14
“A FAMOUS INDISCRETION” AS THE AIR WAR PEAKS
A. The origin of the “expulsion” misnomer
In the Cold War, when our enemies lied, they lied to conceal the wretchedness of their
system. Whereas when we lied, we concealed our virtues.
David Cornwell (“John le Carré”)^1Here, another fast-forward digression is called for in order to introduce the first
antecedents of another spectacularly successful falsification that this study aims to
rectify. Just as Heikal’s version as to the origin of the Soviet intervention became—
and largely remains—unchallenged, so did and does the dating of the operation’s end
on 18 July 1972. This is when Sadat, by then Nasser’s successor as president,
announced his decision “to terminate the mission of the Soviet military advisers and
experts, who came here in compliance with our request.”^2 Sadat’s measure was imme-
diately dubbed, and is still termed, the “expulsion of Soviet advisers,”^3 frequently with
the added modifier “surprising.” The number of Soviet “advisers” who were “expelled”
is variously given as 10,000–20,000,^4 and they are explicitly or implicitly described as
“all,” or at least the bulk, of the Soviet military personnel in Eg ypt.
This “expulsion” is described by Western historiography as the first step toward
Eg ypt’s eventual rupture with its Soviet patrons, and therefore (to quote one recent
study), “the single greatest Third World success for the United States during the
entire Cold War.”^5 Its direct motive is held to be that “under the guise of Détente, the
United States had persuaded the Soviets to reduce their support for the Arabs.”^6
Specifically, Moscow purportedly refused to supply Eg ypt with the advanced offen-
sive weaponry that first Nasser and then Sadat desired as a precondition for an all-out
offensive against Israel.
Even more than Heikal’s version about the start of Kavkaz, the “expulsion of advis-
ers” concept was—or ought to have been—suspect at the time. The glaring inconsis-
tencies will be pointed out as they crop up in the timeline of events. Suffice it to
mention here that the number of genuine advisers never approached the figure for
Soviet manpower that was known to leave Eg ypt in 1972. Conversely, in October