Victor John Ostrovsky was born on 28 November 1949 and is an Israeli-Canadian author and intelligence officer who was a case officer in the Israeli Mossad for 14 months before his dismissal.
15 Facts About Victor Ostrovsky
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Victor John Ostrovsky was born on November 28,1949 in Edmonton, Alberta to Jewish parents.
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Victor Ostrovsky's father was a was a Canadian-born Jew who served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II as a tail gunner on a Lancaster bomber, taking part in more than 20 missions over Germany.
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Victor Ostrovsky's plane was shot down over Germany, but he managed to escape and return to active service.
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Victor Ostrovsky moved to Israel as a child and grew up in Holon.
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Victor Ostrovsky joined the Israeli Youth Brigade at 14 and quickly became an expert marksman, finishing second in a 1964 national shooting competition, with a score of 192 out of 200.
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Victor Ostrovsky worked in the Mossad with over a year of service, 14 months total, as a case officer.
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Victor Ostrovsky operated Ostrovsky Fine Art Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona.
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Victor Ostrovsky argued their point to be moot, as they themselves are outsiders and that the only information about the Mossad they have is from their supposed "sources" in the agency with a very clear agenda.
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Victor Ostrovsky maintains that he never placed anyone in danger because only first names or code names were used.
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In 1994, Victor Ostrovsky wrote another book, The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda, in which he gives more anecdotes and defends his earlier work with a list of newspaper articles.
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Victor Ostrovsky writes that the book was written in cooperation with a "moderate Mossad faction" that he had remained in touch with since his departure from the agency in 1986.
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Kathleen Christison praised the first half of the book as a "highly readable primer in the tricks and dirty tricks of the trade" in which Victor Ostrovsky discusses his training and provides details of Mossad tradecraft.
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Victor Ostrovsky is critical of the second half of the book, second-hand descriptions of alleged Mossad operations that Ostrovsky claimed to have heard about or participated in.
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Victor Ostrovsky writes that while "the general outlines of these operations are probably accurately conveyed, there is just enough factual error to cast doubt on the details" and his descriptions of his accomplishments "seem overdrawn".