there, he was arrested by the British police. In his interrogation he
named all the Israeli case officers working under diplomatic cover
from the Israeli embassy in London.
The British court sentenced Sowan to 11 years in jail. The British
government decided to expel as personae non gratae the Israeli at-
tachés Ya’acov Regev and Ya’acov Barad. Israeli intelligence lost one
of its best agents, who had succeeded in penetrating the inner circles
of the PLO’s Force 17. Until then Sowan had been deemed a great as-
set who worked for the Mossad, the ISA, and Military Intelligence.SPECIAL COLLECTION MEANS. “Special collection means”
(emtshaei isuf meyuhadim) was the name given in Military Intelli-
gence(MI) to a highly sensitive source of signals intelligence (SIG-
INT) prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. This source could be acti-
vated only by the orders of the director of MI. The expectation was
that this means of collection would produce reliable early warning if
Egypt intended to launch a war for any unknown reason; it was re-
garded as an Israeli insurance policy. However, the use of the special
means of collection would have risked exposing it. The special col-
lection means had been used in the past only in circumstances of ex-
treme tension, for example, during the Blue-White Alert in April
1973 following an early warning of a war against Israel by Egypt.
When the tension between Israel and Egypt ended in the summer of
1973, the activation of the special collection means ceased.
On the eve of the Yom Kippur War, Director of MI Eliyahu (Eli)
Zeiradid not activate the special collection means. On the morning
of 5 October 1973 Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan asked Zeira if
the special means had collected any significant information indicat-
ing war. Zeira replied in the negative, when he should have said that
the special collection means had not been activated. Zeira ordered its
activation later on 5 October 1973, but by then the contribution it pro-
vided was minimal. The minister of defense and the IDF chief of staff
were under the impression that all means of collection had been op-
erational and had produced nothing, and they therefore believed that
war was not imminent.SPIES’ REVOLT.The Mossadbegan life in 1949 under the wing of the
Israeli Foreign Ministry. On 8 February 1951 Prime Minister David
Ben-Gurion, after consulting with his foreign minister, Moshe272 • SPECIAL COLLECTION MEANS06-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:26 AM Page 272