THE ULTIMATE TEST OF ASHRAF MARWANPrior anticipation of the evacuation is borne out by a professor of medicine from
Kiev. On 3 October 1973, he was unable to reserve a room at any hotel in town for a
subordinate, who was about to arrive for a weekly tutorial. When the professor tried
to invoke his connections, a friend told him in strict confidence that “there was an
order to clear all hotels from 4 October, for imminently arriving evacuees from the
Middle East.”^22 In Syria, as Air Force adviser Vagin recalled, his advisee “Naji did ask
me afterward, ‘how did you manage to evacuate the families a day before the war?’ I
said: ‘Apparently some signal was received, but not necessarily from you.’”^23
In Cairo, as Akopov let slip, there already were fewer Soviet civilians than usual to
look after, as “we had already sensed” the incipient war and “limited the number of
tourists to Eg ypt.” Akopov—who was charged with organizing the evacuation—
related that, within a day and a half, 1,700 people were sent home by planes alone.
The rest—Israelyan quotes a total of 3,700—were driven to Alexandria, and there
boarded naval vessels, including even submarines, “for Odessa.”^24 At least part of the
evacuees were transshipped to civilian liners that met the naval vessels midway; the
latter’s return would be noticed soon.
An airlift might conceivably have been mounted within a few hours, but the pres-
ence of adequate ships on such short notice is more noteworthy. The Fifth Eskadra’s
commander, Vice-Admiral Evgeny Volobuyev, is reported to have received his
instructions before 01:00 hours on 4 October—that is, several hours before his supe-
riors in the Kremlin supposedly ordered the evacuation. He then commanded all
available craft to head for Eg yptian and Syrian ports—which indicates that the req-
uisite ships were already within a few hours’ sailing distance, if not in harbor.^25
The initial reports that Ze’ira had from Damascus as early as 4 October held that
“last night an order was given to evacuate women and children. ... They got buses
from the Syrians, with the intent to send them to Latakiya to get there by 1200 today
for evacuation by sea.”^26 He was therefore stumped by the arrival, a few hours later, of
six Aeroflot airliners in Cairo and five in Damascus. Apparently because the Soviet
dependents had been limited to 30 kilograms of baggage each, he now reckoned that
“the planes came to evacuate the dependents”—even though the Soviet airliners were
estimated to have a capacity of 750 and 600 passengers respectively, far less than the
number of actual evacuees. “It’s our impression that the Russians, at least at interme-
diate level, were astonished and also that the plane business was hastily done. There’s
no information why.” He could offer only varying speculations: (1) the Soviets
believed their own warning that Israel was about to attack; (2) “the Russians came to
the conclusion that Syria and Eg ypt are about to attack, and in order to take no risk
or to demonstrate dissociation from this step, they are evacuating”; (3) a full-fledged
Russian–Eg yptian/Syrian dispute.^27
Once the aircraft were detected, the Israelis no longer connected the Soviet naval
move with the evacuation, even when the ships left port with the evacuees on board,
and some other explanation had to be found.^28 As Ze’ira reported to a council of