Unit 8200

Unit 8200 is an Israeli Signals Intelligence (Sigint) unit, specializing in code-breaking. It is housed in a base located near a country club north of Tel Aviv, with a nearby building known as "the villa" belonging to Mossad, where top-secret security meetings were held. The unit operates on a need-to-know basis, with departments requiring special permission to access each other's areas.¹

Key personnel mentioned in connection with Unit 8200 include Col. Yoel Ben-Porat (unit commander, known as Buffy), Lt. Col. Sasson Yishaek (number-two in code-breaking, later commander), Col. Reuben Yirador (department commander), and Shulamit Ingerman (head of the Iranian desk and a cryptographer).¹

Ari Ben-Menashe was stationed in Unit 8200's code-breaking department, specifically on the Iranian desk, from 1975 to 1977. He claims to have broken the Iranian diplomatic code, which allowed Israel to read coded messages faster than the Iranians. This breakthrough eliminated the need to "acquire" the weekly black book sent by diplomatic pouch to the Iranian embassy in Ramat Gan.¹

Unit 8200 was involved in monitoring Iranian communications through satellite stations in Bet Ella and listening stations in northern Israel, the Sinai, and overseas (e.g., Japan, Italy, Ethiopia). These stations intercepted traffic from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Royal Court, SAVAK, and Iranian military intelligence.¹

In 1972, Col. Reuben Yirador decoded a Soviet intercept (VENONA) that revealed the Soviets were bugging the office of Golda Meir, then Prime Minister of Israel. This discovery, along with Meir's meeting with Leonid Brezhnev and her rejection of a peace settlement, informed Anwar Sadat and may have prompted the 1973 war.¹

In 1976, Ari Ben-Menashe, while on duty in Unit 8200, intercepted a telegram detailing Lockheed bribes paid to Defense Minister Shimon Peres. This information was subsequently covered up by superiors, including Buffy and Lt. Col. Yishaek.¹