THE SOVIET REGULARS MOVE INit—which lent it all the more credibility.^64 The item made the afternoon papers in
Israel, a few hours after the morning papers headlined that Nasser had summoned
Ambassador Vinogradov for the second time in as many days to demand “Soviet
action to stop Israeli air strikes.”^65 The question of why this demand was necessary if
Nasser had just received the desired commitment from Vinogradov’s Kremlin supe-
riors has been rendered moot by the new evidence that the actual operation began
long before, but at the time no one appears to have asked it.
On 31 January, the day Kosygin’s threatening messages went out to Western capi-
tals, US papers picked up the NBC story.^66 But Israeli intelligence was tipped off
about Nasser’s “secret visit” even before it was leaked to the press. A day before
Kosygin’s missive was received, Sisco and Israeli Ambassador Rabin “exchanged
assessments [about] reported Nasser[’s] Moscow trip”:
Sisco ... [stated] USG has no hard intelligence that visit in fact occurred or if it did, what
might have been discussed. ... Rabin said Israeli intelligence lacks clear cut piece of infor-
mation proving Nasser was in Moscow, but all intelligence indications show he did go.
Israeli intelligence ... comes from Arab sources in Cairo.^67H. Ashraf Marwan’s first deception?
Rabin’s reference to “Arab sources in Cairo” was elucidated in a book published in
2004 by two Israeli writers specializing in intelligence. It featured an unsourced claim
that this was one of the first reports submitted by a newly volunteered spy in Eg ypt,
codenamed “Bavel” (Babylon).^68 Several months before, he had offered his services to
the Israeli embassy in London for a hefty price, which the astonished Israelis gladly
paid when they ascertained that he was Nasser’s son-in-law, Ashraf Marwan.
When Marwan, by then a wealthy expatriate businessman, fell to his death from a
high-rise balcony in London in June 2007, the mysterious circumstances rekindled a
controversy that had roiled the Israeli intelligence community for decades. It focused
on his role as the trusted Mossad informant who, in the wee hours of 6 October
1973, warned that Eg ypt and Syria were about to launch a concerted offensive the
same day, Yom Kippur.
This story has been widely retold, in versions reflecting the writers’ position in the
bitter internecine Israeli feud. Marwan’s handler in 1973, then-Mossad chief Zvi
Zamir, led the camp who considered this warning the crowning achievement of their
greatest-ever recruited spy. Zamir blamed his counterpart at Military Intelligence, Eli
Ze’ira, for causing Marwan’s death (presumably at the hands of vengeful Eg yptians)
by revealing his identity. Ze’ira’s disclosure came after years of struggle to clear his
name; he had been cashiered as the main scapegoat for Israel’s disastrous unprepared-
ness in 1973. As Ze’ira and others claimed, Marwan was a sophisticated double agent
who transmitted his message just in time to maintain credibility with the Israelis, but