David Ben-Gurion

Volodya and Masha had no way of knowing about the covert operation then being run in the Soviet Union by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. In the judgment of those who conducted it, and others, that operation had a startling ripple effect on the destiny of Soviet Jewry-and on the future of the Soviet Union itself. Israel made a slow entry into Soviet JewryБЂ™s dissident movement and, once inside, seemed to walk an overly cautious path. Geopolitical interests forced upon it a proceed-with-care policy: It needed Soviet support and could not become involved in overt criticism of the Soviet Union or in its disputes with contentious nationalities. A few in Israel thought that what could not be achieved openly might be done secretly. To that end, in 1952 a small group of people in Israeli intelligence, with the approval of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, set up an operation whose main task was the classical Zionist one: Contact Jews in the Baltic regions and Soviet heartland, especially those who had once been members of Zionist youth parties, and establish escape routes to Israel in case of Stalinist pogroms ...»