Surrounded as it was by enemies on all sides, the new Jewish State desperately needed the very latest in weapon technology. While reorganizing the Ministry under his command, Peres managed to subjugate large portions of the national budget for military needs. He also enlisted most of the new nation's budding industry, which began filling some of the many military contracts and orders. Yet their effort wasn't nearly enough to satisfy the increasing demand for a steady and superior defense of a nation at war. A possible solution would have been purchasing arms from abroad. But none of the countries with the industrial potential to supply Israel's armament needs was in any hurry to spoil its diplomatic relations with the many Arab nations. The only remaining course of action was to somehow utilize personal contacts. And that's when Shimon Peres really turned to Bogart.

Hailed later by the American Motion Picture Academy as the greatest American film actor in history, Bogart was enormously popular in European intellectual circles. One of his closest friends was the writer, painter, film director, artist, and one of the generally better-known figures of the 20th Century - Jean Cocteau.

Bogart often stayed with Cocteau in Lavandou, a resort on the southern coast of France. There, at the prestigious hotel Les Roches, Shimon Peres first met Jean Cocteau. At that time nobody could even imagine the fantastic world-shaking events which would result from that meeting.

The ties that bind

Afterwards Cocteau recalled his first impression of Peres, describing a "vague excitement, which gripped him when he first saw this young Jew with the burning eyes." Cocteau was a member of a highly influential family, involved in politics. Despite his own bohemian and often disorderly existence, he always maintained good connections with aristocratic, political, and governmental circles. Among other things he was very close with De Gaulle, whose brother later even assigned him to make an official report on the conditions in France.

Cocteau introduced Peres to his friend, Pierre Plantard, who had even closer ties with De Gaulle. In later years Plantard recollected that when he first saw Peres he felt "an inexplicably strange and close bond between their souls."

Despite being in the Opposition at the time, De Gaulle's influence in French military circles was considerable. Through Cocteau and Plantard, Peres quickly formed the necessary friendships with governmental officials. Upon returning home he had little trouble convincing his colleagues at the Ministry, and shipments of armaments soon began flowing from France to Israel. The ties between the French and Israeli military industries, forged by Peres, Cocteau, and Plantard, proved inordinately reliable and strong. It was these ties that later led to the union between England, France, and Israel against Egypt in the 1956 Suez Campaign.

But the bond which proved much stronger and of immensely greater consequence, was the friendship between three people - Jean Cocteau, Pierre Plantard, and Shimon Peres.

Astonishing discovery

The more Plantard and Cocteau got to know the young Israeli, the more their interest was captivated by this incredibly energetic and ambitious man. What intrigued them even more was the strange family name, highly uncharacteristic for East-European Jews - Perski. This name was familiar in France as a genealogical line of Russian nobility (and not as a Jewish surname.) Interestingly, Shimon told his new friends about a family legend, which held that the Perski ancestors had originally arrived in Eastern Europe from France.

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