“WE WILL BE TWO ISMAILS”of the war’s outbreak, the CIA was still not sure that Scuds had reached Eg ypt at all,
or at least professed so.
Colby told the Washington Special Actions Group: “we have been unable to confirm
the story about the SCUD missiles being delivered. ... Some of the ones we saw are still
on the docks [in the USSR].” He went on: “if they have the Soviet SCUD missile, its
range is 160 miles with an 1100 pound bomb”—that is, he envisaged no nuclear poten-
tiality.^52 Stationing nuclear weapons in Eg ypt, let alone handing them over to Eg yptian
control, would have constituted such a radical change in Soviet doctrine that Israel
would hardly have let it pass. But when on 1 October Israeli Ambassador (and Meir’s
confidant) Dinitz invoked the “theoretical” Scud threat to Israeli cities in a talk with
Sisco, he too mentioned no non-conventional capability.^53
D. A council of war at Alexandria
The Scuds’ arrival in Eg ypt (or the Israelis’ first information about it) coincided with
the finalization of the Arab offensive’s date. An Eg yptian–Syrian protocol, quoted by
a Syrian intelligence officer studying at a Soviet military academy, is one of the sources
that date this decision “between 11 and 26 August 1973, [when] the supreme council
of the Eg yptian and Syrian armed forces conducted meetings at navy headquarters in
Alexandria.”^54 Given the continuing presence of Soviet advisers at Eg yptian naval
headquarters and of Fifth Eskadra ships in Alexandria, this gathering could hardly
have been concealed from them. But the Soviets’ role in convening the council has
been confirmed by General Baheiddin Noufal, Eg ypt’s chief of operations for the
“Federal” Command, who also narrowed down the dates for the conclusive session
to 20–3 August.
Noufal related that this meeting posed a logistical nightmare: how to camouflage the
arrival of six top Syrian officers—including Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas. Tlas himself
described to an interviewer in the 1990s how the Soviets were involved in accomplish-
ing this. “We traveled on board a Russian ship, wearing civilian clothes. The Soviet
Ambassador accompanied us and told the captain: ‘this ... is the Syrian Minister of
Defense. Protect him during the journey and don’t tell anyone who he is.’”^55
At Alexandria, the Syrians once again requested a three-month postponement “to
complete induction of new weaponry” and a rescheduling of the attack to daybreak,
but were overruled by Ismail. Midday on 6 October was finally determined, and a
plan for “strategic deception” outlined.^56 Sadat visited Syria on 25–7 August, after
obtaining in Riyadh a Saudi commitment to “use the oil weapon” in case of an
extended war; in Damascus, he ratified the target date with Assad and Tlas (who had
by then returned from Alexandria).^57
Deception indeed appears to have been the purpose, and certainly was the effect,
of Ashraf Marwan’s warning at 1 a.m. (Israel time) on 6 October, whereby the offen-
sive would begin the same day, just before dark. If the Syrian documentation is