THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973Marwan was only one player in the disinformation campaign. An American dip-
lomat learned that the UN observer chief Ensio Siilasvuo was “highly puzzled” when
on 4 September, in Cairo for a routine call, he “was entertained at an elaborate dinner
instead of the usual lunch.” The mystery was resolved when “his hosts asked him ... as
a high Finnish military officer ... whether he knew of any method of obtaining a
steady flow of spare parts for Russian-built aircraft without going through USSR
government channels.” The Finnish general replied that there was no such way.^10
Thus, as described by Sadat’s confidant Abdel Satar al-Tawila, the war correspon-
dent of Rose el-Yussef magazine, “various government agencies spread rumors and
stories that were exaggerated, to say the least”:
habitués of Eg yptian and Arab coffee houses ... turned into arms experts and babbled ...
about the question of offensive and defensive weapons, inventing arbitrary differences
between them while ... defensive anti-aircraft weapons actually played an offensive role
during the war of October 6. Moreover, the Eg yptian press gave prominence to an inclina-
tion to seek arms in the West ... [which] would mean, simply, that the date of the expected
battle is far off.Spreading the version about the advisers’ immediate and complete “expulsion” was
thus “a strategic cover ... a splendid distraction for our going to war”: “It raised questions
about the genuineness of the regime’s threats to resort to war. After all, how would the
Eg yptian army be able to fight without the presence of thousands of Russian experts ...
to train [it] ... and even to operate some of this hardware themselves?”^11
On 22 July, the day Marwan claimed all the Soviets were gone, the interpreter Igor’
Vakhtin relates that he was among the first to leave, on a scheduled Aeroflot flight, as
his komandirovka was over anyway. It was only in the morrow, Eg ypt’s Revolution
Day, that Murzintsev’s group flew home, and his final recollection from Eg ypt hardly
reflects any hostility or resentment on the part of local officialdom: “we are drawn up
for a parade at the airfield. The deputy defense minister of Eg ypt decorates us with
medals and thanks us for our help.” Vakhtin heard similar descriptions from col-
leagues who were repatriated only in August, by military aircraft.
A bus with our advisers would drive up to the plane. They would be awaited by an Eg yptian
general holding a cardboard box with a pile of Eg yptian decorations made of yellow metal
in the form of the Arab eagle, or as it was known colloquially, “the chicken.” At the ramp,
an Arab would hand each one his “chicken,” with thanks and a strong handshake. ... The
foremost question that came to the mind of our guys who were honored with this distin-
guished award, was absolutely mercenary: was it gold, and could it be used for dental
crowns? Some of them, to the Arabs’ great astonishment, tried to test the “chicken” with
their teeth.They had reason for suspicion: operations officer Podalka, who was awarded “a
distinguished” Eg yptian medal, was dismayed to discover that it was gilded rather