“Yisrael, what do we do now?”
—Golda Meir to her military secretary, Yisrael Lior, upon receiving word that war would break out at the end of the day1
On Saturday, October 6, the day the war broke out, events began in London.
The head of the Mossad, Zvi Zamir, landed there on Friday afternoon, the night after Ashraf Marwan communicated with his contact, Dubi, and in the second part of a short conversation, as Zamir later testified, transmitted “information directed toward setting up an urgent meeting with me in London to discuss the matter of war. Marwan had indicated the necessity for the meeting, its location and its timing. And that was it.”2 The wording of the message testified to the absence of any sense of alarm appropriate to the situation. Zamir even testified to the Agranat Commission that the warning had been general and thus he did not see fit to report it personally to the prime minister. Thirty-eight years later, Zamir was still pondering why Marwan had not reported to his contact that war would break out in another forty hours.
Zamir set out for the meeting; his sole aim, as he testified, was to find out about the date and time of the war. In Israel, despite all of the signs, it was still difficult for the political leadership to reconcile itself to the possibility that war was imminent; those who knew about the meeting were primed to hear what Marwan had to say. Nevertheless, and in accord with the conditions the Egyptian agent dictated, Zamir and Dubi had to wait a few more hours to meet him. In retrospect, it became clear how much each of the twenty-four hours that passed before they met could have been significant to decision-makers in Israel.
During their previous meeting, a month earlier in Rome, Marwan had reported that war would not break out until perhaps toward the end of the year. As noted, based on this information, Zamir had estimated only a few days earlier that “if we analyze their inclinations, I must assume that if we are referring to an assessment framework of a year, their inclinations are, in fact, not to go to war.”3 Now Marwan had received completely different information, and in Zamir’s opinion, he had made an effort to clarify it completely before he reported it. In Israel, decision-makers had understood that Marwan would know enough about the date of a war to warn about an attack weeks in advance.
Somewhat surprisingly, the imminent war did not come up immediately at the beginning of the conversation in London—only after they had discussed the thwarted rocket attack in Rome and its implications for Marwan’s activity. When the two men moved on to the essence of the discussion, Marwan reported that a war coordinated by Egypt and Syria would break out on the following day, that it would be conducted according to an agreed-upon plan, and that it was still not clear whether Egyptian forces would halt after capturing a strip of ten kilometers west of the canal or whether they would continue on in the direction of the passes. Marwan added this reservation to his report: “I must tell you that if political or military conditions were different, if there were a decisive and important change in the military or political conditions, Sadat could stop everything.”4
Marwan told Zamir that his hurried trip to Libya to deal with concealing the Egyptian air and sea fleets was a sign for him that war was on the way. But Zamir received the impression that Marwan had already heard in Cairo that the military leadership had been amazed not to have seen changes in military deployment on the Israeli side, considering the concentration of Egyptian forces in the canal area. He perceived the contradiction in what the agent was saying, but “I did not ask him how long he had known, both because it would not have made any difference and also because I did not see any point in initiating a discussion that would create tension between us.”5 Zamir explained this by considering that Marwan never imagined that the war would be a surprise for Israel. Knowing Marwan well, Zamir did not see the logic in delving into the military details, and at the end of the discussion, he hurried to carefully convert the details into code and to communicate them in a telephone conversation with his bureau chief in Tel Aviv. He then transmitted the full protocol of the discussion, as taken down by Dubi, by teleprinter. This report arrived at the Prime Minister’s Office before the ministers assembled on October 6.
At 02:30 Israeli time on October 6, about twenty-four hours after Zamir received Marwan’s request to meet, information reached Israel about the war scheduled to start just before dark.6 One telephone call from London set Israeli agitation in motion. Marwan had not reported that the hour of attack had been moved forward. So Zamir understood the time to be set in accord with a war plan he had known in advance, at sunset. His lack of information about the timing of the attack, which began at 13:50 and not at sunset, greatly affected the ensuing chaos in the IDF, especially in the air force, during the fateful hours of that day. Later, this added to the arguments that Marwan had intended to deceive Israel.
Zamir was careful to report all of the details Marwan provided. He included the possibility that Sadat could stop everything if political conditions changed. This was enough to reinforce Dayan’s opinion that mobilizing the reserves was unjustified. “The entire IDF should not be mobilized for Zamir’s stories,” he told Elazar when they met at 05:50 to discuss the significance of Zamir’s information.7 Dayan responded to the information by saying,
We have received information like that in the past. Afterwards, when the Arabs have not attacked, we get the explanation that “at the last minute” Sadat changed his mind. This time, too, we have heard that if Sadat understands that we have found out about it and he has lost the element of surprise, there is a chance that he will cancel or at least put off the date of the attack.8
Dayan’s words and deeds in the following hours testified to the fact that this was how he continued to see the situation unfolding. However, even though he thought that neutralizing the element of surprise was likely to prevent war, he did not attempt to announce publicly and immediately that Israel knew about the coming attack, but rather put his trust in the secret channel with Kissinger. Perhaps he was correct in choosing a political step, but he was much too late, weeks and months overdue, in the timing of its implementation.
Dayan, like Meir, Elazar, and Zeira, received Zamir’s information at about 04:00.9 Elazar summoned Tal, Peled, and Zeira for a preliminary discussion at 05:00. From that moment Peled became a central partner in coordinating the developments of the day.
At 05:50, a consultation took place in the minister of defense’s office with the participation of Dayan, Elazar, Zeira, Shlomo Gazit (brother of Mordechai and coordinator of operations in the Occupied Territories, who later replaced Zeira as head of military intelligence), and the director-general of the Ministry of Defense, Yitzhak Ironi. “Dayan did not look especially tense,” testified Gazit. According to Gazit, the atmosphere during the discussion was good, even lighthearted. A sense of happiness prevailed; the fighting would begin that evening.10
The discussion itself focused on a disagreement between Dayan and Elazar regarding Israel making a preventive strike by and calling up the reserves. Elazar considered the situation from a military standpoint, assuming that war was certain, and he wanted to prepare accordingly—to mobilize a large reserve force of four divisions and anticipate the enemy attack with a preventive strike by the air force. On the other hand, Dayan, who was considering the situation both politically and militarily, assumed that the secret contacts with Kissinger would appeal to Sadat’s judgment and logic; thus, there was no reason for Israel to attack or mobilize the reserves; at most, a small number could be called up without increasing the tension. Dayan also knew that this was what Israel had promised Kissinger. “If Egypt starts, we will begin earlier in the Golan. If Syria begins, we will not initiate an attack on Egypt,” Elazar instructed. Regarding the reserves, he announced, “I will bring a proposal to the prime minister to mobilize only defensively.” Dayan then asked Zeira, “If we announce it [that we know about the war] and we mobilize, will that deter them from attacking?”11
Aluf Avraham Adan explaining a map to Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Israel Galili, October 29, 1973
Elazar demanded a mobilization of about two hundred thousand reservists—the entire fighting and support force—while Dayan, considering the situation, was ready to approve about twenty to thirty thousand. After an additional argument, Dayan agreed to enlarge the scope of the call-up to fifty to sixty thousand: two divisions, one for each front. When it was clear that there would be no compromise, they passed the decision to the prime minister. In the end, Israel carried out no preliminary mobilization at all, even though Elazar and Dayan had agreed on two divisions.
Dayan also vetoed a possible preliminary strike by the air force: “Our political situation does not enable us to do what we did in 1967.”12 Elazar did not give in on this issue, even after Dayan declared that “under no circumstances” would he agree. Elazar continued to argue that the air force was prepared to attack, and Dayan was forced to explain to him that there was no chance of a preemptive strike: “Even if the Americans are one hundred percent sure [that Egypt and Syria will attack], they will not let us attack first.”13 He told Elazar that the prime minister would definitely oppose an Israeli attack. There was one thing on which both Dayan and Elazar agreed: If war broke out, the air force’s reaction would focus on Syria.
On this point, the Syrian issue, the cheerfulness of the meeting reached its peak:
Elazar: We can stop worrying about that this morning, like the story of the man …
Dayan: What story?
Elazar: A man was seen leaving a brothel at seven in the morning. When he was asked what was going on—why so early?—he replied, ‘I have such a full day today that I wanted to get that out of my head first thing in the morning.’14
“Yisrael, what do we do now?” the prime minister asked her military secretary, when he gave her the information Zamir had communicated just before four that morning. She did not reach her office, a short distance from her home in Ramat Aviv, until seven. Few people would have been willing to stand in the prime minister’s shoes that morning.
At 08:05, a consultation was held in the Prime Minister’s Office with the participation of Ministers Dayan, Bar-Lev, Galili (who was a bit late), and Allon (who joined them toward the end of the meeting). Also present were Elazar, Zeira, Tsur, Mordechai Gazit, and other participants.15 Although most of the meeting was devoted to the decision about calling up the reserves, the issues that came up—and, specifically, what Meir, Dayan, and Galili said—reveal a bit more about the considerations guiding the decision-makers.
At the beginning of the meeting, Dayan suggested allowing the Arabs regular activity in the Occupied Territories and free movement through the transfer points on the Jordan bridges. He continued:
I propose evacuating the children today from the Golan Heights, the South Sinai Solomon Region, and Abu Rodeis [the oil fields in
Sinai]. In the Golan there are only thirty children in all. If they have other ideas, that is their business. Toward evening or in the afternoon, propose that they take the children out for a trip. Bring them down. The women, if they want to stay—let them stay.
Golda Meir replied, “I know the people there. They won’t send their children. I think it has to be an order.” Dayan responded: “Tell them to go down—let them be brought down. Tomorrow they can make their objections to you.”
So while Chief of Staff Elazar was waiting impatiently for approval to call up the reserves in order to stop the Egyptians and Syrians, who were about to attack, Dayan was discussing a trip for the Golan children and Meir was concerned about the self-image of the settlers—subjects that, at least during those moments, should have been the concern of junior workers in their offices.
Only after he had asked to tighten the intelligence coordination with the United States and considered how to relate to Jordan did Dayan turn to the question of a preventive attack. He knew that the prime minister would not confirm such a move in light of her promise to the United States, so he summarized briefly: “Regarding a preemptive strike: we cannot allow ourselves to do that this time…. In principle, if they don’t open fire, we will not open fire.”
Dayan did not request approval to call up the reserves upon which he and the chief of staff had already agreed, but presented his viewpoint:
Dado [Elazar] wants a bigger call-up; I disagree. If things get more serious and fire breaks out, we will call up a full alignment. Otherwise [if we call up the reserves] this will mean that we are making war…. If I thought that there was no alternative, I would mobilize everyone. Up until nightfall, a limited call-up, and these forces will prepare to go into action tomorrow morning. If we want to continue the call-up tonight, we will continue to mobilize. On this issue, perhaps the chief of staff has a different opinion.
Elazar, who spoke after Dayan, opened with the main subject of disagreement, the question of the extent of the mobilization:
The reserves we do not call up now will not be able to take part in the war by tomorrow. They will go into action only on Monday morning. The reserves that we do not call up now mean the loss of a day. So I am in favor of a large call-up. I favor a call-up of two hundred thousand soldiers…. If we don’t have a large call up, then I don’t see less than seventy-eighty thousand. From the standpoint of international political impact, it doesn’t matter if we call up seventy thousand or two hundred thousand…. It’s better if they say that we started it and then we win. That is what they will say in any case. I am in favor of a large call-up. That’s it for the call-up…. With regard to a preventive strike, that would save many lives…. To me, that’s very tempting from an operative standpoint. We don’t have to decide about that now. We have four hours to consult with the Americans.
In answer to Minister Galili, who asked how much advance time the air force would need to carry out such a decision, Elazar responded, “We’ll be ready at 12:00 to go ahead. Between the air force [bombing the airfields] and missiles [attacking the missile system] we’ll need three hours.” He also explained that if they put off the preventive strike on the airfields to 13:00, they could not begin striking the missile system. At that stage, Elazar was still assuming that it would take a relatively short time to destroy the missile system.
It appears that Zeira now began to understand that his “low probability” assessment had been incorrect. He intervened in the discussion only after Meir asked for a situation report. Zeira sounded more hesitant than usual, but still found it difficult to entirely abandon his original position:
They are technically and operationally prepared for war in accord with the plan we know about. Everything is ready, but despite the fact that they are ready, in my opinion, they know that they will lose. Sadat today is not in a position in which he has to go to war. Everything is ready, but there is no urgency. And he knows that the balance will not improve.
When Meir asked how, in his opinion, Sadat would behave, he answered exactly like Marwan: “He has not yet given the order to proceed. Perhaps at the last moment he will draw back. We may be able to influence what he does or decides.”
In answer to a question from Galili, Zeira explained that deterrence might help. It could be achieved in two ways: “One, calling up the reserves. Two, if, for example, we activate the Americans.” To a great extent, he aimed to explain what Marwan had intended when he maintained that Israeli political or military moves could yet stop Sadat. Like Elazar, Zeira’s thinking was military, but while Elazar was primarily concerned with military defense and an ultimate counterattack, Zeira was focusing on deterrence. This was in contrast to Dayan, who was still adhering to his political intention to make use of the American track and retaining his belief that threat or political temptation would succeed in halting an Egyptian attack. After all, if Dayan had wanted to create military deterrence, he too would have supported a massive reserve mobilization.
Galili, who had arrived at the Prime Minister’s Office early but joined the meeting later,16 continued trying to hold onto the element of doubt Marwan had expressed and did not give up: “Zvika’s source said that we can prevent the war using an information leak. Zvika proposes that we try it.” Galili immediately suggested making public the great amount of intelligence information Israel had accumulated: “We can use it and mention all of the details, except for the change in the whereabouts of the president and his advisors.” This remark revealed two bits of very great significance that were not known by the others, or at least, not by Elazar and Zeira. The first was the secret information that Sadat had moved to work in a “war room” so secret that Israel could not divulge that it even knew about it.17 Indeed, as Sadat wrote later in his memoirs, “On Thursday, the eighth day of Ramadan [October 4], I moved my workplace to the Al-Tahara Palace, which was temporarily established as a war command headquarters.”18 The additional and, at this moment, most important piece of information: Galili knew that Zamir, who only a few hours earlier had spoken to Marwan, the person perceived as knowing Sadat’s most intimate secrets, had suggested trying non-military ways to prevent the war.
Zamir had not transmitted proposals; Galili based his own suggestions on the complete protocol of the conversation between Marwan and Zamir as written down by Dubi, which had been sent to Israel by teleprinter immediately after Zamir had transmitted his preliminary summary report. Regarding its contents and their implications, Zamir testified:
Up until the end, he [Marwan] did not know about the timing since he did not know the extent to which he could rely on what Sadat had said. In his opinion, Sadat was a manipulator. He didn’t know whether, after he had spoken with me, it [the war] would take place, that Sadat would not do some kind of manipulation…. He didn’t tell me, “Listen, leave everything, this is war!” He didn’t say that. He knew that there could be a political statement from some source—American, Russian, Israeli—that would divert him [from his move to war] and he would say, “So let’s wait. So we won’t do it.” That would be his good excuse toward his public, the Egyptians, for putting off his decision.19
Like Dayan, Galili tried to hold on to the hope of a possible escape from the situation, as Marwan had suggested. It appears that, later, Meir also joined them in this. But the defense minister believed that the war could be prevented by a secret political move rather than by leaking Israel’s information held about Egypt’s and Syria’s intentions. As it was clear that a preventive attack had been vetoed and Elazar knew that he would not receive approval for such a step, Dayan requested to return the discussion to the mobilization issue. In his opinion, a call-up, like an information leak, would pose an obstacle to secret political measures. He wanted to prevent mobilization—or, if that was impossible, to limit its scope.
Prime Minister Meir was still deliberating between Dayan and Elazar. She tried to include another factor in her considerations, one that supported Dayan’s stance against mobilization. “I am considering. Another aspect is the effect of a call-up on the economy tomorrow,” she said, but immediately continued with an argument supporting Elazar’s position: “If this is really war, [mobilization] is no disaster. If there is a war, we will not understand why there was a delay of twelve hours.” But before she decided, she quickly skipped to the question of a preemptive strike; she had already promised Kissinger, in coordination with Dayan and in accord with his recommendation, that she would not attack in advance. Now she said: “My heart is drawn to it; we’ll see.” Perhaps she was trying to soften her negative determination for Elazar, but this just increased his illusions that ultimately perhaps such an attack would be approved, and heightened the pressure and confusion in the air force.
Here again, Meir stopped and returned to Galili’s train of thought about the possibility of preventing the war using an information leak:
What would happen if we accept the advice of that friend [Marwan, whom she sometimes called “Zvika’s friend”]? Why don’t we use the BBC, CBS, and the others to announce that the Russians are evacuating Syria and Egypt and assess why they are leaving? Second, perhaps we can at least leak to the news agencies a bit of what is going on at the borders—that is to say, to destroy their illusions of surprise. In 1967 they didn’t try to hide anything. This time they are hiding on the assumption that we don’t know.20
Egyptian forces cross the Suez Canal, seen here from the west side, October 7, 1973
It appears that the prime minister feared that she had already slid into military matters, the realm of expertise of those who were sitting opposite her, and she continued with her reservations: “Inasmuch as this doesn’t harm us, if they know that we know, does that make things difficult for us or not?”
Dayan returned to the question of mobilization. This time he left room for a compromise: “If you approve a large call-up, I will not resign,” he said unwillingly. That led Elazar, this time much more aware of the precious time that had gone by, to send his adjutant Avner Shalev to call up the two armored divisions on which they had agreed, numbering about seventy thousand soldiers. The time was 09:00. The final decision, approved by Meir, was to call up 100,000 to 120,000 reservists. “I haven’t changed my opinion,” Dayan responded to the decision. “What is your number?” asked the prime minister. “Less than half,” replied Dayan. He made sure that the protocol stated: “The chief of staff will mobilize the entire number as proposed by the chief of staff.” Dayan seems to have intended that, if war should not break out, the complaints about the extreme mobilization would be directed to the chief of staff and not to him.
The meeting was adjourned.
About six months later, the Agranat Commission placed the responsibility for the delay in mobilizing the reserves that morning on Elazar. The text of the discussions makes it difficult to accept that determination, as do Dayan’s later statements, such as: “Even if we had known with certainty four days before the war broke out [that the Arabs were going to attack], we would not have called up the reserves earlier.”21 Indeed, Dayan’s insistence was based on the IDF’s assessment that the regular army would be able to halt the attack with the assistance of the air force, but his reasoning was political rather than operational.
While these difficult decisions were being made, Elazar and Peled were operating in the vain hope that an early preemptive attack on the missile system and the airfields in Syria would be approved. The two thought that this could most logically be done in the afternoon. In a telephone conversation at five in the morning, Elazar had authorized Peled to take the necessary steps in the air force for an attack on the Syrian missile system, the on-site timing of which was determined as 11:00.
From the moment Benny Peled received the call from Elazar and activated his men, the airforce had focused on preparing to carry out the attack. At 06:45, it became clear that problematic weather would prevent an attack on the Syrian missile batteries; Peled received Elazar’s approval to change the mission and prepare to attack Syrian airfields. This change demanded not only preparations by the aircrews but also altering the scheduling, munitions, and airplane formations. From this stage on, the air force and its command center, bases, squadrons, and units can be compared to a line of ants whose route is disturbed again and again. Its constituents tried, after each disturbance, to realign and make their way to the alternative destination dictated to them. Thus, the timing of the alternative assignment attacking Syrian airfields was set for noon.
Ran Pecker, the commander of the air force base at Tel Nof, described the attack planes taxiing to their take-off positions:
From every direction, Phantoms and Skyhawks were appearing, heavy with bombs and full gas tanks, moving in sequence and joining the growing convoy, slowly moving along the taxiway towards the runway. Everything was carried out precisely and in complete radio silence. Not a word was heard in communications. A surrealistic drama. Suddenly an inspector in the tower broke the radio silence and ordered all of the planes to move back and return to their underground stalls. The announcement of the operation’s cancellation caught us out of the blue.22
Even though Elazar and Peled knew that, due to political considerations, there was little chance that Dayan and Meir would change their minds and approve the preventive strike, they held to their original plan until the last moment. The chaos that took over the decision-making apparatus also led to mistaken decisions in the air force, which stymied its ability to carry out these missions.
Thus, at 13:00, when Peled understood that no preventive attack at all would be approved, he ordered a change in the Phantom formations from airfield attack to interception formation, preparing to defend the airspace over Israel. When the war actually did break out, this greatly harmed the planes’ ability to return to base and rearm in order to assist in the ground forces’ holding action and attack airfields. As Shmuel Gordon described:
The chief of staff remained faithful to offensive attack even after the war had broken out, but he was not aware of the chaos that had engulfed the air force. Although the chief of staff had been told that he could prepare for an operation, thirty minutes later, when he asked again, most of the Phantoms had been launched into the air, wasting their time on mostly pointless patrol missions after their bombs had been unloaded or their pilots had ejected them into the sea.23
Gordon conducted a comprehensive and in-depth investigation of air force activity, published in 2008.24 Regarding these hours, he wrote: “The air force command had never been shaken to this extent. Never had it had to struggle for balance as it did on that fateful day.”25
At 10:15 Israeli time, Kenneth Keating, US ambassador to Israel, reached the prime minister’s office at her invitation. Gazit and Dinitz also joined the meeting just before Dinitz’s executive jet was to take off for Rome, on his way back to Washington.
“We may be in trouble,” the prime minister opened the discussion.26 After briefly summarizing recent developments, she requested the United States’ aid in clarifying to the Soviets and Egypt that Israel did not intend to attack Syria or Egypt but was preparing to defend itself if attacked, and was therefore calling up part of its reserve forces. In addition, she requested that the United States warn Egypt and Syria about the results of the war if Israel was attacked. Here Meir was adopting Dayan’s strategy—deterrence via the secret political track rather than via the media. She was also acting on the basis of what she had understood as Marwan’s recommendation to transmit “a political statement from some source—American, Russian Israeli—which would divert him [from his move to war] and he would say: ‘So let’s wait. So we won’t do it.’”27
Keating requested assurance that he had understood the promise and the prime minister again confirmed that Israel would not conduct a preventive strike. Keating summarized his report to Washington with his impression that Meir sincerely wanted to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. The 06:00 telegram alarmed Joseph Sisco, Kissinger’s assistant for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, enough to lead Sisco to burst into Kissinger’s suite at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York early Saturday morning.28
The evening of October 5 was the first time Kissinger had taken for himself since he had been appointed Secretary of State on September 22. Without working papers, he shut himself up in his hotel suite for a private supper. His assistants knew that, to every extent possible, they should avoid disturbing him. When the message from the prime minister of Israel reached New York from the White House with an accompanying intelligence report, his assistants did not see fit to disturb him, especially since the message indicated that Israel was not panicking and had not fully called up the reserves. The message ended with: “We consider the probability of military action by two armies against Israel as low.”29 Even if the situation had been different, it can be assumed that Kissinger would not have taken any action vis-à-vis Moscow, other European capitals, or the Middle East at this time. In retrospect, he assessed that anything he might have done then would have been useless.30 The die had already been cast.
The failure that day was not administrative; it did not stem from delays in transmitting the message. It was a failure of thinking by Israeli decision-makers, who were unable to understand that the Soviets’ urgent evacuation from Egypt and Syria at the same time could have had only one explanation—they knew the imminent timing of the coordinated Egyptian-Syrian attack on Israel. Kissinger later wrote: “Policymakers cannot hide behind their analysts if they miss the essence of an issue. They can never know all the facts, but they have a duty to ask the right questions….We knew everything but understood too little. And for that the highest officials—including me—must assume responsibility.”31
When Sisco broke into his room with the news, Kissinger did not know that he had only ninety minutes to act.32 At the beginning, he considered the situation a misreading of one side by the other. More than eight months had passed since he had found out about Sadat’s aspiration to motivate a political process; he was aware of Sadat’s demand to reach an agreement by September. More than a few times during the last few months, Kissinger had urged Israel to let him launch his initiative—and he had been refused. It appears that Kissinger thought his intention to begin acting energetically to reach an agreement the following month, immediately after Israeli elections, was clear to both sides. He had prepared Israel and informed the Egyptians; this had been publicized in the mass media as well. Only a day earlier, he had discussed it with Mohammed el-Zayyat, the Egyptian foreign minister, and Sadat and Hafez Ismail knew about the discussion. In addition to the lack of military logic in attacking Israel, Kissinger, like Dayan and Meir, did not see the sense in Egypt initiating a military move precisely at this time. Sadat’s move taught Kissinger an informative lesson in statesmanship. After the war, he knew how to appreciate it and did not hide his admiration for the Egyptian president.
Now, however, Kissinger was still trying to prevent the use of weapons and begin diplomatic moves. His first act was to wake his nearest interlocutor, Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, to inform him of the seriousness of the situation and coordinate developments with him. At 06:40, Dobrynin sounded groggy. His short, meaningless answers caused Kissinger to remark, “If this keeps up … there is going to be a war before you understand my message.” In any case, they succeeded in agreeing to take all measures necessary to prevent the war, if possible.
At 06:55 Kissinger spoke by telephone to Mordechai Shalev, Dinitz’s deputy in Washington. The gist of their discussion was Kissinger’s message that “we are in touch with the Soviets and the Egyptians, urging the utmost restraint. Dobrynin has said they will cooperate with us. We are setting up special communications. We would like to urge you not to take any preemptive action because the situation will get very serious if you move.”33
At 07:00 he called Zayyat, who was in New York at the time. Zayyat sounded surprised at the developments; perhaps he really was. He had left Egypt before Sadat began to gradually inform officials about the war; even then, Sadat had only apprised those closest to him. He had avoided updating his foreign minister even the day before the war broke out to prevent him from being uncomfortable during his meeting with Kissinger on October 5, a few hours before the first attack. (This was the meeting during which Kissinger informed Zayyat of his intentions to begin negotiations after the elections in Israel).34
Now, one hour before the start of the attack, Kissinger told Zayyat of Israel’s announcement that it had no intention of attacking, the warning that it would “take extremely strong measures” if Egypt opened fire, and the uncompromising warning he had transmitted to Israel not to make a preemptive strike. He requested that Zayyat communicate this to the government of Egypt as urgently as possible and ask them to show restraint so that he, Kissinger, would have the opportunity to deal with the situation. “I will do this immediately, although I am very apprehensive that this is a pretext on Israel’s part.” replied Zayyat; Kissinger responded with the promise that “if it is a pretext, we will take strong measures against them.”35
Zayyat passed the message on to Cairo immediately. The time was then 13:25 in Cairo, about twenty-five minutes before the beginning of the war. Sadat was not free to speak, and Kissinger’s message was received by Hafez Ismail.36
At 07:15, Kissinger spoke to his deputy, General Brent Scowcroft. At 07:25 he spoke with the Russian Embassy to reiterate the messages to Moscow, with which Dobrynin was speaking at that very moment. At 07:30, he spoke with Roy Atherton, Sisco’s deputy, at his office in the State Department. At 07:35, he again spoke to Zayyat. He calmed him by saying that Israel had “given formal assurances that they will not launch [an] attack nor initiate military operations.” Zayyat thanked him but added: “This seems like what happened in 1967.” He ended with a marginal question that few have noticed: “May I ask how you are contacting [the Israelis]? Is Eban here?” Kissinger was unsurprised by the fact that, although war was approaching, the Israeli foreign minister, who was then in New York, was not at all in the picture as to events in the political arena. He replied to Zayyat that communications were with the embassy in Washington and that they were very good.37
At 07:45, Kissinger reported to Mordechai Shalev that he had transmitted the Israeli announcement, that he was in direct contact with the Egyptians, and that the Americans were asking Zayyat to communicate with Cairo. On the other hand, there was no direct contact with the Syrians; messages were being communicated via the Soviets.38
At 07:47, Kissinger again talked with Dobrynin. They updated each other on the fact that all of the messages had been sent. Kissinger asked what was going on with the Syrians since he had no direct contact with them, and then surprised his Soviet colleague by telling him that he had talked directly to the Egyptian foreign minister. “You spoke with him on the telephone?” wondered Dobrynin. Kissinger had decided that, under these circumstances, he could reveal something of the secret talks he had been conducting with Egypt: “He is in New York. We had a good conversation in New York. Yesterday we had a friendly meeting, but inconclusive. As I told you, we are not going to play any games. You will be told what we do. You can reassure Moscow on that point.”39
At 07:51, he spoke to Commander Jonathan Howe, who was handling communications in the Situation Room of the White House. “When I ask you to do something, it must be done that second,” he rebuked Howe, who he said was transmitting messages too slowly.40
At 08:15, Zayyat called and said: “I could not get the president. He is in the operations room. I got this following information: At six o’clock this morning, there was [sic] some navy units and airplane units—Israelis took [i.e., instigated] some provocation on the Egyptian borders. We have actually tried to repel them and are doing so.”41
This was how Kissinger found out that the Yom Kippur War had broken out, using the wording on which the Egyptians and the Syrians had agreed, meant to disguise the attack as a reaction to alleged Israeli provocation.
At 11:00 Israeli time, a meeting took place in Elazar’s command headquarters (“the pit”) with the participation of Dayan, Elazar, Tal, the heads of the Commands, and the commanders of the branches. It was meant to frame an action plan for the IDF against Syria’s and Egypt’s war plans as they were known to Israel. During the meeting, Elazar asked to send planes into the air for a defensive patrol, as a message of deterrence. Dayan again expressed opposition to demonstrating open deterrence. He still had faith in the covert diplomatic moves. He explained:
If the only reason for the air patrol is to deter them, it is unnecessary. But if it is good for you to be in the air, then be in the air. Because, regarding deterrence, we have told the American ambassador to notify the Egyptians and Syrians that we know that they are going to attack and that we are ready.42
Later, Dayan led a roundtable discussion to present the expected scenarios on each of the fronts and in the air, while asking difficult questions. It could be seen that he was in control of both the military details and military theory. He accepted the deployment plan Elazar presented. At the end of the discussion, Dayan returned to examine another scenario:
“What happens if, on the night following Yom Kippur, at midnight, it becomes clear that there is no war?”
“The release of the reserve soldiers will not take place less than forty-eight hours later,” Elazar responded.
“A hundred thousand men will wander around for a full day before being sent home?” asked Dayan.
“They won’t just wander around; they will also be sent to the front. If it becomes clear that there is no war, we will release them within forty-eight hours,” Elazar replied in an impatient tone—three hours before the opening attack, he was still being forced to deal with Dayan’s doubts that the war would break out at all.43
Elazar later conducted separate discussions with the generals of the Commands and the commander of the navy. The beginning of the war found Head of Northern Command Hofi on his way to his command post and the head of Southern Command, Shmuel Gonen, giving out deployment orders.
“We did our best to prevent the outbreak of the war,” Prime Minister Golda Meir stated in a broadcast to the confused nation on the evening of the first day of the Yom Kippur War. In saying “our best,” she was referring to the urgent report that had woken Kissinger ninety minutes before the outbreak of battle. She did not, of course, refer to the fact that, during the seven months preceding the war, she had distrustfully rejected Sadat’s initiative to open peace negotiations and Kissinger’s proposal to lead these negotiations, and had reacted with scorn to the threat that accompanied the Egyptian proposal.
After ten days, when the war was at its height, Meir stated in the Knesset: “We have no doubt that the battle has been renewed over the very existence of the Jewish state. This is a war which is about our very existence as a state and as a nation.” She said this about a war taking place far from the borders of the State of Israel, across the Sinai desert and deep within territories captured from Egypt and Syria—a war that could have been prevented if only Israel had recognized their sovereignty over these territories, or at least Egypt’s sovereignty over Sinai. Meir was chastising herself for decisions she made in the days preceding the war. Some have even claimed that she expressed suicidal thoughts.44 However, it is not known whether she was also chastising herself about the many months during which she acted to maintain the stagnation.
Even four years later, when Sadat announced his wish to come to Jerusalem in a dramatic step that paved the way for a peace agreement, Meir refused to trust his declaration. “If he comes to Jerusalem, hair will grow on the palms of my hands,” she said.45
Assessing the probability of war occupied many people in the intelligence and military systems during this period; after the war it occupied those who wrote about the period. However, this was not the important question for decision-makers that year. Golda Meir and Yisrael Galili determined Israel’s political conduct. Dayan was a partner, but at moments of dispute, it was Meir’s viewpoint that determined what policies would be carried out. Other senior ministers, like Allon, Sapir, and Eban, who held different views, had no status in making political decisions; vital information was even kept from them. Meir also avoided seeking Yitzhak Rabin’s assistance, although he had been chief of staff and ambassador to the United States and knew all of the details of Sadat’s initiative and Kissinger’s views in that regard.
Israel’s security conduct was determined solely by Dayan. Meir and Galili did not intervene and the army and intelligence elites had almost no influence on Dayan. He did not adopt their assessments, nor did he reject them, but he appraised the situation and formulated a line of action by himself. He listened to the information they supplied and communicated his instructions, which were formed independently without depending solely on military intelligence assessments.
Dayan, Meir, and Galili viewed the situation politically. They knew that Sadat was aiming for political action but, at least during an election year, they were not ready to accept its territorial requirement: namely, Israeli recognition of Egyptian sovereignty of Sinai, along with an Israeli presence at key points in Sinai for a period of years.
Dayan analyzed the political situation correctly during that year and understood the developments taking place. He already knew, even in the early stages, that if there were no political moves, Sadat would take military steps with limited aims during the second half of the year in order to motivate such moves. Dayan rejected the military intelligence assessment of low war probability early on. In the spring, he led Meir’s “kitchen cabinet” to prefer war—a war in which Egypt would dictate the conditions and Israel would be limited in its military deployment, even if it knew what was to occur—rather than participating in the process Kissinger wished to set in motion.
In June, Dayan began to understand that Israel would not be able to continue with an indefinite stalemate. He suited his viewpoint of a peace agreement with Egypt to the principles Sadat proposed and Kissinger supported. In September, Dayan revealed this publicly, in the media, and personally prepared to begin such a process immediately after the elections. These developments formed the basis of his belief—and his gamble—that Sadat would not attack during the election period, as he would lose both the war and the political process.
The information about Syrian military preparations, on the other hand, concerned the minister of defense; the Syrians were not interested in a political process and a sudden short attack could have gained them territorial advantage. However, in his information about Egypt Dayan did not perceive moves that would lead to war. His viewpoint was supported by significant factors:
Dayan assessed the situation independently according to the information that was supplied to him by intelligence and in accord with the information only he and Meir knew with regard to the secret contacts—information about which military intelligence had no knowledge. While in May he had rejected the military intelligence assessment of “low probability” of war and ordered the chief of staff to prepare for war, this time, in October, the assessment that continued to predict a low probability of war, on the basis of military factors, reinforced Dayan’s own line of action—which he had adopted in any case. In addition, the internal political consideration that “this whole business is not worth it for us at this point in time” no doubt added weight to his decisions.46
Thus in all of the final days before the war, particularly on the last day, Elazar wanted to prepare in the best possible way militarily, on the assumption that war would break out. But Dayan dictated a line of action intended to make every attempt to prevent the war in secret, even at the price of raising obstacles to military deployments. Meir agreed with him. If it was she who led the policy of political inaction all year, now, when she was forced to make a military decision, she supported Dayan’s line.
Dayan was wrong. He erred in his assessment of the timing. Sadat was of the opinion that the political moves had to take place before the Israeli elections, not after them, as Dayan had gambled. Dayan’s character, which led him to act without including others in his considerations and his thinking, prevented him from soliciting feedback about his conclusions. It also prevented these conclusions from being checked or supervised.
At 11:30 Israeli time on Saturday, Yom Kippur, the Israeli government met with partial ministerial attendance at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tel Aviv. Some of the ministers who were present were surprised to hear for the first time about the military tension of the last few days; Dayan was forced to devote quite a bit of time to describing the events that had led to the brink of the coordinated Egyptian-Syrian attack about to take place. At 14:05, while they were discussing how events had reached this point and what actions were being taken, they heard the noise of rising and falling sirens announcing the beginning of the war. Folklore has it that Golda Meir murmured ironically in Yiddish: “Nur dos falt mir ois.” (“That’s all I needed.”) Then she added in English: “They’ll be sorry for this.”47