New Book Recounts Tale of Israeli Agent at Home in Hollywood - Arnon Milchan

[groovedaddy]

LOS ANGELES — “Never, never tell jokes about a man with easy access to weapons of mass destruction,” Peter Chernin, a former News Corporation official, once light-heartedly warned of Arnon Milchan, who has long tantalized Hollywood with his dual identity as a producer of popular movies and a businessman tied to the arms industry.

Mr. Chernin may have been even more right than he knew.

“Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan,” written by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, and set for publication on July 30 by Gefen Books, now holds that Mr. Milchan — whose credits include “Love and Other Drugs” and “Knight and Day” — at least through the mid-1980s was a full-fledged operative for Israel’s top-secret intelligence agency, Lakam. (The acronym is from the Hebrew for the blandly named Science Liaison Bureau.)

In that capacity, according to the book, Mr. Milchan supervised government-backed accounts and front companies that financed “the special needs of the entirety of Israel’s intelligence operations outside the country.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/business/global/new-book-tells-tale-of-israeli-arms-dealer-in-hollywood.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210