TRIAL BALLOONS FROM BOTH SIDESreduction in the Soviet military presence there had always been part of our pro-
gram.”^10 Most significantly, Dobrynin reported that after months in which the
Middle East had hardly figured in the back-channel talks (compared with SALT,
Vietnam and other issues), Kissinger said it “now moves to one of the top spots” in
discussing the summit. Whereas he had previously discounted the issue’s electoral
impact, he now stressed the “great sensitivity of this problem in US domestic poli-
tics.” Therefore, Rogers and Sisco were now to be left out of the loop, as “Nixon does
not want to trust anyone from the State Department bureaucracy.” Kissinger’s previ-
ous argument about facilitating disclosure to the Israelis was superseded: “If a purely
confidential agreement were reached with the Soviet leadership, the President would
find ways without accounting to anyone ... to fulfill his part.”^11
C. A Soviet feeler toward Israel
Despite Dobrynin’s bravado, not all in Moscow were convinced of Sadat’s trustwor-
thiness. In early June, Primakov (now officially at a desk job in a Moscow research
institute) was summoned back from a vacation and dispatched by TASS boss Leonid
Zamyatin for a month in Eg ypt. In Cairo on the 12th he met New York Times
reporter Raymond Anderson, who told him that Sadat had relayed through Bergus
to Nixon that the proposal made to Rogers about reducing Soviet military presence
was still in effect, despite anything the Eg yptian president might be obliged to
declare.^12 The alarmed Primakov—evidently unaware that Sadat’s offer was coordi-
nated with the top Soviet leadership—rushed to Vinogradov, who angrily rejected
his suspicions and even denied him the use of a secure line to report them. Like
Western correspondents with stories that they couldn’t cable from Cairo, Primakov
flew to Beirut and sent a limited-circulation TASS “special file,” which enraged
Podgorny and was promptly censored. A Brezhnev aide later told Primakov that he
had barely “saved your skin.”^13
Still, the Soviets were concerned that US diplomacy might produce, and take
credit for, a canal deal—if only for lack of Soviet influence in Israel. Likewise in
Jerusalem, means were being sought to counter US pressure. Briefly, there appeared
to be a confluence of Israeli and Soviet interests in mending fences. On 28 May, a day
after the Soviet–Eg yptian treaty was signed, Meir, while attending a Socialist
International conference in Helsinki, put out feelers through the Finnish foreign
minister for contacts with the Soviets; the secretary-general of her party made almost
as explicit an appeal from the rostrum.
Within less than three weeks, the London Evening News Moscow correspondent
Victor Louis was in Israel—clandestinely, more at the Israelis’ insistence than his
own. When news of his visit emerged two weeks later, it was explained as “treatment
of his lumbago,” arranged by “his friend, a doctor” who happened to be a former
Israeli ambassador to the Soviet Union.^14 Any official mission was denied by both the