The Angel (28 page)

The intelligence unit of the Southern Command estimated at around midday Sunday that the Egyptian intention was to move the 4th Armored, as well as additional armored forces, eastward, in order to launch the attack deeper into Sinai. The fear of such an attack was the main reason why the defense minister proposed withdrawing from the line that the IDF had held the morning of October 7, and moving it farther back. According to Gonen's testimony, Dayan told him when they met in the war room at Um Hashiba during the late morning that day: “This is not a local
battle, it is a war for the Land of Israel. Leave the forts, withdraw into the mountains.”
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Fortunately for Israel, Dayan's proposals to withdraw some twenty-five to thirty miles eastward were rejected by the chief of staff and the prime minister.

With the swift arrival of reserve forces during the afternoon of the second day of war, the question of withdrawing came off the table. Yet the damage caused by the incorrect use of outdated intelligence was far from over. One of the main factors in deciding whether to launch a quick counterattack was the fear that Egypt was about to send its armored divisions eastward. If they crossed the canal, it would be much harder for the IDF to recover lost territory. There were surely other considerations as well, such as the desire to save soldiers who were still stuck in forts along the canal. But if MI had recognized that the Egyptians' plan was to hold on to territory east of the canal without launching armored attacks into the Sinai, the IDF's one regular-army and two reserve divisions would have had time to organize themselves properly for a more effective counterattack. It is hard to say what the outcome would have been, but clearly it would have been better planned, the forces being given enough time to learn the battle plans and prepare to attack, and the chances of success would have been higher.

This didn't happen, however, and the counterattack of October 8 was the greatest failure of any ground assault in the whole war.

IT WAS IN
the late hours of October 7 that Zvi Zamir reached Israel on a special flight from Cyprus. He rejoined the group of key decision makers in Golda Meir's office in Tel Aviv. Thoroughly familiar with the updated war plans that Marwan had passed along, Zamir saw that Egypt was, indeed, following them. He made this clear in a meeting that took place that night in the prime minister's office. When asked for his opinion about the counterattack that was being planned for the next day, he said that “the Egyptians are
waiting for precisely this kind of retaliation from us.” In another meeting the next day of the same forum, when the scale of the failure of the counterattack had become clear, Zamir repeated that “we know the Egyptian plan,” and that the Egyptians were waiting for an IDF counterattack, in order to defeat it using infantry armed with antitank weapons. Therefore, he added, “if we continue to insist on fighting for the canal, the situation will be bad.”
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Two days later, just before Maj. Gen. Chaim Bar-Lev was sent south to take his post as the new commander of the Suez front, Zamir met him and explained every detail of the Egyptian battle plan. He also gave Bar-Lev a telexed printout of the plan, so that he could read it on the helicopter ride to command headquarters at Um Hashiba. Zamir made Bar-Lev swear to destroy the document out of concern for the well-being of its source.
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Bar-Lev read the plan carefully. From this moment on, the Southern Command began referencing it heavily. It was one reason why, from that point forward, Israel saw major improvements along its southern front.

Any fair analysis of the information Marwan provided will compel the conclusion that his contribution to Israel's conduct of the war was, in the end, decisive. If not for the chaos that characterized the first days of the war, at every level of decision making and along every front of battle, Israel would have taken advantage of that information to far greater effect and the IDF would have fared much better on the battlefield. Most important, however, was the warning that he gave about the start of war itself. It was the single piece of information that resulted in the call-up of reserves four hours before the attack—without which the Golan Heights would certainly have fallen.

After the war was over, the chief of the Mossad gave the order to pay the Angel a sum of $100,000 as a bonus in reward for that warning. It had been worth every penny.

I
f Egyptian intelligence had any inkling that Israeli spies had penetrated their deepest secrets before the war, the opening days of battle would have laid such fears to rest. Nobody could have guessed that Israel had seen the attack plans in advance. From Israel's perspective, the only good thing about the debacle was that now the Mossad didn't need to worry about the immediate safety of its agents in Egypt.

Ashraf Marwan returned to Egypt on October 6, the day the war began. Sadat, who ran the initial phases of the war from the Center 10 bunker, was far too busy running the war and managing ongoing relationships with Syria, the Soviet Union, and the United States to spend time with his special liaison for Libyan and Saudi affairs. The two barely saw each other.

This fact, of course, does not sit well with certain people, especially members of Marwan's family who, to this day, insist that not only was he a double agent but that he and Sadat together concocted the whole plan to deceive Israel. In their telling, Sadat actually spent much of the war in Marwan's home—for that was the only place he knew he would be safe from Israeli shelling.

The truth was far less dramatic.

Ashraf Marwan spent most of the war carrying out his duties as Sadat's liaison. There was a constant need to coordinate diplomatic positions with various Arab powers, and Marwan began traveling to Arab capitals soon after returning to Cairo, carrying written and oral messages from the Egyptian president—whose prominence had suddenly risen dramatically, both in the Arab world and elsewhere, because of his unexpected battlefield successes. Marwan met with other world leaders, as well: On October 13 and 14, during the war's critical phase, when Sadat was under tremendous pressure to launch a land assault into Sinai in order to take pressure off the Syrians on the northern front, Marwan went to Yugoslavia, where he handed a letter to Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito and met with the country's vice president and foreign minister, Miloš Minic´.
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Given everything we know about both Marwan's itinerary at the time and his method of operation, he could not have been the source of the most important piece of intelligence to reach the Mossad after the war began. On October 12, an antenna positioned atop Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv picked up a signal from a source in Egypt saying that the Egyptian army was preparing a land assault in Sinai. Zamir's chief of staff, Freddy Eini, passed it directly to Zamir, who at that moment was sitting with the prime minister in one of the most dramatic cabinet meetings of the war.

Since the failure of the IDF counteroffensive four days earlier, no attempt had been made to get the Egyptian army out of the strip of about six miles along the canal, which it occupied at the beginning of the war. The IDF focused its efforts on the northern front, where it reoccupied most of the Golan Heights and started advancing toward Damascus. On October 11, the outskirts of the Syrian capital, including its international airport, were within range of Israeli artillery. Now Israel's leaders turned their attention to Egypt. The discussion started on the morning of October 12.

The chief of staff made his position clear: At present the IDF could not reoccupy the territory that was lost in the Sinai. The Soviets had been supplying arms to Egypt and Syria since the second day of the war while the Americans still refrained from shipping arms to Israel; hence, the balance of forces continued to favor the Arabs. The only development that could change the war situation was if Egypt initiated a second offensive in the Sinai. The chief of staff assured his listeners that if this happened, the IDF would repulse the attack, cause heavy losses to the Egyptian army, and use this momentum to cross the Suez Canal and cut off the Egyptian force of 100,000 soldiers in the Sinai from its logistical bases west of the canal. But without a renewed Egyptian offensive Israel would have to demand a cease-fire in place, that is, to admit its defeat in the war with Egypt. At this critical point, while Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and senior army generals debated the situation, Zamir was called out of the meeting to get the message from Eini.

When Zamir came back, he announced the news—and the mood suddenly shifted. The IDF chief of staff, David Elazar, said that he no longer favored a cease-fire. Now, he said, Israel should wait for the new assault, rebuff it, and then take advantage of the moment to mount a counteroffensive that would change the entire war. His proposal was approved.

The Egyptian assault began on October 14. This time, the IDF was fully prepared, devastating the attacking forces, handing Sadat his biggest blunder of the war. More than two hundred Egyptian tanks were destroyed, and the Israelis lost only fifteen. Just as Elazar had predicted, it opened the door for a shift in momentum. Within a week, IDF forces crossed the Suez Canal and advanced westward to Cairo, leaving Egypt's entire Third Army stranded in the Sinai desert.
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At this stage, however, Sadat showed no readiness to end the war. To the contrary. On October 16 he gave a defiant speech in the Egyptian Parliament and defined the road ahead as “a long,
protracted war . . . a war of attrition.” He also threatened to hit Israel's hinterland with missiles if Israel attacked Egypt's vulnerable heartland. On the basis of this speech, as well as intelligence the Israelis had gathered, Zamir told Golda Meir on October 18 that both Egypt and Syria intended to keep on fighting. These reports were bad news for Golda and her colleagues. Even though the IDF had gained the upper hand, the Israeli war machine was exhausted and needed a cease-fire as soon as possible. It was agreed that more information about Sadat's intentions was needed. Only one source could provide it. Dubi was instructed to arrange a meeting with the Angel and Zamir left Israel to meet him.

The meeting took place a day later in Paris. During its first part, Zamir had to calm down Marwan, who was highly frustrated by the fact that his warning on the eve of the war had not been immediately heeded by the Israelis. Then he described the way Sadat and his advisers viewed the situation when he left Egypt on October 17. In Marwan's view, they still believed Egypt was winning. Since the USSR started shipping arms to Egypt shortly after hostilities began, and since Egyptian losses were minimal, they now had more tanks than at the beginning of the war. By his account, the Egyptian army lost only 130 tanks in the battle of October 14, far fewer than the Israelis' estimate. Accordingly, he told Zamir, Sadat intended to prolong the war for at least a few months and would reject any cease-fire at this stage. He aimed to bleed Israel as much as possible, for as long as possible. Therefore, even if the IDF approached Cairo and Alexandria, the Egyptians would keep on fighting. Soldiers armed with antitank Sagger missiles would wait for Israeli tanks behind every bush.

Marwan also spoke about Sadat's missile threat, which worried both Golda and Dayan. He estimated that Egypt had four hundred missiles capable of reaching Israel. Again, this was much higher than the Israeli estimate of about two dozen Egyptian Scuds. Toward the
end of the meeting, Zamir and his spy talked about how to get Sadat to agree to a cease-fire.
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Zamir reported to Golda the next day. By then, in both the military and diplomatic theaters the situation had started to change dramatically. Concerned about Israel's crossing of the Suez as well as the difficult situation of the Syrians, the Kremlin was now pressuring Sadat to accept a cease-fire. Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin landed in Cairo and briefed Sadat about the deteriorating situation on the Canal front. Nevertheless, when he headed back to Moscow on October 19, Sadat still refused to accept a cease-fire.
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Indeed, at this stage the information that Marwan had given Zamir genuinely reflected Sadat's line of thinking. But as the IDF continued advancing into Egypt's heartland and emergency meetings were held between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Soviet leaders in the Kremlin, the superpowers agreed on an immediate cease-fire in place. Sadat had little choice but to accept it officially on October 21. This Israeli checkmate essentially ended the war. In the south, the Egyptian army held most of the territory it occupied at the beginning of the war, but half of it, the Third Army at the southern sector of the front, was cut off by the IDF, which now stood just sixty-three miles from Cairo. In the north, Israel regained all the territory it had lost at the beginning of the war and occupied additional Syrian territory that allowed the IDF to threaten Damascus. But Israel paid dearly for these military achievements. More than 2,500 Israeli soldiers were killed and 5,600 were wounded. This would have been proportional to a loss of more than 160,000 soldiers killed and more than 360,000 wounded in the United States in 1973. And the Israeli economy would have to recover from the shock of the unexpected war—which could hardly even begin as long as hundreds of thousands of reserve soldiers, the core of the country's workforce, were still in arms. The same was true for Egypt and Syria. Like Israel, they
needed political agreements that would stabilize the situation and allow a return to normal life.

The political and the territorial outcomes of the war created a complex diplomatic powder keg that required creativity and tireless shuttle negotiations to enable the successful separation of forces and sheathing of swords, a process that continued until the disengagement agreement on the Syrian front in May 1974. The man who led this effort was US secretary of state Henry Kissinger. One of the key participants from the Arab side was Ashraf Marwan.

Kissinger's first priority was dealing with the problem of the besieged Egyptian Third Army. In exchange for Israel's agreement to allow the orderly transfer of nonmilitary supplies, Egypt gave up on its demand that Israel withdraw to the battle lines of October 22—the date that the UN Security Council had called for a cease-fire—which would have consolidated Egypt's gains. Sadat's capitulation was not taken well in the Arab world, and he sent Marwan to meet with leaders in an effort to clarify his position and calm their concerns. But one person with whom he met was not on Sadat's agenda. On October 28 the Angel conferred with Zamir, for the second time in less than ten days. This time the meeting took place in London. Marwan informed the Mossad chief that Sadat was not too worried about the military situation and was certain that the Soviets would not allow the Israelis to destroy the Third Army. He also told Zamir that the Kremlin promised Sadat that they intended to launch a diplomatic initiative that would ultimately bring Israel to the 1967 international border. Marwan also claimed that the Kremlin had American backing for this initiative.

Golda Meir was briefed by Zamir a day later, and on October 30 she left for talks with President Nixon. During these talks she held very firm positions and rejected any possibility of an Israeli withdrawal, at least in part because of her fear that such a move would pave the road to a withdrawal to the 1967 border.
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About three weeks later, in mid-November, Sadat found himself in the thick of a major diplomatic kerfuffle with Libyan leader Gaddafi. Gaddafi was furious about Sadat's decision to go to war without consulting with him. Sadat sent Marwan to Tripoli to assuage the leader's temper. It worked, and Gaddafi backtracked from his threat to expel 100,000 Egyptians working on Libyan soil. These and other diplomatic missions were undertaken by Marwan without any regard for proper channels or even alerting the Egyptian foreign ministry. In most cases, the local Egyptian ambassador knew nothing of the contents of Marwan's messages—or even of his arrival in the country.
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With the war's outcome as it was, and with Sadat's call to the United States to bring about some kind of agreement between the sides, the joint Syrian-Egyptian effort had run its course as a military operation and was now shifting to the diplomatic arena. Ministers of war and military chiefs now made way for the negotiators. Ashraf Marwan stepped into the limelight; in addition to liaising with Libya and Saudi Arabia, Sadat now put him in charge of the Syrian brief as well. So when Egypt, which had supported the creation of an international peace conference to be held in Geneva at the end of December 1973, wanted to put pressure on Syria to join, Marwan went to Damascus to meet with top Syrian officials; only later was he joined by Egypt's foreign minister.
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Egypt's efforts came up empty in that case, and the Syrians were absent when the conference opened.

Six months later, at the height of armistice negotiations between Israel and Syria, Sadat made more effective use of Marwan's powers of persuasion. Marwan embarked on a series of secret missions to Saudi Arabia and Algeria, together with Kissinger aide Harold Saunders, in an effort to convince the leaders to support a draft agreement that neither the Syrians nor the Israelis had yet seen. On May 4, 1974, King Faisal received the two of them—surprising
Kissinger not only by the Saudi monarch's willingness to meet with lesser officials but also by his willingness to cooperate on a move led by Egypt and the Americans to pressure Syria. Both he and Houari Boumediene, the president of Algeria, refrained from publicly supporting the agreement, but they made it clear that they would not oppose it.
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A few days later, against the backdrop of spiraling hostilities between Israel and Syria and a concern that a full-scale war would flare up again, Marwan arrived in Damascus. His goal was to impress upon the Syrians that if they restarted the war with Israel, they would do so on their own.
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But there was something else on his agenda, which very few knew about. Marwan had been asked by the Mossad to find out what Assad was really thinking about renewing fire. After returning from Riyadh to Cairo, he had proposed to Sadat—who himself did not know what Assad was thinking—that he go to Damascus, and Sadat agreed. Assad received Marwan and spoke with him openly, convinced that his words would not go beyond the two of them and Sadat. But Marwan's report quickly reached Israel.