The Tyranny of Vested-Interest Sources: Shaping the Record of Soviet Intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli Conflict, 1967–1973

Abstract

Between the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and especially during the War of Attrition (1969–1970), the Soviet Union undertook an unprecedented direct military intervention outside the Communist bloc by stationing Soviet military formations in Egypt, where they took an active and essential part in hostilities against Israel. Although this was known at the time, the accepted historical record of the Soviet operation was largely shaped by the versions that a few leading actors propagated soon after the events. Since these actors were at or near the top leadership level, they gained the wide attention and were ascribed the authority that ensured their predominance in setting the factual record (what happened) in addition to its interpretation for causality (why it happened)—even though these figures obviously had the strongest vested interest in enshrining their own versions.

This article describes how two such figures succeeded in establishing highly misleading and tendentious accounts about the causes and circumstances of key developments, Egyptian journalist and propagandist Mohammed Heikal and American statesman Henry Kissinger.

KEYWORDS:

• Egypt
• Heikal
• Israel
• Kissinger
• Soviet Union
• War of Attrition

Notes

¹Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez, Foxbats over Dimona: the Soviets’ Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007).

²Vladimir Voronov: “Heat, Bedbugs and ‘Stingers'” (Russian), Sobesednik magazine, (Moscow), reprinted in Ekho, Tel Aviv, September 13, 1999.

³Isabella Ginor, “‘Under the Yellow Arab Helmet Gleamed Blue Russian Eyes': Operation Kavkaz and the War of Attrition,” Cold War History 3, no. 1 (October 2002). It is symbolic that even the operation's codename was first introduced into Western scholarship by this article.

⁴BBC transcript, July 25, 1970, cited in Alvin Z. Rubinstein: Red Star on the Nile: The Soviet-Egyptian Influence Relationship since the June War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), 107.

⁵Yaacov Ro'i, From Encroachment to Involvement: A Documentary Study of Soviet Policy in the Middle East, 1945–1973 (New York: Wiley/Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1974), 52 n. 3.

⁶London: Collins, 1975. Heikal reiterated his versions of the two episodes in The Sphinx and the Commissar: The Rise and Fall of Soviet Influence in the Middle East (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 197–198, 242–255.

⁷In effect, until the appearance of Victor Israelyan, Inside the Kremlin During the Yom Kippur War (Pennsylvania University Press, 1995).

⁸Ambassador Murad Ghaleb and Minister of War Muhammad Fawzi. Their accounts first appeared in Arabic and thus took even longer to take their place alongside Heikal's in Western scholarship. Laura James, “Egyptian Decision-Making during the War of Attrition,” in The Cold War in the Middle East Regional Conflict and the Superpowers 1967–73, ed. Nigel J. Ashton (London: Routledge-LSE, 2007), 110–111 n. 99.

⁹Walter Laqueur, Confrontation: The Middle East War and World Politics (London: Abacus, 1974), 14 n.

¹⁰Mohammed Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (London: Collins, 1975), 84.

¹¹Ibid., 85.

¹²Department of State telegram 034236 from secstate to amembassy Tel Aviv, February 1, 1970. U.S. National Archive and Research Administration (NARA), NSC country files, ME-Israel box 605.

¹³Embassy in Paris to Foreign Ministry, February 6, 1970; Embassy in Vienna to Foreign Ministry, February 10, 1970, Israel State Archive (ISA), div HZ box 4604 file 5.

¹⁴Danny Shalom, Phantoms over Cairo: Israeli Air Force in the War of Attrition 1967–1970 (Hebrew) (Rishon Le-Zion, Israel: Bavir, 2007), 2:649–651, 725–726.

¹⁵Laqueur, Confrontation: The Middle East War and World Politics (London: Abacus, 1974) 4. January 20 was the original version spread before Road to Ramadan fixed it at January 22.

¹⁶Israel Air Force (IAF) Web site (Hebrew), http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/FlightLog/FlightLog.aspx?lang=HE&lobbyID=40&folderID=48&subfolderID=322&docfolderID=837.

¹⁷“Further Background on the Kosygin Letter,” Memorandum for the President from Henry A. Kissinger, February 6, 1970. NARA, NSC files, Country files, USSR, vol. VII, box 711.

¹⁸Two advisers and an interpreter were killed and five others hospitalized in a raid on the headquarters of the 6th Motorized Division in a suburb of Cairo. On January 7, an adviser was killed in an Israeli raid at Tel el-Kebir, but although the IAF included it in Priha #1, unlike the other objectives of the operation this target (headquarters of the Egyptian 2nd Army, which held the Suez Canal line) was only about 35 km from the Canal. While the real “depth targets” were tackled exclusively by Phantoms, this one was attacked by Skyhawks, which together with older IAF craft continued the intensive attacks on the Canal line simultaneously with, and as diversions for, the Priha raids. Col. Vladimir T. Serkov, Front Line—Suez Canal: The Diary of a Military Adviser (Russian) (Kurtamish, Russia: GUP Kurtamishskaya tipografiya, 2007), 129–130, 132; Shalom, 2:613, 625.

¹⁹Col. V. E. Tkachev, “Why Did the Israelis Stop Military Actions on the Egyptian Front?” Voenno-Istorichesky Zhurnal (Moscow), no. 6 (2005), 43.

²⁰Serkov, 93.

²¹G. V. Karpov, “Memoirs of a Soviet Adviser in Egypt,” in The Middle East: Mission to War, The Soviet Military in Egypt (Russian), ed. A. O. Filonik (Moscow: Academy of Sciences and Moscow State University, 2009), 105.

²²Shalom, 2:731. The Israel Air Force Web site (Hebrew) gives a figure of “over 100” sorties including “interception sorties,” http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/FlightLog/FlightLog.aspx?lang=HE&lobbyID=40&folderID=48&subfolderID=322&docfolderID=839.

²³Serkov, 93, 121–123, 128–130.

²⁴Both the chief Soviet adviser and the Minister of Defense stressed to the advisers in 1968 that when the Egyptian forces were ready, the advisers would go into battle with them. Karpov, 84, 90.

²⁵V[ladimir] M. Vinogradov, “Soviet Warriors in Egypt,” in “Secret” Classification Removed (Russian), ed. V. Z. Safonov (Moscow: Council of Veterans of Hostilities in Egypt, 1998); “Toward a History of Soviet-Egyptian Relations,” in Then, in Egypt: Soviet Aid to Egypt in the Military Confrontation with Israel (Russian), ed. M. S. Meyer (Moscow: Asia and Africa Institute, 2001), 14–15.

²⁶For example, Maj.-Gen. V. A. Zolotaryov et al., Russia (USSR) in Local Wars and Military Conflicts in the Second Half of the XXth Century (Russian) (Moscow: Institute of Military History, Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 2000), 189; Gen. Alexei Smirnov, interviewed in Andrei Pochtaryov: “How the Phantoms’ Wings Were Clipped” (Russian), Krasnaya Zvezda (Moscow), January 14, 2000; Col. V[alery] A. Yaremenko (Institute of Military History, Russian Ministry of Defense), “Soviet-Egyptian Military Co-operation on the Eve and during the October War of 1973” in Shaking Hands across a Quarter of a Century, 1973–1998: Proceedings of a Scientific Conference (Russian and Arabic) (Moscow: Institute of Military History, 1999), 44. For more sources and a detailed discussion, see Ginor, “‘Under the Yellow Arab Helmet” 137–139.

²⁷V. V. Vartanov, interview by Haim Tal, Israel Channel 1 Television, Moscow, August 2007.

²⁸For example, A. V. Zhdanov, “Egypt, 1969–1970,” in Safonov, “Secret” Classification Removed, 80.

²⁹Serkov, 119.

³⁰Yaremenko, 45.

³¹Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt During the Nasser Years (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 225, citing interviews with a former Egyptian Minister of War and Intelligence and a journalist.

³²James, 99.

³³Heikal, Road to Ramadan, 81.

³⁴Nikolai Zubashenko, “Gennady Shishlakov: ‘I Won an Egyptian Silver Medal for Hitting an American Mirage Plane,’” Establishment (Zaporozhe, Ukraine), April 5, 2006, http://establishment.com.ua/articles/2006/4/5/1062/.

³⁵Arye Yodfat, The Soviet Union and the Middle East (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, February 1973), 32.

³⁶Liad Barkat, “Nords over the Nile” (Hebrew), IAF Magazine no. 126 (April 1999), http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/Journal/Journal.IN.aspx?lang=HE&lobbyID=50&folderID=507&subfolderID=509&docfolderID=511&docID=18975#. Lacking long-range bombers, the IAF used Nord Aviation Noratlas transports.

³⁷Alexei Smirnov, “Operation Kavkaz: In the Thick of the Events,” in Meyer, Then, in Egypt, 26.

³⁸Ibid., 21–25.

³⁹Karpov, 106.

⁴⁰Yu. V. Nastenko: “Aviation in Egypt” (Russian), in Safonov,“Secret” Classification Removed, 55–57, 59.

⁴¹“Policy Background: The Soviet Union Assumes Com[b]atant Role Against Israel, Policy Background disseminated from 29 April,” Embassy in Washington to Foreign Ministry, April 28, 1970, 3; “Soviet Penetration,” Information department to all [Israeli] missions, May 6, 1970, ISA, ISA div. HZ box 4605 file 2.

⁴²Ambassador in London (Aharon Remez, father of the present writer) to Foreign Ministry, May 2, 1970, ISA, ibid.

⁴³Washington Special Action Group, “Increased Soviet Involvement in UAR Military Operations – Contingencies and Options,” February 16, 1970. NARA, SAG Meetings 3/20/70, box H-043 folder 5.

⁴⁴Foreign Ministry to Embassy in Washington, April 28, 1970, ISA, ibid.

⁴⁵Text at http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign+Relations/Israels+Foreign+Relations+since+1947/1947-1974/14+Soviet+Involvement+in+the+War+of+Attrition-+Gov.htm.

⁴⁶Yodfat, 91.

⁴⁷Dan Schueftan, Attrition: Egypt's Post-War Political Strategy 1967–1970 (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1989), 251, 254–259.

⁴⁸David A. Korn, Stalemate: the War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992), 175ff, 190–192.

⁴⁹William B. Quandt, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967 (Washington and Berkeley: Brookings Institute and University of California Press, 1993), 85, 528–529n44.

⁵⁰Egyptian Gazette, July 19, 1972, cited in Rubinstein, Red Star, 189.

⁵¹For example, Quandt, Peace Process, 136.

⁵²Kenneth W. Stein, Heroic Diplomacy (New York: Routledge, 1999), 65.

⁵³Quandt, Peace Process, 135.

⁵⁴Ginor and Remez, “The Origins of a Misnomer: The ‘Expulsion of Soviet Advisers’ from Egypt in 1972,” in Ashton, The Cold War in the Middle East, 136–163.

⁵⁵Rubinstein, Red Star, 192–193; Stein, Heroic Diplomacy, 65, citing Mohammed Heikal, Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat (London: Andre Deutsch, 1983), 46: “despite the expulsion of the Soviet advisers, Sadat succeeded in obtaining Soviet weapons necessary for a Sinai operation.” For more contemporary sources on the continuing supply of Soviet arms to Egypt, see Uri Raanan, “The Soviet-Egyptian ‘Rift’,” Commentary (New York: American Jewish Committee), 61 no. 6 (June 1976), 33n.

⁵⁶Marwan Ashraf, Nasser's son-in-law and Sadat's secretary for information. See note 82.

⁵⁷Henry A. Kissinger: Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982; henceforth YoU), 467. For the disinformation by Egyptian informants, see Ginor and Remez, “The Origins of a Misnomer,” 151–153.

⁵⁸Henry A. Kissinger: The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979; henceforth WHY), 1286.

⁵⁹Sergei Lavrov, ed, Soviet-American Relations: The Détente Years 1969–1976, a Document Collection (Moscow: Foreign Ministry of Russian Federation and US State Department, 2007), I:1: #42, 149–151; #43, 151–153.

⁶⁰Ibid., #47, 160–163; #48, 163–164.

⁶¹Kissinger, WHY, 577.

⁶²Edward R. F. Sheehan, The Arabs, Israelis, and Kissinger: A Secret History of American Diplomacy in the Middle East (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1976), 22; Seymour M. Hersh, The Price of Power (New York: Summit Books, 1983), 227–228.

⁶³Kissinger, WHY, 579–581; emphasis by Kissinger. “‘Expel’ was the word I used in a much criticized briefing on June 26, 1970,” YoU, 202.

⁶⁴Vladimir M. Vinogradov: Diplomacy: People and Events. From an Ambassador's Notes (Russian) (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1998), 148.

⁶⁵Ginor and Remez, “The Origins of a Misnomer,” 141–143.

⁶⁶Craig A. Daigle, “The Russians are Going: Sadat, Nixon and the Soviet Presence in Egypt, 1970–1971,” Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) 8 (March 2004): 1–15.

⁶⁷Recording of a Conversation between Richard Nixon and William P. Rogers, May 19, 1971, Oval Office Conversation 501-4, NARA, Nixon Presidential Materials (henceforth NPMS) White House Tapes (WHT), cited in Daigle, ibid.

⁶⁹Recording of a Conversation between Richard Nixon and Andrei Gromyko, September 29, 1971, Oval Office, Conversation 580-20 NARA, NPMS, WHT.

⁶⁸Vinogradov met Sadat on September 17, purportedly “to discuss a working paper drawn up by Soviet and Egyptian specialists on Egypt's military position” (Rubinstein, Red Star, 157). Two days later former Egyptian Ambassador to the USSR Murad Ghaleb was promoted to Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, “as an explicit gesture of goodwill toward the Soviet Union” (ibid., 156) and on September 21, Egypt's Deputy Minister of War, General Abdel Kader Hassan arrived on a visit to Moscow. David Kimche, The Last Option: After Nasser, Arafat and Saddam Hussein, the Quest for Peace in the Middle East (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1991), 19.

⁷⁰Ibid.

⁷¹Kissinger, WHY, 838.

⁷²Ibid., 1288.

⁷³Ibid., 1276; emphasis added.

⁷⁴Kissinger's single mention of the issue during this period (ibid., 1132) is discussed later.

⁷⁵Lavrov, I:2: #249, 4.

⁷⁶Ibid., #250, 5.

⁷⁷Ibid., #251, 16–17. The election was ultimately postponed because of the Yom Kippur War.

⁷⁸On February 2–4; according to Heikal, it was “one of the most important and delicate in the history of Arab-Soviet relations,” Rubinstein, Red Star, 170, citing FBIS/Egypt, February 4, 1972, G4.

⁷⁹Dobrynin's report on the talk of January 28, 1972: Lavrov, I:2: #255, 26–29; Kissinger's report, ibid., #256, 33.

⁸⁰Ibid., #266, 63.

⁸¹Kissinger, WHY, 1132.

⁸²Lavrov, I:2: #273, 89–91. The Mossad indeed recruited Marwan Ashraf in 1969. Or the Israelis thought they had; his subsequent role in propagating the “expulsion” concept and on the eve of the Yom Kippur War suggests that Ashraf was actually a double agent, so that even if the Soviets passed on this tip to Egypt it only confirmed his success. At any event he was not harmed by Kissinger's disclosure. Ginor and Remez, “The Origins of a Misnomer,” 151. See also Howard Blum, “Who Killed Ashraf Marwan?” New York Times, July 13, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/opinion/13blum.html?scp=1&sq=ashraf%20marwan&st=cse and our response, “A Hidden Alley in the Arab-Israeli Maze,” July 20, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/opinion/l20marwan.html?scp=3&sq=ashraf%20marwan&st=cse.

⁸³Lavrov, I:2: #274, 94–95.

⁸⁴Kissinger, WHY, 1151.

⁸⁵Memorandum of Conversation, Gromyko and Kissinger, Moscow, April 23, 1972. Nixon NSC files, box 72, folder 6. Reproduced in Mircea Munteanu et al., ed., The Rise of Detente: Document Reader Compiled for the International Conference “Nato, the Warsaw Pact and the Rise of Detente, 1965–1972,” Dobbiaco/Toblach, Italy 26–28 September 2002 (Washington: CWIHP, Woodrow Wilson Center and Florence: Machiavelli Center, 2002, henceforth Dobbiaco Reader/DR), 1:I, #40.

⁸⁶Kimche, 22.

⁸⁷Memorandum of conversation, Moscow, May 26, 1972, 3:10–5:40 p.m. (Nixon files, location unmarked) DR 1:II, #14.

⁸⁸Kissinger, YoU, 204.

⁸⁹Kissinger, WHY, 1247–1248.

⁹⁰Quandt, Peace Process, 539n46.

⁹¹Memorandum of Conversation, Gromyko and Kissinger, May 28, 1972 1:00–2:45 p.m. Nixon National Security files, box 73, folder 3. DR, 1:II, #19.

⁹²Memorandum of Conversation, Gromyko and Kissinger, May 28, 1972 9:35–11:55 p.m. Nixon National Security files, box 73, folder 3. DR, 1:II, #20.

⁹³Ibid.

⁹⁴Kissinger, WHY, 1295–1296.

⁹⁵Sheehan, 22.

⁹⁶Kissinger, WHY, 1297–1298.

⁹⁷Ibid., 1295.

⁹⁸Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 739.

⁹⁹John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005), 204.

¹⁰⁰Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967–1977 (New York: Holt, 2006), 232–233.

¹⁰¹William B. Quandt, review of Ashton, The Cold War in the Middle East in Journal of Cold War Studies, 11 (Winter 2009), 159–161.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Isabella Ginor

ISABELLA GINOR is Fellow of the Truman Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets’ Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War (Yale University Press, 2007).

Gideon Remez

GIDEON REMEZ is Fellow of the Truman Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets’ Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War (Yale University Press, 2007).