The Soviet-Israeli War, 1967–1973. The USSR’s Military Intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli Conflict

THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973

ministers on 5 October, it was only the ships’ departure, rather than their arrival, that
was noticed by Israeli intelligence: “[last night,] almost all the Soviet vessels that were
in Alexandria left port, which has never happened except once, when there was anxi-
ety that the Eg yptians would carry out what was called the year-of-decision war—
that was in 1971.” He now leaned toward the second scenario of the three he had
listed: the ships’ departure was “a move that means Soviet reservation about an
Eg yptian offensive. ... The USSR is trying to influence both Syria and Eg ypt not to
launch an attack on Israel. Yet we estimate that the USSR’s power to influence these
two countries is a) small b) steadily decreasing.” A briefing sent to Eban for US con-
sumption went so far as to adopt the third contingency: it read the “predictable”
departure of ships “as a consequence of a crisis in Soviet relations with Eg ypt and
Syria [as] the result of a Soviet assessment that hostilities may break out”—even
though both Dayan and Chief of Staff doubted it.^29
The CIA arrived at the same “tentative” conclusion: the evacuation was, “as in July
1972 ... a sign of a crisis in Arab–Soviet relations.”^30 This interpretation was rein-
forced when Israeli sigint reported intercepting an Eg yptian message “clearly indicat-
ing” that the Russians were evacuating “their advisers” themselves as well as the latter’s
dependents. The original description of Soviet “families” had already been modified
to that effect—even to “all” the advisers—by Ze’ira and a senior MI research officer,
Yonah Bendman.^31 This was precisely what the Soviets were trying to achieve. As the
Arab attack began on 6 October, Quandt still affirmed that some advisers as well as
1,000 dependents were evacuated, and possibly even expelled; therefore

the effectiveness of an Arab attack is likely to be somewhat degraded and the risks of Soviet

involvement will lessen ... [but] our intelligence services have continued to downplay the

likelihood of an Arab attack on Israel. ... They appear to favor the alternative explanation

of a crisis in Arab–Soviet relations.^32

Regarding deniability of the Soviets’ complicity, the evacuation thus succeeded
more than they could have expected. In operational terms, it was designed to trigger
a call-up of Israeli reserves only when it was too late to meet the offensive at full
strength—a matter that Lashchenko had identified as critical from the outset. As
Heikal relates—in this case, quite credibly—at the early planning stage, Minister
Ahmed Ismail estimated that shorter notice than four or five days in advance—prefer-
ably, three—would suffice to preclude a full IDF mobilization. On 2 October 1973,
Eg yptian Chief of Staff Shazly opined that it was already too late for Israel to mobi-
lize ahead of an attack on the 6th.^33 Sadat echoed this on 3 October, as “it would be
impossible for Israel to mobilize armored formations and deploy along the Canal in
less than 72 hours, [nor] for the entire mobilized strength of Israel to be deployed ...
in under five to six days.”^34
To meet the same timetable, it was also on 4 October that the Soviet media began
“disseminating an increasing number of reports of an alleged Israeli military buildup.”