THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973fire, the Israelis are firmly convinced that ... Sadat does not have any reasonable
military option.”^27
Arriving at Inshas airbase in November 1971 to take over as chief adviser to the
local EAF brigade commander, Col. Petr Rubtsov found that the Eg yptian pilots had
gained enough confidence to challenge their instructors to mock dogfights—but not
yet quite enough capability: one pilot lost control and crashed. They also needed
instruction in night flying. The language problem was still acute: no interpreter could
help when Rubtsov took off with Eg yptian trainees, including a squadron leader, in
a two-seater MiG-21 trainer. Unlike the higher officers, they had not picked up
Russian during courses in the USSR. “We were unaccustomed to such a situation:
two pilots flying a supersonic plane cannot speak with each other in air.” He also had
to put up with delays when the squadron leader, before takeoff, spread a rug on the
tarmac and knelt to pray.^28
B. “Yeah, yeah, yeah”: Nixon receives the Soviet withdrawal offer
Against the backdrop of this new power play, and with the summit all but formalized,
the Soviets made their response to Kissinger’s “expulsion” challenge. Besides the
almost identical formulation of the offers, coordination with Sadat is confirmed by
the preceding flurry of Soviet–Eg yptian contacts. On 19 September, two days after
Vinogradov met Sadat to discuss “Eg ypt’s military position,” the former, longtime
Eg yptian ambassador to the USSR (1961–71) Murad Ghaleb was promoted to min-
ister of state for foreign affairs “as an explicit gesture of goodwill toward the Soviet
Un i o n .”^29 On 21 September, Eg ypt’s deputy defense minister, General Abdel Kader
Hassan, arrived in Moscow.^30
The agreed gambit, as shown by the ensuing developments, was again to offer what
the Soviets intended to do anyway as a concession, for which the United States
should have to reciprocate. The demanded quid pro quo would be to press the Israelis
into a withdrawal from the canal as part of an interim agreement as envisaged by
Eg ypt—that is, with a prior commitment to relinquish all of Sinai in a comprehensive
settlement. There was, however, no expectation actually to achieve this outcome.
Rather, the Americans’ expected failure to deliver—as Kissinger had indicated—
would let them be saddled with responsibility for a new war.
This time, Rogers was bypassed entirely. According to Kissinger’s memoirs, on
20 September 1971 Dobrynin “forewarned” him for the first time about Gromyko’s
intent, in an imminent visit to the White House, to “propose putting the Mideast
issue into the special channel.” This of course had been proposed long before, and the
difference now was mainly Kissinger’s readiness to fill the vacuum in detailed negotia-
tion that was created by Rogers’s failure.^31 Gromyko came from the United Nations
General Assembly in New York, where in a dinner with Rogers on the 24th the
Middle East was hardly mentioned.^32 It did come up in an after-dinner tête-à-tête, and