The United States Government is showing “concern over a marked buildup of Soviet intelligence activities in the Middle East,” and has agreed to provide Israel with incivilities for U-2 and SR-71 spy planes, Time magazine reported today. “It was partly to investigate those activities that CIA director Richard Helms recently visited Israel,” Time said. According to the magazine, “Some points discussed when Helms conferred with officials of Hamossad, the Israeli equivalent of the CIA, (were that) Soviet-flown MIG-23s which can fly at 80,000 feet, an altitude that Phantoma cannot reach, are conducting intelligence missions out of Egyptian bases; two electronic-crammed Russian ‘listening ships’ have been stationed about 80 miles off the Israeli coast; Soviet radar installed on the ground in Egypt can monitor air routes over Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan; hundreds of Soviet intelligence experts are at work in Middle East evaluation centers in Cairo and Alexandria; Soviet agents are visiting Israel in increased numbers in the guise of tourists, journalists. European businessmen and even immigrating Jews.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
