Missing Man (30 page)

Journalists also called Dawud Salahuddin, who was happy to provide them with his account of events on Kish. He told
The Christian Science Monitor
that six Iranian policemen had detained Bob and him in the lobby of the Maryam hotel, a rendering that included several more cops than earlier versions and moved the scene of the action from Bob's room to the lobby. He insisted to the
Monitor
's reporter he had been unaware of Bob's CIA ties until reading about them and hadn't colluded with Iranian intelligence to set him up. “I can hurt people, but I won't hurt anybody like that, that's cheap stuff, man,” he said.

Dawud pointed out, as he had in his emails to Chris, that he had also suffered as a result of his meeting with Bob. Since the incident on Kish, Iranian authorities had refused to give him a new passport or travel documents so he could move freely. As Dawud put it, he was “the last American hostage in Iran.”

 

20

The Fellowship

On December 13, 2013, the day after the Associated Press article appeared, President Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, strode into the White House briefing room to answer questions from reporters about Bob Levinson. The first came from a journalist who didn't mince words. “Why did the administration falsely say for years that Levinson was a private citizen in Iran on a business trip, and will you continue to say that now that it has been proven to be untrue?” she asked.

With their father's secret out, some of Bob's children wanted the U.S. government to stop its charade and honor him by telling the truth. If Iran was keeping him to force the United States to admit he was a spy, then the refusal of American officials to do so, they believed, was prolonging his confinement. The White House didn't intend to change its stance. Carney, standing behind a podium flanked by American flags, looked down at the prepared statement before him and read:

Bob Levinson was not a U.S. government employee when he went missing in Iran. As there is an ongoing investigation into his disappearance, I am not going to comment further on what he may or may not have been doing while in Iran. I am not going to fact-check every allegation … Since Bob disappeared, the U.S. government has pursued and continues to pursue all investigative leads, as we would with any missing American citizen missing or detained overseas. We continue to do everything we can to bring Bob home safely to his family. This remains a top priority.

By February 2014, a few months later, the media buzz about Bob and the CIA had faded when President Obama arrived at the Washington Hilton for the National Prayer Breakfast. Some three thousand people were gathered for the annual event, which is held by a Christian organization known as the Fellowship. The group, also called “the Family,” is one of the most powerful and secretive religious organizations in the United States and counts leading politicians and businessmen among its ranks. Leaders of the Fellowship like to say that the group does not have members in the traditional sense, preferring to describe itself as a network of believers in Jesus and his ideals, who come together through prayer meetings and study groups to read the Bible and offer one another guidance.

Since the 1950s, every U.S. president has paid homage to the Fellowship by speaking at its Prayer Breakfast, and President Obama was no exception. In his talk that February, he spoke about the need to protect religious freedom around the world, singling out the cases of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary then imprisoned in North Korea, and Saeed Abedini, the Iranian-American Christian pastor held in Tehran's Evin Prison. “Today, again, we call on the Iranian government to release Pastor Abedini so he can return to the loving arms of his wife and children,” Obama said.

In the audience, a lawyer named Robert Destro bowed his head in prayer. Destro was aware of an episode involving Bob that had never been made public, one that might have resulted in his reunion with Chris and his family. In late 2011, around the time the FBI released the hostage video, a top official of the Iranian government admitted during a meeting arranged by the Fellowship that Iran controlled Bob's fate and was ready to release him in exchange for American concessions at the nuclear bargaining table.

The Fellowship, using its religious affiliations, has long been involved in behind-the-scenes diplomacy, having established a network of contacts with countries worldwide, including Iran. In 2003, the group's leader, Douglas Coe, had headed a delegation of American religious figures to Iran. Three years later, in 2006, a member of that delegation, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., hosted a reception in Washington for Mohammed Khatami during the former Iranian president's trip to the United States. The Fellowship's ties to Iran paid dividends in 2007 when it helped win the release of an Iranian-American scholar held in Evin Prison. The woman, Haleh Esfandiari, who was arrested while visiting her ailing mother in Tehran, later credited members of the group for drafting a letter sent to Ayatollah Khamenei by the former U.S. congressman Lee Hamilton, describing it as “instrumental” in securing her freedom.

The events leading to the Fellowship's involvement in Bob's case were set in motion by one of its more unlikely followers, Boris Birshtein. Though Jewish, Boris was a regular participant in the group's annual Prayer Breakfast, even putting up with the hassle he got from U.S. border officials to attend it. He also enjoyed a close friendship with Douglas Coe, whom he considered a spiritual mentor. Boris, despite his rebuff by the FBI, wasn't ready to step away from Bob's case, and in mid-2011 he arrived at Coe's residence, an expansive compound in Arlington, Virginia, known as “the Cedars.” Boris was deferential and reserved toward Coe, and the two men began their meeting by praying together.

After they prayed, Boris told the Fellowship's leader about Bob and asked if he would send a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, inquiring about the missing American. Coe agreed to do so and contacted Robert Destro, who taught law at the Catholic University of America in Washington and had helped draft the successful plea to Khamenei made on behalf of Haleh Esfandiari. Destro was a deeply religious person whose views shaped his work and his involvement with the Fellowship. For nearly a decade, he had played a central role in the high-profile legal fight over the fate of a Florida woman named Terri Schiavo. After suffering brain damage caused by a heart attack, Schiavo languished for years in a vegetative state, kept alive by a feeding tube. Her husband wanted to remove the tube, arguing that his wife wouldn't have wanted to live that way. Her parents, whom Destro represented, believed she might recover and wanted feeding to continue. The case became a cause célèbre for religious and pro-life groups over the issue of who had the right to determine Schiavo's fate. Destro asked, “What would Terri say to us about continued nutrition and hydration if she could speak to us today?” In 2005, after the lawyer's last appeal was exhausted, the feeding tube was removed and she died.

At Coe's request, Destro flew to Toronto to meet Boris. He had already read about the businessman's reputed crime connections and received Boris's standard lecture about why none of it was true and about how the U.S. government was mistreating him. Boris also told Destro that Madzhit Mamoyan was continuing to tap his sources inside Iran, hoping to glean new information about Bob.

Upon returning to Washington, Destro drafted a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei on behalf of Douglas Coe, containing an inquiry about Bob. The letter was sent to Madzhit in Paris, who was asked to deliver it to Iran's ambassador to France, Seyed Mehdi Miraboutalebi. The letter identified Madzhit, who was Christian, as an official envoy of the Fellowship, and Ambassador Miraboutalebi assured him that Coe's letter would be delivered to Iran's Supreme Leader. One paragraph read:

As a believer and a follower of Jesus, to whom the Most High, “vouchsafed … all evidence of truth” (Holy Qu'ran 2:87), I pledge that I will continue to devote time and effort to the furtherance of dialogue, peace and understanding between our two great cultures. I would welcome your guidance and suggestions concerning more constructive ways in which we can bring about a peaceful dialogue, if not for ourselves, then for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

A month later, in September 2011, Madzhit was invited to Tehran to meet with the head of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence, Heydar Moslehi. At that time, two of the American hikers, Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer, were still in Evin Prison, and Madzhit would later say Moslehi told him the Iranian government was planning to release them and Bob at the same time as a “goodwill” gesture to spur better relations with the United States. But when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the hikers' release, he made no mention of Bob, and Madzhit later said Iranian intelligence officials told him the government of Oman secretly paid $50 million to Iran to free the hikers.

In October, a month after Madzhit's visit to Tehran, Ambassador Miraboutalebi contacted him and asked him to come to his Paris residence to talk. He told the Kurd his diplomatic posting in France was about to end and there was sensitive information about Bob he needed to discuss with an official of the Fellowship. Madzhit conveyed the message to Boris, who passed it along to Robert Destro. At that point, the lawyer decided it was time to alert the FBI about the group's involvement in Bob's case. He contacted an FBI agent, Dean Harp, then working on the investigation and also sent him a five-page memo summarizing the steps that the Fellowship had taken.

He also told Harp that Ambassador Miraboutalebi wanted to meet with representatives of the Fellowship on the following Sunday because Ayatollah Khamenei had called him back to Tehran on short notice. The date was just five days away, and Destro said that since he was unable to travel to Paris because of a prior commitment, he had asked Douglas Coe to recommend a replacement. In his memo to the FBI, Destro misspelled the name of the man, Ory Eshel, as Esher.

I called Doug Coe and asked him if he would suggest someone whom (1) he trusted implicitly; (2) who is discreet; and (3) who takes good notes. He thought about it for a day and then suggested that I call Ory Esher, a good friend of the Coe family, whom Doug has known since he was a young man. Mr. Esher is an American who has lived in Paris. I tried to call him yesterday but the result (so far) has been “phone tag.” I will try again this morning and will send him an email as well.

Current plans are not completely clear at this point, but as I understand them now, Ory Esher will meet Madzhit and Boris for lunch in Paris on Sunday to go over some of the information that Madzhit can not share on the phone. Madzhit and Mr. Esher will then go to the embassy where they will meet with the Ambassador and get more information.

On that Sunday, Madzhit and Eshel rode to the ambassador's home in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes sedan that passed along the leafy streets of Paris's wealthy 16th arrondissement. The car turned through a cast-iron entrance gate and stopped in front of a nineteenth-century town house. The two men stepped out, and Ambassador Miraboutalebi welcomed his visitors and accompanied them up a flight of stairs to a large formal receiving room.

Eshel told the Iranian official he was attending the meeting as Douglas Coe's emissary and conveyed the religious leader's regrets he was unable to be present. Eshel explained his role was to provide Coe with a detailed and objective account of the conversation. Ambassador Miraboutalebi began by ticking through recent actions by American officials that he said were sowing distrust among his colleagues toward the United States. The episodes included speeches by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attacking Iran; provocative propaganda broadcasts by the Voice of America into his country; and what he described as a “disappointing” response by U.S. officials to Iran's release of the hikers.

He then turned to his chief concern. It was a forthcoming report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, into whether Iran was using the country's nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes or to develop atomic bombs. In the weeks before the Paris meeting, newspapers had started reporting that the U.N. agency would disclose that Iran, contrary to its public claims, was secretly working on technologies used in nuclear weapons. Those stories also stated that President Obama planned to use the report's findings to call for additional sanctions against Tehran. The Iranian ambassador was apparently already aware of the report's findings, describing them to Madzhit and Eshel as “fake” conclusions adopted by the IAEA because of U.S. pressure. He added that the IAEA report would be devastating and set off a chain reaction that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to “reset” the relationship between the United States and Iran. Eshel wrote:

The Ambassador added that Iran would not cooperate “under duress,” and that the U.S. would not be able to push other nations against Iran. The challenge is to bridge this divide, through top-level discussions in both countries. The Ambassador acknowledged a common interest between “his” people and Doug Coe: both believe in God and can help overcome violence and war. Time is of the essence.

Ambassador Miraboutalebi went on to describe the political tensions within Iran and said it was important during his upcoming meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei to provide the Supreme Leader with a sign that the Fellowship could positively influence American foreign policy. But that signal needed to be sent quickly because the IAEA report was expected to be released in two weeks, on November 17. The Iranian diplomat made some suggestions, Eshel wrote:

This week, the Ambassador will be meeting in Teheran with Khamenei. A tangible expression of good will would be especially useful, as an indication that our team can “deliver the goods”:

1. An official letter from the Pope inviting a top delegation to meet in private in the Vatican, together with former US Presidents (specifically Bill Clinton and Bush I or II).