The following is a list of major players in this book and their positions during the period leading up to the Yom Kippur War.
Yigal Allon (1918–1980): Deputy prime minister of Israel under Golda Meir; acting prime minister during her illness. Author of the Allon Plan.
Menachem Begin (1913–1992): Chairman of the Gahal political bloc and head of the opposition in the Knesset in 1973; took leadership of the newly formed Likud party shortly after the war and was elected prime minister in 1977.
Moshe Dayan (1915–1981): Israeli minister of defense from 1967 to 1974; later served as minister of foreign affairs under the Begin government.
Simcha Dinitz (1929–2003): Director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office and political advisor to Golda Meir before being named Israel’s ambassador to the United States in 1973, replacing Yitzhak Rabin.
Abba Eban (1915–2002): Israeli foreign minister from 1966 to 1974.
David “Dado” Elazar (1925–1976): Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 1972 to 1974, when he was forced to resign in the wake of the Yom Kippur War.
Yisrael Galili (1911–1986): Minister without portfolio under Golda Meir and a member of her “Kitchen Cabinet.”
Mordechai Gazit (1922–): Golda Meir’s chief of staff before succeeding Simcha Dinitz as director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office in 1973.
Yitzhak Hofi (1927–): Head of Northern Command for the IDF.
Golda Meir (1898–1978): Fourth prime minister of Israel; elected in 1969 and resigned in 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War.
Benny Peled (1928–2002): Israeli general; named commander of Israel’s air force in 1973 and advised Golda Meir during the war.
Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995): Israeli ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973, when he was replaced by Simcha Dinitz; succeeded Golda Meir as prime minister in 1974 in the wake of the war.
Aryeh Shalev (1928–2013): Head of research the IDF military intelligence; was rebuked by the Agranat Commission after the war and retired in 1976.
Avner Shalev (1939–): Advisor and bureau head to Chief of Staff Elazar during the war.
Mordechai Shalev: Deputy to Ambassador Dinitz and charge d’affaires at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C.
Ariel Sharon (1928–): Head of Southern Command until his resignation from the IDF in July 1973; later served as prime minister from 2001 until his stroke in 2006.
Yisrael Tal (1924–2010): IDF general, assistant head of general staff, and deputy to Chief of Staff Elazar during the war; highly influential in the development of Israeli military doctrine.
Zvi Tsur (1923–2004): Chief of General Staff of the IDF from January 1961 to December 1963; in 1973 served as advisor to Moshe Dayan.
Gad Yaacobi (1935–2007): Knesset member and assistant transportation minister; close associate of Moshe Dayan.
Zvi “Zvika” Zamir (1925–): Director of the Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency) from 1968 to 1974.
Eli Zeira (1928–): Director of Israeli military intelligence (AMAN) from 1972 to 1973, when he was rebuked by the postwar Agranat Commission and resigned.
Ahmad Ismail Ali (1917–1974): Defense minister of Egypt during the war.
Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy (1921–2003): Head of Egyptian military operations during the Yom Kippur War; appointed chief of General Staff in December 1973.
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal (1923–): Editor-in-chief of Egypt’s Al-Ahram from 1957 to 1974; worked closely with Anwar Sadat during the Yom Kippur War.
Hafez Ismail (1919–1997): National security advisor to Anwar Sadat.
Ashraf Marwan (1944–2007): Egyptian intelligence operative; son-in-law to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser; Mossad agent (see Appendix). Died under mysterious circumstances in 2007.
Anwar Sadat (1918–1981): President of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination by Islamists in 1981.
Saad el-Din el-Shazly (1922–2011): Chief of staff of the Egyptian armed forces during the war; resigned in December 1973.
Mohammed Hassan el-Zayyat (1915–1993): Egyptian minister of foreign affairs from 1972 to immediately after the Yom Kippur War.
Joseph Greene (1920–2010): Head of US interests section in Cairo until June 1973.
Alexander Haig (1924–2010): White House chief of staff to President Nixon beginning in August 1973.
Richard Helms (1913–2002): Director of the CIA until February 1973, then US ambassador to Iran.
Kenneth Keating (1900–1975): Served as US ambassador to Israel from August 1973 to 1975.
Henry Kissinger (1923–): National security advisor to the White House from 1969 to 1975; sworn in as US secretary of state on September 22, 1973, just before the start of the war. Controlled the United States’ secret channels of communication.
Richard Milhous Nixon (1913–2004): President of the United States from 1969 to 1974, when he resigned rather than face impeachment over the Watergate scandal.
Peter Rodman (1943–2008): Member of the National Security Council and assistant to Henry Kissinger.
William P. Rogers (1913–2001): US secretary of state under President Nixon from 1969 until September 1973; author of the Rogers Plan.
Harold Saunders (1930–): Member of the National Security Council and assistant to Henry Kissinger.
James Schlesinger (1929–): Director of the CIA from February to July 1973, when he was appointed secretary of defense by President Nixon.
Brent Scowcroft (1925–): US Air Force general and deputy assistant for national security affairs to President Nixon; later served two terms as national security advisor.
Joseph Sisco (1919–2004): Assistant secretary of state for Middle Eastern affairs under Kissinger.
Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982): General secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982; made efforts toward détente with Richard Nixon.
Anatoli Dobrynin (1919–2010): Soviet ambassador to the United States from 1962 to 1986.
Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989): Foreign minister of the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1985.
Vladimir Vinogradov (1921–1997): Soviet ambassador to Egypt from 1970 to 1974.
Hafez al-Assad (1930–2000): President of Syria from 1971 to 2000.
Moammar Qaddafi (1942–2011): President of Libya from 1969 to 2011.
King Faisal bin-Abdulaziz al-Saud (1906–1975): King of Saudi Arabia from 1964 to his death in 1975; led modernization efforts and exerted great influence in the region, particularly with regard to inter-Arab relations.
King Hussein bin Talal (1935–1999): King of Jordan from 1952 to 1999.
Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007): Secretary-general of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981; later served as president of Austria.