Reuven Shiloah

1909 - 1959

Israeli intelligence official, strategist, and diplomat.

Born Reuven Zaslani in Jerusalem, Shiloah served in the SHAI (the Haganah intelligence service) in the 1930s and worked with the Jewish community in Iraq. He headed the Arab section of the political department of the Jewish Agency under Moshe Shertok (Sharett). He was liaison officer with British and U.S. intelligence services during World War II. Shiloah held many secret meetings with King Abdullah of Transjordan before and after the 1948 war.

He was the first director of the political department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and headed the Israeli delegation to the Lausanne peace talks in 1949. He was also the first head of the Mossad (1949 - 1952), but was worn down by the disastrous collapse of the Israeli spy network in Iraq, by a serious road accident, and by constant feuding with Isser Harel, the first head of the Shin Bet and Shiloah's successor as Mossad chief.

Shiloah resigned his chairmanship of the intelligence services coordinating committee to serve under ambassador Abba Eban as a minister at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. (1953 - 1957). While there he forged close ties with the U.S. intelligence community.

As a senior adviser to Golda Meir, the foreign minister, Shiloah was instrumental in forging Israel's "periphery doctrine" of responding to the Cold War and Nasserism by seeking closer links with non-Arab regimes such as Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia. He attempted but failed to establish an Israeli relationship with NATO. Shiloah was widely described as a workaholic; this trait contributed to his poor health and his premature death.

Bibliography

Black, Ian, and Morris, Benny. Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services. New York: Grove Press, 1991.

Eshed, Haggai. Reuven Shiloah: The Man Behind the Mossad. London: Frank Cass, 1997.

— IAN BLACK

Shiloah on his way to Rhodes for talks on 1949 Armistice Agreements

Reuven Shiloah (December 1909-1959) was the first Director of the Mossad from 1949 to 1952. Born in Ottoman ruled Jerusalem as Reuven Zaslanski, he would later shorten his last name to Zaslani and use the codeword Shiloah. From an Orthodox Jewish family and with a rabbi for a father, Shiloah abandoned the religious life of his family at an early age. In the mid-1930s he met Betty Borden of New York and the two were married in 1936.

Shiloah was involved in Israeli political and defense matters since before its creation, and was a close friend of David Ben-Gurion. Before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War Shiloah obtained the invasion plans of the Arab League, and he began building relationships with other intelligence agencies, particularly in the West. At the urging of Shiloah, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion created the "Central Institute for Coordination" (Mossad) in December of 1949 and appointed Shiloah as it first Director. However, it was not until April 1, 1951 that the Mossad became operational under Shiloah because bureaucratic fighting had delayed Ben-Gurion's initial order. After his tenure at the Mossad Shiloah worked in the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC and continued serving as an advisor.

References

• Black, Ian. Morris, Benny. Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services. New York: Grove Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8021-1159-9, 82-84 p.
• Raviv, Dan and Melman, Yossi. Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990. ISBN 0-395-47102-8 p. 20

Further reading

• Eshed, Haggai. Reuven Shiloah - the Man Behind the Mossad; Secret Diplomacy in the Creation of Israel. Frank Cass, 1997. ISBN 0-7146-4812-4

v • d • e Directors of the Mossad Shiloah (1949-52) · Harel (1952-63) · Amit (1963-68) · Zamir (1968-74) · Hofi (1974-82) · Admoni (1982-89) · Shavit (1989-96) · Yatom (1996-98) · Halevy (1998-2002) · Dagan (2002-)

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