How Israel's spy agency Mossad created a 'Canadian' assassin

The murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics stunned the world and triggered a massive operation to hunt down and kill the killers by Israel's spy agency, Mossad. Today we look into the interlocking story of Israel's spy Sylvia Raphael, the CIA's Robert Ames and the Black September operative named Ali Hassan Salameh.

ABC sports broadcaster Jim McKay broke the news that 11 members of Israel's Olympic team had been murdered in Munich. And that day in September, 1972 was just the beginning. It touched off a series of revenge killings that became the stuff of spy legend.

Today, we introduce you to the Mossad officer who recruited one of the agents who took part in the reprisals and explore the Canadian connection to that story.

Moti Kfir is the co-author of the new book Sylvia Rafael: The Life and Death of a Mossad Spy. (Read an expert from the book)

Former Lebanese prime minister Saeb Salam (left ) with Ali Hassan Salameh and Yasir Arafat (right) in 1976. Robert Ames assigned Salameh the CIA cryptonym MJTRUST/2. By 1976, Salameh's fedayeen from Force 17 were providing security for the U.S. embassy in the midst of the Lebanese civil war. (Courtesy of As-Safi r newspaper, Beirut)

It is an old cliche, but the espionage game really is a world of mirrors. Kai Bird knows about the strange dance that took place between the CIA, the PLO and the Mossad. He is a pulitizer prize winning author whose new book is called The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames.

So what do you think. Should Western intelligence agencies open a back channel to Hamas?

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This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal.