THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973So—this optimistic Israeli reading went—Moscow postponed the invitation,
Nasser saved face by claiming he never intended to go there anyway, and the flu was
invented merely as an excuse to stay away from Rabat.^11
Still, reports from diplomatic sources in London held that “Soviet leaders and ...
Nasser are preparing for a face-to-face meeting within the next few weeks ... there has
been a marked cooling off in Eg yptian–Soviet relations recently, which necessitates
a policy review.”^12 Even after Nasser resumed a partial workload on 24 September,^13 a
well-connected Washington columnist was told that “President Nasser sent a message
to President Nixon asking what the United States would do for his country if Soviet
influence should be reduced. Apparently, the suspicious Nasser had been listening to
rumors” whereby Sabry “had been dealing behind his back with Moscow. Nasser
might even have feared that Moscow was conspiring to install Sabry in his place.”^14
After a “lengthy” session with Rogers at the UN General Assembly, Eg yptian Foreign
Minister Mahmoud Riad had indicated that “his country may, at long last, be willing
to sit down at the same table with representatives of Israel,” and this was explained by
“the apparent withdrawal of Eg ypt’s President Nasser from the public scene, lending
support to a belief that his pro-Soviet advisors also are out of favor.”^15
None of this had any basis. Any innovation in Riad’s offer was soon dispelled when
he clarified that it was predicated on a prior Israeli withdrawal. The reports of tension
or worse between Nasser and the Soviets proved to be another judicious deployment
of the Cairo “chattering class” to plant disinformation. Sergey Vinogradov was out of
Cairo at the time, but he was never removed and would die at his post there a year
later—shortly before Nasser’s own death disposed of any doubt that his illness had
been both real and worse than flu. While Sabry’s downfall was being proclaimed in
the Western media, he was in fact one of the few confidants allowed into Nasser’s
residence during the president’s indisposition, where he met Chazov and, at Nasser’s
behest, invited the doctor home for dinner.^16 Sabry remained in prominent positions;
he was later appointed air defense adviser to Nasser and thus his liaison with the
Soviet military in Eg ypt, with a brief for bimonthly trips to Moscow. He would be
considered the favorite to succeed Nasser, and would become vice-president when
Sadat surprised everyone by getting the top job. As late as January 1971, Sadat even
declared, after one of Sabry’s Kremlin visits, that Eg yptians had “nothing to worry
about” in respect of continued Soviet aid.^17 Sabry would be deposed only several
months afterward.
The only ostensible fulfillment of “the prediction by Al-Jarida ... that Nasser had
begun a purge of pro-Moscow officials” was his decision to replace Chief of Staff
Ahmed Ismail (Gen. Riad’s successor, an alumnus of the Frunze military academy)
with Mohammed Ahmed Sadiq.^18 But this followed an unprecedentedly daring
Israeli raid on 9 September 1969, when a force of Soviet-made tanks and armored
personnel carriers (APCs) that had been captured in 1967 met no effective resistance