THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973Stavitsky was horrified when later in January, at home in Kiev, he listened in—“on
a rare occasion when there was no jamming”—to a Radio Canada broadcast in
Ukrainian that spoke of Soviet planes landing at Gianaclis “every half hour” with
disassembled MiGs and Sukhois. The deception, then, hardly worked, but his account
is among the first of an additional Eg yptian air base—besides Cairo-West—coming
under effective Soviet control.^15
Though the Soviet squadrons were already in Eg ypt, in December 1969–January
1970 Israeli intelligence still dismissed even an “important” report that they “might
arrive.” As the head of MI sigint told the Agranat Commission, “these reports were
received with mixed feelings, because there was an established thesis that Soviet inter-
vention was improbable.”^16
C. Effects felt on the canal front
Meanwhile, several more attempts were made by the Eg yptian Air Defense
Command to reestablish the SAM-2 array west of the canal. This was met by another
wave of intensive Israeli bombing throughout December, enhanced by the Phantom’s
greater payload. This climaxed in ninety-eight sorties against eight missile batteries
on 25 December alone, after their overnight reconstruction was detected a day earlier.
Although the Israelis claimed the entire array was once again destroyed, they also
reported much more effective defense by both cannon and missiles: at least twenty-
four SAM-2s were fired, in volleys rather than singly as before; damage to one
Skyhawk was admitted. This improvement was attributed to closer involvement by
Soviet advisers. Still, the Eg yptian missiles had actually shot nothing down since the
artillery observer’s light plane in March. But help was on the way: the Israeli pilots
also reported massive earthworks under excavation but yet unoccupied, which at least
in hindsight were identified as intended for Soviet-manned SAM-3s. Col. Yeshayahu
Bareqet, IAF intelligence chief at the time, states that they were identified as such
upon detection, but Military Intelligence overruled this finding at the General Staff
level until American analysts concurred. This failure would be the subject of continu-
ing recrimination and investigations in the IDF.^17 The new missile shelters were heav-
ily bombed anyway, and by counting the improvised graves of the soldiers and labor-
ers killed in these attacks, IAF reconnaissance estimated them at many hundreds;
Nasser and Heikal admitted 4,000.^18
The Soviets’ anxiety was heightened when on 26 December an Israeli heliborne
force literally lifted a Soviet-made P-12 radar station from Ras Gharib on the Red Sea
coast. The rear-echelon infantry brigade that, along with one from the new home
guard, had been tasked with securing the vicinity was fully manned with Soviet advis-
ers, one of whom had been killed in an Israeli bombardment a few weeks earlier.
Arriving at the station with a replacement adviser a month before the spectacular
heist, the interpreter Igor’ Kulikov noted that it was “defended by barely 10 soldiers,