The U.S.’s Central Intelligence agency - the CIA - and Israel’s Mossad are 2 of the world’s most
famous and most elite spy agencies with a long history of working together as allies - and,
at times, of spying on each other. Mossad versus CIA - how do they compare?
Israel and the U.S. have long professed to be allies and close friends, and politicians
in both countries have been bragging for decades about the “special relationship”
between the 2 nations. While this may be true, and while there have been many instances of the
countries and their spy agencies working together to achieve mutual goals, the U.S. and Israel also
regard each other with deep suspicion, and both countries have found themselves on the receiving
end of each other’s espionage efforts. In fact, some experts suggest that Israel launches more
aggressive espionage efforts on the U.S. than almost any other nation on earth! According to a
classified NSA document that was made public in 2014: “The Israelis are extraordinarily
good partners for us, but they target us to learn our positions on Middle East problems.”
In one of the most famous cases, U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to
life in prison in 1987 after he was caught stealing U.S. secrets and selling them to Israel.
Given the clandestine nature of these organizations, it’s hard to
get any straight answers about what exactly they do or how exactly the CIA and Mossad
accomplish their clandestine missions. But, thanks to declassified documents,
the revealing memoirs of former spies, and some brave whistleblowers, we can start
to piece together a history and profile of the CIA and Mossad to see how they compare.
The U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency was formed in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman,
largely in response to growing tensions with the former USSR after World War 2. Reporting
to the Director of National Intelligence, a cabinet-level official, the CIA’s official role is
to provide foreign intelligence information to the President of the United States and the Cabinet.
Today, the CIA employs more than 21,000 people, though only a fraction of them work as spies.
Although there have been female spies in the CIA since the very beginning, the agency also has a
long history of sexism, and many former employees have noted that a glass ceiling has long prevented
women from rising to higher positions in the CIA. In 1992, only 10% of non-support roles
were held by women, versus 40% in the general workforce. The CIA has made strides forwards in
recent years - in 2018, Gina Haspel was sworn in as the first female director of the CIA.
Mossad was formed in December 1949 to act as a central body that would coordinate
between Israel’s existing intelligence agencies, like the army’s intelligence arm,
the internal security service Shin Bet, and the foreign office. In 1951, Mossad was reorganized
and made a part of the prime minister’s office, reporting directly to the prime minister. From
their headquarters in Tel Aviv, Mossad focuses on foreign intelligence - according to their website,
their role is to “collect information, analyse intelligence and perform special
covert operations beyond Israel’s borders.” The Mossad’s ethos is summed up in their motto,
taken from the bible: “By way of deception thou shalt make war.”
To help them in their mission, Mossad employees nearly 7,000 people - but only about 50 of them
are covert operatives, called Katsa. Many Katsa are women, and the agency has a pretty progressive
attitude toward their female operatives - Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo has said: “Contrary
to stereotypes, you see that women’s abilities are superior to men in terms of understanding
the territory, reading situations, spatial awareness. When they’re good, they’re very good.”
When it comes to achieving their objectives, flirting is fair game for female spies, but there
are hard lines that they will not cross - and that their superiors will not ask them to cross.
A former female Israeli spy told reporters that “a man who wants to gain access to a forbidden area
has less chance of being allowed in… A smiling woman has a bigger chance of success”,
but was adamant that sex is never used as a weapon.
CIA spy training takes place at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia. To be accepted into CIA spy
training, at minimum a prospect must be over 18, have a background in science,
engineering or business, and be drug-free for at least a year. Knowing a second language is
considered an asset, as well. CIA training focuses on handling mental stress - recruits learn through
gruelling experience how to function and focus through sleep deprivation, fatigue, discomfort
and in the face of extreme danger. Recruits also receive training in firearms handling and
hand-to-hand combat, but the hallmark of CIA training is the year-long clandestine series
training. According to former CIA spy Amaryllis Fox, trainees “run around DC...high on the fact
that the civilians around them are oblivious to what’s happening right in front of them.”
At “The Farm” - the nickname for their secret training facility - new recruits
will learn the hands-on skills they need to be a successful spy. They are trained in elicitation,
or bumps, the subtle art of extracting information and getting a mark talking.
They learn to perform dead drops and brush passes to subtly hand off information or materials.
They become skilled at detecting and eluding surveillance. During training,
their marks are other seasoned spies. Some of them see it as their duty to share their
hard-earned wisdom with the next generation of spies, some are just looking for an easy
assignment close to home, and still others are being punished for screw ups in the field.
Requirements for joining Mossad appear to be less stringent than the CIA’s - according to their
website, “all are welcome, regardless of religion, nationality or occupation.” Training takes place
at the Midrasha near the town of Herzliya, where prospective recruits are subjected to a battery of
psychological and aptitude tests before starting their 3 year training program. During training,
new spies are instructed in the arts of espionage, including how to cultivate agents and avoid
surveillance. They also receive extensive training in different methods of killing.
How do the CIA and Mossad compare? Both organizations have similar structures and
mandates, and their recruits undergo similar training. Perhaps the best way to see how the 2
agencies stack up against each other is to look at them in action. Though their work is, by nature,
secret, over time details have leaked out about both agencies’ successes - and their failures.
The CIA’s official focus is on gathering intel, and Operation Rubicon was one of the largest,
longest and most successful operations in CIA history.
It started out as an unofficial “gentleman’s agreement” between 2 friends, NSA cryptographer
William Friedman and Boris Hagelin, owner of the Swiss firm Crypto AG. Crypto AG was one
of the world’s most reputable manufacturers of coding machines, and it counted the governments
and militaries of over 60 countries among its clients. The 2 friends, Friedman and Hagelin,
agreed that Crypto AG’s machines should only be sold to “friendly” countries, and throughout
the 1950s almost all of Crypto AG’s machines were sold as “readable” to the United States.
The relationship between Friendman and Hagelin grew strained over the years, and by the late
60s the CIA realized that they needed to find a way to retain their access to the valuable
information that Crypto AG provided. CIA agents, with help from West German intelligence officials,
orchestrated a daring and complex operation to purchase the Swiss company in June 1970.
The purchase was done in secret through intermediaries to deceive Swiss officials,
and not even Crypto AG’s employees knew the real identity of the company’s new owners.
Once the CIA controlled the company, they continued to sell less secure machines to
enemy countries - and probably to their allies, too - and enjoyed decades of unfiltered access
to intelligence data from all over the world during the height of the Cold War. Data collected
through Crypto AG machines was instrumental in countless Cold War events, including the Suez
Canal crisis in 1956, the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords, and the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979.
Like the CIA, Mossad’s focus is on counter-terrorism and intel gathering.
In recent years, Mossad has also branched out into venture capitalism,
investing in tech startups in an effort to stay on the cutting edge of cyber technologies.
Mossad also aren’t shy about the fact that covert
operations - including assassinations - are a major part of their mandate.
One of Mossad’s most high profile successes was the abduction of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann,
a daring escapade that seems like a plot straight out of a Hollywood spy movie.
Eichmann was one of the architects of the Holocaust, personally responsible for the mass
murder of 6 million of Europe’s Jews, and after the war he escaped justice and fled to Argentina.
There, he lived a quiet life with his family under the fake name of Ricardo Klement. When Eichmann’s
son began dating the daughter of a Jewish refugee who had spent time at Dachau concentration camp,
her father realized Eichmann’s true identity. He alerted Israeli officials and Mossad sent
a highly trained “snatch team” to Argentina to capture him. Most members of the team had lost
their entire families in the concentration camps that Eichman had created. On May 11, 1960, Mossad
agents approached Eichmann as he was walking home from his job at a Mercedes Benz factory,
wrestled him to the ground and into a waiting car and sped away. They took him to a safe house
where he was interrogated for days before being drugged and smuggled onto a plane to Israel. The
trial that followed was the first televised trial in history, and the first time most of the world
heard the true details of the Holocaust. Eichmann claimed that he was just following orders,
but the evidence showed otherwise - he was found guilty and hanged in June 1962.
Some of Mossad and CIA’s biggest successes have actually happened when the 2 agencies
work together. During Operation Olympic Games, which started in 2006, CIA agents
and Mossad operatives were rumored to have worked together to foil Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
The operatives created a sophisticated digital weapon, dubbed the Stuxnet virus,
the first of its kind in the world. Since hackers couldn’t access the plant’s systems directly,
they coordinated a complicated operation to infect the laptops of 5 different companies believed to
be connected to the facility with the destructive virus. These ‘patient zeros’ then spread the virus
to the plant’s industrial control computers via USB drives, effectively destroying the plant’s
centrifuges and preventing Iran from enriching uranium, an important first step in creating
nuclear weapons. It took nearly a year for the Iranians to discover the virus in their systems,
and to this day, neither the U.S. or Israel have officially taken credit for the attack.
When an operation is successful, the public is unlikely to hear about it for years,
if at all. Failures, on the other hand, often make headline news. In recent decades,
the CIA has come under scrutiny for its perceived failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks on the
World Trade Center. It has faced increased scrutiny in the wake of the Wikileaks breach,
and Americans’ growing concerns about privacy. In 2015, the CIA faced lawsuits and backlash
over its interrogation methods, which critics believed amounted to torture.
Mossad is not immune to criticism, either. They are frequently accused of hyper-focusing on their
neighbor and sworn enemy Palestine to such an extent that it causes them to miss important
intel elsewhere in the Middle East and around the world. They’ve had their share of scandals,
too. In 1972, Palestinian terrorists launched a deadly attack at the 1972 Munich Olymics,
killing 6 Israeli athletes and 5 of their trainers. Mossad agents hunted down many of the
terrorists behind the attack, but in 1973, they shot and killed a Moroccan-born waiter in Norway,
having mistaken him for one of the terrorists. 5 Mossad officers were tried, but released,
and Mossad compensated the victims' family.
Mossad and the CIA are 2 of the most elite and effective spy agencies in the world,
at times acting as allies, and at others turning their considerable espionage skills on each other.
Mossad versus CIA - how do they compare? Only time will tell who comes out on top - though,
come to think of it, maybe we don’t really want to find out…
If you thought this video was fascinating, be sure and check out our other videos,
like this one called “Who Were The Most Successful Spies of All Time?”,
or perhaps you’ll like this other video more!