The Robert Levinson saga continues with the former FBI agent still in custody in Tehran. NBC producer Ira Silverman, who first introduced Levinson to American fugitive Dawud Salahuddin (formerly known as David Belfield), has yet to explain his role in Levinson’s trip to Iran. Levinson and Salahuddin met on Kish Island March 7 just before the FBI veteran was detained by the Iranian intelligence service.
Mike Isikoff of Newsweek did get a brief comment out of Silverman for a story posted on Newsweek’s web site: “Silverman called to say that it was ‘untrue’ and a ‘fabrication’ to say that he was involved in any attempt to coax Salahuddin out of Iran. ‘I was not involved with the FBI to try to get him [Salahuddin] out of Iran,’ he said. But he declined to discuss what he knew about Levinson’s trip to Iran, saying he had been asked ‘by the people conducting the investigation’ not to make any public comments that could interfere with the effort to bring Levinson home.”
What investigation? The U.S. intelligence community agrees on one thing: Levinson and Silverman were not working for them. Levinson’s clients in the PI world all insist he was not working for them in Iran. Since I seem to be the only reporter Dawud Salahuddin is communicating with, I can tell you the early stories that Levinson was there to do a cigarette smuggling investigation are probably not true. Salahuddin said he believes that the entire meeting was part of a scheme to lure him out of his fugitive’s safe haven so he could be arrested.
Salahuddin says that he has not spoken with Silverman since a brief conference call with the Levinson family. I asked Salahuddin if Silverman had been in contact to check on any news Salahuddin might have of Levinson’s situation. “No, nothing… Ira’s disappeared.”
Isikoff ended his piece with the idea that I and another former FBI agent and friend, Jack Cloonan, might go to Iran to try and get Levinson home. I want to make clear that this was an idea Salahuddin floated in the hope that it might end Levinson’s incarceration and get him back with his family. I told Salahuddin that if the Iranians would agree not to incarcerate me and release Levinson, I would be on the next plane. I called and emailed Ira Silverman for assistance and he is yet to respond.
I suspect that Silverman and Levinson thought they knew what they were doing. But when Salahuddin revealed to me that what Levinson brought with him was a file of embarrassing financial transactions involving one of the most powerful Iranian leaders and offered to share it with a man who confessed to a murder and a bombing in Washington, the Levinson trip to Kish took on a whole new meaning.
It is time for Ira Silverman to explain what he and Levinson were up to in Iran.
As to whether this was a trap to get Salahuddin out of Iran so he could be arrested and brought back home, I can only say that is exactly what Silverman’s late friend Carl Shoffler tired to use me for in 1995 when he put me in touch with Salahuddin. It took the National Security News Service and ABC News three attempts (Moscow, Kish Island and finally Istanbul) to avoid being followed by US law enforcement so we could conduct the interview that resulted in Salahuddin’s confession to the murder of former Shah Spokesman Ali Akbar Tabatabai, in Bethesda, Md., on July 21, 1980.
The real question is why during such a sensitive time in U.S.-Iran relations would Levinson and Silverman insist on the meeting taking place? Salahuddin said last week it does not make sense: “They really came with nothing–not even a real pitch on cigarette smuggling. On my end had there been any ‘information’ on assets it was not going to go to the media–at least not from me. I was simply going to pass it along to people right here that deal with that kind of thing–though frankly the thing that made it queer for me is that I doubt they ever understood the context of that material in this country. Basically as I see it using something they know is a red button for me and pushing that button. I think you got a couple of bored old guys doing shit they had no business doing and now one of them really has his ass in a crack. There was sting. They stung themselves. And hey, I know where I can go and where I can’t go.” Yesterday, Salahuddin said he has been instructed by those holding Levinson to remain “as silent as the grave.”
