Yom Kippur War: The surprise belongs to NSA’s Jew Room.

T. Belman. Does the Jew Room still exist? I remember that when the US desparately needed Arabic interpreters, she refused to hire Jewish interpreters.

By Bruce Brill (A former NSA Mideast Intelligence Analyst.) oCT 29, 2017

We in the Arabic Section of the US National Security Agency (NSA), where I worked at the time, knew days in advance and with certainty that Syria and Egypt were about to launch a coordinated attack against Israel on October 6th 1973.

Yet, on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur Surprise, Israel’s Prime Minister, Chief of Staff, and Defense Minister were all given absolute assurances that the Arabs had no intention of attacking Israel on or before Yom Kippur, October 6th. The assurances were given by Israel’s Head of Military Intelligence, General Eli Zeira. In spite of his very own Army Intelligence indications, General Zeira was thoroughly convinced the Arabs had no intention of attacking because of unnamed friends’ assurances.

Who were these “friends” that Zeira relied on with absolute trust and confidence? This troubling question could be answered by one man and only one man, General Eli Zeira.

I met with the General at his home on July 4th. A man of almost 90 years of age, he listened intently to my story. He then drew a sketch on a sheet of paper and labeled a box at the top. This box represented the US generals with whom Zeira was in direct contact. They were fed intelligence synopses from NSA.

Finally I asked the question that had been troubling me for 44 years. Were “the friends” he so completely relied upon those American generals?

Zeira kept his lips sealed tight. He closed his eyes. He slowly and deliberately nodded his head in the affirmative. But Zeira assured me these US generals were completely trustworthy.

How was it that we at NSA’s Arabic Section knew, but even those trustworthy US generals didn’t know? It was clear to General Zeira that the correct intelligence that we had in the Arabic Section was already manipulated before it ever reached these US generals. One would assume that President Nixon himself was also given the adulterated intelligence. How was it that NSA had even reported to the 1974 US Congressional Commission of Inquiry that NSA did not know? Yet we in the Arabic Section knew, and knew it for a certainty.

I could see that Zeira was troubled by this inexplicable.

I shared with the General that while I was at The Agency I discovered that there were rooms there that I couldn’t enter in spite of my well-above Top Secret clearances. I learned that they were off limits to me because I am a Jew. Since these Jew-free areas’ existence was secret, especially to Jews, it was pure happenstance that I discovered them. In The Secret War Against the Jews authors Loftus and Aarons talk about the “Jew Room” at NSA. They say it’s a total misnomer since it is not just one singular room and anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities occur within them. I suggested to Zeira that the manipulation happened in this Jew Room.

Zeira seemed troubled by this revelation and was curious to learn more. He understood that his American counterparts, themselves thinking the misinformation they passed him was correct and certain, naively passed him their assurances. They, themselves, were duped and not to be faulted.

By the same measure, Ziera cannot be totally faulted.

In spite of the Israeli Government Agranot Commission of Inquiry’s conclusions and public perception putting the blame on Zeira’s shoulders, the blame belongs to NSA’s Jew Room.

Bruce Brill was an NSA Mideast Intelligence Analyst.

May 27, 2023 | 8 Comments »

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  2. @Peloni I just finished watching the whole interview and there was one thing at the very end that didn’t make sense to me and it has nothing to do with his own experience which is unimpeachable but something he heard somewhere that didn’t sit right, and I’ll tell you why.

    I have mentioned here, before, that my mother’s first cousin, who I met and corresponded with for awhile,(He just died age 100. He lived in Karnei Shomron, though he may have also had another home somewhere else. Gil Lieberman was his name.) I should say one of her first cousins, who she grew up in Crown Heights with in the ’20s and ’30s of the last century (I grew up reading fin de s’iecle novels and always wanted to be able to say that 😀 ) was an electrical engineer who made aliya in 1967 and worked on the early generations of Israel’s robot planes that played a key role in saving lives in ’73 because they flew those unmanned planes in and got the Egyptian batteries to use up all their ammunition before they sent in the actual fighters.

    Now, he says here that Zeira was wise to rely on American intelligence which had detailed satellite footage because one Israeli intelligence operative took American toy planes and attached cameras and that’s all they had.

    So, I was confused. I googled: Israel 1973 drones. and this came up. This article confirms my cousin’s account but says they got the planes from the Americans.

    NOVA/PBS
    Close this window

    1970s

    Firebee 1241 (Israel)

    Firebee 1241 (Israel)
    Impressed by America’s AQM-34 Ryan Firebee UAV, Israel secretly purchased 12 Firebees from the U.S. in 1970, modified them, and designated them Firebee 1241 UAVs. These Firebee 1241s played an important role in the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel, Egypt, and Syria, both as reconnaissance vehicles and as new kinds of UAVs: decoys. On the second day of the war the Israeli Air Force deployed their fleet of armed Firebees to lead attacks against Egyptian air defenses along the Suez. The Egyptians fired their entire inventory of surface-to-air missiles at the Firebees—43 missiles in all. The Firebees successfully evaded 32 of the missiles and destroyed 11 with their Shrike anti-radar missiles.

    Back
    11 of 21

    Next

    Spies That Fly homepage | NOVA homepage

    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spiesfly/uavs_11.html

    The other thing was that in the recent movie, “Golda,” It says she was informed that Zeira had turned off the secret cameras they had at the border and when she exclaimed, “why on earth did he do that?” was told, “nobody wants to be wrong.” She then gives instructions that no one is to know and that she will take the fall. I wonder where that information came from and who is right?

    I was about to joke that the movie made me nostalgic. I used to be a chain smoker, too! 😀 (I gave it up in 2007.) And then I was going to write, that’s why it must be rated R. And then I thought, well, what is its rating? And it’s rated PG-13, no under under the age of 13 can see it unaccompanied by an adult. And then to my surprise, when I looked that up I found:

    Why is Golda PG 13?
    Rated PG-13 for pervasive smoking.

  4. The book is out and a recent interview here which somebody posted in the FB group “Friends of the Israel Project” which seems to have the most members of any pro-Israel group on FB so I post there.

    Deceit of an Ally – A US Intelligence Soldier’s Story about the Yom Kippur War

    Avi Abelow. Links to purchase the book in the notes and the instant Kindle ebook is only $3.99. I hope everyone realizes that you can read it on any device. You don’t need to buy a Kindle. It immediately gives you the option to to to read it on your computer screen in the Kindle Cloud. You just click the button and it takes you there. LIke Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz clicking her heels but not three times, just once.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-ckYuOAayw

  6. @Ted
    This is facinating! Curiously, I searched Bruce Brill to see if he had written anything more on the subject, and it seems he actually wrote a book which was published only last October, yet, not a single copy is currently available, anywhere – not new or used – at least to my ability to located it. The references for the book are impressive and only add to the already well borne interest which this subject raises even from having read just the above article. The following is from the Amazon.com page for the Brill’s currently unavailable book:

    Deceit of an Ally: A Memoir of Military Anti-Semitism, NSA’s Secret Jew Room and Yom Kippur War Treachery Paperback – October 26, 2022
    by Bruce Brill (Author)
    5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
    See all formats and editions

    Paperback
    —

    Bruce Brill and four other American servicemen, who worked for the US National Security Agency (NSA) in 1973, discovered that US intelligence not only knew Egypt and Syria were going to attack Israel, but knew this for a certainty, knew it days in advance, and knew when the attack would commence. This is in total contradiction to the US intelligence agencies’ claims that they were all fooled. Of the 1300 books written on the Yom Kippur War, not one reveals how Israel fell prey to the deception that cost the nation over 2600 precious lives.
    Brill and his colleagues realized that Israel was not informed, but they did not know that Israel was given false intelligence that the Arabs would NOT attack. In 2017 Israeli General Eli Zeira (the head of Israeli military intelligence in 1973) confided to Bruce Brill that Zeira had disclosed the American Intel and convinced Israel’s leaders, Prime Minister Golda Meir, General Moshe Dayan, and General David Elazar, that the Arabs would NOT attack (in spite of ample Israeli intelligence showing an attack was imminent). When Brill shared this revelation with a military correspondent, the journalist asked Brill if he had recorded Zeira’s admission or if Brill had a witness to support this claim. “No?…No one will believe you!”

    But on June 6, 2021, a just-declassified protocol of Moshe Dayan said exactly what Brill claimed Zeira confided in him: “12 hours before the attack Dayan received an American assessment saying that the Arabs are not going to attack,” completely confirming Brill’s hard-to-believe claim. That report is confirmed by a 2014 disclosure that NSA had indeed given the wrong assessment of the situation.
    Brill has written a Pentagon-approved book with full disclosures that fit into his memoir of facts surrounding his military service and the related issues.

    “A captivating [book]. Not only a fascinating autobiography and sensational glimpse into the concealed dark side of the NSA, it captures the author’s discovery of his own calling to his life’s mission. Rabbi Mosh Averick, of blessed memory, taught that each individual is put on this earth for a unique purpose, that only he or she is qualified — and indeed obligated — to fulfill. Mr. Brill presents the truth of anti-Semitism that lurks in the highest places, a specific truth that only he coudl reveal through his extraordinary experiences, Historical and timely.” — Sara Averick Stenge, former Research Director AIPAC and Rabbi Moshe Averick’s daughter.

    “This is a most interesting story and one that needs to be told not only for historical purposes but also for the future, as [Brill] articulates[s] so well.” —Brigadier General Cameron Crawford, US Army (retired)

    “Bruce Brill is Henry Kissinger’s worst nightmare: an honest man inside the NSA. He tells the secret story of how Israel was lulled into unpreparedness for the Arab sneak attack that almost destroyed the Jewish state in 1973.” — John Loftus, Author of The Secret War Against the Jews

    “The 1973 Arab-Israeli war marks one of the most disturbing chapters in Jewish history. Bruce Brill lived through this as an analyst in Washington and later spent decades researching key questions. His answers are illuminating and his questions are vital.” —Steve Rodan, award-winning journalist and Co-=author of In Jewish Blood, The Zionist Alliance with Germany, 1933-1963

    From the Reviews:

    Yitzi
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable read. I was there, He has done an amazing job of documentation and research.
    Reviewed in the United States ?? on December 16, 2022
    By a wildly improbable chance I met Bruce nearly 50 years after the events of this book occurred. I was stunned to meet him, as Bruce is fond of saying it was, “A finger of God Event” that we should meet. Bruce was in the final stages of completing his book and already had clearance for publication after redaction by the Pentagon.

    When we first met, we had a few drinks in private and traded some experiences. Bruce wanted to add part of my story to this book. I was hesitant to say the least, due to our obligations, oaths, and the legal constraints of our Top Secret Clearances. Eventually, Bruce convinced me to submit a few of the events from my experiences to the Pentagon for review and redaction. Much to my surprise, we received permission to publish a brief and redacted version of my experience in this book.

    At the time of the Yom Kippur war, Bruce and I were half a world away from each other, he at NSA headquarters, and me in Europe. I had just returned a few months prior from a year long undercover assignment during the Vietnam war. I was working for NSA in tactical forward operations units, I seldom visited a field station or office. A few days prior to the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war I was re-tasked to work this war.

    Bruce’s book is very well written, an enjoyable read which is extremely well researched and documented! I had never believed I could speak or write anything about these events due to their classification level. These facts have been hidden and suppressed for 5 decades. Thousands of Jews died perhaps many of their lives could have been saved. Careers and reputations in Israel were destroyed, and world has been misled…. Until Now.

    And another review:

    Debbie G
    5.0 out of 5 stars Important, still playing out today
    Reviewed in the United States ?? on November 14, 2022
    This book reveals how political gamesmanship coupled with a perverse and all-too-casual prejudice against Jews and the State of Israel combined to bring about the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Israeli soldiers during the Yom Kippur War. Bruce’s account is not only a great read, but is a true account of how the US Government—not for the first or only time—compromised morality on the altar of realpolitik. I can testify to the truth of what Bruce Brill reveals. I was in the same section as Bruce at NSA, but “translated” the war from the standpoint of an Arab linguist listening in on the armies of the Egyptians, Syrians and Iraqis before and during the war. I independently discovered before the launch of the war that the Egyptian Army was preparing a surprise attack across the Suez. This information was relayed to the National Security Counsel before the launch of the attack, and yet the Israelis were taken totally by surprise. Brice’s book is a must read if you want to truly put the Yom Kippur War in context and understand political currents that continue to affect decision making at the highest levels
    5 people found this helpful

    Hopefully they will release another edition of the book.

    1

  8. The author of this article contacted me just after my 2017 conference on the Jordan Option. He also sent me another article he wrote which I also posted.
    He recently called me to suggest we get together and I told him name the date and time. He lives in Israel and is a noted musician.