EPILOGUELashnekov was brusque: “Russian scientists calculate everything and do not need such
ideas,” he said. “Soviet weapons are excellent. We made them and we know it.” “You may
have made them,” I said. “We have fought with them. If you know everything why are you
here questioning us?”
The Minister [Ahmed Ismail] stepped in to cool the situation. But a few minutes later
Lashnekov was making equally blunt and ill-formed criticisms of the deployment of our
air force.In sum, though, Shazly—who opposed the ultimate peace treaty with Israel, and
the US patronage that enabled it—justified the alliance with Moscow:
All debate about the wisdom of Eg ypt’s relationship with the Soviet Union boiled down
to a single question: “Is there any other country in the world which in the past, present or
near future could or would supply Eg ypt with sufficient arms to give her the local superior-
ity over Israel to liberate her territories?” The answer is no.^4An official Russian military history likewise takes credit for a mission well
accomplished.
The October War marked the success of Soviet policy in the Middle East: the Arab–Israeli
military confrontation ended in a tie. Under the conditions then prevailing, the lack of an
Israeli victory was in fact a defeat at the hands of Arab armies equipped with Soviet weap-
ons and trained by Soviet instructors. ... But immediately after the War, there began a rapid
process of squeezing the USSR out of active positions in the Middle East.^5If the Soviets’ “expulsion” from Eg ypt in 1972 was mostly a feint, after 1973 it
became a reality.
Tracking this gradual process from the Soviet viewpoint merits a separate study. It
obviously was not abrupt: not only did Eg ypt (as well as Syria and the Arabs in gen-
eral) continue to enjoy Soviet political backing well after the Yom Kippur War; even
the military relationship went on. Lt-Gen. Samokhodsky, who served as the chief
adviser during the war, was replaced in 1974 by Maj.-Gen. E. Bokovikov, who
remained on duty until 1978—a significant date, as will be suggested.^6 Though the
rank of the chief adviser was thus somewhat lowered, he did retain the title of “head
of the Soviet forces group,” and he had plenty of activity to oversee. To cite two
examples, Soviet naval ships did take part in the canal reopening when it began; arms
shipments not only replenished Eg yptian losses but included new systems, such as
the real MiG-23 (Flogger) that was provided in 1974.
The Soviets secured co-sponsorship of the first postwar effort at a settlement, the
Geneva Conference in December 1973. Partly for that very reason, the conference
was as ineffectual as the various incarnations of prewar talks. When in 1978 Oleg
Grinevsky was appointed to head the Middle East Department of the Soviet Foreign
Ministry without any previous exposure to the region, he was told by Gromyko that