THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973Dr Kissinger: What level of forces do you envisage for yourselves?
Gromyko: We will leave behind only a certain quantity of advisers and military specialists.
All the rest will be withdrawn ...
Dr Kissinger: What number?
Gromyko: That is something we will tell you later, but ... I think you will applaud us when
we tell you, and perhaps tell us to leave some more!
Dr Kissinger: I would not bet on the last.The Soviets still demanded formulating “general principles” as a condition for their
proposed withdrawal, but Gromyko, in a significant concession evidently prompted by
the progress in handing over the SAM array, was now willing to settle for agreement
even on part of the “principles”—the part that “maybe can be made public” before the
US election. However, Kissinger’s reluctance to frame the comprehensive settlement
still precluded a compromise and endangered the entire détente package:
Dr Kissinger: ... The Mideast is the big unsolved problem.
Gromyko: [in English] Big, big, twice big. I tell you frankly, if it is not solved, it may poison
the atmosphere ... at the summit.^23Sadat arrived in Moscow unannounced on 27 April—two days after Kissinger’s
secret visit was unveiled.^24 As recounted by Vinogradov, “he said that he wanted to
make a secret visit ... To disguise himself, Sadat dressed in an old coat and soft hat! In
Moscow, without any official ceremony, we went directly to the Politburo.”^25 Although
the secrecy was soon lifted and the visit reported on Radio Moscow, few Western
reports, and none in the US press, noted that Sadat’s delegation included Mubarak, who
had just replaced Baghdady as EAF chief. He was met by Soviet Air Force Chief
Marshal Kutakhov, and “air procurement” was listed among the visit’s purposes.^26
Several contemporary accounts of this visit vary from the now-conventional ver-
sion, whereby Sadat was flatly denied the weaponry and support that he desired in
order to attack Israel. Laqueur states cryptically: “in Moscow Sadat met twice with
Brezhnev and received Soviet approval to go to war—if he really wanted to.”^27 A
lower-echelon member of Sadat’s entourage related that he “asked for medium- and
long-range bombers, offensive weapons and better tanks. The Soviets didn’t think we
were serious about going to war. Sadat insisted, ‘I’m going to war.’ They still didn’t
believe him.”^28
D. A military display for Grechko in Eg ypt
Grechko’s presence at the talks with Sadat indicates that he had by now accepted the
withdrawal idea. A “sensitive intercept” by US intelligence confirmed this on the eve
of the summit: Brezhnev had fielded “his cronies and ... his friend Grechko to justify