The fake license plates, forged passports and concealed surveillance camera were locked away in the musty archives of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency for 50 years. Now they are touring the U.S. in a traveling exhibition about the Mossad's legendary capture of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann.
But one object crucial to the mission's success is not on display: the needle used to inject a sedative into Eichmann's arm before he was smuggled onto a plane back to Israel to stand trial.
The story of the needle is also the story of Dr. Yonah Elian, an Israeli anesthesiologist recruited for the Eichmann mission to administer the sedative. He hid the needle in a drawer for most of his life and refused to come out of the shadows — even as the other Israelis on the mission were crowned national heroes.
