A NEW PHASE FROM MARCH ’69?divizyon commander to destroy this aerial spy. The Eg yptian officer vacillated and stalled.
The adviser pressed me: “you must be translating too softly. You have to be tougher and
more decisive.” Finally the divizyon commander answered: “Mister Sharashkin, it’s forbid-
den to shoot down a plane. There’s high politics involved.” But he agreed to contact his
superiors at headquarters ... and the politics changed right away. Sharashkin shouted to
me: “run out of the cabin and watch—we’re firing a missile!” ... Yellow smoke billowed into
the sky and the plane’s fragments fell to the ground. Behind me I could hear applause ...
Soon a second target was detected. The divizyon launched another [missile], but after it
had gone halfway it suddenly turned its nose downward and hit the ground, so that this
Israeli pilot was lucky ... the artillery duel stopped forthwith.^33In Pravda, Primakov’s eulog y of “the progressive-minded” Riad hardly reflected
any misgivings about his last decision. “The battlefield death of this great Eg yptian
soldier ... symbolizes for the people of the UAR that the war against the Israeli aggres-
sor continues ... the Arabs will step up their ‘active defense.’” Primakov distinguished
this term from full-scale war, and asserted that “Eg ypt will not be provoked into any
adventure ... much has yet to be done to improve the morale of the Eg yptian Army.”^34
For his part, Nasser betrayed no disagreement with the Soviets but rather lavished
praise on the advisers, “who left their families to devote themselves day and night to
training the Eg yptian army.” Israeli monitors noticed that he even departed from his
standard-Arabic text and switched to Eg yptian vernacular to stress that the advisers’
work was essential. This was interpreted as being aimed at “convincing those who
dispute the presence of so many Soviet technicians.”^35
Even Riad’s death by a new Israeli rocket was not enough to clinch an agreement
for supply of Soviet Luna (Frog ) short-range missiles to Eg ypt. As this weapon was
as unsophisticated and inaccurate as the Z e’ev, but with a much longer range, the
Luna would have been a suitable riposte, especially since its sale had ostensibly been
approved already. According to an Eg yptian general captured by Israel in the Six-Day
War, this had been agreed in principle as early as 1965 and he had been among the
officers sent for a training course. But actual delivery was delayed due to a dispute
over which version of the Luna would be provided. On the anniversary of Riad’s
death, reports appeared that the system would finally make its appearance on the
canal front.^36 The deal would be finalized by Nasser in Moscow only in June 1970,
and the missiles’ arrival was reported that December.
C. The Soviet advisers are reinforced for protracted fighting
As could be expected, the advisers were less than entirely pleased with the outcome
on 8–9 March. Serkov was at first misled by the dust and smoke on the Israeli side to
believe that “the strongpoints are not as hardened as was thought, and are easily
destroyed by direct-aim fire” (the Eg yptians later claimed to have destroyed about
80 percent of the Israeli fortifications).^37 In fact, the Israelis suffered fewer casualties