JOCKEYING AND POSTURINGsecrecy. “The Eg yptians responded that this could not be maintained for more than
72 hours. Okunev was visibly dismayed, and the same was true in other Eg yptian
services. They listened to our advice but did as they pleased.”
Ivanov sensed a “provocation” at an even higher level when Grechko stopped over
in Cairo on 18 February 1972, on his way back from Somalia (where the Soviets were
developing naval facilities despite the supposed disadvantage of the closed canal). The
Soviet minister’s plane was kept in a holding pattern for thirty to forty minutes, on
the pretext that a formation of helicopters returning from a desant (landing ) exercise
in the desert was about to land. A large, high-level welcoming party was kept swelter-
ing on the tarmac, “humiliated and uncomfortable. The minister himself was annoyed
to the very limit of his forbearance.” Speaking before the adviser apparat in Cairo,
Grechko was so moody that a flustered Ambassador Vinogradov forgot to offer him
tea.^7 However, when the defense minister visited a SAM-3 divizyon protecting the
Helwan works, he was in high enough spirits to promise officers who completed a
year in Eg ypt a ten-day furlough in Moscow—indicating that they would return to
continue their service.^8 He went on to “tour the front line,” and Sadat—at an ASU
congress that was reportedly called to emphasize Grechko’s visit as a token of
Moscow’s support—warned against “questioning Eg yptian–Soviet friendship.”^9
Other frictions were caused by Eg ypt’s reluctance, as in Nasser’s day, to permit
Soviet ideological indoctrination. Defense Minister Sadiq had already issued a sweep-
ing ban on Eg yptian military personnel of all ranks “to converse on political and
religious subjects with the advisers and experts. ... Conversations should be limited
to matters of instruction, or religious subjects pertaining to work.”^10 Sadat’s gestures
toward the Americans were accompanied by a further warning to field units from the
War Ministry to beware the advisers’ “repeated attempts” to screen Soviet films, “mili-
tary and civilian,” for the Eg yptian troops. Also, in what may have been a sincere
effort to overcome the language barrier and shortage of interpreters, the Soviets were
“proposing to reinforce the units with Russian-language teachers from the Soviet
Cultural Center.” Both initiatives were blocked.^11
Not all the problems were ideological: on 8 May 1972, a major scandal erupted when
Soviet servicemen who had invested their earnings in gold jewelry—a common prac-
tice, according to many veterans’ memoirs—were detained while trying to take it onto
a flight home. This was not illegal, as the Soviets protested, and ultimately they were
allowed to export these “presents for their wives or girlfriends.” Still, as the politruk
Khandanyan recalled, “this left a bitter aftertaste and we stopped shopping for gold.”^12
But it was only CIA ignorance of Kissinger’s moves, and the agency’s susceptibility to
Eg yptian spin, that led the agency to consider these “frictions” as leading to an immi-
nent “expulsion,” and Langley would soon resent being kept in the dark.
On the other hand, Kissinger’s anxiety that the Israelis might get wind of the actual
deal under discussion appears to have had some basis. Whetten, writing in 1973, men-
tions that “as early as March 1972, reports were circulating in Israel of an alleged collu-