TRIAL BALLOONS FROM BOTH SIDESrized level.” Louis suggested that unofficial contacts—that is, through him—were
preferable, because top-echelon talks would cause confrontation not only with the
Arabs but between the Brezhnev and Kosygin factions in Moscow (implying that he
spoke for the former).^30
Louis’s report to Andropov was soon seconded: on 22 July, Brezhnev’s old rival
Shelepin, now demoted to trade-unions chief, dutifully relayed a recommendation
from his Australian counterpart, future Prime Minister Bob Hawke: “the USSR can
and must seize the initiative from Nixon and take immediate steps to reestablish
relations with Israel.”^31 This was reported to Brezhnev the next day, which happened
to be Eg ypt’s Revolution Day. The Soviet delegate to the festivities in Cairo, Boris
Ponomarev, cabled Sadat’s comment: “It’s bad that only the USA and not the USSR
is speaking with Israel.”^32 On 28 July, Primakov—at the request of the same Brezhnev
aide who had frowned on his “special file” from Cairo—submitted a formal recom-
mendation: “together with greater firmness in our course in the Arab countries, it
seems that some initiatives toward Israel and the USA should be taken.”^33
On 5 August, the Politburo approved another mission to Israel, and this time
entrusted it to Primakov. Whether or not he was strictly truthful when he told his
Israeli hosts that Eg ypt was not informed in advance about his trip, it was thus clearly
undertaken only after Sadat had signaled his overall agreement, and Primakov’s mem-
oir does state explicitly that Sadat was updated after the fact. Meanwhile, several
global issues (Berlin, Kissinger’s mission to China) had delayed an agreement on the
summit for too long to hold it on the Americans’ preferred date in September. On
16 August, it was fixed for May 1972 but a joint announcement, originally scheduled
for mid-September, was only made a month later.^34 The timetable would henceforth
largely determine both superpowers’ Middle East agenda.
E. Primakov in Israel: seeking an alternative or playing for time?
Primakov needed no introduction to the Israelis: given the incendiary character and
effect of his Pravda reports from Cairo on the eve of the Six-Day War, Jerusalem’s
very agreement to accept his good offices was a measure of the importance that Israel
also attached to establishing liaison with Moscow. He set it up through—of all peo-
ple—the head of Israel’s Atomic Energ y Commission, Shalhevet Freier, whom
Primakov had met at a Pugwash conference—an international organization of schol-
ars and scientists promoting nuclear and other disarmament, named for its first meet-
ing at Pugwash, Nova Scotia, in 1957. If they discussed the once-crucial issue of
Israel’s nuclear program, Primakov did not disclose this in his memoir. The Israeli
documentation of his subsequent talks in Israel—though top secret at the time—
includes no such reference, and Freier’s papers are still classified.
The only other source for the Primakov–Freier connection is Herbert York, a
prominent US nuclear physicist and arms-control advocate who was a central