FOREIGN AGENTS analyzes the history and activities of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. FOREIGN AGENTS begins with testimony and subpoenaed documents from the 1963 Senate investigation into the activities of the agents of foreign principals. Senator J.W. Fulbright’s discovery of “conduit” money-laundering operations in the US financed by Israeli principals touched off deep and important questions about US lobbying on behalf of the fledgling nation and the applicability of laws such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Logan Act. The book then uncovers AIPAC election law skirmishes in the 1980s-1990s, analyzing the lobby’s role in establishing and coordinating political action committees and AIPAC’s role in alleged election law violations. FOREIGN AGENTS then turns to the question of espionage. In 2005, two AIPAC executives, Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, were criminally indicted for violating the 1917 Espionage Act. FOREIGN AGENTS reviews behind-the-scenes defense team motions and judicial decisions affecting First Amendment freedom of speech issues and questions about “inside the Beltway” trafficking in classified US defense information by lobbies. FOREIGN AGENTS evaluates Rosen and Weissman’s assertions that the conduct alleged in the indictment was within the scope of their employment with AIPAC and was undertaken for AIPAC’s benefit. FOREIGN AGENTS then makes comprehensive recommendations for legal oversight in the context of AIPAC’s history as a powerful and secretive foreign agent for Israel.
Grant F. Smith
Grant F. Smith is director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington DC. He is author of the books Big Israel, Divert!, Spy Trade, America’s Defense Line, Foreign Agents, Deadly Dogma, and Neocon Middle East Policy. According to Barron’s, “Grant Smith, [is] head of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, a small policy-research and education organization highly critical of U.S. policy toward Israel.” Jeff Stein of the Washington Post calls Smith “a Washington, D.C. author who has made a career out of writing critical books on Israeli spying and lobbying.” Mondoweiss.com blogger Philip Weiss says “the best investigative work is being done by Grant Smith at IRmep…”