THE SOVIETS “RETURN” IN OCTOBERyard have not yet been reduced.” Ominously, Port Said still “provided a haven for
Soviet commando units as a counter to marine forces of the Sixth Fleet”—so that not
even all regular Soviet formations had been withdrawn. Ivliev confirmed in effect that
the main change was in visibility: “Soviet ratings are still forbidden to go ashore in
uniform.”^36 This time, Whitehall’s reading was quite correctly that Ivliev’s aim was “to
convince us that the Soviet naval presence ... was smaller than it really is.”^37
Overall, whether or not the reports of a Soviet return were intentionally floated by
the Eg yptians and/or Soviets in order to shoot them down, the end result was to
further belittle if not to entirely negate any Soviet presence. This hardly changed even
when Sadat declared a few weeks later that he had promised the Soviet Union con-
tinued use of naval facilities even after a settlement with Israel, and that he intended
to keep Soviet advisers attached to the Eg yptian Army “because war is a science
n o w.”^38 This promise has been cited as prompting the Soviet military’s supposed
reconsideration of its earlier supposed refusal, and its resulting decision to provide
Eg ypt with the weapons Sadat desired. But as already seen, the naval bases’ use was
continuous and the arms transfers had never stopped anyway.^39 In February 1973,
Dayan was unimpressed by recurring talk in the United States that if nothing were
done (usually meaning that if Israel did not show flexibility toward a settlement), the
Soviets were liable to return to Eg ypt.^40