25
DECEPTION-ON-NILE, JULY 1972
A. Marwan feeds disinformation to Britons, too
As incredibly early as the morning of 22 July—even before the Pobeda sailed—an
Eg yptian source told Urwick “in strict personal confidence” that “all the Soviet mili-
tary advisers had now left Eg ypt.”^1 The MI6 operative hastened to report this at face
value, without questioning how such a logistical feat could have been completed
within four days. Urwick’s proviso that his source “should be fully protected” now
seems risible, since he named the informant as none other than Ashraf Marwan,
“Sadat’s secretary for information.”^2 In London, doubts soon arose about the veracity
of this claim; in cabinet on the 27th, Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home stated:
“it appears that Soviet personnel manning SAM-3 missile sites and instructors
engaged in MiG training were still there.”^3
Both the credulous MI6 agent and his superiors tended more to believe Marwan’s
sweetener: that Eg ypt would now switch its military procurement from Soviet back
to British weapons. A few days later, the foreign secretary told the cabinet “we were
considering how far we might be able to take this opportunity to establish a position
of greater influence in Eg ypt without inheriting the responsibility of the Soviet
Government as her principal supplier of arms.”^4
Like Marwan’s reports to the Mossad, this mostly false promise was supported by
some nucleus of truth. Eg ypt did put out feelers for the Rapier SAM system, which
had just entered service with British forces.^5 But the purchase never materialized, and
besides disinformation the talks may have served to gain data on the brand-new
British missile that was shared with the Soviets.^6 By December, NATO sources
reported that as London had refused to sell long-range missiles and bombers, “the
Eg yptians were about to renew negotiations for more Soviet arms,” and “the Soviets
were not taking the Eg yptian–British talks seriously.”^7 A month earlier, the New York
Times had already quoted military and diplomatic sources that “the Eg yptians were
unsuccessful in negotiations with Britain to purchase the Rapier” and had received
advanced Soviet SAMs instead.^8 Some minor purchases of British electronic equip-
ment were made, but nothing that approached a radical shift.^9