contact between himself, on behalf of Fatah, and Fuad, on behalf of the United States. The purpose would be to discuss “matters of mutual concern,” a phrase as vague in Arabic as it is in English. He said the arrangement should be one of “liaison,” like the contacts the U.S. Embassy maintained with other embassies and political organizations around town.
    Fuad, who had been carefully coached for the meeting by Rogers, responded that he wasn’t authorized to discuss substantive issues like the one raised by Jamal.
    “I am here to listen,” Fuad said. “Only to listen.”
    “That’s not enough,” said the Palestinian. “We are not interested in a one-way dialogue.”
    “Maybe what you are seeking is possible,” responded Fuad. “But I cannot approve it. To make such an arrangement, you must talk directly with a member of the U.S. Embassy staff.”
    Now it was the Palestinian’s turn to balk.
    “Impossible! With an American agent? Do not ask for too much, my dear.”
    The Palestinian then delivered a brief lecture about the perfidy of the Zionists and the Imperialists.
    Fuad listened patiently and eventually concluded the meeting with a well-rehearsed pitch.
    The Americans had offered a sign of their goodwill by providing a document that dealt with issues of concern to the Palestinians. Now it was time for Fatah to reciprocate. Before proceeding further, Fuad said, the Americans would need some sign of Jamal’s good faith.
     
     
    The answer came on December 1, 1969, when Jamal delivered a public address to a gathering of students at the Lebanese Arab University. The local press was invited, and copies of their articles were sent the next day by the Beirut station to CIA headquarters in Langley, where they aroused considerable interest.
    The speech was unusual in itself. Fatah officials, other than the Old Man, rarely spoke in public. But it was the tone of the speech that was most surprising. In those days, Fatah’s pronouncements were usually ferocious blasts of revolutionary indignation. But Jamal’s speech was something different. The young