A curious report in the Nation by Barbara Crossette who tantalizingly speaks of the role of "an Israeli lobby" (gosh, dear, what's that!?) in the destruction of former ambassador Chas Freeman's career, and says the lesson is underlined by a forthcoming memoir, Danger Zones, by 82-year old former ambassador to India, and child of Holocaust survivors, John Gunther Dean:
It was in the midst of this Soviet endgame in Afghanistan that Dean fell
afoul of the State Department for the last
time. After the death of [Pakistani President] General Zia in August 1988, in a plane crash
that also killed the American ambassador in Pakistan, Arnold Raphel,
Dean was told in New Delhi by high-ranking officials that Mossad was a
possible instigator of the accident, in which the plane's pilot and
co-pilot were apparently disabled or otherwise lost control. There was
also some suspicion that elements of India's Research and Analysis Wing,
its equivalent of the CIA, may have played a part. India and Israel
were alarmed by Pakistan's work on a nuclear weapon–the "Islamic
bomb."
Dean was so concerned about these reports, and the attempt by the State
Department to block a full FBI investigation of the crash in Pakistan,
that he decided to return to Washington for direct consultations.
Instead of the meetings he was promised, he was told his service in
India was over. He was sent into virtual house arrest in
Switzerland at a home belonging to the family of his French wife,
Martine
Duphenieux. Six weeks later, he was allowed to return to New Delhi to
pack his belongings and return to Washington, where he resigned.
