In the summer of 1973, the junior senator from Delaware Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. visited Egypt and met with local officials – not the first tier ones: the highest-ranking among them were the country’s Minister of Propaganda, alongside Hassanein Heikal, editor of the semi-official daily Al-Ahram. Following his Cairo visit, Biden, who had just been elected the previous year, met in Israel with then Prime Minister Golda Meir and passed on the Egyptian disinformation. Biden told the Israeli prime minister that of all the Egyptian VIPs he had met, not one denied Israel’s absolute military superiority, and they all reassured...