What he said, and where to find it
After the war the government appointed a state commission of inquiry, chaired by Supreme Court President Shimon Agranat, to examine why Israel had been taken by surprise. On 6 December 1973 Gazit, Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, testified before it. He testified at the commission’s eleventh session, in the afternoon, from 15:45 to 18:05.
He described the limits of his advisory role and the influence of reassuring assessments. He presented diplomatic reports assembled after the war and favored a national estimate and reconsidering responsibilities. The commissioners questioned his recollections and distinguished receiving information from assessing it. This is testimony, not the commission’s findings. Two files in the commission’s archive bear his name.
One, Exhibit 58, holds Foreign Ministry intelligence reports from September to November 1973 that he submitted to the commission.
The other preserves a letter he wrote: “When I appeared before the commission of inquiry on 6 December, I was asked to pass on material on the work of two bodies in the United States” — the National Security Council and the Board of National Estimates.
He attached the material, pointed the commission to a chapter on national estimates in Harry Howe Ransom’s book and to an article by Benjamin Welles in The New York Times, and recommended that it acquire the book, unless a more up-to-date study had appeared.
In his own words, from the testimony
“I must add: it is Director of the Prime Minister’s Office and political adviser to the Prime Minister.”
How he defined his post, held since 15 March 1973. Protocol, p. 1
“Yes, I was present.”
In reply to Yigael Yadin, who asked whether he was present at the discussion of 18 April 1973. Gazit counted three war “alarms”: December 1972, May 1973 (“that is April–May,” Agranat remarked), and late September–early October 1973. Protocol, p. 12
“Every Jew must ask himself where he erred.”
How he explained why, after the war, he gathered the diplomatic reports he had held: “it is not a memorandum, it is a collection of original reports.” From them, he said, everyone who had met Sadat came away with the impression “that Sadat had despaired of war.” The commission marked the file Exhibit 58. Protocol, p. 22
“I am always left out. This time too.”
Yadin remarked that his name was not recorded in the minutes of the meeting on the morning of 6 October 1973, where the scale of the reserve call-up was decided. Gazit explained that he had been “in and out”: in the middle he ran to arrange the Prime Minister’s meeting with the American ambassador, Kenneth Keating. Protocol, p. 32
“Whether anyone checks the accepted assumptions from time to time: that is another matter.”
Gazit separated two questions. The information, he said, reached the Prime Minister “at maximum speed” and “with fantastic efficiency”, to the point that “they did not let her sleep”. Whether anyone re-examines the basic assumptions is a different question. Protocol, p. 33
“I believe in a national estimate.”
A national estimate is a single, integrated intelligence assessment prepared by a central body. “In a Board of National Estimates or something of the kind I believe,” he added, of the American body that did this. Agranat asked: “Perhaps you will take upon yourself the burden of gathering material” on that body and on the National Security Council in the United States. “All right,” Gazit replied. The material he sent is kept in the commission’s file 127. Protocol, p. 39
“Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we were busy with other things.”
Laskov asked whether anyone in those days had warned that war was about to break out. “No, on the contrary,” Gazit replied: they were dealing with the Schönau affair, the transit camp for immigrants in Austria, and with the Prime Minister’s trip to Strasbourg. Yet, he said, there was “full awareness” that the Syrian array was on full alert, at least since 24–25 September. Protocol, p. 55
15 more quotations from the testimony
“Archaeology, as my major. Someone here is smiling.”
Asked what he had studied. The archaeologist Yigael Yadin sat on the commission. Protocol, p. 2
“The Prime Minister writes a message to the Secretary of State or to the President of the United States; someone has to prepare a draft, and in that process the political adviser certainly takes part.”
On his work beside Golda Meir: “first of all, we work very closely.” Reporting and briefing, preparing papers and drafting cables. Protocol, p. 4
“Not that I am not a frustrated man; I am certainly frustrated. But an ordinary adviser is even more frustrated.”
On the difference between a political adviser who sits in the Prime Minister’s office and an ordinary adviser. Protocol, p. 4
“As I said before, I tend to be a perfectionist; but if one is not to be a perfectionist, the answer is yes.”
Asked whether he sees all the intelligence material. On the same page he said he had worked in the Foreign Ministry’s research department from 1949 to 1951. Protocol, p. 6
“I take part, if I wish, in all of them”
Asked which of the Prime Minister’s security discussions he attends. The qualification that follows concerns intelligence discussions and is partly blacked out in the scan. In practice, he said, he attended most of them. Protocol, p. 11
“IDF Military Intelligence was completely sure of a very low probability that war would break out.”
On April 1973. The head of the Mossad, he said, was then “more pessimistic”. Protocol, p. 13
“Today I think of two possibilities: (a) it was a very great deception; (b) there is also a second possibility, that it was true until a certain date.”
Asked whether those reports had influenced him, he said he had examined himself too, and that they fitted the assessment that war would not break out. Protocol, p. 25
“No, there is no one else. But in saying there is no one else, I still want to say that I am not sure this shortcoming is the main shortcoming.”
Asked whether anyone beside the Prime Minister could assess the intelligence independently. On the idea of a special intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister he said his view was “positive”, but that much depended on the person (p. 38). Protocol, p. 34
“We must start thinking about a reorganisation of various things after the elections, including the Prime Minister’s Office”
What he told the Prime Minister some four months before the testimony, offering to think it through and submit proposals. Protocol, p. 38
“In my view this is very grave.”
Yadin said that on 1 October a “first-rate” item reached the Mossad and was not passed as raw material to the Prime Minister’s Office. Gazit answered “as a man who has received material all these years”: the grave failure is not the Mossad chief’s absence from a meeting, but material that was not passed on. Protocol, p. 44
“I held that it needed a serious reorganisation.”
On the Foreign Ministry’s research department, which, he said, he had first run in practice as early as 1949/50. Protocol, p. 45
“I hold that it is necessary for it to reach syntheses on other subjects; that is, there is room to redefine the tasks of the research department.”
In his view, it was not the task of the Foreign Ministry’s research department to reach assessments on subjects it was not competent to deal with. Protocol, p. 46–50
“Most consultations and decisions are reached by an informal method, by holding a special ad hoc meeting on the matter”
On how decisions were made. Elsewhere in the testimony: “as a rule the method is more ad hoc” (p. 35). Protocol, p. 54
“I coordinated quite a number of teams; I was a kind of coordinator of teams”
On late 1970 and early 1971, before Jarring renewed his mission: a compensation and refugees team under Sanbar, a borders team under Major General Yariv, a legal team, and a holy places team that did not operate. Protocol, p. 57
“I have agreed with the secretary that I will photocopy it and send it tomorrow morning, because there is no photocopier here.”
The last words of the testimony, in reply to Agranat’s request to receive “the booklet that was mentioned”. The session closed at 18:05. Protocol, p. 62–70
Read from the scanned protocol; the English is this site’s translation. The testimony at the IDF and Defense Establishment Archives ↗ · The full protocol, 44 pages (PDF) ↗ · The same file at the Yom Kippur War Center ↗
Read by topic and page
- Who he is, and what his post is — protocol 1–3, PDF 1 ↗
- The role of the political adviser — protocol 4–6, PDF 4 ↗
- Three war “alarms”, and the discussion of 18 April 1973 — protocol 12–14, PDF 9 ↗
- “Where he erred”: the file that became Exhibit 58 — protocol 22–25, PDF 14 ↗
- The morning of 6 October 1973: the call-up of reserves, and the meeting with Ambassador Keating — protocol 31–32, PDF 19 ↗
- Who checks “the accepted assumptions”, and an intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister — protocol 33–38, PDF 21 ↗
- A national estimate: “I believe in a national estimate” — protocol 39, PDF 27 ↗
- The Foreign Ministry’s research department and its role — protocol 45–50, PDF 33 ↗
- Forums, think teams and the ad hoc method — protocol 51–57, PDF 35 ↗
Each link opens the testimony at the relevant page. The 44 sheets are the whole session: the stenographers took turns, each with a block of ten page numbers, and the last sheet of a block carries the numbers left over (for example “46–50”).
The files he submitted to the commission
- File 171: Foreign Ministry reports he submitted, Exhibit 58 (September–November 1973) ↗
- File 127: his letter on the National Security Council and the Board of National Estimates (p. 3) ↗
Scans published by the Yom Kippur War Center from the IDF Archive, shipment 383/1975. All the commission’s files ↗