Documents now revealed to Yediot Achronot from the so-called “Mitrokhin Archive” show that, during the period of the Soviet Union's regime, the KGB successfully infiltrated many levels of Israeli governance, including the Knesset, senior engineering positions on classified defense projects - and even the Army General Staff.
According to Yediot Achronot, the Mitrokhin Archive listed no less than three MKs as KGB agents, including the poet and politician in the now defunct radical left-wing Mapam party, Elazar Granot.
In addition, the archive listed an agent in a classified position in the aeronautical industry who was involved in plans for the development of the Lavi fighter jet, as well as another agent who reported to his KGB handlers on developments in the Israeli Merkava tank.
Another mysterious intelligence figure, code-named “Melinka,” apparently worked as an agent from within the counterintelligence branch of Israel’s secret service, the Shin Bet.
Possibly most shocking is the revelation that a general in the IDF General Staff was a KGB agent. In 1993, when the Mitrokhin papers arrived in London, the British secret service revealed the general’s name to the Shin Bet.
“The Shin Bet didn’t reveal to me the name of the general,” said a veteran intelligence officer active at the time, according to Yediot Achronot. “But I understood from them how much of a shock it was to get the update from the British. In light of the health situation of said general, and, in my opinion, because of the embarrassment that publicizing the revelation would cause the IDF and the State of Israel, it was decided not to prosecute the general.”
“To the best of my knowledge, he died a short while afterward.”