THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973reported to be bearing a renewed demand for supply of Foxbats.^14 Before returning
to Cairo on the 19th, Sidqi reportedly received a “Soviet promise to resume deliveries
of spare parts and replacements for Soviet weapons now in Eg ypt.”^15 On 10 October,
for the first time since 23 July, SAMs were fired—again from the Ismailia sector—at
Israeli aircraft east of the canal, and this time Cairo claimed one shot down.^16
On 26 October, Defense Minister Sadiq resigned following reports of a botched
coup attempt by field-unit officers, who reportedly had plotted to put him in charge
of a military junta to replace Sadat and Sidqi.^17 It soon transpired that the mutiny, and
the subsequent arrests among the officer corps, had more to do with criticism of the
revived federation plan with Libya than with a direct Soviet context, but this did not
prevent suggestions of a pro-Soviet about-face in Cairo.^18 Ahmed Ismail, who had
accompanied Sidqi to Moscow, was credited with “stifling” the coup, and replaced
the “anti-Soviet” Sadiq as minister of defense and commander in chief.^19 In Israel,
Dayan opined that Ismail’s reinstatement signaled an improvement of relations with
the USSR and resumption of arms deliveries, but he “hoped and assumed” that “as
before” there would be no direct Soviet involvement in combat.^20 The Israelis had
evidently begun to believe, or at least continued to propagate, their own public down-
playing of the Soviets’ role less than three years earlier.
In retrospect, Israeli historians would point to the Eg yptian government reshuffle as
a turning point toward finalization of Sadat’s revised war plan. Much has been made of
an abrupt change that Sadat reportedly announced to the supreme military council on
24 October: that he had given up on obtaining either US political support or the Soviet
offensive weaponry essential for recapturing all of Sinai. Instead, Eg ypt would pursue
total war but for a limited objective, with the arms it already had. Sadiq—it was now
claimed—was one of the officers who objected and were dismissed.
This is the version that Ashraf Marwan has been credited for relaying to his
Mossad handlers, by means of a radio transmitter they had equipped him with “for
brief messages when necessary.” Even Marwan’s strongest Israeli advocate, Bar-Joseph,
admits that as in other cases the Israelis received the same information from addi-
tional sources too.^21 The list of IDF intelligence-gathering objectives for 1973–4 did
include monitoring “the USSR’s ... intentions toward the region and Israel.” But the
news that Sadat had effectively accepted Moscow’s line, while the USSR continued
its military support, was ignored in MI’s aforementioned semiannual estimate on
20 January 1973.^22 Asher has traced Israel’s unpreparedness for the Yom Kippur War
to its failure to appreciate this change in Sadat’s strateg y.^23
Contrary to Marwan’s message, one component of the “essential offensive weap-
onry”—attack aircraft—was already in the process of induction into the EAF by
Soviet advisers, and the other—Scud missiles—would soon follow. At the time, cor-
rect perceptions of continuing, or at most reactivated, Soviet military support were
scotched by the appearance and prompt discrediting of inflated, and apparently
planted, reports that a complete rupture had been reversed. A report from the