Has the U.S. abandoned American Robert Levinson in Iran?

The author of a new book on Robert Levinson, the former FBI agent who has been missing in Iran since 2007, says the U.S. government is covering up evidence about the role Iranian intelligence officials played in apprehending him and likely holding him captive for the past nine years.

“It’s impossible to believe that Bob Levinson vaporized into thin air on Kish Island, part of Iran,” said Barry Meier, a New York Times reporter whose new book is “Missing Man: The American Spy who Vanished in Iran,” in an interview with Yahoo News.

“He was arrested. …The only people he could have been conceivably been arrested by were the Iranian security forces or the Iranian police. There is absolutely no question about it.”

Yet when the Obama administration signed the nuclear accord with Iran last January, and released seven Iranians held on sanctions violations in the U.S. in exchange for five Americans being held hostage in Iran, Levinson was not on the list — and his family never even got a “courtesy call,” said Meier.

Secretary of State John Kerry said then that the Obama administration would continue to press for Levinson’s release — and the FBI even recently set up a Facebook page in Farsi to solicit tips about Levinson’s whereabouts. The Iranian government, for its part, has publicly denied knowing anything about what happened to Levinson.

But according to Meier, the Obama administration received evidence nearly five years ago — which it has never publicly disclosed — that the Iranian government held Levinson’s fate in its hands: Iran’s ambassador in Paris then, Seyed Mehdi Miraboutalebi, told members of a religious group that his country would arrange to release Levinson if the U.S. would help squelch a forthcoming report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) critical of Iran’s nuclear program — an offer that was passed along to the FBI.

Yet the Obama administration never publicly revealed the apparent Iranian offer — and neither the State Department nor the FBI even informed Levinson’s family.

“It’s not just the State Department that hasn’t shared what it knows,” said Meier. “It’s been the FBI. I guess I would urge Secretary Kerry and other people in the OA [Obama administration], if they really do care about Bob Levinson’s fate, it’s time to put out whatever information they have about he role that Iran played, or might have played, in this episode. “

Levinson’s wife, Christine, who cooperated with Meier on the book, and his seven children are embittered, says the author. “They feel — and I think they have reason to believe — that Bob was abandoned by his government, by the Obama administration,” Meier said. “There are people within the government, who have made a lot of noise about everything they have done — and will continue to do — to try and bring Bob Levinson home. But there is little concrete evidence that they have done the kinds of things that will actually make that happen.”

A senior Obama administration official, asked for comment, sent this email: “The United States is unwavering in its commitment to determine the whereabouts of retired FBI special agent Robert Levinson. We know that Bob disappeared from Kish Island, Iran in March 2007. We have been engaged in conversation with the Iranian government regarding his case and we expect this dialogue will continue.

“Unfortunately, for the sake of the ongoing investigation, we cannot get into specifics regarding our discussion with Iran on his case. Based on the agreement reached between the United States and Iran to cooperate, we look forward to the Iranians fulfilling their commitment to continue to work together in locating Robert Levinson. The Levinson family has now endured the hardship of his disappearance for almost nine years. We will not cease our efforts until he is home in the United States.”

After a lengthy career with the FBI, Levinson was a private investigator working for corporate and other clients when he went to Kish Island in Iran in 2007. The official U.S. government story at the time was that he was there on behalf of a major tobacco company to investigate cigarette smuggling. But Meier uncovered new details — including a trove of emails — about his real mission: to collect information for a group inside the CIA, called the Illicit Financing Group, by meeting with a notorious assassin, Dawud Salahuddin, an American wanted for murder of an Iranian diplomat in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1980. Salahuddin, born David Belfield, had fled the U.S. for Iran after the murder and was believed to have contacts inside the Iranian government. Levinson was hoping to recruit Salahuddin as an informant on corruption and sanctions violations by Iranian officials.

Yet for years the CIA never disclosed that it had dispatched Levinson to Iran, and even denied its role to Congress, according to Meier’s book. The CIA’s role was first reported by the Associated Press and Washington Post in 2013; three officials resigned over the matter.

“And they [the CIA] still haven’t come clean on it,” said Meier. “It’s one of the great tragedies of this story that the CIA has sought fit to keep everything about this episode wrapped up to protect people within the CIA. They pushed three people out; they got three people to resign. But we really don’t know the full story.”

The key question — one that Meier can’t answer but fears the most — is whether Levinson is still alive. More than five years ago, whoever is holding him captive released a harrowing video of a gaunt Levinson warning about his ill health (he suffers from diabetes) and pleading for his life. Other photos also surfaced of Levinson wearing an orange jumpsuit like those worn by detainees at Guantanamo.

But since then, no word has been heard from him — and the Iranians still publicly insist they know nothing.

Is Levinson still alive? “I would like him to be alive,” said Meier. “I hope he’s alive.” But, he added, “It’s very difficult to believe after five years that he’s still alive.”