THE SOVIET REGULARS MOVE INactively constructive role,” and another month passed before he “advised [Ambassador]
Dobrynin ... there was no point in continuing the two-power talks.”^40 These had any-
way been overtaken by Dobrynin’s back channel with Kissinger—of which Rogers and
Sisco were deliberately not informed.
Kissinger either sought some detour to salvage US influence after the failure of
Rogers’s diplomacy—or spotted an opportunity to horn in on the handling of Middle
Eastern policy. The new collection of back-channel reports confirms that the Middle
East was put high on the channel’s agenda on 29 December 1969—when Kissinger and
Dobrynin each told his boss that the other had suggested the idea.^41 The subject would
come up for specific discussion soon enough and Kissinger would discover that the
Soviets had played him, too, for time until their military move was completed.
On 10 January, only three days after the IAF’s Phantoms staged their first raids
around Cairo, a Supreme Soviet delegation arrived there for a ten-day visit, headed
by Politburo candidate member Dinmukhamed Kunaev. He was greeted in
Alexandria by a KGB operative at the Soviet consulate, whose tour proposals illus-
trate that Kavkaz elements were already present: “‘What would you like to see?’ I
asked politely. ‘We have our naval base, rocket base, air base, army base ... our ship-
yard—any of those?’ Kunayev turned his head rigidly from side to side.” He was
interested only in shopping for jewelry.^42
Officially, his party “was briefed by Nasser on the situation and given an urgent
message for Brezhnev.”^43 It now appears, however, that this political delegation—like
Podgorny’s in June 1967—served also, if not mainly, as a foil for yet another large
group from the Soviet Ministry of Defense and General Staff. The latter party arrived
on board two planes during the night between 9 and 10 January. One of its members
was Lt-Col. Aleksey Zhdanov, the Soviet Union’s leading expert on construction of
SAM sites. As this specialist recalled, a few days after its arrival the military group was
transferred from a downtown hotel to the Soviet advisers’ compound in “Nasser
City” in order “to minimize attention of the local population and foreign tourists.”
The product of this mission—the disposition of the expeditionary force—was sub-
mitted to Nasser by Air Defense Commander Batitsky at the beginning of February;
though this formality took place after Nasser’s purported visit to Moscow, Zhdanov’s
account demonstrates that the planning was accomplished well before.^44
Implementation also began before 22 January: the 18th Division’s newly appointed
chief, Smirnov, was evidently in the same delegation, as he relates that he returned to
Eg ypt in “mid-January.” The missile sites, he writes, were under construction, and
although they were still unfinished, he was surprised and annoyed to learn that the
force he was slated to lead was already en route to Alexandria. He rushed to the
“Ofis” to send a coded message to Grechko, protesting the dispatch of his outfit
before preparations were complete and calling for its delay. But Batitsky’s deputy
Shcheglov “smiled and said, ‘Alexey, you’re a big boss and have to use your head. If the
force has left without your approval there’s a reason for it, a decision has been made,