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A
plane old pardon
Without the usually obligatory expression of remorse for his actions and any real media
attention, Al Schwimmer recently received a pardon from President Clinton for the crime of
smuggling arms for the Haganah during pre-State days
By Sara Leibovitch-Dar
Three years ago, Al Schwimmer visited Las Vegas and stayed with Brian Greenspun,
the son of his good friend Hank Greenspun. "Greenspun told me that this time I was an
especially honored guest," says Schwimmer, "because I was sleeping in the bed
that President Clinton had slept in just the week before.".Greenspun and Clinton
studied law together at Yale University and have remained friends ever since. Greenspun
enjoyed "an open door" to the
president. Two months ago, he decided to use this connection to ask Clinton to pardon
Schwimmer.
In 1950, Al Schwimmer, the founder of the Israel Aircraft Industry and a close friend of
Shimon Peres, was tried and convicted in a California court of illegally exporting arms
and breaking embargo laws. His crime was that he purchased United States Army surplus
planes and weapons and gave them to Israel. He received a $10,000 fine and his rights as
an American citizen were revoked. He was no longer allowed to vote, was summarily
discharged from his reserve unit, and was forbidden to work for government institutions.
Three years after Schwimmer slept in the same bed as Clinton, he received a presidential
pardon. From his penthouse in Tel Aviv, however, he did not seem particularly excited by
the news. At age 83, the pardon has for him more of a symbolic than a practical
implication. Schwimmer has no intention of applying for a job with an American government
institution nor does he intend to rejoin his reserve unit.
Unlike other, more (in)famous pardons, Schwimmer's did not grab any major headlines. A
short interview given in Tel Aviv to a reporter from The Washington Times only made it to
page nine of that newspaper. In Israel, news of his pardon has been virtually ignored.
This is not so difficult to understand. After all, the crimes for which he was tried and
convicted took place over 50 years ago. Moreover, despite their criminal nature, Schwimmer
and his friends lent his actions a heroic-Zionist interpretation.
"For us he was a hero," recalls Teddy Kollek who was, just prior to the
establishment of the State of Israel, the Haganah representative and the head of its
purchasing team in New York, and the man directly responsible for Schwimmer. "He did
an enormous amount for us, he is an extraordinary man. His conviction cast no black shadow
over him, we all continued to be his friends. For us it was a mark of distinction rather
than a conviction for wrongdoing."
Schwimmer also feels like a national hero. "Over the years, I have never attempted to
ask for a pardon because the request, which goes through the Justice Department, requires
that you stress the fact that you are sorry for what you did and ask forgiveness for your
actions. I have never felt that I did something wrong and therefore I had no intention of
asking forgiveness.
"Brian Greenspun assured me that in the request that he was submitting on my behalf,
there would be no need for me to ask forgiveness. I received the pardon without signing
even one document and without expressing sorrow or regret." Planes, not survivors The
affair that ended in his conviction began in 1947. Schwimmer was a flight engineer for
TWA. Somehow a connection was made between him and the Haganah in New York. They were
looking for pilots and planes to fly Holocaust survivors from Europe to Israel. Schwimmer
was enthusiastic.
"But when we realized that war was about to break out we changed our plans. Instead
of flying Holocaust survivors to Israel, we decided to fly in weapons," he explains.
"All that was left was to plan how to do it. The United States had placed an embargo
on exporting weapons to the Middle East. It was clear that we could not remain within the
law and had to act outside it."
In the beginning Schwimmer worked under Yehuda Artzi. "I remember being in
New York in the hotel when suddenly Artzi, who had just arrived from Israel,
walked in. He told us how he had shown his Palestinian passport to the
customs official who said that he had no problem letting him in - he just
didn't want him buying weapons while he was here. We all laughed because, of
course, the reason Artzi had come was to do just that."
Later Artzi was replaced by Teddy Kollek. The Haganah's headquarters in New
York was located in Hotel Fourteen on the corner of 60th Street and Fifth
Avenue. All Haganah members stayed there. And in the basement of the hotel
was a nightclub known as the Copacabana, the favorite haunt of the heads of
the New York Mafia.
According to Schwimmer, it was, in many respects, a lucky time for him. He
was looking for planes and pilots to fly them, and these were easy to come
by in postwar America.
"There were a lot of pilots, many of them Jewish, but not just Jews, who
came back from the war and had not yet settled down to jobs and families,"
he recalls. "Five years later and these people would almost certainly have
been married with kids and settled in jobs. Then it would have been harder
to draft them in the name of our cause."
Planes were almost as easy to come by as pilots: "There were huge stores of
army surplus in those days. There were planes that had not yet managed to
make it to Europe to take part in the war. The war was over and overnight
these planes became surplus. There were also thousands of planes that had
been in the war and just needed a light overhaul. Tens of thousands of
planes like these were up for sale during those years."
There were 12 volunteers in what was known as "Al's group." They set up
several straw companies. The planes of the one of the companies were
registered as transporting meat and vegetables from Miami to San Juan. From
there the planes continued on to Czechoslovakia and Israel. Another company
was registered in Panama. The planes purchased in the U.S. were flown to
Panama as civilian aircraft and went from there, via Mexico, to Israel.
Schwimmer was a swift and effective buyer.
"I knew the flight industry very well," he says, explaining that he purchased
four Conciliation aircraft, 10 S-46 fighters and several B-17s, nicknamed the "Flying
Fortress." He simply went around looking for airplanes.
"I was in Delaware, Florida, the West Coast. I bought planes from anywhere I
could," he says. During the course of his search, he found a huge junkyard
in Hawaii that contained enormous quantities of arms. He sent his men there
at night, when security was lax, and they stole hundreds of crates of weapons of all
kinds, smuggling them into California and from there to Mexico and finally to Israel.
Schwimmer's eyes glitter as he remembers that period. "I did everything I
could," he says, "I just wanted to help the country. Other than the opportunity
to help there was also something else - wild, adventurous. Who else had the opportunity to
roam the world buying planes and moving them in clever smuggling operations from place to
place? Who else went around in 1947 with suitcases full of dollars? Millions of dollars
changed hands during these operations."
There wasn't always proper oversight when it came to each dollar. Kollek
wrote about this openly in one of his books. "In addition to being befuddled
and sloppy organizationally, there was complete confusion about bookkeeping.
I once said to Joe Boxenbaum: 'Look, Al is getting a lot of money. One of
these days I am going to have to give a report about him. But I can't seem
to get an accounting from him.' So Joe went over to Al and said: 'Teddy gave
you $100,000 last week. What did you do with the money?' So Al sat down and
wrote everything he could remember on a piece of paper but neither he nor we
could figure out where every dollar went." Help from the Mafia Hank Greenspun was
Schwimmer's right-hand man in these operations. A lawyer by profession, Greenspun was a
colorful and dynamic figure. Born in Brooklyn, he studied law but decided that the
profession was not for him after discovering that one of his clients had knifed someone to
death. "I can't defend people like this," he apparently said, and that was the
end of that.
During World War II, Greenspun served as an officer in General Patton's
army. After his discharge in 1945, he moved to Las Vegas where he bought a
small newspaper, Las Vegas Life. In order to make a living, he worked as the
public relations manager of the Flamingo Hotel, which was owned by Bugsy
Siegel, a leader of organized crime in America. He was also friendly with
Frank Sinatra and one of the only reporters allowed to attend the latter's
wedding to Mia Farrow. Sinatra assisted Kollek's men on one occasion when he
passed money from Haganah men to a ship carrying Haganah cargo.
It was Greenspun who connected the local New York Mafia with the members of
the Haganah. The Mafioso, many of whom were Jewish, helped the Haganah
purchase weapons and transport them to their destination. They ruled the
docks at the port of New York. One word from them got the smuggled cargo by
with few questions asked.
"No one organized any hits on anyone at our request," wrote Kollek, "but
they made sure that our shipments got out."
Schwimmer knows about these connections but says that he personally was
never involved with them: "The Jewish Mob donated money to us, but I was
busy purchasing planes. They were involved in the purchase of light arms."
Like Schwimmer, Greenspun was also tried and convicted of violating the arms
embargo and American neutrality laws. In 1961 he was pardoned by President
Kennedy, ran for governor of Nevada on a Republican ticket, and lost when
his opponent used his conviction against him. He died of cancer in 1989.
In 1993, the entrance plaza at the University Botanical Garden in Jerusalem
was named after him, having been built with a family donation made through
The Jerusalem Foundation [which was founded by Kollek]. President Clinton,
being a close friend of Greenspun's son, sent a letter of congratulations.
Hank Greenspun loved Jerusalem and fought to support the establishment of
the State of Israel, the president wrote, and even went on to mention his
"years of contribution to the American people."
Schwimmer says that the Greenspuns and Clinton were close friends, as close
as family, which is why he was not surprised when Brian asked the president
for a pardon on his behalf: "(Brian) is like a son to me. I told him only
one thing: no expressions of remorse." The party's over. The adventures of Hank,
Teddy, and Al came to a close in April of 1948. The FBI did not like the gunrunning, the
ties to the Mafia, and the close relationships with contact people in communist
Czechoslovakia. FBI agents started to go after the smugglers. There were many tense
moments in the course of this pursuit. Schwimmer was one of the focuses of the stakeout.
In one instance, he told The Washington Times, FBI agents raided an airfield
in Florida only hours after his plane took off. In another instance, he was
taking part in a meeting in a hotel in upstate New York when he was told
that the FBI were looking for him in the lobby. The agents rode up to his
room in the elevator and Schwimmer took the stairs, running down 10 flights
and escaping into a waiting car that drove him to the Canadian border.
In May 1948, he flew from Canada to Geneva. "There I met Pinhas Sapir for
the first time. Sapir was head of the purchasing team in Europe. I didn't
know these men, I didn't know who they were. They thanked me for all I had
done and gave me a plane ticket to Czechoslovakia."
out of the U.S. During the War of Independence, he volunteered in the
nascent Israeli Air Force: "Aharon Remez, its first formal
commander-in-chief, and I got the force off the ground. I was responsible
for the airport and the volunteers who came from abroad."
When the war was over, Schwimmer decided to return to the United States. "I
didn't want to be a fugitive from justice all my life," he explains. Four
other volunteers also returned with him. "Everything was arranged through
the Jewish Agency. They found a lawyer for us and promised to take care of
everything."
The lawyer, Murray Griffin, recommended that they all plead guilty.
Greenspun hesitated. He wanted to have a trial. The Israelis, including
Teddy Kollek, were afraid of a long, conspicuous media event. They didn't
want their involvement in the affair to be exposed. Schwimmer's trial went
on for three-and-a-half months.
The judge was tough, he recalls: "He wanted me to do jail time. It was only
due to the pressure of the Jewish community, which kept a close watch on
what was going on, that he waived that punishment."
Kollek has written about the trial that the American government "must have
spent tens of thousands of dollars bringing in witnesses from
Czechoslovakia, Honolulu and the West Coast. It seemed as though for some
reason they were determined to get the maximum penalty possible."
In February 1950, the trial ended with a $10,000 fine "paid for by the
Jewish Agency" according to Schwimmer, and in the abrogation of his rights.
"Since I was born in the U.S., they didn't take away my citizenship. If I
hadn't been born there I would have lost my American passport." The
conviction, he claims, had no effect on his life.
Following his trial Schwimmer, returned to his other affairs. "I joined
Shimon Peres in his meetings with presidents Reagan and Bush. They knew who
I was. You can't go into a meeting with the president of the United States
without having an extensive background check done on you. But none of the
presidents ever said a word to me about the conviction."
Connecticut emigrant Schwimmer was born in Connecticut in 1917. His parents gave him the
name "Adolph William" - a fact which he concealed over the years until, in the
mid-1980s, he became embroiled in Irangate and his name was revealed. During World War II,
he worked as a flight engineer for TWA. President Roosevelt rode in his airplane on his
way to the Casablanca Conference. He continued to work for TWA after the war ended,
eventually starting an airplane restoration company in Burbank, Florida, as well as a
small airline that flew coast to coast.
Schwimmer remembers meeting David Ben-Gurion during the War of Independence. "When I
was in the air force we met with him once a week," he recalls, adding that in 1951,
Ben-Gurion paid a visit to the U.S., with Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Navon and Teddy Kollek
accompanying him.
"He wanted to see me," says Schwimmer. "He came to my factory in Florida
surrounded by bodyguards. We had a short conversation. He asked me if I
would be willing to come back to Israel in order to found an aircraft
industry and asked me for an answer within the next couple of days, before
he went back to Israel."
Schwimmer didn't hesitate.
Despite his ardent Zionism, Schwimmer still does not speak Hebrew well. He
has been living in Israel for almost 50 years. In the beginning, he lived
for several years in Savyon before moving to a large penthouse in Tel Aviv.
His wife, Rina, is an Israeli. His son, Dan, lives in Connecticut and works
as a newspaper distributor. "I made aliyah from Connecticut. He decided to
move there," he says ruefully. "I am still hopeful that he will return to
this country."
His daughter, Daphna, is a jewelry designer and is married to Nir Dagan, an
Israeli Air Force pilot who is currently working for Arkia. Dagan is the son
of Nehemia Dagan, who was a brigadier general in the force.
"The air force is just in our blood," boasts Schwimmer.
Schwimmer arrived in Israel full of enthusiasm. He founded the Bedek
airplane repair company in Lod which later became the Israel Aircraft
Industry; he served as IAI's first president. According to press reports,
his immigration to Israel also had an economic motivation: He sold his
factory in Burbank to the Israel Transportation Ministry. A year after these
reports were made public, Schwimmer denied them, claiming that the equipment for the
factory in Israel was not purchased from his factory in California, but from a different
factory there that had become bankrupt.
Bedek ran into difficulties fairly quickly. The equipment that Schwimmer
brought with him was not suitable, estimates about quick financial gains
were overblown, and El Al, the factory's main customer, started its own
repair institute and opposed Schwimmer's appointment as head of the existing
one. But Schwimmer was not worried.
During those years, he and Shimon Peres developed a deep friendship. At the
time, Peres was director-general of the Ministry of Defense. He convinced
then minister of defense Pinhas Lavon to transfer oversight of the institute
to the ministry. Lavon and Peres even toured the factory. Lavon promised
generous governmental support.
The friendship between Peres and Schwimmer has remained close to this day.
Schwimmer has an almost magical influence on Peres. He acted as his special
envoy to Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco. He accompanied him when Peres went to
receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
Collette Avital remembers that Peres included Schwimmer in his meeting with
French President Francois Mitterrand. She herself has never been
enthusiastic about Schwimmer. "When they say that Peres is surrounded by
millionaires that are not necessarily worthy of being there, they mean
Schwimmer, among others," she says.
When Peres was prime minister, he appointed Schwimmer his science and
technology advisor. When he was provisional prime minister, he appointed
Schwimmer to be his advisor on industrializing the Negev. They talk often.
Peres still sees Schwimmer as an important counselor. Over the past few
weeks, Schwimmer has been advising Peres to join the unity government under
Sharon.
"I hope that Peres will be a minister in Sharon's government because he is a
highly experienced politician and one of the only diplomats that knows how
to achieve a peace agreement. We fought all those wars in order to achieve a
peace agreement. Sharon is Sharon but he is prime minister now and he needs
support not opposition." Tough boss When Bedek became IAI, Schwimmer was head of the
factory. "I was the big chief of the aircraft industry," he says, "I ran it
all." He was considered a tough, mysterious manager who gave few interviews and kept
himself out of the spotlight. A rapid-fire decision-maker.
Once, in a marketing meeting, representatives of a foreign air force told
him that they were unable to purchase the Kfir airplane because it had no
radar. Schwimmer was determined: If you want radar, you'll get radar, he
said to them.
"The face of the project manager who was present at the meeting went white
as a sheet," wrote Dani Shapira, who was the head test pilot at IAI, in his
book "Alone in the Skies" (Ma'ariv Books). "And if he hadn't been so
affected by the enormity of what was going on, he would most certainly have
torn out his hair. In repressed rage he whispered to Schwimmer that there
was no way to install a radar on the plane. If they decide to purchase this
plane, Al said to him, 'You'll just have to make sure that there is one.'"
All this did not impress the State Comptroller. In a report on IAI published
in 1976, he determined that senior management in the company - including the
director - received various services from the company for their personal
use, at a cost of tens of thousands of lira. These figures were listed as
part of the company expenses. Following the publication of the report,
Schwimmer returned some of the money.
The comptroller, Dr. Yitzhak Neventzal, even stated that the company had
received financing from the Finance Ministry under false pretenses,
submitting "doctored" sales data for this purpose. A misleading report had
also been submitted to the directorate. He further found that there were
discrepancies in the tenders put out by the IAI and a padding of work hours
in reports to the Ministry of Defense.
Schwimmer was beside himself, and worried that these accusations were
harmful to the sales potential of the company. "It's impossible to balance
everything to the grush, or the lira, or the million," he explained. The
findings of the comptroller were sent to the police. The district attorney
of the central district, Sarah Sirota, decided to close the case due to lack
of evidence. The decision was that the file indicated "managerial
discrepancies" but not of the type that might prevent Schwimmer from
continuing in his office.
For Peres this was enough. He decided to appoint Schwimmer the chairman of
the company after the previous one decided to resign. Not everyone thought
that this was appropriate. Indeed, a series of articles in Ha'aretz attacked
this decision. If Schwimmer is appointed, said one, "all the negative
tendencies of a big company will continue and even grow stronger. As
impressive as the technological accomplishments of the industry and Mr.
Schwimmer's part in them are, the price paid for them - in terms of wasted
public monies, administrative order, and the bending of the rules of ethical
purity - is unacceptable and should not be acceptable. The man under whose
administration these hindrances have been allowed to flourish should vacate
his place."
A short while later, the government changed hands. Ezer Weizman, the new
minister of defense, replaced Schwimmer, who went home fuming. He refused to take part in
a good-bye party and informed the company that if they bought
him a present, he would send it back. Before he left, he arranged that his
personal secretary and his driver receive enticing job offers in New York
and Ecuador. Today, he is no longer angry with Weizman, and says "he is a
good friend. I met him in Czechoslovakia in 1984."
Since leaving IAI, he has been involved in a long line of questionable
activities. He has an apartment in New York where he spends several months a
year. He is active in various business initiatives relating to water in the
Middle East. Together with Yaakov Nimrodi, he presented a proposal to
Menachem Begin which suggested that, in exchange for hundreds of millions of
dollars donated by the Saudis for development of the Middle East, the Saudi
flag would fly over Temple Mount.
Together with Hank Greenspun, Schwimmer was also involved in financing
laetrile, an experimental drug involved in cancer research. Various
documents relating to the drug were written on IAI stationary, with the
medical officer of the company being roped into the effort. The drug was
imported to Israel and used in a number of hospitals, despite its lack of
approval from the Ministry of Health.
Schwimmer has always been full of ideas. He initiated the establishment of
an electric nuclear reactor in Israel together with Bob Guccione, the
publisher of Penthouse. Peres proved to be a good friend. He met with senior
members of the nuclear community in France in an attempt to get them to
support the idea.
Schwimmer was also involved in the legislation for direct elections in
Israel. He organized a group of investors in an attempt to purchase IAI.
In the mid-1980s, Schwimmer made headlines for his involvement in Irangate.
Together with Yaakov Nimrodi, he sold weapons to the Iranians in exchange
for the release of Western hostages in Lebanon. The police investigated
allegations that the two, Nimrodi and Schwimmer, put $2 million into their
own pockets. The case was closed due to lack of evidence. Schwimmer prefers
to forget it.
"We wanted to help the Americans, we did everything we could to help them.
There is no point talking about it now. On this topic, like on many others,
the politics are deeply embedded and I have no interest in opening it all up
again." |
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