THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–19731973 the dependents of Soviet advisers who had ostensibly been expelled over a year
before were evacuated in preparation for war. It is, however, the genesis of the term
“expulsion” that can be traced back to the stage now under discussion, spring–sum-
mer 1970, and to the main purveyor of the entire misnomer, Henry Kissinger.
It has already been noted that in early June 1970, Kissinger tried to sound out
Dobrynin about an agreed withdrawal from Eg ypt of the newly discovered regular
Soviet formations, and that Moscow was in no hurry to respond. When the back-
channel interlocutors met again on 23 June, Dobrynin only noted briefly at the end
of his report, without even specifying the troop-withdrawal issue: “Kissinger inter-
jected that the President would also like to receive a response to the views he had
expressed on the Middle East issues. However, [he] did not elaborate.”^7 Kissinger
reported that he found the Soviet ambassador “noticeably more businesslike and less
cordial than before ... Dobrynin did not take the bait about the suggestion of Soviet
troop withdrawal in case of a settlement.” He had little reason to; three days before,
Rogers had presented him with “proposals on securing a Middle East peace settle-
ment,” which included a ceasefire that would bar Eg yptian missiles from further
advance toward the canal, but made no mention at all of Soviet missiles or other
forces.^8 Dobrynin thus denied Kissinger even the token achievement of commitment
to a future withdrawal. Instead, he accused the Americans of failing to respond to a
“significant concession” that the USSR had offered—bilateral talks—and instead
coming back with Rogers’s “unilateral overture. It is your problem now, and we are
out of it.”^9
Three days later, at the conclusion of a presidential media briefing in the “Western
White House” at San Clemente, Kissinger vented his frustration in what has been
called “a famous indiscretion.”^10 In the 1979 installment of his memoirs, he wrote: “I
took the initiative of challenging the Soviet military presence in Eg ypt ... We are
trying to expel the Soviet military presence, not so much the advisors, but the combat
pilots and the combat personnel.”^11 A very uncharacteristic indiscretion indeed it was,
and not only because it overstated the Americans’ actual effort. It undermined US
public diplomacy, which was doing its best to downplay the Soviet combat presence
in Eg ypt. Moreover, Kissinger had promised confidentiality as the basic purpose of
the back channel.
In the 1982 volume of his memoirs, Kissinger admitted that “‘expel’ was the word
I used in a much criticized briefing on June 26, 1970.”^12 The criticism began after the
briefing’s transcript became public, within a month. “Kissinger’s anonymity was vio-
lated with unfortunate consequences,” wrote one Washington columnist. “This did
not contribute to the peace initiative, and Kissinger sent Rogers a telegram apologiz-
ing for the slip.” It was an excruciating humiliation for Kissinger, which could hardly
have been extracted if his move had proven as effective as he later claimed. The same
column—clearly sympathetic to the secretary of state—cast the incident as marring
Kissinger’s otherwise rapid ascent at Rogers’s expense.^13 But more importantly for the