31. The Soviet Nuclear Threat and Kissinger’s Defcon-3
The Middle East is the worst place in the world for the US to get engaged in a war with the
Soviets ... the $64,000 question [is]: “If the Soviets put 10,000 troops into Eg ypt what do we
do?” ...
Adm. T.H. Moorer, 24/25 October 1973^1When put to the test in October 1973, the assumption that an Arab offensive aimed
only at regaining territory lost in 1967 would not trigger an Israeli nuclear response
proved unexpectedly risky. Documents published in Israel as well as the United States
in 2013 confirmed longstanding reports that the Eg yptian–Syrian offensive’s initial
success was briefly seen in Israel as an existential threat, and a nuclear response was at
least contemplated—mainly by Dayan—if not actually readied. Soviet accounts of
preparations for a nuclear counterstrike from Eg ypt (by means of Scud missiles as
suspected by the Americans or, more plausibly, MiG-25 aircraft) claim they were
undertaken not only after but because such Israeli plans were found out. Bar-Lev’s
diary records that Dayan proposed a “let me die with the Philistines” option (the
biblical source for “Samson” in Hersh’s title).^2 In an oral testimony recorded in 2008
and published by Avner Cohen, a ministerial aide in 1973 related witnessing this
statement, on the morning of 7 October.
At that point, the most pressing concern was on the Syrian front, where the initial
Syrian breakthrough seemed about to progress into the Jordan Valley. Razinkov, the
interpreter then stationed with Soviet air defense advisers, attests that they were
instructed to advance with the Syrian forces, but only “to go as far as the 1967 lines.”
The Israelis evidently disregarded or disbelieved Primakov’s assurances that this was
the limit of Soviet support, and therefore of Arab advance; indeed, Razinkov admit-
ted, “true, no one knew exactly how to determine those borders and what to do when
they were reached.”^3 Cohen’s informant stressed that Dayan suggested carrying out
not a targeted strike but rather a nuclear “demonstration.” Cohen interprets this as
bombs dropped from aircraft to detonate in air over desert areas close enough to