Book Review: Deceit of an Ally, by Bruce Brill

Bruce Brill invested considerable time in writing this must-read book, Deceit of an Ally: A Memoir of Military Anti-Semitism, NSA’s Secret Jew Room and Yom Kippur War Treachery, but it was certainly worth the wait! I'm acquainted with Brill and must admit that I've been waiting decades for the full story. Deceit of an Ally is a combination memoir and exposé. It's the true background story of the 1973 Yom Kippur War in terms of the American involvement, and there definitely was American involvement. It's the story that powerful people have wanted to keep secret, but we need to know the truth. 

Deceit of an Ally proves yet again that even paranoids have enemies.

I've been in Israel since 1970, and during the 1973 Yom Kippur War I suspected something very fishy in American policy. After reading Brill's book, it's confirmed that I'm a realist, not paranoid.

 In 1973 Bruce Brill was working for the US National Security Agency (NSA), and he was told by his supervisor that  Israel was going to be attacked. Brill did not contact the Israeli Embassy. He figured that he wouldn't be taken seriously, and it wasn't his job. I also think at the moment he wondered if the guy was really serious. Had he warned the Israelis, he would have been sitting in jail just like Jonathan Pollard about a decade later. Afterwards Brill no longer felt comfortable working there, and within a few years, made aliyah, (moved to Israel.)

The more than two thousand six hundred 2,600 tragic, unnecessary Israeli deaths due to Israel's being totally surprised and unprepared Yom Kippur 1973 has haunted Brill ever since. 

Deceit of an Ally is the result of years of research, interviews, painstaking and frustrating search for the truth. How could Israel not have seen the signs that Egypt and Syria were planning to attack? There had even been a contingency plan to meet an Egyptian attack that would have saved many soldiers' lives and given Israel a better and quicker chance to defeat the Egyptians. Who were the high level Americans who had told the Head of Israeli Military Intelligence General Eli Zeira that Israel had nothing to worry about? Trusting Zeira's assessment, the plan wasn't implemented by the IDF.

This true story, Deceit of an Ally,  is more suspenseful than the best mystery or detective story, but unlike a fictional book, we're still left with questions. It's real life and can't be neatly wrapped up. 

I highly recommend Deceit of an Ally and wonder if Brill will get more information in order to write a sequel, maybe with the answers to our questions. Read Brill's story; I consider it required reading if you're not afraid of the truth. 

You can also get the book in kindle from Amazon.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Aleichem Books (October 26, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 346 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 965930420X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9659304202