Amiram Nir
18. October, 2008Former CIA deep cover agent Gene “Chip” Tatum on the murder of Amiram Nir.
Abbreviated transcript of Gene Tatum’s appearance on the Rob Lori radio show out of Tampa, Florida:
ROBERT LORI:
Okay, let’s talk about that. Amiram Nir is an Israeli intelligence person. And I’m not sure whether he worked for the government or not. Tell me more about Amiram Nir.
GENE TATUM:
He was the Prime Minister of Israel’s primary consultant on terrorism. He was associated with Israeli intelligence. I’m not going to say it was Mossad. It was Israeli intelligence of some sort — because of his knowledge.
And when you say “Mr. North’s time to build these camps:” He designated that to General Alvarez of Honduras — he was the army Chief of Staff — and to Enrique Bermudez(sp?), the commander of those North camps. *They* actually built those camps.
I think I saw Mr. North one time in Honduras — no, twice. I’m sorry.
ROBERT LORI:
So in terms of “taking out” Amiram Nir, what was your role in that?
GENE TATUM:
I was to fly a 4-man team to a southern Mexico town, outside of
Morelia. Mr. Nir was involved in an avocado packaging plant
which, I don’t know if it did or didn’t package avocados, or
packaged something else. I was not involved in that. I *was*
involved in eliminating him before he could appear before the
commissions to testify in 1989.
I flew a 4-man team in. There was a radio beacon put in, with
the frequency given to us, put on Mr. Nir. We triangulated the
position. The 4-man team went to that position to eliminate Mr.
Nir. However apparently there were two signals, and one was in an
aircraft, a small aircraft.  I think it was a Cessna T-210, a
small, charter aircraft.
When I fly a mission as a combat helicopter pilot, into a foreign
country, we normally fly in what’s called “the Archer Mode,”
which is an armed mode. We would fly an aircraft with full
Stingers on one side of the pod, and we would fly a, about a
one-quarter to one-third charged missiles on the right side of
the aircraft, so that we could scare away base aircraft based in
the country that we were in, rather than shoot them down. We
would rather scare them away than shoot them down.
Unfortunately, this missile, the proximity missile that I fired,
took down the aircraft and killed two people on board.
ROBERT LORI:
And one of them was Amiram Nir?
GENE TATUM:
That’s correct.
ROBERT LORI:
The shoot-down took place at a time when the Iran-Contra scandal
was on the front pages of American newspapers, right?
GENE TATUM:
That’s right.
ROBERT LORI:
So what’s your theory about why your superiors wanted him “taken out?”
GENE TATUM:
I believe that he could have provided embarrassing information
about the involvement of Mr. Harari, directly linking, probably,
Israel, to the manufacturing and trafficking of cocaine. I
believe that he could implicate the Vice-President of the United
States, George Bush, in the trafficking of cocaine.  And I
believe he could implicate several others, including Mr. North.
And I believe that he was prepared to implicate them.
ROBERT LORI:
Who ordered you to “take out” Amiram Nir?
GENE TATUM:
It came through Major Rodriguez, who actually ended up being
Felix Rodriguez. Most of the orders that we would receive would
come through that particular mode.  Now this, you have to
understand, was after Iran-Contra.  So the order came from
Rodriguez, but it was actually from George Bush.
ROBERT LORI:
Now how do you know it was from George Bush?
GENE TATUM:
Because I spoke to Mr. Bush concerning it.
ROBERT LORI:
And how did you speak to him? Did you speak to him face-to-face?
GENE TATUM:
Via land line.
ROBERT LORI:
And what did he tell you?
GENE TATUM:
He explained to me that Mr. Nir was a threat, that he was trying
to expose the movement and the trafficking, and that he needed to
be “taken out.”  And he told me to pick up my Archer Team,
relocate to El Salvador, that tactical fuel [unclear] and
tactical beacons would be set up.  I was to move my aircraft to
those beacons for re-fueling, and eliminate Mr. Nir.
ROBERT LORI:
Now what was your frame of mind, as…
GENE TATUM:
Let me qualify that: I was also told that this was an approved
mission by the Mossad and that it was primarily for the Mossad
that we were doing this.
ROBERT LORI:
So the Mossad viewed Amiram Nir as a renegade agent, and they wanted him “taken out” as well.
GENE TATUM:
That’s the understanding that was given to me, yes.
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