cultural centres of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. He called a conference to be convened at Mena House in Cairo from 14 December onward, for the meetings which would bring Israeli officials and their entourages, including security personnel, officially into an Arab country for the first time. Holden decided to pay a quick visit to Israel, which still had no diplomatic or commercial relations with any Arab country. He flew to Amman. As Time magazine reported: "Holden told friends in Amman that he was going to make a detour to Jerusalem on his way [back] to Cairo. 'Haven't been there for years,' he said. 'I guess they consider me public enemy No. 1'. After Holden failed to contact his home office as agreed from the hotel where he had booked to stay, The Sunday Times became concerned. His body was found beside a road near a building site not far from the airport, “stripped of all means of identification”, so it was taken to the Cairo morgue. Officials finally discovered and claimed it on 10 December. He was killed with a single shot, close range. Three cars were found to be associated with the crime, all white Fiats: the car in which the murder took place, one which held his briefcase, identification and luggage, and another with papers. They were found abandoned in different parts of Cairo. Police initially thought he had been killed by an illegal taxi driver. There was speculation that the killing was related to the peace talks, but no group took responsibility, which would usually be the case if it were meant as a protest or warning. At an early date, there was speculation that security forces might be involved. The Sunday Times editor, Harold Evans, sent three of his own reporters to investigate, and they worked on the case for six months. Based on several pieces of information, such as learning that the CIA had a file on Holden and about contacts of his with CIA agents, the journalists made an unconfirmed conclusion that he had been a CIA agent. They also noted that his reporting in the 1970s on CIA involvement in Cuba and Chile downplayed its role. "In 1988 the Sunday Times was told by a senior US diplomat in the Middle East that Holden had been killed on the orders of the CIA but it had been carried out