27
“WE CAN’T CONTROL THE ARABS BUT MUST
SUPPORT THEM”
A. “Peace” in Vietnam obscures war preparations in Eg ypt
On the very day of the government shakeup in Cairo, 26 October 1972, Kissinger
announced that a breakthrough in the Paris talks had put “peace at hand” in Vietnam,
and although this proved premature it helped Nixon to a landslide election victory
on 7 November. The two main obstacles that Kissinger had cited for making good on
his share of the Moscow summit’s Middle East understandings—Vietnam and the US
election—were ostensibly removed.
Briefly, Eg yptian statements appeared to reflect expectation of a superpower
accommodation. The usually “snake-eating and fire-spitting” Chief of Staff Shazly
was quoted that five more years of preparation were needed before a war could be
launched. EAF chief Mubarak returned from an “arms-shopping” trip to Moscow,
which was noted as “the first visit by a top-level Eg yptian military delegation to the
Soviet Union since President Anwar Sadat ousted 10,000 Soviet military personnel,”
but he reportedly had little to show beyond continued supply of spare parts.^1 Sadat
again justified the Soviets’ “expulsion,” as they were “arrogant and didn’t deliver.” He
told US columnists Evans and Novak that he hoped to reconstruct relations with
Moscow.^2 But for the Soviets détente with the Americans now overshadowed all else,
and there was no way to know how far Brezhnev would support Eg ypt at the
approaching second summit with Nixon.
Before the Vietnam accord was finalized, US bombing raids were intensified. On
22 November 1972, North Vietnamese SAM-2s scored their first shootdown of a
B-52 strategic bomber. The Vietnamese claimed downing thirty-one more B-52s
between 12 and 29 December.^3 They acknowledged that “a major contribution ... was
made by Soviet military specialists in Vietnam, the personnel of Soviet design
bureaus, and factory workers.”^4
Tabulation of the downed (American) bombers in Vietnam was held up to the
advisers in Eg ypt as a challenging example, with the implied suggestion that on their