One of the few articles about the secretive Israeli movie producer and weapons dealer Arnon Milchan was written by Ann Louise Bardach. Bardach's article "The Last Tycoon" was published in the April 2000 issue of Los Angeles Magazine. Although Bardach's piece casts the Mossad's senior weapons smuggler in a very positive light, it was republished on the Radio Islam website. It is also found on Bardach's own website, www.bardachreports.com.
Bardach portrays the Israeli criminal who smuggled 810 triggers (krytrons) for Israel's illegal nuclear arsenal in a very rosy light:
A young-looking, exceedingly fit 55-year-old man, Milchan appears at the bar of the Hotel Bel-Air wearing khakis, a T-shirt and an elegant, single-breasted blue blazer. Notwithstanding encroaching baldness and rimless eyeglasses, Milchan has the boyish jaunt and ease of a tennis player. In fact, he is a formidable tennis player, hitting, the courts for at least three, sometimes six hours a day....
Milchan continues to attract high-class talent and partners. Like Fitzgerald's Gatsby, Milchan possesses "a heightened sensitivity to the promise of life," which draws the best and brightest toward him. However studied and contrived his casualness, self-deprecating charm and perpetual enthusiasm may be, it's an irresistible package to many...
Arnon has three great assets," Sergio Leone was fond of telling people. "Charm, charm and charm." I get a chance to see this firsthand. Days after I mention my interest in Mideast politics, particularly in Morocco, Milchan calls to invite me to a birthday party for Moroccan King Hassan II's son, who has since ascended to the throne. "Now I'm working for you," he jokes.
Bardach never even mentions the possibility that this money launderer and weapons dealer-cum-smuggler Milchan is working for Israeli military intelligence or the Mossad. Bardach portrays Milchan as an independent who "somehow wangled" a dinner date with Benjamin Netanyahu:
A few years back, during Benjamin Netanyahu's hectic first visit to the States as Israel's prime minister, Milchan somehow wangled a dinner date with him. Never mind that Netanyahu had ousted Peres, whom Milchan had spent election night consoling. Not one to let stones gather moss, Milchan was eager to offer congratulations. Charmed, the new prime minister took time out of his frantic schedule to accompany Milchan to a specially arranged screening for the producer's latest film, A Time to Kill.
Why is Bardach so easy on a criminal foreigner who is taking a huge advantage of the United States and sending triggers for nuclear bombs to Israel - illegally? Why would she treat this money launderer-cum-sleazy Hollywood producer who smuggles devices for nuclear bombs with kid gloves?
"I don't want to cause any more trouble for the Jews"
In an interview with Chauncey Mabe, Books Editor with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel published on March 17, 2004, Bardach reveals why she didn't take Milchan to task. In the article, entitled "Provocative look at Castro, exiles and race relations," which is on her website (under "Other Articles"), she discusses her Jewish roots and her reluctance to "cause any more trouble for the Jews."
Would an honest article about Arnon Milchan have caused trouble for the Jews?
No doubt about it.
Mabe described Bardach as "an old-fashioned, hardnosed reporter, the kind who spends 10 years researching a subject to become an instant expert -- as in her classic journalistic study of all things Cuban, 2002's Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana. Bardach is considered to be an expert on Cuba and the Castro regime. When Fidel dies you can expect to see her on the nightly news.
When Mabe asked Bardach is Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator, is "actually Jewish," she said he probably is, as is her father's family, which she said is Sephardic from Spain:
On my father's side my family is Sephardic Jews out of northern Spain," Bardach says from her home in Los Angeles. "So is Castro's family. Probably they were converses, Jews who converted. Castro is considered an archetypal Sephardic name. In fact, the guy who wrote the history of Sephardic Jews, Armand Castro, told me he is a third cousin of Fidel.
"But listen, I don't want to cause any more trouble for the Jews," she adds.
Bardach's "Jews of the Caribbean"
Bardach went to school in New York City and wrote for the New York Times in the late 1970s. There are a few Bardachs listed in the U.S. Census records that I am able to access, but none appear to come from Spain. The great majority are from Austria (1900-1910) but a few Russian Jews with the name Bardach (Isack, Max, and Samuel) appear on the 1920 census.
It may be that her Sephardic father was not named Bardach, or she could be mistaking Galicia in Poland for Galicia in Spain. In any case she is very sympathetic to Jewish people, who she describes as "smarter, sharper" than others.
As the Mabe interview concluded:
Twelve years of investigating Cuban issues has led Bardach to identify with the Cuban people.
"They're dynamic, sexy, vain and have great personal hygiene," Bardach says. "They take too much coffee, too much rum, too much sex. Traditionally they say, `We are the Jews of the Caribbean,' meaning they are smarter, sharper, have more on the ball. They're disliked by other Latin-Americans, and could really use some good PR, but I find it a winning combination."
Photo: Ann Louise Bardach (a.k.a. Ann Bardach) was a staff writer for Vanity Fair for ten years and often writes for The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, Today, Dateline, CNN, The O'Reilly Factor, Charlie Rose, and National Public Radio. She has written a column for Newsweek International, writes for SLATE and is a commentator on PRI's Marketplace.
