8
A NEW PHASE FROM MARCH ’69?
A. Soviet initiative or smokescreen?
In hindsight, beginning immediately after the Yom Kippur War, Eg yptian historians
neatly divided the 1967–73 period into four phases, and their colleagues elsewhere
have largely adopted their chronolog y.^1 This is most evident in marking the transi-
tion, in March 1969, from “active defense” to “war of attrition”—so much so that
most studies of this war begin here.^2 The prevailing concept, then, holds that on
8 March 1969 Eg ypt not only launched a mighty artillery strike at the Bar-Lev Line,
but Nasser also abruptly abrogated the ceasefire with Israel and declared the start of
this new stage.
Actually, the transition was not so clear-cut. Nasser’s two declaratory steps were
taken only some time later. The military action, which did break a relative lull of some
four months, still followed virtually the same format as the engagements in September
and October 1968: air incursions at midday on a Saturday, followed by a cannonade
and coordinated with raids across the canal. The main innovation was that these
strikes were henceforth kept up almost consecutively.
One pivotal development between November 1968 and March 1969 was the inau-
guration of the Nixon administration, and Kissinger’s rise to a dominant position in US
foreign policy. To appreciate the impact of his input on Soviet military involvement in
Eg ypt, it has to be tracked from the outset, which predated Nixon’s election.
In retrospect, probably in order to deflect responsibility for permitting the Soviet
buildup in Eg ypt to occur on his watch, Kissinger equivocated on the date when the
Middle Eastern arena was first transferred to the unofficial and confidential “back
channel,” that is, to his stewardship. According to his memoirs, this occurred only
two years after the election, on 20 September 1971, when before a visit by Gromyko
to the White House, Dobrynin “forewarned” Kissinger that “the [foreign] minister
would propose putting the Mideast issue into the special channel,” which had been
established the previous December.^3
Actually, Kissinger’s involvement started much earlier. He began to dabble in
Middle Eastern affairs while still advising Rockefeller. It was at the same stage that