FRAMING THE CROSS-CANAL GOALthis was to counteract Western accusations of anti-Semitism, the move was explicitly
aimed at enabling the KGB “to continue the use of this channel for operative pur-
poses”—that is, planting agents.^48
Little is known about the flip side of this issue, namely Israeli espionage, if any, in
the USSR. It too was undoubtedly hobbled by the closure of the Israeli embassy in
1967.^49 The repeated Israeli failures to predict Soviet actions do not bespeak an effec-
tive presence, but these failures were shared by US intelligence, which did have it. The
fact that no Israeli agents or informants were exposed during this period could have
stemmed either from their success or their absence. An extraordinary disclosure in an
official IDF history, from still-classified MI documents dated 6 October 1973, refers
to “a source in the Soviet Union” that transmitted “a report from Soviet sources.” This
appears to call for further inquiry—but the quoted content turned out to be false
(that Syria had banished its Soviet experts on the eve of the Yom Kippur War).^50