by Uzi Eilam
A Visit to the North
A week had passed since the meeting with the prime minister, and we finally found the time and, more importantly, the resolve to make the trip up to the tense but calm northern front, where the entire reserve army was still mobilized. My deputy and the director of the R&D Ground Department were pleased when I invited them to join me. We began in the morning with a calm, frank, businesslike hour-long meeting with Yitzhak Hofi, OC Northern Command. I first met Hofi in 1956, when he became Sharon’s deputy in the Paratroop Brigade which had just been established. During my service with him at brigade headquarters, I grew to appreciate his wisdom, his ability to listen to others, and the calm strength he radiated. These qualities served him well during the difficult first days of the war in the Golan Heights, and later as a successful director of the Mossad and an accomplished director-general of the Israeli Electric Corporation. During Hofi’s tenure as director of the Mossad, I was pleased to be involved in giving advice on technology issues.
Four days before the beginning of the Yom Kippur War the defense minister visited the Northern Command and was convinced by Hofi’s assessment that there was a real chance that the Syrians might soon launch an attack. Dayan returned to his office and ordered the preparation of a plan to contain attacks by the Syrian tank and infantry divisions. The R&D Unit was charged with dealing with this urgent task. In fact, we had been scheduled to conduct a tour of the Golan Heights to this end on the Sunday after Yom Kippur. We called up some reserve officers and drew up a draft plan that involved adding landmines in the most likely corridors for a Syrian attack. We also considered adding an array of remotely operated short-range artillery rockets capable of covering the corridors susceptible to a Syrian tank breach. We planned to reinforce the system with an optic radar-detecting array in selected zones along the border. By that Sunday we were all at war, and we were never able to implement our plans to construct the effective, technologically advanced defense system against the Syrian attack corridors.
During the meeting Hofi emphasized the need for early warning of enemy movement that was indicative of an imminent attack. The R&D Electronics Department Director was instructed to check the compatibility of the radar then being developed by Elta Systems. We also considered acquiring American-developed geophonic systems that could either be air dropped or dispersed by artillery.
Officers of the Northern Command took us for a long, exhaustive tour of the entire area. We were briefed on the battles and provided with a view of the battlefield on which the gigantic tank battle was fought, a view that inspired both awe and admiration of our men. I had a clear memory of the voices of commanders over the radio during the most difficult and decisive hours of the battles, and this memory was immediately and chillingly linked to the sight of burned out Israeli and Syrian tanks that now littered the landscape.
We were also treated to the unique experience of being able to look down from the Tel Shams fort on the suburbs of Damascus through 120x20 binoculars. Visibility was good, and Damascus seemed only a hop, skip and a jump away. It was a feeling of strength and of control of the balance of power between us and the Syrians, but it was important not to allow ourselves to become drunk with power. I was pleasantly surprised to run into Elisha Shalem, an old friend and former commander.
Toward evening, Elisha assembled the company commanders of his reserve paratroop battalion for a meeting, just as we used to do during reserve duty in peacetime. There, I met old friends and gladly chatted over steaming hot sweet black coffee, answering questions about enemy anti-tank weapons, the Israeli assault rifle then under development, the American M-16 (which we would purchase as soon as possible), and my views on the war. The conversation reflected the insight of the intelligent, concerned men and helped me develop new ways of thinking about things. It also strengthened my opinion that the infantry would remain a critical component of any future war. I left with a great sense of admiration for the courage and resourcefulness of those paratroopers.
In Quest of the Treasure
Before the fighting really ended we had already begun the preparatory work of consolidating the requests for weapons systems from the US. Although the American airlift, which bought us primarily artillery shells and tank ammunition, was an impressive gesture in retrospect its major impact appears to have been as a morale booster. Post-war assessments indicated that there had not even been a shortage of artillery shells during the war. Rather, the problem was our inability to transport the munition to the fighting units. In some cases logistics officers themselves held on to considerable quantities of ammunition in the event it might be needed by their units. In other cases, fighting in the combat zones prevented ammunition from reaching the front-line units. This, however, is all wisdom after the fact, for as the war was being fought, the fighting units were crying out for ammunition, and the American airlift appeared to provide an essential lifeline.
I found myself involved in the work of organizing the IDF’s suggestions for new weapons and weapons systems we wanted from the US. After the trauma of the outbreak of the war, and the subsequent long and hard campaign with so many casualties, we had the somewhat hysterical conviction that we needed to arm ourselves with everything we could get from the Americans. In this spirit, a fitting codeword was selected for the effort: “Treasure.” At one point, the Israeli defense minister himself planned to fly to Washington to personally present the requests to the American secretary of defense. Tzur told us to consolidate the many wish lists of the different services of the IDF into one master list to be presented to the Pentagon. We also prepared a comparison of Soviet and American weapons systems to justify our request for advanced systems.
Fittingly, the air force’s wish list reached for the sky. They included air-to-surface missiles with electro-optic homing devices and the most advanced radar systems available, including some that were still in development. The artillery corps requested Lance missiles, and also Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), which were still being developed by Lockheed for the US military. The list also included advance night vision equipment, which at the time was available only in the US, and advanced voice encryption systems for communications systems (in order to save ourselves a long and expensive development process). The trauma of the tank attacks in the north and the south demonstrated the need for air dropped mines or mines distributed by artillery rockets, which were still in the final stages of development by the American military. At the top of the list, in what could be seen as the height of our audacity, were Pershing missiles. Pershing missiles could carry a nuclear warhead and had a range of more than 600 kilometers. The Pershing II missile, which completed development in 1974, was extremely precise due to its final homing capabilities. We, of course, asked to purchase missiles with conventional warheads, but we were unable to explain our request for the missile which, as far as we were concerned, was purely strategic.
In retrospect, it‘s more than clear that most of the items on the lists were a reflection of the trauma of the Yom Kippur War. We know now that it was because of this trauma that we wanted the arms to create new brigades and divisions, primarily in the tank corps. We also know that stress on quantity placed a tremendous burden on the economy and diverted our attention from the qualitative requirements of future weapons systems. The hunger for arms that prevailed throughout the IDF after the war was a huge encumbrance, to be paid for over the course of many years to come.
Tzur was scheduled to join Defense Minister Dayan on the trip to Washington to present the “Treasure” list and said that the CGS had suggested that I join them as well. It was also suggested that I stay for a few more days and accompany Dayan in his meetings, which sounded interesting and exciting. However, within a few days the excitement died down and the trip was postponed indefinitely, mainly because the Americans refused to receive such a high-level delegation for arms procurement so soon after the war. In the end Dayan flew to Washington with Tzur alone, who took
all the material that we had prepared for him.
Dayan’s visit didn’t help the arms acquisition program very much. The Americans agreed to supply us with M-16 assault rifles, a small number of tanks and armored personnel carriers, and a small, carefully calculated number of planes. We also received authorization in principle to purchase increased range optically-guided air-to-surface Walleye bombs, as well as increased range optically guided HOBO bombs. However, Dayan was unable to convince the Americans to provide us with Redeye man-portable surface-to-air missiles, Lance missiles for the artillery¸ or laser-guided bombs. To us, the policies of the Pentagon seemed more rigid than ever, and without the easing we expected after such a difficult war.
The death of David Ben-Gurion on December 1, 1973 had great significance for us all. The “old man,” as everybody called him, slipped away quietly while the army, imbued by his vision but by now with its own purpose and structure, was fully mobilized and ready for a possible collapse of the ceasefire. We can only guess what was going through Ben-Gurion’s mind during the last seven weeks of his life. Hundreds of thousands of regular and reserve soldiers accompanied him in spirit on his final journey. I remembered him standing by my bed at Tel Hashomer Hospital after Operation Black Arrow, asking how I was feeling. I remembered him in the mid-1950s leaving Jerusalem every Friday to spend Saturday on Kibbutz Sde-Boker, as my comrades in Sayeret Tzanhanim (the elite paratroop reconnaissance unit) and I provided him with an armed escort between Beer Sheba and his hut at Kibbutz Sde-Boker. We remembered his long-range political vision after the Six Day War, as he warned of what was about to happen in the West Bank.
We did not give up on the “Treasure,” but we had to wait until the war was truly over to pursue it further. In the south, this was accomplished by means of the Kilometer 101 talks led by General Aharon Yariv. In the north, it was accomplished by the ceasefire agreement with the Syrians and the redeployment of our forces to the line that had served as the border before the war.
A few months later Motta Gur was already CGS, Major General Herzl Shafir was appointed as Operations Branch chief, and the second “Treasure” delegation left for talks in Washington. Prof. Yuval Ne’eman, the defense minister’s scientific advisor, and I went through the lists again to clarify what exactly we were seeking. We could not leave the request for Pershing missiles off the list, even though we did not think the Americans would let us have them. The delegation was led by Herzl Shafir himself, and included the commanders of the Air Force and the Navy, the chiefs of the Quartermaster’s Branch, the Intelligence Branch, and the Planning Branch, and the director of R&D. The meeting at the Pentagon was led by Herzl Shafir, who also gave the floor to the commanders of the different services of the IDF. I explained the technological and strategic issues, a task made much easier by the detailed knowledge I had acquired while compiling the lists.
At one point I found an opportunity to split off from the group for a separate meeting with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for R&D. During the meeting I brought up some of the items on the list that I regarded as more sensitive, such as thermal vision technology, voice encrypted communications, landmines, and warning devices dropped from the air. It did not take long for me to understand that there was no chance that the Americans would allow us to purchase these systems. The delegation as a whole enjoyed the talks with the Americans and left with the sense that we had told them what we wanted, that they had definitely understood, and that they would certainly agree to give us everything we asked for. This would not be the last time that we heard ourselves too well and failed to pay sufficient attention to the nuances of the American English spoken by our counterparts.
As soon as we returned from the “Treasure” trip we had to brief the new defense minister, Shimon Peres, and CGS Gur. We were still recovering from the tough war, and our feeling that the Americans simply had to approve our requests overshadowed more sober considerations. After Shafir summarized the visit and the meetings for Peres and Gur each of the generals added points that had to do with their respective areas of responsibility. I assumed the role of trouble maker, upsetting the comfortable picture by saying that the Americans would not approve the sale of systems that were technologically or politically sensitive. Peled, Tamir, and Shafir took me to task, and claimed that I did not know what I was talking about; they openly stated that the Americans would give us everything we asked for. It soon became clear, however, that they were overly optimistic. At that point I recreated my one-on-one conversation with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for R&D and all of a sudden clearly understood the rules of the game and the conditions under which the Americans would provide us with advanced technologies. My conclusion was that the US would give us advanced weapons systems only after we could prove that we were in the midst of developing similar advanced technologies. Their justification for releasing such technologies would be either that there was no reason to hide what we already knew, or that it would be in the best interests of the US to provide us with the systems to reduce the Israeli motivation to develop the technology. It seemed that the American consideration was to prevent Israel from rapidly developing home-grown technology with its own export potential. From the American perspective such a policy would also increase Israel’s dependence on the US in the realm of advanced technology. This paradigm is still applicable today.
The “Treasure” episode left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, there was a sense of satisfaction that I had been right and that everyone now realized it. On the other hand, I was also certain that my fellow generals did not share this insight on American policy and the question was how to make them understand and use this insight in the new strategic foundations necessary to put in place after the war.
We found time for a working visit to the senior R&D officials at Elta Systems. Our group was impressed by the performance of the Dagon marine radar, which had been impressively adapted for the purpose of detecting vehicles from dozens of kilometers away. In the 1960s, when the company was managed by its founder and first CEO Paltiel Maklef, Elta appeared to be an unorganized and wasteful factory that lost money. However, that impression changed over the years when we understood the wise, long-term strategy with which Maklef built his company’s human resources. Elta’s carefully selected teams, trained to work in all areas of technology from electronic warfare to advanced radar technology, became the basis of the company’s success in the years to come. Elta’s technological capabilities in electronic warfare made it a successful exporter not only to developing nations but also to industrially developed Western countries. In later years the capabilities that Maklef cultivated in radar technologies were used in the Lavi combat aircraft’s radar system and the Green Pine radar that was built for the Homa missile defense system.
The Americans Visit to Learn Lessons
Unlike other fronts, the war at sea had really ended, and we were not surprised when the Americans began asking for information on our achievements in the naval campaign. The R&D Unit was the point agency for all these lesson-related visits, and we were therefore deeply involved in hosting the delegations and meeting the delegation heads. Admiral Lake of the US Navy led the process on the part of the Americans, and the two of us developed a warm personal relationship. However, we also learned the hard way that personal relationships are no guarantee of policy change. We were disappointed to learn that US Navy officers had been forbidden to discuss the Harpoon missile, which Israel wanted to buy. This created a situation in which we had to talk about our missile boat battles, the achievements of our naval electronic warfare system, and the Israeli Gabriel missile, while our American partners in the talks had only tidbits of information to share with us.
This was the first time that such senior officers of the US Navy had visited Israel after years in which US policy was to keep a distance from us. We wanted to make the most out of the American’s curiosity to open a new chapter in our relations with the US Navy, but there was a larger
problem and not just in naval affairs. We were summoned to an urgent meeting with the CGS about cooperation with foreign countries and Elazar said the aim was to sign agreements regarding all areas of cooperation, and that the Operations Branch, under the direction of Major General Ze’evi, would be responsible for coordinating the administrative work in these areas, including intelligence-related issues. Strengthened by this decision of the General Staff we continued our supervised contacts with the American naval delegation, and were surprised to find that Admiral Lake had been authorized by the Pentagon to provide us with assessments of their hovercrafts (based on their use in the Vietnam War) and the Harpoon missile. It was a dramatic change in policy, which led to the commander of the US Navy arriving from London carrying the secret documents we wanted to see so badly.
An advance team of the American lesson-generation and data-collection delegation arrived in Israel and was led by John Blesse, who had been appointed to oversee the entire mission. When the Americans were planning to begin working on processing the data we believed that we would receive all of their results. It turned out that we were too naïve. Blesse, a Major General and a pilot, was an alert and endearing conversationalist with combat experience from the war in Vietnam. Like many other high-ranking American officers, Blesse had both academic and military training. I liked this red-headed general with his combination of combat experience and engineering skills from the moment I met him. The first thing we did was to fly to the south and take a look at the battlefields along the Canal. The sight of hundreds of mostly burnt out destroyed tanks and vehicles was stunning. We saw how close the Israeli and Egyptian tanks had been to each other and felt as if we ourselves were fighting the battles. The air was still saturated with the strong smell of explosives and propellants, burnt-out vehicles, burnt oil, burnt rubber and plastic, and, worst of all, the unbearable smell of the corpses that had been left in the field and inside the armored vehicles.