The Angel

by Uri Bar-Joseph

  Marwan ran after him, hoping to calm him, but Jalloud barged into Sadat’s office demanding that his honor be respected. As he was explaining himself to Sadat, the war minister stormed in as well, pointed to Jalloud, and yelled, “This unschooled boy humiliated me before my officers!” When Jalloud tried to respond, Ismail threatened, “If this child doesn’t shut his mouth, I will smack him with my boots!” The war minister then walked out, slamming the door. He returned to his house and refused to go back to work for three days. Jalloud, no less furious, went back to Libya, causing a rupture in the talks. Marwan, who needed all his diplomatic finesse to bring the talks back on track, followed Jalloud to Tripoli and returned with an answer from Gaddafi to Sadat: The Libyans demanded that Ismail be fired. Sadat was unwilling to hear of it; preparations for war with Israel were well under way. In the end Ismail remained in his position, but Egypt accepted Jalloud’s demand that a different diplomatic channel be created to work around the minister of war. Jalloud was still not satisfied. He told his Libyan lawyer to file a suit against Ismail and did not withdraw it even after the Yom Kippur War. Ismail never again visited Libya; he died in late 1974.8

  As opposed to Kamal Adham, who was significantly older than Marwan, Jalloud was Marwan’s age. This fact, combined with Marwan’s impressive family connections and his ability to charm the bark off a tree, quickly moved their relationship from formalities to friendship. Jalloud would often steal out of Tripoli, which under Gaddafi had become a bastion of Islamic asceticism, and head for places where the good life awaited. Often that meant Cairo, where he and other Libyan officers spent nights drinking and doing the town with Marwan. Sometimes Jalloud and Marwan would meet up in Rome or London. During one of these getaways in London, Marwan actually called up his Mossad handler, demanding that the Israelis arrange for prostitutes—in plural—for his high-ranking Libyan friend. Dubi had little experience with this particular aspect of London nightlife, and he turned for help to his friends at the Mossad’s London station. They, in turn, found a reputable escort service to fulfill Jalloud’s needs. The tab for Jalloud’s debauchery was picked up by the Israeli taxpayer.

  Marwan’s opponents, of course, did everything they could to make these adventures a matter of public record. Once, during a party in a private home in an upscale Cairo neighborhood, somebody locked Marwan, Jalloud, and their revolutionary Libyan friends into the apartment. When they began shouting to get out, the pranksters called the police to complain about the shouting, and officers arrived at the scene. Sadat received a report on the incident but chose to let it slide. Even if it made Marwan look bad in Cairo, Egypt could not do without his services.

  The friendship between Marwan and Jalloud became the pivot of Egyptian-Libyan relations, bearing fruit in the most important joint initiative of the time: the purchase of Mirage warplanes from France.9 The deal, which included the procurement of 110 Mirage 5s, was valued at over $200 million. To make it happen, Marwan traveled often, not just to Tripoli but also to France, even though the Libyans were supposedly fronting the operation. Sadat himself said on more than one occasion that Ashraf Marwan personally overcame many obstacles that the French government, as well as the manufacturer Marcel Dassault, put in the deal’s way during the trying days leading up to the October 1973 war.10 As usual, Marwan’s achievements weren’t purely in the service of his country: Some Egyptian sources reported that he took a hefty fee as well.11 According to the Al-Shaab newspaper, his take was $10 million.12 Whether or not Marwan profited, it is clear that the Israelis quickly learned everything there was to know about the deal.

  MARWAN’S TALENT FOR keeping the volatile Libyans under control, alongside his stable relations with the Saudis, made him a fixture in Sadat’s world. He also took great advantage of the relationships he developed with some of those closest to Sadat, first among them his wife, Jehan, to secure Sadat’s continuing political support. Ashraf Marwan understood that his affinity for dubious dealings and tendency to make harsh enemies at home made the president’s support for him all the more crucial.

  From the outset, many in Sadat’s office bristled at Marwan’s meteoric rise. The support he gave Sadat during the May 1971 Corrective Revolution, and the imprisonment of many of Nasser’s closest friends that resulted, made him a traitor in the eyes of many ranking Egyptians—especially Nasser’s family, including his widow, Tahia, his daughter Hoda and her husband, and Nasser’s sons. Marwan often turned their hostility to his advantage, complaining to Sadat about the heavy price he and Mona had paid for supporting him, and using it to bolster his position and to cover for his corruption.13

  Another source of antagonism, however, was jealousy of what Marwan represented: a handsome and eloquent upstart, propelled, without any prior experience or discernible achievement, to the top echelons of Egyptian life. His closeness with the president, who backed him unblinkingly, and with the president’s wife, who was far more involved in affairs of state than was her predecessor, only added to the ill will directed against Marwan, fueling rumors of his misbehavior. Marwan himself once explained the animosity against him this way: “Seventy percent of Egyptians hated me. For 10 percent of them, it was because of my connection to Gamal Abdel Nasser; for 60 percent it was my age. According to the law, no one under the age of 35 could be appointed a government minister . . . and I had oversight authority over all the ministers when I was still in my twenties. It was unthinkable.”14 Even if he overstated his status and understated his responsibility for the ill will, there was plenty of truth in his words.

  At the end of the day, however, it was Marwan’s behavior that contributed more than anything else to the relentless attacks against him. For he was indeed corrupt. One example concerned a 1971 procurement of Mercedes automobiles for the President’s Office. When investigators from Egypt’s General Intelligence Service (Mukhabarat) went over the details of the agreement and documents from the importer, they discovered check stubs made out to Ashraf Marwan totaling $1 million. The chief of intelligence, Gen. Ahmad Ismail Ali, brought the findings to Sadat’s attention, but the president ordered the case closed. Intelligence officers involved were exceptionally frustrated, and one of them passed the details to a journalist, who went to Sadat exhorting him to reopen the case. Sadat finally agreed, and Marwan was interrogated, as was Marwan’s father. Marwan tried to pin it on another employee in the office, to no avail. But because the investigation failed to produce clear evidence incriminating Marwan, no steps were taken against him.15

  The fact that Ashraf Marwan was questioned along with his father was not a big surprise. After a long military career, the elder Marwan entered the business world, and during the 1970s he became known as “Mr. Fifty Percent” because of the large commissions he charged. Jalal al-Din al-Hamamsi, the same journalist who uncovered Marwan’s real estate deals with Kamal Adham, investigated Marwan’s father as well. The Egyptian minister of trade, Zakaria Tawfik, confirmed that Abu al-Wafa Marwan was suspected of bribe taking, adding that he was under considerable pressure to retire. Further inquiries revealed that both Marwan and his father were under heavy suspicion; according to a number of different sources, it was Marwan who, taking full advantage of his position, brokered the bribes for his father. In this instance, too, the case against him was dropped on orders from the top—despite considerable evidence.16

  Nor were Marwan’s scandals limited to financial dealings. A big one concerned his rivalry with Ahmad al-Masiri, an officer of the Republican Guard who also served in the President’s Office. Here, too, the details are sketchy, and many interested parties have offered contradictory versions. But what they all seem to agree on is that Al-Masiri, young and talented and promising, ambitious and broad-minded, was Marwan’s biggest rival in the President’s Office; and that Marwan was worried that Al-Masiri would replace him. The more Al-Masiri won Sadat’s confidence, the more his power grew. Like Marwan, Al-Masiri knew how to maneuver around the president’s family—especially Sadat’s oldest daughter, Lubna,
who was in her early twenties. Whether out of genuine interest or cold ambition, Al-Masiri asked Lubna to marry him. Marwan, who knew full well the implications of joining the presidential family by marriage, saw the proposal as a direct threat to his status and became obsessed with scuttling the marriage. Sadat’s byzantine management style made his goal achievable.

  In what followed, Marwan teamed up with two immensely powerful people: Jehan Sadat, who was less than thrilled about her daughter marrying a public servant, even one as promising as Al-Masiri; and Fawzi Abdel Hafez, Sadat’s private secretary, friend, and confidant. According to one version of the events, Jehan actually invited Marwan into the conspiracy. Clearly both of them wanted Al-Masiri as far away from Lubna as possible. Jehan sent him a letter, declaring that her daughter did not love him and that he should stop courting her. Fearing that this was not enough, Jehan, Marwan, and Hafez put pressure on Sadat to have Al-Masiri transferred out of the President’s Office in order to minimize the opportunities for the two to meet. Sadat agreed to send the young man on a diplomatic mission to Yemen. His mission was successful but limited, and with his return, there also returned the threat of his marrying Lubna—and the pressure on Sadat to put a stop to it. Direct pressure was applied to Al-Masiri as well, in the form of a long train of visitors telling him that he had no chance of winning Lubna’s hand. There were additional efforts made to lower Sadat’s impression of Al-Masiri, as well. He received reports from intelligence, for example, that the young man’s behavior was less than exemplary. These, too, had their effect.

  In the end, Sadat decided he had no choice but to transfer the smitten fellow to the Foreign Ministry, where he embarked on a diplomatic career. The romantic liaison was over. Not so long after, Lubna married someone else—a wealthy businessman from an aristocratic Egyptian family—and her mother was satisfied.17

  Marwan’s victory, however, came with a less gratifying epilogue. In the mid-1970s, after a mountain of complaints about Marwan had piled up on Sadat’s desk, the president finally decided to investigate them. To lead the inquiry, he appointed none other than Ahmad al-Masiri. Al-Masiri went to London and conducted a secret investigation. He uncovered documentary evidence pointing to financial irregularities on the part of Nasser’s son-in-law. He brought back with him, among other things, documents showing that in 1972 Marwan purchased two million shares of a large London company at a price of £2 per share. This time Marwan had no way of explaining where he had gotten the £4 million, and when Sadat saw the proof, he could no longer turn a blind eye. Al-Masiri’s investigation started a process that would end with Marwan’s being banished from Sadat’s inner circle, and ultimately leaving Egypt entirely.18

  ALL THAT, HOWEVER, was still a long way off. In the early 1970s, Marwan was busy building three different careers, and excelling remarkably in all three. In his official, publicly known career, he was confidant and emissary for the president of Egypt, with a focus on Saudi and Libyan relations. He carried out dozens of international missions, met with Arab leaders in Cairo, and flew to Arab capitals to deliver messages from the president. In June and July 1973, the Arabic press published accounts of his official visit to Riyadh, where he met with Saudi king Faisal; the following month they reported on his meeting with the emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Salim al-Sabah, to whom he delivered a message from Sadat. Other meetings were kept secret. The best-known of these, after the fact, took place in Saudi Arabia in August 1973, when Marwan accompanied Sadat on a secret summit meeting with King Faisal, in which the Egyptian president informed the Saudi king of his intent to launch a war in the near future.19 Marwan also was involved in efforts to acquire weaponry from Arab states in the days before the war. This included not only making sure the Mirages arrived via Libya, but also trying to steward another deal to acquire thirty-two more Mirages via Saudi Arabia, along with British-made Sea King helicopters. This deal, which fell through in the end, was negotiated between Marwan and Faisal, without consulting Egypt’s minister of war, army chief of staff, or air force commander.20

  In his second career, Marwan took advantage of the contacts he made to build his personal fortune. Even if the rumors that swirled of his corruption were exaggerated, he definitely became wealthy quickly. His £4 million stock purchase on the London exchange—far beyond anything the Mossad ever paid him—took place in 1972. Whether through his real estate deals or through other shady moves, it is clear that within three years of returning to Cairo with his tail between his legs after taking money from the Al-Sabahs to cover his debts, Ashraf Marwan was wealthy enough to live the high life in London, or anywhere else, without borrowing a penny. His dream of riches had come true.

  His third career was as a spy. Here, the main question involves his motivation. His two biggest reasons for turning to Israel in 1970—his need for cash and his resentment toward Nasser—were no longer relevant. He was now rich and famous and carried immense power and status. So why would he keep selling his nation’s secrets?

  As far as we know, the Mossad never tried to force his hand. Prior to the war, Marwan never asked to stop helping the Israelis. Part of the reason was probably inertia: His work for the Mossad may have now seemed less dangerous, and more lucrative, than he had once expected. This work also, it seems, satisfied his deep need for risk and stimulus—the gambler inside him—that let him feel not only the thrill of danger but also the power of personally moving history and the sense that, unlike everyone around him, he was really on the stronger, more clever side in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

  This would dovetail well with additional rumors that during this period Marwan began working for other intelligence agencies as well, including the CIA, MI6, and Italian intelligence. If such connections existed at all prior to the Yom Kippur War, they were on a low flame. The fact is that these countries’ intelligence about Egypt during the time was far weaker than what Marwan had given Israel. The CIA, for example, passed on to Israel the most detailed information they had from their best sources—including sensitive sources like King Hussein of Jordan. If Marwan had given the CIA anything really important prior to the war, the Americans would have passed it on to Israel. But they didn’t, probably because they didn’t have it. Howard Blum, who investigated the connection between Marwan and the CIA using sources at the agency, concluded that although Marwan did indeed work for the Americans, it happened much later, mostly during the 1980s.21 The same may have been true with the British and the Italians. One unidentified Italian source claimed that Marwan gave them “a warning of the war a few hours before he met the Mossad officials in London.”22 This seems unlikely, however, because—as we will see—Marwan was very busy in London that day.

  So despite the rumors, there is little reason to believe that Marwan worked for any foreign intelligence agency other than Israel’s prior to the war. But it is also hard to accept that he managed to keep his treachery a complete secret. British intelligence, for example, probably knew about it, since they knew that Dubi worked for the Mossad—which should have been enough for a competent intelligence agency to draw the right conclusions. Indeed, one MI5 officer met with a Mossad official at the time, and after bringing up Marwan’s name, he added, “But of course you know him well.” Yet in the absence of any evidence that he actually worked for anyone else, it should be assumed that he did not; and even if he did, he certainly saw the Israelis as his principal client, to whom he gave the very best intelligence. In the months that followed, until the outbreak of war, his contribution to Israeli security would reveal itself, time and again, to be indispensable.

  Chapter 7

  EGYPT GIRDS FOR WAR

  In July 1972, after failing repeatedly to secure “weapons of deterrence” from the Soviets, Sadat suddenly announced that the Red Army troops that had been stationed in Egypt since early 1970 were going home. The Soviets had sent them, along with advanced SAM sites and squadrons of Soviet fighters and aircraft, to help Egypt neutralize Israel’s air superiority. But they had undermined Egy
pt’s autonomy in crucial decisions about its security. For as long as Soviet units defended Egyptian skies, the Kremlin had veto power over any Egyptian decision of war—a fact that Sadat knew too well. And so, as the prospects of getting the Sinai back through diplomatic means faded, the shackles on Egypt’s war options grew more and more painful.

  The man who probably took greatest advantage of Sadat’s predicament was Henry Kissinger. In his indirect contacts with Egypt—mostly through Saudi channels overseen by Kamal Adham—Kissinger made it clear that the United States did not believe Egypt had a realistic war option, and that as long as the Soviets were on Egyptian soil, the White House would not exert pressure on Israel. As far as Kissinger was concerned, the only war that mattered was the Cold War, and he dangled the Sinai as bait to get the Egyptians to switch to the American side.

  And indeed, Egypt had no realistic war option. Without the Scuds that the Soviets refused to supply and the long-range fighter-bombers that the Soviets didn’t have, Egypt was completely vulnerable to Israeli aerial attacks, on both the battlefield and home front. And while the Soviet antiaircraft division may have helped, it didn’t make it possible for Egypt to launch an attack on its own, since the Soviets would probably veto anything that would risk their own troops engaging with the IDF. So Sadat sent them packing—keeping the missile batteries and planes for Egypt, of course. Despite the crisis in Soviet-Egyptian relations the Kremlin, being now less obliged to participate in Egypt’s defense and more concerned about an Egyptian-American rapprochement, eased its arms sales policy. Beginning in late 1972, new weapon systems such as the T-62 tank, SA-6 batteries, and modern water-crossing equipment started flowing to Egypt.