THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973[deceptive] notion is, the expulsion did in fact partly serve to camouflage Eg yptian
war preparations.” The USSR, Sella allowed in an elegant example of adverbial har-
monization, “went along with this line willingly enough, in part adventitiously and
in part deliberately.”^9
At the time, Kremlin announcements said “the Soviet military personnel in Eg ypt
has completed its functions. ... After the exchange of opinions, the sides deemed it
expedient to bring [it] back to the Soviet Union.” This was interpreted as a gloss on
a serious setback for the USSR.^10 For decades afterward, Eg yptian boasts about the
successful ruse could be dismissed as retrospective bragging. But as our account of the
“expulsion” progresses, new evidence will show how this supposed “ratiocination” is
borne out at every stage. As Eg yptian Maj.-Gen. Adel Suleiman Yusry told a veterans’
conference twenty-five years later, “the most effective part” of Sadat’s deception
moves was “his renunciation of Soviet advisors and experts. This deceived both Israel
and the USA, which concluded that under the conditions thus created, a military
solution to the Middle Eastern problem was hardly possible.”^11
The widespread post-summit expectation that global détente would limit Soviet
action in regional arenas and particularly the Third World ignored both the language
of the meeting’s documents and their Soviet interpretation. The “Basic Principles”
paper explicitly stated that it did not affect the parties’ obligations toward their allies.
Official Soviet commentary—over Brezhnev’s signature—declared that the interna-
tional class struggle would continue.^12 In an analysis of the summit that was evidently
written before the “expulsion” but published later, an IDF officer correctly concluded
that détente notwithstanding, “the violent struggle between the superpowers has not
ended, but has been shifted to limited arenas ... in which their participation is indi-
rect or unilateral.” Still, he concluded that in the Middle East, the USSR, being mili-
tarily weaker than the United States,
has no possibility of supporting an Eg yptian military action ... as it would not only cause
an Eg yptian debacle but would also severely endanger the Soviet regional presence.
Furthermore, the USSR has no capability to conduct direct military operations against
Israel in aid of Eg ypt, as the United States aids South Vietnam.^13Kissinger for his part claimed that “Détente did help to split Eg ypt from the
Soviets.”^14 There was a concerted effort on all three sides to impress even their own
constituencies, as well as the others’ and Israel’s, that this was the case.^15 Another
benefit of the “expulsion” was to convince the fiercely anti-Soviet Arab oil states, such
as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, that they could safely underwrite the cash payments now
demanded for Soviet arms. In the less plausible case that they were privy to the decep-
tion, this at least provided them with a pretext.^16
Soon after the summit, Eg yptian documents show a further and ostentatious
increase in surveillance of the Soviet military advisers and enforcement of the limita-
tions on their direct contact with Eg yptian soldiers. On 17 June, the security officer