That routine of mobilization, so carefully established keys to the success of our deception. The other was that, throughout the exercise, our main combat units made no irrevocably aggressive move. They did not need to. For three or four years we had kept five infantry divisions stationed by the canal, each deployed in defensive formation over a sector 10-12 miles wide. They remained in those positions. We relied on the enemy to monitor this and to conclude that the divisions were not massing for an assault. Our secret was that each division was to storm the canal over a sector only three to four miles and those assault sectors were within each division's existing defensive sector. During our years of preparation, so many trenches had been dug that the defensive lines of each division could act not only as the concentration area before the attack, but could also hold the reinforcements and bridging equipment. So each division had to move only very little before the attack.

But the strategic exercise would not begin until October 1 (D minus 5). By then the count would have been ticking down for ten days. We needed 15 days not just because so much could be done only at the last minute deploying artillery along the canal, moving bridge sections, ferry components and crossing equipment to their final concentration points, for instance-but because we had planned to make all sensitive movements by night (those that, if detected, really would give the game away). Hence we needed 15 nights, with a peak of activity over the last five.

A good deal of our activity remained unavoidably public, however: the mobilizing of the reserves, for instance. Enemy reconnaissance would undoubtedly detect that our exercise was significantly bigger and more elaborate than in any previous year. At this point the rest of our deception plan came into play. Military moves by the canal would point in an aggressive direction. Our deception plan supplied a series of actions and incidents, military and political, at international as well as national level, that would reveal that the Arabs were not bent on war when pieced together by clever enemy analysts. The plan worked so well that after some thought end with some regret I have decided its workings are a valuable secret we should preserve, except for the glimpse I feel able to give here. But at a personal level, the plan was very simple. All of us in the senior echelons had to live two lives, preserve surface normality while working in secret on the last preparations. Two worlds.

The secret was so tightly held that I could afford no unusual behavior even inside the office. I was Chief of Staff preparing for the annual exercise on October 1, no more. I cancelled no social, administrative, even private gathering for fear someone would guess. I even managed to fool my wife. In fairness, thirty years married to an army officer had inured her to phone calls from my office saying I would be away with the troops for a few days. I made my secret trip to Morocco and Algiers without letting even her know I was leaving the country. She told me afterwards how astonished she had been to hear the news of our assault on the radio.

The elaborately-planned program of "normality" proceeded. On September 27 (D minus 9), we took the most sensitive of our public steps: mobilization. To disarm everyone, that same day General Isma`yil had invited all Cabinet ministers to spend the day at GHQ, to be briefed on its organization and work. We reckoned the enemy would never believe a military machine on the verge of war would devote ten precious hours to an "open day". The ministers, I recall, were particularly impressed by the office equipment, mostly Western computers and mechanical data-processing machines we had ordered in 1972 but only recently had installed. (Some of the machines were the heart of our new mobilization system.)

Between such public events, my days were a sequence of meetings with the commanders of each of the services, running through the details of their plans for the last time, checking against last-minute hitches.

October 1 (D minus 5) marked the beginning of the final phase. Our strategic exercise began. That morning our GHQ moved to the war operations room, Center Ten. (Even this was nothing unusual: we had moved to Center Ten for our annual exercise for some years past.) The only remaining formality was the last meeting of Armed Forces Supreme Council, convened at the Ministry of War under the President. It was comparatively brief. Each commander was asked formally to confirm his preparedness to carry out the mission assigned to him. Each in turn described his mission, the plan to carry it out, his state of readiness and finally gave his agreement that he was ready. This was the necessary prelude to the formal War Order the President would now sign for Isma`yil. There was no other business. After a few encouraging words, the President left.

At least, with the exercise under way, nobody would expect me to attend diplomatic cocktail parties. Back at Center Ten I concentrated over the days ahead on three topics. The progress of mobilization, and the stealthy movement of the crossing equipment and our reinforcements to the front, were two areas where it was particularly important that our minutely-detailed schedules be followed without error. My other main concern was to monitor the success of our deception plans through continuous checking of the enemy's responses. Inevitably, though, a host of minor concerns cropped up almost hourly: problems with the vast communications net we were setting up; checking the defenses of Center Ten itself; endlessly revising the text of the early communiques we would issue in the battle. (The communiqués would accuse the Israelis of having started hostilities a lie, but one the enemy had employed against us in 1967. )

That day, October 1, we began at last to spread the secret. Our two key field commanders, General Sa`d Ma'muwn of the Second Army and General `Abd al- Mun`im Wasil of the Third Army, were called to Center Ten and given the order: Prepare to carry out Plan Badr on October 6. For the next 48 hours only they were to know this. Their divisional commanders could be told on October 3 (D minus 3 ), their brigade commanders on October 4 (D minus 2), battalion and company commanders on October 5 (D minus 1) and their platoon commanders and men not until D-Day itself, six hours before H-Hour.

Fortunately for morale, few even in Center Ten ever knew how close we came to postponement, nevertheless. On October 3 (D minus 3) Isma`yil flew to Damascus for a few hours. When he returned, he told me privately that the Syrians had requested that D-Day be postponed for 48 hours.Isma`yil had refused-using my predictable reaction as his excuse. "You must think of the Egyptian front," he reported having said. "Think of General Shazliy's position if we agreed to a postponement. We cannot hope to keep the secret much longer. He would lose the surprise we have been working so hard for so long to achieve. Before any decision we would have to seek Shazliy's military opinion, and I simply do not think he
would agree." The Syrians had been persuaded, Isma`yil said, only with the greatest reluctance.

The enemy was not the only group we tried to mislead. There were also the Russians. That was difficult. Apart from instructors with the R-17E brigade, they still had several experts with other units. They would see our preparations. Nor would our cover story of an annual strategic exercise convince them for long. There were too many differences this year, differences we might hide from enemy electronic or satellite reconnaissance but scarcely from experts in our midst.

It was on September 29 or 30, a week before the assault, that the President instructed us to give the Soviets the vaguest possible outline of what was afoot. We decided to play it down. The Director of Defense Intelligence Service, General Fuw'ad Nasar, was instructed to approach the Chief Soviet Liaison Officer, General Samakhodsky on October 2 (D minus 4) and tell him we had information Israel was preparing a raid. We did not yet know where or when. Samakhodsky was to be asked if Moscow could provide further details. On October 3 and again on October 4 (D minus 3 and D minus 2) Nasar was to heighten his news, telling Samakhodsky we were now certain it was going to be a large-scale raid, possibly accompanied by a major air strike. Samakhodsky appeared to accept Nasar's story, but by October 3 and 4 he must in fact have been extremely suspicious. Too many things were going on. Their experts in the armed forces must have been reporting back. Their experts in Syria must have been reporting similar preparations. I suspect they got confirmation from satellite reconnaissance. It is possible they had a tip-off from Presidents Sadat or Asad. At any rate, it was quite clear to us by October 4 (D minus 2) that the Soviets were virtually certain war was imminent.

What we had not expected, what took us totally by surprise, was the Soviet response. Late on the evening of October 4, those Soviet experts and their families living in Cairo were rushed to the airport and flown to Moscow. By midday next day, Friday October 5 (D minus 1) the mini-evacuation was complete. Many of their experts were left behind, among them those training our R-1 7E brigade. And, as a hasty telephone call to Syrian GHQ confirmed, the Soviets were not evacuating their personnel from Damascus. I am still baffled. But when I was awakened with the news that Thursday evening, my immediate reaction was concern. So far, to our amazement, the enemy had not guessed the truth. If anything could now persuade him, this panicky action would.

By now, I could stand it no longer. That Friday morning, I left the subterranean world of Center Ten and its telexes and telephones and radar screens for a visit to the front. When I got to Third Army field HQ, I found General Wasil revising an inspiring address he was proposing somehow to deliver to the troops in the early minutes of the assault. He showed it to me and asked what I thought. I thought it was excellent, if a trifle long. "But I don't think anyone will actually listen to it," I said. "With the battle raging and men being killed around them nobody is going to be interested in a speech." His idea was worth adopting, though. "I suggest we distribute transistor loudspeakers the length of the front and during the assault they broadcast only one phrase"Allahu Akbar""God is the Greatest", the battle cry of Muslim warriors in the early days of Islam, these days the litany of anyone about to attempt something big or difficult. "When the men hear that, they will take up the cry and soon the whole front will be shouting "Allahu Akbar" in unison. The weaker will be swept along by the stronger and more aggressive."

Wasil was enthusiastic: his only problem was a shortage of loudspeakers. From Wasil's HQ I called the Director of the Armed Forces Public Relations Department: "I want you to provide transistor loudspeakers. Before ten tomorrow morning, 20 should have been delivered to the Third Army and 30 to the Second Army." (Ten for each assault front.) Blankly, he said he did not have that number. I told him to draw them from any unit not part of the Second or Third Armies and, if he was still short, buy some from the nearest market. I gave him two hours, then he was to call me at Second Army field HQ.

There seemed no more for me to do. I decided to have a last look at the Bar-Lev line. Sa`d Ma'muwn and I went to a forward observation post right on the canal. Stealthily raising my head, I peered across. There opposite me, no more than 300 yards away, rose one of the most powerful of all the forts:Isma`yiliyah East we called it; though we knew its Israeli name was FORT PURKAN. It dominated the central sector, blocking the spinal road east into central Sinai from Tasa to the enemy's main Sinai air base at Bir Gifgafa. Even on our western side of the canal, the fort dominated the Isma`yiliyah-Cairo road. It was a fulcrum of the enemy's defenses. Through the telescope I strained to see signs of activity, any evidence that the enemy was alerted. There was none. I relaxed. The next time I saw that fort, I was convinced, it would be rubble in our hands.