Deceit of an Ally, Part 2
B R U C E B R I L L
This is the second in a five-part series by former NSA agent Bruce Brill based on his recently released book, Deceit of An Ally: NSA’s Secret Jew Room & 1973 Yom Kippur Treachery.
For part 1, click here.
Former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) Mideast analyst Bruce Brill knew days in advance that Syria and Egypt planned to invade Israel on Yom Kippur (6 October) in 1973. Yet General Eli Zeira, Israel’s Director of Military Intelligence, many years later, confided in Brill that his American intel partners had assured him that the Arabs would not attack Israel. From the moment Brill heard this disturbing revelation, he began a mission to unravel the deception that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of over 2,600 Israelis. The vital intelligence Brill obtained was purposely corrupted in restricted, unmonitored rooms within the NSA. Brill discovered these rooms while working within the inner sancta of the agency.
Israeli troops on the Golan Heights fire artillery shells during the Yom Kippur War on October 11, 1973.
In my role at the NSA as a linguist and military analyst in the early 1970s, I was given information, two days before it happened, that — for a certainty – Syria and Egypt were going to invade Israel on October 6, 1973 – Yom Kippur. Therefore, I was astonished to learn that, when the Yom Kippur War broke out, the Israelis were caught with their pants completely down. The critical intelligence I had been informed about should have been passed on to our ally, Israel; but it was not. The questions I left the reader with in the previous section were these: How could it be that the Israelis, who needed to know about the upcoming attack, didn’t? How could it be that the United States of America didn’t pass on that which we knew — beyond a doubt — to our ally, in time (or at all)?
In this second part of the series, I’ll continue to take you along with me on my journey, full of twists and turns, with the hope of eventually arriving at some answers to these baffling questions. (Spoiler alert! One of the answers will be thoroughly unexpected: not only did the U.S. not properly pass on the intelligence it had to the Israelis, but behind this failure lurked something deliberate, nefarious, and – at least to me – shocking.) It should be noted that the consequences of this intelligence breakdown were severe: since the Israelis were caught off guard by the attack on Yom Kippur, 1973, they racked up losses very quickly. Total casualties during the three weeks of the war were over 2,600 – most of them occurring during the first week, and almost all of them unnecessary.
How could it be that the Israelis, who needed to know about the upcoming attack, didn’t? How could it be that the United States of America didn’t pass on that which we knew — beyond a doubt — to our ally?
During those first days of the war, I worked 16-hour days on special assignment. However, as the war progressed, I eventually returned to my regular job under my Jew-hating boss in the Arabic section. He seemed more excited – and excitable – during my first couple of days back. Then, suddenly and inexplicably, he announced that he was taking off on a hunting trip to Colorado.
What?!? Here we were, monitoring the quickly-changing situation in the Middle East, with barely enough time to catch a couple of winks of sleep at night, and Mr. Big Shot was taking off to go hunting in the Rockies? At the time, I filed this away in a memory folder as just another inexplicable thing, one of many inexplicables I would encounter at the NSA. Another one was an “E-val” – an enlisted man’s evaluation report – that I received from my boss soon after the war ended. It was the most horrible E-val I had ever gotten, and it became a source of great worry for me. These reports go directly into a soldier’s permanent record, and they can make or break his future: a negative report can impinge on the possibility of landing a good job as a civilian employee at the Agency after discharge, or even on receiving an honorable discharge.
I was at a loss over what to do about this matter. I would just have to grin and bear it. But I was not grinning. Fortunately, an Air Force officer in another department on our floor found out about the E-val and came to my rescue. I don’t know how Master Sergeant Robert ████████ learned of my predicament; I can only surmise that it was from the ever-smiling Dusty, an ebullient African-American supervisor who possessed the discernment to know that Mike G., my boss, was a bigot and a Jew-hater — and out to get me. Mike G.’s position outranked Dusty’s, so Dusty, ever resourceful, found a supervisor who outranked Mike. Sergeant ████████ confided in me that it was obvious to him (and to other fair-minded middle managers on the floor) that my boss was gunning for me, for no other reason than, simply, I was a Jew. Sergeant ████████ could write me an E-val of his own; and since his military rank surpassed Mike’s civilian rank, his E-val would supersede, revoke, and replace Mike’s.
The revised E-val, written by the kind Sergeant Robert █████, which replaced my horrible E-val written by Mike G., my Jew-hating boss.
After the evil E-val fiasco and its rectification, I knew I couldn’t continue working for Jew-hating Mike. I petitioned my superiors for transfer out of the Arabic section and into the Hebrew section, and within some weeks this was approved. I was thrilled! Not only would my new position be ideal for improving my knowledge of Hebrew, but it would provide me with a badly needed positive change in atmosphere. As icing on the cake, I would be working under a supervisor whom I loved. Besides being my roommate and a dear friend, the head of the Hebrew division was now my new boss! His piquant sense of humor and constant good spirits made my stay in the department an absolute pleasure. My job was to transcribe audiotapes and then translate those transcriptions. I had learned how to touch-type back in high school, so I was able to put out a good amount of work. Unlike my previous job, where I did little of anything during a typical day, here there was plenty to do, and my busy and enjoyable workday flew by.
As part of the job, I occasionally needed to send teletype messages abroad. The teletype machine was located in a room which required special security clearance to enter. Although I was given this clearance, I was not granted clearance to enter another large room through which one had to pass in order to get to the teletype room. Since I was collecting security clearances one after the next, I didn’t think it would be a big deal for me to get one for this intervening room. However, the necessary clearance never came. I wondered why, with all my additional security clearances, I wasn’t granted access to this room, especially since I needed to pass right through it to get to the teletype room. However, this was just another one of those inexplicable things I filed away in my memory. Though I was tempted to ask my supervisor about it, it was a question I kept to myself, for fear that asking him would create the perception that I wanted him to violate the “need to know” rule, an iron-clad policy at the agency. But still, it did seem a bit curious.
I wondered why, with all my additional security clearances, I wasn’t granted access to this room, especially since I needed to pass right through it to get to the teletype room. However, this was just another one of those inexplicable things I filed away in my memory.
The intervening room was defined as “restricted”, meaning that access to it required entering a numerical code into a keypad mounted on the door handle. The usual procedure for entry into such a room for a person (like me) who didn’t have the code was to first ring the doorbell. This doorbell was like any typical doorbell in the real world. But that’s where the real-world likeness ended. Next, the person requesting entry would have to take a step or two back to show his face and badge to the monitoring camera. Since I wore my ID around my neck, this was usually a simple matter: I stood there for a minute or two with my ID dangling from my chest, to allow whoever was viewing me to see it clearly and confirm my identity. Then I waited for several more minutes until someone opened the door to let me in. I had no idea why this particular room was restricted. I didn’t need to know. And with all my newfound work, I didn’t dwell on it too much, until…
One day, while I was waiting the usual several minutes after displaying my ID card, the door opened prematurely and one of the workers – who had opened the door not to let me in, but to let himself out – exited the room. Without thinking, I proceeded through the door before waiting to be explicitly let in. On all previous occasions, whenever I had passed through the room, I never noticed anything particularly different about it from my limited-access room in the Hebrew sector (or, for that matter, from any of the open areas throughout the Agency.) On this occasion, though, they didn’t have enough time to “prepare” for my arrival, and I saw what the deal was.
As I entered the seemingly mundane work area, I noticed that the entire back wall of the room was covered with a huge map, and that a ceiling-to-floor curtain was descending over it. It was like a scene straight out of a James Bond movie! What was this all about? Why the huge map? Why the curtain? Why the added secrecy of this particular room, which was off limits to me, even though I had many top-secret clearances? Before the curtain could completely conceal the map, I noticed that it was a map of the Middle East, with Israel at its center. I recall seeing Israel’s “West Bank” settlements individually labeled, each with a number next to it. This didn’t cause me to bat an eye, since G6 (the NSA’s Middle East division) dealt with Israel all the time. But it did cause me to wonder: what were the particulars of the map, which was quickly disappearing before my eyes, that obliged management to restrict me from seeing it? I could only imagine.
As I entered the seemingly mundane work area, I noticed that the entire back wall of the room was covered with a huge map, and that a ceiling-to-floor curtain was descending over it. It was like a scene straight out of a James Bond movie!
Among us Hebees, as the Hebrew linguists were called, there was a spirit of camaraderie. One of the Hebees, Kathy (like my boss, not Jewish), had recently announced her engagement to a Chinese-American businessman, and so one evening after work we helped the couple celebrate by hosting an informal reception at a nearby bar-restaurant. It was one of those rare opportunities for us Hebees to get together socially, outside of our work environment. At Kathy’s party, some of the Hebees were hitting the bottle a bit too hard, and tongues began to loosen up. Then, a few started doing something that was unheard of outside the Agency: talking shop. Talking shop outside of “the shop” was a big no-no, for obvious reasons. Yet that’s precisely where the conversation was heading. My boss, usually very careful about security in and (especially) outside of the office, was in no position to monitor everything that was being said in the conversation. Quite frankly, he wasn’t even monitoring himself. When the conversation shifted to “certain rooms” in the Agency, he turned to me, thrust his finger into my chest and said, “And you can’t enter because you’re a Jew.” Apparently his conscience was bothering him about the existence of such Jew-free rooms. I thought to myself, “Could that limited-access room with the big map of Israel be one of those Jew-free rooms that he’s talking about? OK, Bruce, file this question into the inexplicable folder.”
Eventually, spring, 1974 came and my discharge from the Army drew near. Towards the end of our military service, we NSA analysts had several options. One was to “re-up”, which meant signing on the dotted line for another tour of duty. A second was to say goodbye to the military (and the NSA) all together, and hit the pavement as a civilian, out there in the big world. A third, intermediate, possibility was “to convert”. No, conversion in this context didn’t mean dunking oneself in the Jordan River or reciting the Shahada. It meant switching over from military to civilian status and continuing to work for the Agency, sometimes even in the same position as one had while an enlisted man. For me, the only clear option was number 2, to leave the military all together, because by this time I had already made a promise to myself that I needed to go to Israel and see it for myself. Nonetheless, the whole “conversion process” was quite interesting; plus, it took place during work hours, which meant that I could get a break from my day-to-day routine. So I decided to go for it.
Conversion consisted of four steps:
Step 1: The “B.I.”, or “Background Investigation”. Why this was necessary is still unclear to me, since we were already Agency insiders and working with highly classified material.
Step 2: A psychological examination, largely intended to weed out homosexuals. Back in the day, the intelligence community was extremely sensitive about this issue, fearing that people with such proclivities might weaken the community and project the wrong image of its agencies.
Step 3: A polygraph test, in which a senior security officer carried out an extensive and detailed interview with the aid of a lie detector machine.
If the candidate made it past the first three steps, then Step 4 was jackpot time – the salary negotiations.
I passed the first two stages with no problem, and was invited back to take the polygraph test. Besides attempting to detect whether a candidate is telling the truth or lying about a particular issue, the polygraph test is also used to kick off further investigations into specific points of concern raised by his answers. These investigations are meant to probe whether any negative or compromising information about the candidate might exist which could jeopardize the security of the NSA and its agents. In fact, over 95% of all “negatives” on prospects came not from the background investigation or the psych exam, but from the polygraph results, and 90% of those negatives prompted further investigation. (The end result is that 30% or more of all candidates were rejected outright after the polygraph test.)
The National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, located in Fort Meade, Maryland, as it appeared in the 1980s.
Unfortunately, as described in part 1 of this series, I failed one very important aspect of the test: the lie detector showed that I was likely to pass classified intelligence to a foreign national. Furthermore, and more damningly, it showed that I was likely to lie about doing so. Naturally, I expected that this would be the end of my conversion process. After all, the top linguist in our group had been rejected for being caught in a tiny white lie. However, much to my surprise, I was invited to the fourth step, the salary negotiations. I couldn’t believe it!
Though my use of Arabic had been minimal over the past half-year since I transfered to the Hebrew department, I was offered a position in the Arabic department – at a very competitive salary, denoted by the moniker “GS-7”. However, by this time, my conviction to go to Israel and see it for myself had only strengthened. So, in order to gracefully bow out of accepting the offer, I rejected it and responded with a ridiculous counteroffer: I requested a pay grade of GS-11, the salary generally reserved for incoming PhD graduates with degrees in language studies. I knew full well that the Agency couldn’t abide by such a request. Thinking that this was the end of my brief stint as a salary negotiator, I started preparing myself to leave the Agency. But the Agency came back with a counteroffer of their own! Not a GS-11, as I had correctly predicted, but a GS-9, a full two grades above their original offer, and a pay grade commensurate with that given to holders of Master’s degrees. (I had only ever completed my undergraduate studies.) Still, despite their sweetening of the pot, I held on to my demand for a GS-11, knowing in my heart that I needed to go to Israel. They upped their offer two more times, ultimately to a “GS-9, Step 4”, but I stuck to my guns, honoring the promise I made to myself.
Still, the whole process left me baffled: why were they so eager to entice me, a certified security risk who clearly didn’t want the job, to come on board? I should have been rejected, out of hand, after failing the polygraph examination. Why was I not among the 30% who were rejected? This question deeply troubled me, but I filed it, too, in the memory folder of “the inexplicable”. This folder was starting to get quite thick by now.
The job offer, the attractive salary, the Jew-free rooms at the NSA that my boss told me about at the party, the restricted-access room with the giant map of Israel and the descending curtain, the hunting trip to Colorado, and, of course, the fact that Israel didn’t know about the surprise attack on Yom Kippur, even though the NSA did: these all became burning questions that needed to be answered.
They will be.
Stay tuned for part 3!
Bruce Brill is an independent journalist and former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) Middle East analyst. He is author of the book Deceit of An Ally: NSA’s Secret Jew Room & 1973 Yom Kippur Treachery
Bruce Brill may be contacted at bruce.brill@gmail.com.
