(AFP) Dave Gahary

A just-released book* confirms what U.S. law enforcement had suspected for decades: A Jewish Hollywood film producer “was a full-fledged operative for Israel’s top-secret intelligence agency” and used his many U.S.- based companies to smuggle sensitive nuclear technology from the United States to Israel. This spy was also the most likely source for Iran and Libya’s uranium enrichment advances.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the book, Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon—Arnon Milchan, “recounts Milchan’s life story, from his days as a boy through his friendships with Israeli prime ministers, U.S. presidents and Hollywood stars.”

As far back as 1995, AFP correspondent Michael Collins Piper revealed that Milchan—who bankrolled Oliver Stone’s film JFK—was a key figure in Israel’s nuclear weapons program that Kennedy was determined to stop. The Milchan-funded film ignores this conflict. Milchan produced other films including Pretty Woman, War of the Roses, Fight Club and Natural Born Killers.

He also funds the Israeli Network, which broadcasts Israeli TV programming to the U.S. and Canada. Milchan, a fanatical devotee of the Zionist state and an Israeli citizen, set up shop in Tinseltown in the late 1970s, attaining a net worth of around $4 billion. Forbes magazine listed him as the world’s 268th richest person.

“Milchan’s services to the Israeli security industry have been made public before,” says Haaretz, “but he has always denied or refused to acknowledge them. This is the first time Milchan confirms these claims.”

Israeli theft of nuclear and other high-tech secrets in the U.S. has a long history, with most prosecutions thwarted due to Jewish political power. In fact, Milchan’s fearless admissions of his spying may be attributable to his belief that U.S. law enforcement can no longer counter Jewish power.

These new revelations should open the debate on how dual loyalties have the potential of harming U.S. national security and economic interests. The current president of Israel, Shimon Peres, was the figure responsible for Milchan’s dirty dealings. Interviewed for the book, Peres bragged: “It was I who recruited him. When I was at the Ministry of Defense, Arnon was involved in numerous defense-related procurement activities and intelligence operations. His strength is in making connections at the highest levels. His activities gave us a huge advantage, strategically, diplomatically and technologically.”

The “activities” Peres alludes to include “buying components to build and maintain Israel’s nuclear arsenal” and supervising “government-backed accounts and front companies that financed the special needs of the entirety of Israel’s intelligence operations outside the country.”

Milchan provided sketches of nuclear centrifuges to Israel, and based on these, “Israel set up a centrifuge factory in Dimona and was able to produce fissile material used for nuclear weapons.”

Although Milchan refused payment for his Israeli spying, he “collected commission fees from American security firms that were deposited in the bank accounts of various companies he set up in several countries where Israeli spy agencies operate,” according to the authors.

“Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars paid in commissions for defense deals between Israel and the United States were deposited in secret bank accounts all over the world and used to fund Israeli espionage activities abroad. The money in these accounts paid for operations that helped Israel obtain materials, technologies and equipment that turned it into a nuclear power, with the fifth biggest nuclear arsenal in the world,” stated the authors in an interview with Haaretz.