Government agencies do not often acknowledge their own errors, but the CIA has done just that with the declassification of intelligence memoranda on the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

The documents show that agency analysts, down to the last minute before the outbreak of fighting, were assuring President Nixon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and other policymakers that Egypt and Syria were unlikely to attack Israel.

Those assessments, in the words of a CIA postmortem report from December 1973, "were — quite simply, obviously, and starkly — wrong." Nearly 40 years later, the CIA analysts responsible for those judgments say they are still troubled by their mistakes.

The declassified CIA documents, released during a conference last week at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., show that agency analysts had abundant signs that Egypt and Syria were preparing to attack Israel, but disregarded the evidence, considering the war scenario too implausible.

Egypt, Syria Position Forces

By early October 1973, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had positioned forces along the banks of the Suez Canal, across from the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula.

In Syria, President Hafez Assad had sent several army divisions to the border of the occupied Golan Heights, overlooking northern Israel. A human intelligence source in Syria passed what he said was a detailed Syrian war plan to the CIA, indicating how the invasion of Israel would proceed.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wanted to know whether the CIA believed the Syrian source. The assignment to evaluate the Syrian's report fell to Richard Kovar, the agency's top Middle East analyst.

"The [CIA Operations Center] called me, and I came in," Kovar recounted in an interview recently with NPR. "I got together with the Office of Strategic Research analyst, and we worked out a very formal response, saying why we didn't think [a Syrian invasion of Israel] was possible. That was my call."

Kovar drafted the memorandum for Kissinger and other State Department officials, confidently and without hesitation.

"I have to tell you," Kovar said, "my hand didn't tremble."

In the memorandum, Kovar and his fellow analysts argued that a Syrian attempt to retake the Golan Heights "has no hope of success. The defeat and destruction of the forces earmarked for the operation would cripple the Syrian Army and would have profound consequences for the cautious and pragmatic President [Assad]."

Failing To Foresee War

That memo is one of several CIA documents on the Arab-Israeli War declassified by the agency and discussed at the conference at the Nixon Library. In addition to Kovar, other former CIA analysts candidly acknowledged their failure to foresee the outbreak of hostilities in October 1973.

"In retrospect, I don't know why we didn't give more warning," said Charles Allen, who participated in the writing of an Oct. 4 report by the United States Intelligence Board. "We continue to believe that an outbreak of major Arab-Israeli hostilities remains unlikely for the immediate future," the report stated.

A day later, Allen and his CIA colleagues were even more outspoken, in a bulletin focusing on the Egyptian military buildup along the Suez Canal.

"Our lead sentence," Allen pointed out in his remarks at the Nixon Library, "will live forever in my mind" — and he proceeded to read it aloud.

"The exercise and alert activities under way in Egypt may be on a somewhat larger scale and more realistic than previous exercises, but they do not appear to be preparations for a military offensive against Israel," Allen said.

The Egyptian move across the Suez Canal came just a few hours later. The CIA was not alone in its failure to anticipate the Arab attack. The Israelis had also been insisting that there would be no war, even when U.S. officials laid out reasons for concern. In his comments at the Nixon Library conference, Allen said Israeli "hubris" may have influenced U.S. thinking.

"Despite the worries we had in Washington, the vigor with which the Israeli intelligence services responded [to U.S. queries], I think, had a tremendous effect on agency assessments," Allen said.

Miscalculations By Israel

The Israelis and the CIA were both wrong.

Early on Oct. 6, 1973, Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal and drove deep into territory held by Israel. The Syrian army charged into the Golan Heights. In Washington, neither Nixon nor Kissinger had seen any reason to question the CIA and Israeli judgments.

"We couldn't imagine that something like this would happen," said William Quandt, who served as a Middle East specialist on President Nixon's national security staff and recalled the 1973 events during the Nixon Library conference.

"We had developed a way of looking at this region that was largely forged in ... the 1967 war, which the Israelis had won hands down," Quandt noted.

That war "left an impression that they were amazingly competent and that the Arabs were feckless and totally incompetent," Quandt said. "It had left the impression that the Arabs can't do anything militarily to reverse this, and that the key to stability in the Middle East — and this was certainly Kissinger's view — is to keep Israel strong, and deterrence will work."

In fact, the Egyptian and Syrian armies had some impressive victories before the Israelis drove them back. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. In the war's aftermath, Arab states imposed an oil boycott on the West.

Predicting The Middle East

Anticipating developments in the Middle East — and understanding their implications — has long been a challenge for U.S. analysts. It still is, as evidenced by confusion about the meaning of the Arab Spring uprisings and uncertainty over what to do regarding the conflict in Syria. Moreover, the cost of getting the region wrong is high.

Martha Kessler learned that lesson as a young CIA officer in 1973, observing the events that October.

"It was a haunting experience," Kessler told the Nixon Library conference. "I was still in my mid-20s, and I watched this thing unfold. The consequences of what had happened really had a huge impact on me, and I spent a good deal of time with my parents discussing whether I really wanted to stay in a profession where a mistake had such huge consequences."

Probably no CIA analyst, however, was more pained by the 1973 intelligence failure than Richard Kovar, the agency's top Middle East expert. Now 81, he still gets choked up remembering that he made the wrong call.

"It was the lowest point, certainly in my whole career, and maybe in my whole life," Kovar told NPR. "I had never even heard a shot fired in anger, and here were these young soldiers dying, because of what I had ..."

Kovar did not finish the sentence, knowing that his errant intelligence judgment did not really lead to the soldiers' deaths, but the burden he still carries is clear.

"Just the night before, I had said there wasn't anything to worry about, and these soldiers were dying," he said.

Intelligence officers may be dispassionate, but that doesn't mean they don't feel responsible for what they say. The CIA quickly swung into action once the Arab-Israeli fighting began. But an agency historian, commenting on this declassification, noted that the 1973 war turned out to be "one of a series of events that cost the agency great regard in Washington [during] a tumultuous period."

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Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Forty years ago, in October 1973, the United States was caught off-guard when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. The Arab-Israeli War was an embarrassment for the CIA. Until the last minute, it was telling policymakers that war was unlikely. The agency recently declassified documents that highlight its failures at the time.

NPR's Tom Gjelten spoke with the analyst at the center of those failures and has this report.

TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: In hindsight, the evidence of imminent war that October looks overwhelming. Egypt was massing forces along the Suez Canal, across from the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula. A source in Syria passed word that Syrian tanks were set to move on the Golan Heights.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wanted to know whether the CIA believed the Syrian source. Richard Kovar, then the agency's top Middle East analyst, was not convinced.

RICHARD KOVAR: The Ops Center called me. I came in. And we worked out a very formal response. President Assad, the president of Syria, just wasn't going to commit national suicide.

GJELTEN: Invading Israel would be suicide for Syria, Kovar argued, because the Israeli response would be devastating. He drafted a memo for Kissinger: Not to worry.

KOVAR: And I have to tell you, my hand didn't tremble.

GJELTEN: That memo is one of several documents released last week at the Nixon Library in California. Charlie Allen, another top CIA analyst at the time, recalled writing a bulletin the night of October 5th, just hours before Egyptian troops attacked.

CHARLIE ALLEN: Our lead sentence for the current intelligence bulletin, which will live forever in my mind, stated as follows: The exercise and the activities underway in Egypt may be on a somewhat larger scale and more realistic than previous exercises; but they do not appear to be preparations for a military offensive against Israel.

(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS)

GJELTEN: The CIA was wrong. So were the Israelis, who had insisted the Arab armies would not dare attack. Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal and drove deep into Israeli-held territory. In the north, Syria attacked the Golan Heights.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Syrian planes spent at three hours this morning bombarding the Israeli troop concentrations and military bases in the Golan Heights...

GJELTEN: The former CIA analysts attribute their intelligence failure to a lack of imagination. They gave too much weight to Israeli assurances that there'd be no war. The United States had seen the quick Israeli victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, and assumed the Arabs wouldn't be foolish enough to attack Israel again. But they did and scored some impressive victories before the Israelis drove them back. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. In the war's aftermath, Arab states imposed an oil boycott on the West.

Anticipating developments in the Middle East and understanding their implications has long been hard for U.S. analysts. It still is, witness the Arab Spring and the conflict in Syria. And the cost of getting the region wrong is high, something Martha Kessler learned as a young CIA officer observing the 1973 events.

MARTHA KESSLER: It was a haunting experience. I was still in my mid-20's and I watched this thing unfold. And the consequences of what had happened really had a huge impact on me. And I spent a good deal of time with my parents discussing, whether I really wanted to stay in a profession where a mistake had such huge consequences.

GJELTEN: But no one was pained more by that 1973 intelligence failure than Richard Kovar, the Middle East analyst. Now 81, he still gets choked up remembering that he made the wrong call.

KOVAR: It was the lowest point, certainly, in my whole career and maybe my whole life. Here were these young soldiers dying because of what I had - just the night before, I had said there wasn't anything to worry about. And these soldiers were dying.

GJELTEN: Intelligence officers may be dispassionate, but that doesn't mean they don't feel responsible for what they say. The CIA quickly got up to speed once the fighting began. But an agency historian says the 1973 war turned out to be, quote, "one of a series of events that cost the agency great regard in Washington during a tumultuous period.

Tom Gjelten, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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