Itzhak (aka Yitzhak) Vardi’s intelligence operations for Israel in England put him on an FBI watch list as he traveled throughout New York. As he worked at high levels within the Palestine Economic Corporation and United Jewish Appeal, the FBI tried to determine his status as an intelligence agent.
An operation in Argentina suggests Vardi never retired.
Under a file titled “Espionage – Israeli, New York File #65-15961” the FBI compiled intercepts of Vardi’s correspondence with Canadian philanthropist Jacob M. Lowy about the launch of Israel bonds and Alexander Sacks about gold transactions and convertibility of foreign currencies. J. Edgar Hoover notes, “Jacoby Lowy, a British subject who formerly lived in Czechoslovakia, was operating a black market on materials shipped from the United States to the Austrian government under the Marshall Plan…to be used in the manufacture of tanks…it is possible that subject and Lowy were acquainted in Austria in 1949.”
Complete FOIA release at the Israel Lobby Archive.