THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973cated” US acquiescence with the start of the “depth bombings” on 7 January, even
if it was later disavowed.^87
The Soviets were indeed bluffing—but not by brandishing an empty menace. On
the contrary, they were once more threatening a move that they had already decided
upon and had begun to implement, in order to blame their adversaries for causing it
by refusing a reasonable Soviet demand. Without ever confirming Nasser’s visit and
desperate appeal, they enabled the Eg yptians to succeed brilliantly in depicting the
direct Soviet intervention that the visit supposedly obtained as a direct outcome of
Israel’s “depth bombings.” By the time Heikal’s version was published in 1972, the
Eg yptian propaganda line had changed. The line was now that the massive Soviet
presence was unwanted and had to go—but it remained expedient to portray this
intervention as a last-ditch necessity that Nasser was constrained to accept because
of the humiliation and bloodshed inflicted by Israel’s “insolent” bombings.
At the time, in early February 1970, Israel was buoyed by its Phantoms’ exploits as
well as the Cherbourg escapade. In Jerusalem as in Washington, both Nasser’s pur-
ported visit and Kosygin’s actual letters were dismissed almost flippantly. An alarm
that the Soviet threat might be serious was raised by the French—but by now they
were considered almost as hostile as the Soviets. On top of the missile-boat affair,
Paris had just announced the sale to Libya of Mirages that were ordered by Israel but
stranded by the French embargo. In his Khartoum speech, Nasser had listed France
along with the USSR as “friends of Eg ypt,” and rumors were even floated that he too
was considering the replacement of inferior Soviet weaponry with French arms.^88
So Israeli Foreign Minister Eban told a reporter he was relieved when the British
ambassador did not even mention Kosygin’s letter in a long conversation. “Western
sources” were quoted to estimate that Nasser had indeed “run” to the USSR for help,
but “Nasser asked for radar and missiles—Moscow [merely] sent three letters.” The
main apprehension in Jerusalem was now that Washington had acquiesced in the depth
bombings in the hope that they might boomerang politically: a helpless Nasser would
be compelled to endorse the Rogers Plan, which in turn would put US pressure on
Israel to follow suit.^89