Amos Manor

Amos Manor    (spook)
Born	Arthur Mendelowitz October 8, 1918
Died	August 5, 2007 (Age 88)
Nationality	Israeli
Interests	Tibor Rosenbaum
Head of the Shin Beth who maintained personal contacts with James Jesus Angleton  Director of The Shin Bet In office 1953 - 1963 Deputy Yosef Harmelin Preceded by Izi Dorot  Deputy Director of The Shin Bet In office 1952 - 1953 Boss Izi Dorot

Amos Manor was Director of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal intelligence and security service, from 1953 until 1963.

Biography

Arthur Mendelowitz (later Amos Manor) was born to a Jewish family in Sighetu Marmației, in Máramaros County, Austria-Hungary (present-day Romania). After the outbreak of World War II, he was drafted to the Hungarian Army. In 1944, he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1947, he joined Mossad LeAliyah Bet, an organization dedicated to smuggling Jews into Palestine in defiance of British immigration restrictions. He became secretary of its Romanian branch in Budapest. Manor worked under the alias "Amos", which he later adopted as his first name. He immigrated to Israel in 1949, and joined the Shin Bet a month afterwards. Manor spoke fluent Hebrew, Yiddish, English, French, German, Romanian and Hungarian.

Shin Bet leader

Manor is credited with building up the Shin Bet as a national institution capable of handling the many threats posed to internal Israeli security during that time.

In 1949, he was appointed department head of the ISA division's for non-Arab affairs, and became the first department director for Eastern Europe. In 1950 he was appointed unit head within the division for non-Arab affairs. In 1952, he was appointed Deputy ISA Director and the following year ISA Director. In 1956 he forwarded Khrushchev's secret speech to the CIA and strengthened intelligence cooperation with the USA. He maintained personal contacts with James Jesus Angleton, head of counterintelligence at the CIA.

He retired in 1964.

Later career

Manor was a member of various boards of directors.

After his retirement from the Shin Bet, Manor turned to business. In the years 1964 - 1975 he was the representative in Israel of the Swiss banker Tibor Rosenbaum, where the bank was "a semi-detached Israeli Government laundry for money into and out of Israel." The bank collapsed in 1974.

After that, for 8 years he represented the First Pennsylvania Bank which controlled the First International Bank of Israel. In 1981 he was appointed Chairman of the Board.

For 5 years he headed the Israel Corporation, Israel's largest holding company. In addition, he was a partner in the Atlas company that was involved in hotel management.

Manor was close to Shin Bet head Carmi Gilon and advised him during the latter's position as head of the service.

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