Nahum Admoni

Who is Nahum Admoni?

Nahum Admoni was the Director of the Mossad from 1982 to 1989.

Admoni was born in Jerusalem. His parents were middle-class Polish Jews who immigrated from near Gdańsk. Growing up, he studied at the Rehavia gymnasium. He fought in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War in the SHAI, the Haganah intelligence branch, and later in the newly created military intelligence. After the war he went to the United States and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, returning to Israel in 1954. There he rejoined the Israeli intelligence community, working his way up the chain of command to be Mossad Director Yitzhak Hofi's deputy.

During his service as Mossad Director, Admoni watched over the Jonathan Pollard affair, in which it was revealed that Israel was spying on the United States. He also endured the revelation of Israeli involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair and the public abduction of Mordechai Vanunu, who had revealed secrets of the Israeli nuclear weapons program to the British press. Along with a number of other embarrassing incidents involving careless mistakes by Mossad agents, Admoni retired in 1989.

On August 28, 2006 he was appointed by prime minister Ehud Olmert to be chairman of an investigation committee, charged with investigating the actions of the government during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.