eliminated, but he does not share this information with Hussein. Still, it
is clear from the conversation that Hussein knows that things are going
badly. Nasser tries to convince the king that the air attack on 5 June was
carried out jointly by the Israeli, U.S., and British air forces—which
Nasser himself might indeed have believed. Israeli signals intelligence
(SIGINT) monitors Nasser’s orders to his forces to fall back to the Suez
Canal following the breakthrough of Israeli forces in the north and the
south of Sinai early that morning. Disclosure of this order enables the
IDF to start an offensive against Syria on the Golan Heights three days
later. 12 October: The Israeli Navy destroyer Eilaton a routine coastal
patrol from Ashdod port past El Arish toward the northern entrance to
the Suez Canal at Port Said is ambushed by an Egyptian missile boat
and sunk. This was the result of miscommunication of early warning in-
telligence information.1968 Through the Swiss-Jewish engineer, Alfred Frauenkecht, Lishka
Le’Kishrei Mada/Bureau of Scientific Liaison (LAKAM) obtains the
blueprints of the Mirage III jet fighter. David Bar-Tov replaces Yehuda
Lapidot as director of Nativ. Zvi Zamir is appointed director of the
Mossad, holding this position until 1974. February: The remaining
members of the Jewish espionage network in Egypt are released under
a prisoner-of-war exchange agreement between the Israeli and Egyptian
governments. November:The Plumbat Operation, a combined action
by the Bureau of Scientific Liaison and the Mossad in support of the Is-
raeli nuclear weapons effort, is carried out. A German freighter with a
cargo of some 200 tons of uranium oxide (“yellowcake”) disappears.
When the freighter reappears at a Turkish port, the cargo has gone; it
was transferred at sea to an Israeli ship.1969 Marwan Ashraf, scion of a respected Egyptian family and mar-
ried to the third daughter of Egyptian president Nasser, volunteers to
provide the Mossad with sensitive and top classified information from
the Egyptian government. Ashraf’s information on Egypt’s inability to
wage war against Israel because its army lacks the weapons necessary
for this purpose gradually crystallizes in Israeli intelligence circles into
what becomes known as “the Concept.” 24 December:In the Noah’s
Ark Operation, Israel “steals” five missile boats it had ordered—and
paid for—from the French shipyard at Cherbourg.CHRONOLOGY• xxix06-102 (01) FM.qxd 3/24/06 7:22 AM Page xxix