THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973nor whether their use was contemplated as a nuclear first strike—contrary to the
USSR’s longstanding doctrine—or only in response to an Israeli nuclear blow.
Professor Aleksandr Minayev of Moscow State University clarified this point in a
2008 article. Minayev’s elder brother Alexey (the deputy minister for the aircraft
industry, who had accompanied the Foxbats’ previous deployment in Eg ypt) con-
vened a consultation to determine whether the MiG-25s could safely overfly Tel Aviv.
The context was “the eventuality of an Israeli air strike on the Aswan Dam ... which
might cause a nuclear war. ... It was rumored in the highest corridors of power in
Moscow that in response to such a development, our air force would have to land a
nuclear blow on Israel.”^13
How seriously the nuclear option was considered is illustrated by a memoir of
Zinaida Freydin, the widow of physicist Ilya Livshits. In a volume commemorating
the thirtieth anniversary of his death in 1976, she related that in October 1973 his
colleague and close friend, the nuclear weapons developer Yakov Zeldovich, left a
note with Livshits (both Jews), to be opened if the USSR launched a nuclear attack
on Israel—in which case Zeldovich intended to commit suicide.^14
Minayev and other ex-Soviet writers have asserted that the Israelis’ awareness of
this threat and of their inability to counter the Foxbats is what prevented the use of
Israeli nuclear weapons.^15 This claim seems dubious, as by 13 October the Syrian
advance had been reversed, a renewed Eg yptian thrust into Sinai was repulsed, and
the US airlift to Israel was finally under way, so that any Israeli doomsday scenario was
by then obviated. In the event, the MiG-25 detachment carried out only reconnais-
sance sorties, including at least one over Tel Aviv. But precisely the turning of the
war’s tide lends credibility to the offensive plans, conventional if not nuclear, that are
now attributed to the Soviet MiG-25s. The strategic significance of their deployment
to Eg ypt, regardless of détente commitments, is illustrated by the simultaneous dis-
patch of a Foxbat squadron to Poland.
The nuclear option associated with the MiG-25s adds a new twist—but not much
more credibility—to the much-debated reports that US intelligence identified emis-
sions from Soviet nuclear weapons on board a ship headed for Eg ypt. This was retro-
spectively cited as the climactic motivation for Kissinger’s decision to declare a
worldwide Defcon-3 alert during the night of 24 October, that is, on the 25th
(Middle East time). So far, these putative nuclear weapons were held to have been
warheads for the Scud missiles based in Eg ypt.^16
On 16 October, the day of the IDF’s counter-crossing of the canal, Sadat threat-
ened publicly to launch missiles “at the very depths of Israel any minute” if Israel
attacked the Eg yptian hinterland. He specifically mentioned the el-Zafar missile
whose development had begun in the early 1960s by German experts and was later
abandoned. If it had been a serious threat to Israel, the repeated Eg yptian demand for
Scuds would have been gratuitous.^17 The next day, the Americans were still not sure