Israel's publicity-shy Mossad spy service, damaged in recent years by an embarrassing series of bungles, is planning to set up a press liaison office for the first time, Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper said on Thursday.

It said Mossad Chief Ephraim Halevy, hoping to combat a slew of negative press and meet the public demand for information, outlined the new policy in his introduction to a new book about a former Mossad agent.

"I'm afraid that continuation of this policy (of no contact with the press) will cause much more damage to the Mossad, to its foundations and to those serving in it," wrote Halevy, according to Ha'aretz.

There was no immediate comment from Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office, responsible for the Mossad.

The Mossad, famed in the past for a number of daring operations including the 1960 kidnapping in Argentina of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, has been battered by a number of high-profile failed operations and suspected leaks.

In 1997 two agents were arrested, and later freed, in Jordan after a botched attempt to assassinate a leader of the Palestinian Muslim militant group Hamas, Khaled Meshal.

The affair rocked relations with Jordan, Israel's closest ally in the region. Other affairs in the last two years have soured relations with Switzerland and Cyprus.

In his six-page introduction, Halevy slammed as "unbearable and unacceptable" a situation in which "the Mossad, which cannot and does not want to publicize its successes, has no choice but to focus on its failures," Ha'aretz reported.

Traditionalists reject the new spirit of openness. Until recently, the very name of the serving Mossad chief was a state secret.

"The moment that you are revealed, the enemy knows you better," former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit told Israel Radio.

Last year Halevy, a former Mossad operative and European Union ambassador who assumed control of the Mossad in 1998, launched another strike at the agency, calling for agents to cut back on lavish living.Reuters