Ranan Lurie: Political Cartoonist ... and Spy?

By: Dave Astor The fictional "Eric Lurie" is a widely syndicated political cartoonist and spy for Israel's Mossad and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The real-life Ranan Lurie is a widely syndicated political cartoonist, but is he also a Mossad and CIA spy?

That question is being debated in Israel after the Hebrew-language publication of "The Cartoonist's Mask," a new novel by Lurie that will be available in English later this year.

"The book is very autobiographical," Lurie said Wednesday. But is it totally autobiographical? To find out, E&P asked Lurie: "Are you a spy for Mossad?" "No," he replied. "Are you a spy for the CIA?" "No," he replied. "If you were a spy, would you admit it?" "I suppose that I would say 'no' as well," Lurie answered.

Since the book was released in Israel only a few days ago, Lurie hasn't yet received much reaction from his newspaper clients. He did say the novel will put a number of editors "not at ease." Cartoonews Inc. of New York City syndicates Lurie's editorial cartoons to about 1,100 newspapers, with all but 50 or so located outside the U.S.

Kelly McBride, a member of the Poynter Institute's ethics faculty, said being a spy and an editorial cartoonist is obviously a conflict of interest. "It's the same conflict that would arise if a journalist was a snitch for the cops," she told E&P. "You have different duties. The journalist's duty is to tell the truth. The law-enforcement person's duty is to keep the peace. You can't do both jobs well. Ultimately, you compromise your journalistic integrity."

Lurie acknowledged that a spy may be guilty of "betraying his journalism profession," but, he added, "sometimes for a very honorable cause." He noted hypothetically that if a spy working as a New York Times journalist gathered information that prevented 9/11, "he's a hero."

Is it plausible for a cartoonist to be a spy? Lurie, who's now based in New York City, certainly has a background allowing for that possibility. As a real-life biography published with "The Cartoonist's Mask" notes, Lurie received training as an intelligence officer, pilot, and paratrooper in his native Israel; trained and jumped with the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Ky.; served as a reserve major during the 1967 Mideast war; and has been a senior member of the Center for Strategic & International Studies since 1990. Other members of that Washington-based think tank have included chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs and Secretaries of Defense.

And Lurie -- who has interviewed about 100 presidents, prime ministers, dictators, and other leaders during his career -- admits to being a conduit between some of them. For instance, he recalled a time in the early 1970s when he flew to Israel to pass a confidential message from U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, and then flew back to convey her reply to Rogers. Why this mission? Lurie recalled that Rogers insisted "he wished to go over the heads of then Ambassador [to the U.S.] Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Abba Eban, and his own ambassador in Tel Aviv."

Why did he write a novel that hews so closely to his own life? Lurie mentioned that some authors "go to the police archives to find interesting stories. I saved myself a trip by looking at my own biography."

But why not use a different last name for his Eric character? The cartoonist said the Lurie family lineage can be traced back about 3,000 years, and he wanted to use that in the novel.

The award-winning Lurie began his career as staff political cartoonist for Israel's Yedioth Aharonoth newspaper in 1956 -- the same year he had an affair with editor/writer/ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, and two years before Lurie married his wife Tamar.

After 11 years at Yedioth Aharonoth, Lurie went on to work for various other newspapers and magazines -- including Life, Newsweek International, the Honolulu Advertiser, Germany's Die Welt, The Times of London, Japan's Asahi Shimbun, U.S News & World Report, Time International, Switzerland's Neue Zurcher Zeitung, and Foreign Affairs. He's also the founder and editor in chief of Cartoon News Magazine, which began in 1996 and became the Web-only Cartoonews.com in 2000.

When Lurie recently appeared on an Israeli morning TV show, the interviewer asked him if he was a CIA and Mossad spy. The cartoonist replied: "OK, I will tell you. But then you understand that I'll have to kill you!"