Alexander Haig, Kissinger’s sometimes loyal deputy

Alexander Haig, Kissinger’s sometimes loyal deputy, had called a few times during the day to beat

back the story. At around seven o’clock, there was a final call. ‘You’re Jewish, aren’t you,

Seymour?’ In all our previous conversations, I’d been ‘Sy.’ I said yes. ‘Let me ask you one

question, then,’ Haig said. ‘Do you honestly believe that Henry Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from

Germany who lost thirteen members of his family to the Nazis, could engage in such police-state tactics

as wiretapping his own aides? If there is any doubt, you owe it to yourself, your beliefs, and your

nation to give us one day to prove that your story is wrong.’ That was Watergate, circa 1973. The

Times printed the story the next day, and Kissinger did not resign.”

This supposed ethno-religious-historical resistance to bugging is apparently something that never

occurred to the Israelis, who blithely have been bugging each other’s computers, according to this

fascinating story: apparently it all came out when a mystery writer, Ammon Jacont, and his co-author

wife noticed that sections of their new as-yet-unpublished novel were appearing on the internet. An

investigation unraveled a case of industrial espionage involving “spyware” — software that

infiltrates computers, steals information, and records every keystroke — that involves at least three

Israeli “private” investigating outfits, as well as the executives of major Israeli companies. As one

account describes it:

“The full extent of the industrial spying operation has yet to be discovered, Peal Liat,

superintendent at Tel Aviv police headquarters, told Computer Weekly: ‘Right now it is a very

sophisticated investigation. We have something like 150 different computers that were taken by the

investigators. Every computer they open, they discover more. Every day it gets us more companies that

ordered the information and more companies that were infected,’ she said.