Baghdad Hanged 15 Alleged Spies While 5,000 Jews Remained at Risk
By Constance Bell ·
15 people died on gallows in Baghdad on January 27, 1969, leaving thousands of Iraqi Jews in a precarious position for years—a report kept secret from the public until 2016.
Fifteen people were hanged in Baghdad on a January morning in 1969, their deaths a public signal of the cost of alleged betrayal. For the five thousand Jews still living in Iraq, these executions were not just a tragedy but a hostage crisis in all but name.
The details of the morning's brutality reached the White House in the afternoon. According to the President's Daily Brief for 27 January 1969—a sanitized copy approved for release in 2016—Baghdad radio announced that 15 "Israeli spies," including nine Iraqi Jews, had been executed. The document records a cold calculation taking place in Tel Aviv: the embassy there believed that while the Israelis were "outraged," they would find it nearly impossible to retaliate without further endangering the lives of the approximately 5,000 Jews remaining in Iraq.
"Could Do as They Pleased"
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol did not respond with military threats, but with a warning about the nature of the regime in Baghdad. In a speech before the Knesset that same day, Eshkol noted that the executions demonstrated the fate awaiting Jews if Arab governments "could do as they pleased."
For the intelligence community, the hangings were a tactical variable. The brief suggests that Israel would likely use the theme of the mistreatment of Jewish minorities to "parry Arab complaints" regarding Israeli refugee policies. There was also a more kinetic possibility on the table; the record notes that Israel might target the some 20,000 Iraqi troops stationed in Jordan if they chose to carry out another retaliatory raid.
While the President's brief focused on these strategic pivots, other archival records, including FRUS Telegram 333 and Research Memorandum RNA-6, track the wider diplomatic fallout between the embassy in Israel and the State Department. The public record later clarified the identities of the condemned, noting that the group of executed Iraqis included not only nine Jews but also three Muslims and two Christians.
30 Miles from Alaska
As the Iraqi government cleared its gallows, the Soviet Union was testing the perimeter of North America. The same afternoon brief informs the President that seven Soviet TU-95 long-range bombers conducted reconnaissance flights against the west coast of Alaska on the preceding Saturday.
The mission was described as "well-coordinated." Although none of the aircraft entered U.S. airspace, two of them pushed their luck, approaching within 30 miles of the northwest coast. The CIA analysts viewed these flights not as random patrols, but as a potential signal. They suspected the Soviets were resuming "simulated strike missions" against the northern coast of the continent, echoing a pattern of flights seen early the previous year.
In the high-stakes geometry of the Cold War, the proximity of a bomber to the Alaskan coast was a measured pressure point, handled with a detachment that contrasted sharply with the visceral horror of the Baghdad executions reported in the same breath.
Negotiating with the Front
Further east, the brief shifts to the stalemate in Vietnam. In Paris, the Communist delegations were offering nothing but "broad propaganda statements" intended to avoid commitment to any specific course of action. The document notes that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and the Liberation Front had rejected a U.S. proposal regarding the DMZ, signaling a refusal to separate military issues from political ones.
Inside South Vietnam, the mood was shifting. Before the Tet offensive, most nationalists believed the National Liberation Front would be destroyed. The brief recalls a time in April 1968 when a peace candidate, Truong Dinh Dzu, was viewed as deserving of arrest simply for suggesting talks with the Front. This hostility had previously fueled the dismissal of Prime Minister Loc's government in May and the subsequent hardline stance of Prime Minister Huong.
By January 1969, however, the reality of the war had forced a grudging acceptance. The brief mentions that while Nguyen Cao Ky’s December remarks—describing the Front as a "reality" but not as an "entity"—were scrubbed from the Vietnamese press, they were being discussed widely without significant backlash. The U.S. was left trying to discern how the Communists would approach substantive matters in Paris, though the analysts believed Hanoi was unlikely to "show their cards in the formal sessions."
They suspected Hanoi would instead use third parties to probe the direction of the new U.S. administration, searching for which political arrangements the Americans were actually willing to consider for South Vietnam.