Dangerous Liaison: The 1973 American intelligence failure and the limits of intelligence cooperation

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the failure of the U.S. intelligence community to foresee the Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack on Israel in 6 October 1973. The paper deconstructs the various elements of the American failure and explores the reasons that led to it. The paper shows that at the heart of the flawed American assessment was a paradigm formulated by U.S. intelligence analysts, one that was influenced by Israeli intelligence analysts. With this conclusion, the paper suggests that alongside the numerous advantages of intelligence liaison between states, the practice can also lead them to make grave errors.

KEYWORDS:

• United States
• Israel
• Egypt
• strategic surprise
• intelligence failure
• central Intelligence Agency
• Israel defense force
• directorate of Military Intelligence

Notes

¹ Syria and Egypt had different strategies to regain their respective territories. The Egyptians were hoping that the war would push the great powers and Israel into a political process, while the Syrians planned to take back the Golan Heights by force. The divergence was the result of power-based realities, but also, possibly, ideological differences. See: Hillel Frisch, “Perceptions of Israel in the Armies of Syria, Egypt and Jordan,” Political Studies 52, no. 3 (2004): 395–412; and Kenneth W. Stein, Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace (New-York: Routledge, 1999), 72.

² Shaul Shai, “Arab Expeditionary Forces in the Yom Kippur War,” in: Yom Kippur War Studies, Eds. Haggai Golan and Shaul Shai (Tel-Aviv: Ma’arachot, 2003), 125–152.

³ Keith Krause, “Military Statecraft: Power and Influence in Soviet and American Arms Transfer Relationships,” International Studies Quarterly 35, no.3 (1991): 319.

⁴ Barry M. Blechman and Douglas M. Hart, “The Political Utility of Nuclear Weapons: The 1973 Middle East Crisis,” International Security 7, no. 1 (1982): 132–156.

⁵ Kobi Segal, “So Similar so Different: Israel and South Korea – Prosperity in the Shadow of a Common Enemy,”Ma’archot 463 (2015): 47; and Juan del Aguila, “The Changing Character of Cuba’s Armed Forces,” in The Cuban Military Under Castro, ed. Jaime Suchlicki (Coral Gables FL: University of Miami, 1989), 27–59, 41.

⁶ Karen R. Merrill, The Oil Crisis of 1973–1974: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007); and Elisabetta Bini, Giuliano Garavini, and Federico Romero, Oil Shock: the 1973 Crisis and its Economic Legacy (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016).

⁷ Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle-East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 206.

⁸ Department of State, Secretary’s Staff Meeting, 23 October 1973, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB98/octwar-63.pdf: 3–4, accessed 29 March 2018.

⁹ Henry A. Kissinger, “Better Intelligence Reform,” Washington Post, August 16, 2004, https://www.henryakissinger.com/articles/page/9/, accessed 27 March 2019.

¹⁰ Abraham Ben-Zvi, “Hindsight and Foresight: a Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of Surprise Attacks,” World Politics 28, no. 33 (1976): 381–395; Michael I. Handel, “The Yom Kippur War and the Inevitability of Surprise,” International Studies Quarterly 21, no. 3 (1977): 461–502; Avi Shlaim, “Failures in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Yom Kippur War,” World Politics 28, no. 3 (1976): 348–380; Uri Bar-Joseph, “Israel’s Intelligence Failure of 1973: New Evidence, a New Interpretation, and Theoretical Implications,” Security Studies 4, no. 3 (1995): 584–609; Uri Bar–Joseph and Arie W. Kruglanski, “Intelligence Failure and Need for Cognitive Closure: On the Psychology of the Yom Kippur Surprise,” Political Psychology 24, no. 1 (2003): 75–99.; Uri Bar-Joseph, The Watchman Fell Asleep: The Surprise of Yom Kippur and Its Sources (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005).and Uri Bar‐Joseph and Jack S. Levy, “Conscious action and intelligence failure,” Political Science Quarterly 124 no. 3 (2009): 461–488.

¹¹ For an exception see: Jeffrey G. Karam, “Missing Revolution: the American Intelligence Failure in Iraq, 1958,” Intelligence and National Security 32, no. 6 (2017): 1–17.

¹² Central Intelligence Agency, President Nixon and the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/president-nixon-and-role-intelligence-1973-arab-israeli-war?page=8, accessed 28 March 2018.

¹³ Nixon Presidential Library and museum, President Nixon and the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 30 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed_bzwieRWs, accessed 30 January 2018.

¹⁴ The report was the first of seven post-mortem reports produced by the National Intelligence Staff between the 1973 and 1975. See: Richard W. Shryock, “The Intelligence Community Post-Mortem Program 1973–1975), Studies in Intelligence, Fall 1977, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1977-09-01.pdf, accessed 1 March 2017.

¹⁵ Intelligence Community Staff, The performance of the Intelligence Community before the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973: A Preliminary Post Mortem Report, 20 December 1973: i.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ CIA, Central Intelligence Briefing, 29 September 1973, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1973-09-29.pdf, accessed 31 March 2018.

¹⁸ Uri Bar-Joseph, The Watchman Fell Asleep: The Surprise of Yom Kippur and Its Sources (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005).

¹⁹ Intelligence Community Staff, The performance of the Intelligence Community before the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973: A Preliminary Post Mortem Report: 18.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Intelligence Community Staff, The Performance of the Intelligence Community before the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973: 13.

²² CIA, Central Intelligence Bulletin, 5 October 1973, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1973-10-05.pdf, accessed 1 March 2018.

²³ Intelligence Community Staff, The Performance of the Intelligence Community before the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973: 3.

²⁴ Ibid., 4.

²⁵ Ibid., 4.

²⁶ The June 1967 Six Day.

²⁷ Intelligence Community Staff, The Performance of the Intelligence Community before the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973: 13.

²⁸ CIA, INR and the Defense Intelligence Agency Arab-Israeli Handbook, July 1973. In Intelligence Community Staff, The performance of the Intelligence Community before the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973: 14.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Central Intelligence Agency, The 1973 Arab-Israeli War: Overview and analysis of the Conflict, September 1975, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1975-09-01A.pdf, accessed 15 April 2017.

³² Yossi Ben Ari, “The Role of Academic Experts in the understanding of the Arab-Israeli Conflict on the Eve of the Yom Kippur War,” in The Yom Kippur War and its Lessons, ed. Pinhas Yehezkeli (Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press, 2005), 41.

³³ Central Intelligence Bulletin, 9 May 1973: 6. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1973-05-09B.pdf, accessed 17 April 2017.

³⁴ Anwar El- Sadat, In Search of Identity an Autobiography (Tel-Aviv: Idanim, 1978), 186.

³⁵ Central Intelligence Agency, National intelligence Estimate 30–73: Possible Egyptian-Israeli Hostilities: Determinants and Implications, 17 May 1973, 2.

³⁶ Shalomo Gazit, “Intelligence Estimates and the Decision Maker,” in Strategic Intelligence: Windows into a Secret World, eds. Loch J. Johnson and James J. Wirtz (Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing Company, 2004), 136.

³⁷ M. S Daoudi and M. S. Dajani. “The 1967 Oil Embargo Revisited,” Journal of Palestine Studies 13, no. 2 (1984): 65.

³⁸ Gazit, Intelligence Estimates, 136.

³⁹ Central Intelligence Agency, National intelligence Estimate 30–73: Possible Egyptian-Israeli Hostilities: Determinants and Implications, 17 May 1973, 1.

⁴⁰ Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secretes: Richard Helms and the CIA (New-York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979): 202.

⁴¹ El-Sadat, In Search of Identity, 188.

⁴² Center for the Study of Intelligence and the Nixon Presidential Library President Nixon and the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 30 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed_bzwieRWs (at 13:55), accessed 7 January 2018.

⁴³ Intelligence Community Staff, The performance of the Intelligence Community before the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973, 13.

⁴⁴ Owen L. Sirrs, A History of the Egyptian Intelligence Services: A History if the Mukhabarat, 1910–2009 (Lodon: Routledge, 2010), 125–135.

⁴⁵ Roger Beaument, Maskirovka: Soviet Camouflage, Concealment, and Deception (College Park, TX: The Texas Engineering Experiment Station, 1982).

⁴⁶ Aharon Ze’evi, “The Egyptian Deception Plan,” Ma’arachot 289–290 (1983): 39–42.

⁴⁷ Center for the Study of Intelligence and the Nixon Presidential Library President Nixon and the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 30 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed_bzwieRWs (at 1:07:00), accessed 27 March 2018.

⁴⁸ Ephraim Kahana, “Mossad-CIA cooperation,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 14, no. 3 (2001): 409–420; Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship (Tel-Aviv: Maariv, 1992), 47.

⁴⁹ Haggai Eshed, Reuven Shiloah – the Man Behind the Mossad: Secret Diplomacy in the Creation of the State of Israel (London: Frank Cass, 1997).

⁵⁰ Shimon Lavi, “Amos Manor and Karmi Gilon: Two Heads to the Shabak, Two Books,” Mabat-Malam 80: 64.

⁵¹ Nikita Khrushchev’s, The Cult of the Individual, A Speech delivered to the 20th Congress of the Communist party of the USSR in Moscow on 25 February 1956, The Guardian, 26 April 2007, http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/apr/26/greatspeeches3. (accessed 24 March 2015). Gil Keisary, “On a Secretary, Red Booklet, and an Exposure that Changed the World,” Mabat Malam 61: 12–14.

⁵² Amos Gilboa, Mr. Intelligence: Ahrale Yariv, (Tel-Aviv: Yediot Aharonot 2013), 128.

⁵³ Gilboa, Mr. Intelligence, 376.

⁵⁴ Uri Bar Joseph and Rose McDermott, Intelligence Success and Failure: the Human Factor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 194.

⁵⁵ Memorandum from Director of Central Intelligence Schlesinger to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Washington, 16 April 1973.

⁵⁶ Intelligence Community Staff, The performance of the Intelligence Community before the Arab-Israeli War of October 1973: A Preliminary Post Mortem Report,” 20 December 1973: 17.

⁵⁷ Yoel Ben Porat, Neila: Locked In (Tel-Aviv, Idanim, 1991), 17.

⁵⁸ Bar Joseph and MacDermont, Intelligence Success and Failure, 202.

⁵⁹ State Department, Secretary’s staff meeting, Tuesday October 23,1973 http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB98/octwar-63.pdf, accessed 12 March 2016: 22.

⁶⁰ Center for the Study of Intelligence and the Nixon Presidential Library President Nixon and the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, 30 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed_bzwieRWs (at 13:26), accessed 7 January 2018.

⁶¹ Boaz Ventick and Zaki Shalom, “The American Intelligence Failure on the Road to the Yom Kippur War,” Iyunim Be’Takumat Yisrael 22 (2012): 133–134.

⁶² Arye Shalev, Israel’s Intelligence Assessment before the Yom Kippur War: Disentangling Deception and Distraction (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press and Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, 2010), 157.

⁶³ Ibid.:157–158.

⁶⁴ Harold P. Ford, “William E. Colby as Director of the CIA,” in Center for the Study of Intelligence and the Nixon Presidential Library, President Nixon and the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War (30 January 2013): 19.

⁶⁵ President Nixon’s mistrust of the CIA dated from the early 1960s. Nixon was nursing an unjustified suspicion that the CIA leaked information concerning Cuba to his opponent, John Kennedy, before the 1960 elections, thus helping Kennedy win a crucial televised debate.[54] In a book written two years after losing to Kennedy and six years before being elected President, Nixon made it clear that had he won in 1960, he would have transferred the Directorate of Plans (covering a significant portion of CIA activity) to a new intelligence agency. See Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA. (New-York: Random House, 2007)

⁶⁶ Weiner, Legacy of Ashes.

⁶⁷ Michael Warner, J. Kenneth McDonald, U.S. Intelligence Community Reform Studies Since 1947 (Washington DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2005), 21.

⁶⁸ James R. Schlesinger, “A Review of the Intelligence Community,” 10 March 1970, 1, accessed at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB144/document%204.pdf, accessed 30 June 2013.

⁶⁹ Weiner, Legacy of Ashes; and Warner, McDonald, U.S. Intelligence Community Reform Studies Since 1947, 21–23.

⁷⁰ Mathew Penny, “Intelligence and the 1973 Arab-Israeli War,” in President Nixon and the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War (Center for the Study of Intelligence and the Nixon Presidential Library, 30 January 2013), 10.

⁷¹ Ford, “William E. Colby as Director of the CIA,” 19.