THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973kindly and began preparing another mediation tour by Rogers. Rabin, who was him-
self dissatisfied with the proposal, reckoned correctly that Kissinger preferred its
failure to be blamed on the State Department.^23
There is no record that Kissinger so much as mentioned Rabin’s paper to Dobrynin
until 23 April, when the latter brought up the Middle East as a possible agenda item
for the proposed summit. Discussions about the conference, with a possible date in
September, were then snagged on a crisis around Berlin. Asked for “details of the
Israeli proposal,” Kissinger reported that he said only “it had been essentially covered
in the press.”
Dobrynin said that he couldn’t understand the secretary’s trip. The United States seemed
to be mediating, negotiating, coming up with all the proposals ... but it wouldn’t get any-
where. At some point, he said, you will have to wind up talking with us, but we will not
propose it any further.^24According to Dobrynin, Kissinger did give him a précis of Rabin’s proposal—nota-
bly, that “Israel was ready to pull back a certain distance from the Suez Canal, pro-
vided that the canal’s eastern bank would not be occupied by Eg yptian or Soviet
troops.” He added that Nixon had turned it down in order not to “associate himself ”
with ideas unacceptable to Eg ypt. Though US mediation efforts were continuing, the
White House was “not fully certain the Rogers mission will succeed” and “did not
want to associate itself too officially with the outcome.”^25 It would be 9 October
before Kissinger told Dobrynin about “a secret conversation” with Rabin, who com-
plained about the State Department’s “distortions.” Dobrynin concluded that “it
evidently suits him [Kissinger] for now that the activities of Rogers and Sisco provoke
displeasure both among the Eg yptians and in Israel, and impel both of them to appeal
directly to the White House.” This, Kissinger had said explicitly, would make it easier
for him “down the road, when it becomes necessary to tell Tel Aviv about US–Soviet
negotiations if they result in some agreement.”^26 Once the agreement was reached,
however, he did not inform the Israelis about its central provisions.
Meanwhile, by the time their presence was publicized, the Soviet MiG-25 pilots
had completed a series of test and training flights designed to mirror their planned
missions: flying north to the Mediterranean coast, they turned west over El Alamein
rather than east toward Israel. The planes performed even better under desert condi-
tions than they had in arctic tests, and approval for flight at top speed was extended
from three minutes to eight and then to forty—long enough to perform the entire
planned sorties at a velocity that could outpace any Israeli interceptor. Though
Bezhevets had one serious landing-gear failure, by April most problems had been
ironed out and Minayev’s design team went home.
The 63rd’s airmen were puzzled that neither the Israelis nor the Americans
appeared to have taken notice of the “mirror” practice flights. Now, Moscow cabled
clearance for operational sorties. The first flight, over Sinai, also appeared to go unno-