The most important material, however, was military. A large part of it included stenograms—notes of conversations that, unlike formal minutes, were written during rather than after the conversations—dealing with the most critical subjects in the most important bodies in the country. They included, for example, discussions of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the army’s General Staff meetings, conversations between top generals and their Soviet counterparts, meetings with officials from other Arab states, including summit meetings, and Sadat’s meetings with foreign leaders in his trips abroad. Sadat’s management style caused him to skip meetings covering subjects he was not too interested in, even if the forum was extremely sensitive, such as the military’s General Staff meetings. He would often send Marwan in his place. In such cases, stenograms were just the icing on the cake. In his conversations with Dubi and Meir, Marwan left no doubt that he had attended the meetings himself. “The room was noisy,” the source assessments tell us. “Sadat seemed annoyed the whole time.” And so on.
The information Marwan provided about discussions with the Soviets—a subject of top interest to Israel because of the Egyptians’ belief that they needed Soviet weaponry in order to attack—was exceptionally thorough, including not just stenograms and minutes of conversations between Sadat and Soviet leaders, but also a detailed account of lower-level meetings between ministers of defense, army chiefs of staff, and intelligence chiefs. Taken together, these reports opened a wide window through which Israel’s top political and intelligence leaders could see not only what Egypt was thinking vis-à-vis war with Israel, but also what the Kremlin was thinking—namely, that the Egyptians were not ready to take on the IDF.
Probably the best example of just how thoroughly Marwan helped Israeli intelligence penetrate Egyptian-Soviet relations has to do with Sadat’s talks with Soviet leaders in Moscow in October 1971. The purpose of the visit was to convince the Kremlin to supply “deterrent” weaponry, the mere threat of which would prevent Israel from launching deep-bombing raids at sensitive Egyptian targets. In an earlier round of talks with Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev in March 1971, Sadat asked for a shipment of Kelt missiles—air-to-surface rockets launched from Tupolev Tu-16 bombers. This time around, he was asking for Scud missiles, surface-to-surface rockets with a range of about 170 miles—enough to reach most major targets in Israel.
Military Intelligence and the Mossad had received only partial information about the two visits, including the fact that an arms deal had been inked in the current October talks. Since these were taking place just as Sadat’s “year of decision” about war with Israel was coming to an end, the Israelis were especially eager to find out what had been discussed and what the deal included. Soon after Sadat left Moscow, Marwan met with Meir and Dubi in London. Meir peppered Marwan, who had not accompanied Sadat, with questions, prepared mostly by IAF intelligence. How had Egypt presented their war plans? What were the details of the agreement—which weapons systems, and when would they be delivered? Marwan answered as best he could, but there was much he didn’t know. At the end of the meeting, Meir asked him whether he could produce an account of the conversation between Sadat and Brezhnev, and emphasized the high importance of such a document. Marwan said he would get the document.4
If on previous occasions the time that passed between meetings was weeks or months, this time Marwan got back to his handlers within days, giving them the actual minutes of the meeting. The Soviets, it turned out, promised to give Egypt the Kelt missiles, without demanding (as they had back in March) that Egypt get Moscow’s permission before using them against Israel. But the Soviets still refused to commit to a delivery date—or to selling Egypt the Scuds they so eagerly wanted.
Beyond this highly valuable concrete information regarding weapons procurement, the Israelis also got a direct look at Egypt’s preparations for war, the Soviets’ impressions of them, and the dynamic of relations between the two states. Standing in front of a large map of the Sinai that had been hung in the conference room at the Kremlin, Egyptian war minister Mohammed Ahmed Sadek described Egypt’s plans for crossing the Suez Canal and sending its tanks into the Sinai, toward the Mitla and Gidi Passes in an effort to cut across the peninsula. At this point, Brezhnev stood up and asked to see the two passes on the map. Sadat hurried over and pointed them out. The minutes revealed the Soviets’ doubts about Egypt’s ability to carry out the plan. More than once during the meeting, they told Sadat and his men that the Egyptian army was not prepared to take on the IDF on land or in the air, and that the plan being shown on the map therefore had no chance of succeeding. “You have T-34s,” one of the Soviet experts said. “With these you would fight against the Jews?” The T-34 was a thirty-year-old tank that had been the core of the Soviet armor during World War II but was useless against the IDF’s modern weaponry. In truth, the Soviets had sold Egypt the next-generation tanks, and for years Egyptian armor had been based on T-54s and T-55s. But they refused to sell Egypt the newest T-62s, which had been built to fight against American M60s, the IDF’s mainstay. The comment, the Israelis understood, was not meant literally, but to express the Soviet expert’s low opinion of Egyptian armored capabilities—and, by extension, the Kremlin’s desire to discourage Egypt from launching another disastrous military campaign against Israel.5
The details Marwan gave Israel about Sadat’s talks in Moscow became a central component of the intelligence assessment that IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Chaim Bar-Lev sent to a very small forum that included Prime Minister Golda Meir, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon, and Minister Without Portfolio Yisrael Galili. On November 21, 1971, Bar-Lev reported that the Soviets had agreed to sell Egypt a squadron of twelve Tupolev Tu-16 bombers capable of launching Kelt air-to-surface missiles with a half-ton payload at a range of up to 125 miles. Bar-Lev said that Egypt now hosted some 9,500 Soviet advisers, technicians, and trainers, and more than 10,000 Red Army troops deployed in an antiaircraft division including SAM sites, as well as fighter squadrons manned by Soviet pilots. He also had information about intensive military activities taking place along the Suez Canal, including exercises for crossing the canal and earthworks for the crossing. Much of the intelligence, we may assume, came not only from Marwan but from MI’s own sources, including surveillance, reconnaissance flyovers, wiretaps, and more. The Mossad, too, had sources besides Marwan. But he was probably the source of one additional, especially worrisome piece of intelligence: Sadat, it was learned, had entered the army’s underground war room known as Center 10, a move that showed the seriousness of his intentions. A similar picture emerged from a speech Sadat gave to officers and soldiers stationed at the canal, in which he declared that since he saw no chance of getting the Sinai back through diplomacy, the only way forward was war.6
Marwan’s data proved decisive in Israeli attempts to decipher Egyptian intentions as Sadat’s “year of decision” drew to a close. The Soviets, who knew more about Egypt’s military capabilities than anyone else, may have thought that Egypt couldn’t win a war and wouldn’t try; for Israel, however, a number of indicators combined to raise a red flag. To figure out what Egypt had in store, MI-Research held a series of intensive meetings that focused on the apparent contradiction between Sadat’s hostile public declarations, combined with Egypt’s preparations for crossing the canal, on the one hand, and the prevailing belief in Military Intelligence, on the other, that Egyptian commanders were so thoroughly aware of their inferiority on land and in the air that the likelihood of their launching an attack must be low. Eventually, Meir Meir, who headed up MI’s Egypt branch, concluded that without further indicators that the Egyptians had completed their preparations for war, there was no need to sound an alarm. Some analysts have claimed that this sober assessment was what earned Meir his promotion to full colonel.7 But even if his sobriety at the time proved wise—the Yom Kippur War was still another two years off—Egypt’s procurements from the Soviet Union were cause for serious concer
n. The defense minister, in a meeting of the cabinet in November 1971, said that even if Egypt would still take a beating in any war with Israel, it would now have the ability to do some damage as well. He was especially worried about the Kelt missiles. If such a missile “were to fall in the area of Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, or Bat Yam,” he warned, “there will be an avalanche, because these areas have high-rise buildings.”8
THE MATERIALS MARWAN gave the Mossad also had an impact on relations between Israel and the United States. Sometimes the Mossad would send reports to the CIA based on Marwan’s intelligence, after it was carefully edited in a way that made it impossible to identify the source—a process known as paraphrasing. Moreover, the most sensitive items were handed directly by Mossad director general Zvi Zamir to CIA director Richard Helms, to ensure that on the American side, too, the number of eyes that saw the documents was kept to a minimum.
The minutes of the October meeting between Sadat and Brezhnev, however, were too important to leave in Israeli hands alone or to pass along to the CIA as a paraphrase. Prime Minister Golda Meir decided that Israel had to present it to the White House in its original form, giving the Americans a rare glimpse into the USSR’s relations with one of its most important third-world client states. The document also offered a firsthand account of the Kremlin’s attitude toward the Middle East, and would enable the Americans to draw conclusions about a number of other aspects of Soviet foreign policy. Fearing the exposure of his source, Zamir was reluctant. But he accepted Golda Meir’s decision and summoned the head of the Mossad station in Washington, Efraim Halevy, who was in Israel mourning the loss of his mother, to take care of the handoff. Zamir then joined Golda Meir on her trip to Washington. Sitting with President Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, the prime minister handed each of them a copy of the minutes. Meanwhile, Zamir met with CIA chief Helms in a nearby room to get his thoughts on the document. The CIA, Helms affirmed, vouched for its authenticity and congratulated the Mossad on its success in developing so valuable an intelligence source. In the intimate relations between the two agency heads, there were clear rules of conduct. Helms didn’t ask anything about the source’s identity, and Zamir gave him nothing to go on.
Golda Meir wasn’t much of a note writer. But at the end of the visit to Washington, she wrote a few words to Zamir on a photograph of her taken with Nixon, expressing her admiration and gratitude for Zamir’s work. Orally she added that not only were Nixon and Kissinger deeply impressed by the Israeli achievement and by Israel’s willingness to share the document in its raw form, but the president was now ready to sell Israel additional F-4 Phantoms.
Not long afterward, Marwan passed along additional top-secret information about Soviet-Egyptian relations, and Golda Meir wanted to give that to the White House as well. This time, Zamir was more adamantly opposed, convinced that now the CIA would certainly figure out who the source was. The prime minister insisted, and a stalemate ensued. In a top-level meeting that included military secretary Brig. Gen. Israel Lior and Minister Without Portfolio Yisrael Galili, Zamir informed Meir that if she forced his hand, he would carry out her orders, but he would continue to insist that it was endangering the safety of the source. Meir, no less stubborn, told him to get on a plane and deliver it himself. Zamir said that Efraim Halevy could deliver it just as easily as he could. Meir insisted that Zamir not just carry out her orders but accept her position in principle regarding the decision to hand the material over. Zamir refused, and Golda Meir got up and stormed out of the room. Unimpressed by her passive-aggressive tactics, Zamir stood his ground.
In the end, the prime minister capitulated, and the Americans never laid eyes on the document.9
BEGINNING IN LATE 1968, when the Egyptians had finished rebuilding most of their military after their defeat in the Six-Day War, the question of whether and when they would attack had been the foremost concern of the Israeli intelligence community. Military Intelligence had done an impressive job answering that question early on. That fall, it had estimated that Nasser was going to attack in March 1969. It would be a static conflict, at least at first. On this basis, IDF chief of staff Bar-Lev gave the order to complete its preparations for war along the Suez Canal front by March 1. The Bar-Lev Line, a string of earthworks and fortifications along the canal, was completed on time, including the logistical infrastructure to support it during a prolonged conflict with Egypt. When the War of Attrition began on March 8, 1969, Israel was ready. That war ended on August 7, 1970, without any diplomatic or military gains on Egypt’s part.
Egypt’s failure, however, immediately raised two questions. Would they now look for a diplomatic or a military way to get the Sinai back? And if their plan was war, when would they feel ready to attack?
Marwan’s promotion into Sadat’s inner circle after the Corrective Revolution of May 1971 enabled him to pass on to the Israelis, the following July, the actual thoughts of Egypt’s president regarding the first question. According to an MI memorandum disseminated that month,
According to a high-ranking source in Egypt, there is no longer hope for a diplomatic agreement, and according to all indications Israel has no intention of withdrawing from the territories it conquered. A “diplomatic agreement,” in their view, would require Israel’s commitment to Egypt that it return all territories taken in 1967, not just Sinai [i.e., also the West Bank and Golan Heights to Jordan and Syria, respectively]. The Egyptians came to the belief that the Americans had been leading them on, when the truth was they had neither the will nor the way to press Israel to withdraw. Egypt concluded that in light of the situation, there was no way to convince the Egyptian army and the Egyptian people that there was still hope for a diplomatic agreement, and there would therefore be no choice but to employ military force.10
At around the same time, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yitzhak Rabin, was asked to prepare a personal, for-your-eyes-only message that he would deliver to Nixon and Kissinger. This, too, was based on information passed along by Marwan concerning the Egyptian perspective, and was to include four specific points:
1. Egypt is prepared for a full peace agreement with Israel on the basis of the Rogers Plan [which proposed returning the Sinai in exchange for peace];
2. The United States has repeated to the Egyptians its commitment to the Rogers Plan;
3. If the United States refuses to put pressure on Israel, Egypt will have no choice but to go to war;
4. The emphasis of the Sadat regime in its political and military struggle is not on the fate of the Palestinians, but on reclaiming Egyptian territory.11
It is unclear what convinced Golda Meir that she ought to send a message to Washington depicting Egypt as peacemaker and Israel and the United States as belligerents. Most likely, she was trying to show the Americans how Israel was working in line with the administration’s hard-edged Middle East strategy—a central part of which was refusing any peace deal that would give Sadat back the Sinai without his switching over to the American side in the Cold War. And since Israeli decision makers had little faith in Egypt’s peaceful intentions anyway, and were thus uninterested in giving up control over the eastern third of the Sinai under any conditions, the confluence of American and Israeli interests wound up torpedoing any Egyptian effort to move forward with a peace treaty in exchange for a full return of the Sinai—the same terms that, seven years and many lives later, became the basis of the Camp David Accords. Rabin, however, never delivered the message, for fear that it would result in increased US pressure on Israel.
Regardless of how these moves may be judged in hindsight, the fact remains that because of Ashraf Marwan, Israeli decision makers developed a very accurate picture of Egypt’s intentions regarding war and peace. The Egyptians knew that they couldn’t retake Sinai by force, and the Israelis knew they knew it. Among the analysts of IDF Military Intelligence, the belief emerged that if Egypt were to start a war, it would not be with the aim of recapturing the Sinai, which was unrealist
ic, but only “to force the powers to intervene and impose a solution.”12
Having successfully answered the first question, MI got to work on the second: Under what circumstances would Egypt see itself ready to attack, even for more limited aims? Their efforts here would constitute a major step in developing what became known as the kontzeptzia—or Concept—which became the overarching paradigm that guided Israeli intelligence and decision making for most of the period between 1970 and the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. According to the Concept, Egypt would never attack without first solving the problem of its military inferiority. Here, too, Marwan’s intelligence made a decisive contribution.13
The number one problem facing Egypt was Israel’s dramatic air superiority. With the loss of the Sinai Peninsula, an Egyptian surprise attack on IAF air bases similar to the one that the IAF used to destroy the entire Egyptian air force on June 5, 1967, had become nearly impossible, for two reasons. First, the much greater distance Egyptian fighters would now have to fly, combined with improved Israeli radar coverage, made it extremely unlikely that Egypt could surprise the IAF the way Israel had done to Egypt. And second, the Soviets had yet to produce a fighter plane that could penetrate Israel’s air defenses. As opposed to Western countries that were producing advanced aircraft like the US-made F-4 Phantom and A-4 Skyhawk (which Israel had) or the French Mirage 5 (which had been developed specifically for the IAF), Soviet manufacturers had focused their efforts on short-range interceptors and strategic long-range bombers meant to carry nuclear payloads. The Kremlin simply didn’t have the kind of planes Egypt needed. The commander of Egypt’s air force, Gen. Ali Mustafa Baghdady, expressed his frustration in a meeting of the Supreme Council in early 1972: “What I need is a deterrent aircraft. A fighter-bomber, about Mach two, with a good payload and range, that lets us go deep into enemy territory.”14 At the time there was only one plane that met Baghdady’s demands: the F-4 Phantom. So long as Egypt was a Soviet client, the problem of Israel’s air superiority had no solution.
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