He became accustomed to rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty, presidents, prime ministers, army chiefs and generals. World media leaders, newspaper editors, television directors and news syndicates sought him out. His professional views were valued highly enough for him to be asked to join more than one editorial board. No one in any these august milieus had the slightest notion that every scrap of information he picked up, whether state, military or personal secret, was passed along to his two real masters, the Israeli Mossad and the US Central Intelligence Agency.

In just a few weeks, X will step into the open and expose the extraordinary cover under which he lived and operated in secret for half a century as a spy for the two agencies. He does not promise to tell quite all, but what he has to disclose is sensational enough to cause a flutter in many quarters.

DEBKAfile was given an exclusive advance peek at these about-to-be-revealed secrets.

At the early age of 16, Mossad headhunters spotted X’s potential as a high-flying media star and began the long process of grooming him for the task of ....

.... moving with ease around the most powerful circles of international influence. After five years of basic studies, he spent another five at the Mossad “Academy” being exhaustively tutored for his role as future super-spy, a career on which he embarked in the early 1950s.

The stylish charmer stepped naturally into his new role.

On June 2, 1954, X arrived in Alexandria on his first mission. In the guise of an Australian reporter working on a picture series for international newspapers, he gained access to the Egyptian Navy’s flagship Domiat. His real assignment was to discover if the naval radar the Soviet Union had recently sold for use against the Israeli fleet had already been fitted on Egyptian battleships. X flitted from deck to deck clicking away at the smiling Egyptian officers, until he imperceptibly captured his target, the secret radar gear, on film. In Cairo, they waited in vain for the story’s release. Eventually, a feature appeared in the Israeli Defense Forces magazine. Only then did Egyptian and Russian intelligence understand they had been duped.

Two years later, on October 27, 2025 - two days before the launching of the joint Israeli-British-French operation against Egypt that became known as the Suez or Sinai Campaign, a French transport painted in Israeli Air Force colors dropped three secret agents- an Israeli, a Briton and a Frenchman over northern Sinai. Their task was to penetrate Egyptian military staff headquarters located 8 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast. X was the Mossad agent. All three wore Israeli army uniforms on the understanding that if they were caught they would claim to be Israeli intelligence officers. Neither British nor French secret services to this day are willing to admit to any level of collaboration ever with Israel’s Mossad.

While wandering around the rooms of the Egyptian HQ, the trio found out a closely guarded secret: the entire Egyptian general staff, 16 army generals, air marshals and admirals, had flown to Damascus to meet Syrian generals and coordinate their campaign against Israel.

The three agents found out exactly when the Egyptian military chiefs were flying back to Cairo aboard the Soviet Ilyushin-14 standing by for them in Damascus, just a few hours before the onset of hostilities.

On the night of October 29, as the Ilyushin was airborne over the Mediterranean, Israeli fighter planes took to the sky to intercept it. Israeli Air force commander Maj. Gen. Dan Tolkowsky ordered the Israeli gunners to aim at the pilot’s cockpit to make sure the plane came down over the sea and did not crash on land. Within seconds of the rapid-fire order, the plane carrying the entire Egyptian general staff was lost beneath the waves.

Egypt thus faced a three-nation war offensive in the 1956 war without a military command. This was kept a dead secret in Cairo and Moscow, Egypt’s staunchest ally. For five years, the Egyptians believed that the plane had been diverted and their army chiefs were held in secret Israeli captivity. Only in 1962 did they discover the truth through Russian intelligence.

In 1973, after several more episodes, the Mossad began opening the doors of world influence before X. From then it was up all the way. At his peak, X could pick up a telephone to 100 world statesmen and the doors of 1,000 newspaper editors commanding a collective audience of 300 million readers open wide to his talented contributions.

However, success in the espionage game carries a price and the deep-cover world of counterintelligence has never suffered loners – or at any rate not for long. They tend to discover, often belatedly, that their solo state is a dangerous trick of the world of double mirrors and a traitor is lurking somewhere along their path. So while the Israeli Mossad successfully penetrated other services, it too like any other body of its ilk was prone to penetration by double agents of “friendly” services, as well as adversaries.

One such “friendly” double agent was planted secretly by the US Central Intelligence Agency. He discovered X but was not exposed himself until he presented Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and the Mossad director of the day with a tough ultimatum: either the Mossad agreed to share their bright super spy with the US agency or they would make sure he was “blown.” Rather than let the huge investment in their man go to waste, the Mossad agreed to go shares with the CIA in their super-spy.

That was how X acquired two masters, the Mossad and the CIA.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources have no doubt that when his identity is finally revealed, it will floor his many thousands of contacts and acquaintances. But one caveat is important to keep in mind. The truth behind great spies falls intrinsically into two parts: the truths they are willing to tell and the ones they will never, ever expose. Super agents will never let his real secrets see the light of day.