HOLDING THE LINE ON THE SUEZ CANALmateriel, the USSR continued to bear the brunt of the effort.^27 While the question
of formalizing Eg yptian adherence to the Soviet bloc would recur periodically in
coming years, the presence of Soviet troops on Eg yptian soil was already an accom-
plished fact.
C. Marshal Zakharov and Soviet marines stabilize the canal defenses
While the political significance of overt Soviet presence may have preoccupied
Podgorny in Cairo, it had little bearing on Zakharov’s military activity. Anatoly
Egorin was in Eg ypt long before the June war, officially as a correspondent for the
Novosti news agency, but his detailed memoirs clearly indicate this was a cover for
intelligence work.^28 Egorin, now deputy director of the Institute for Oriental Studies
of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was mightily impressed by the sixty-nine-year-
old, diabetic marshal.
Zakharov developed, in Eg ypt, activity that would have befitted the peak of World War
II. ... The marshal, always wearing the same green shirt and white beret, did his own recon-
naissance by visiting units in the canal zone, where he approved neither of the forces’
overall disposition nor of the hastily dug, shallow trenches. At one point he took a sapper’s
spade from an Eg yptian soldier, and in short order dug a “full-profile” foxhole with his own
hands, all in 40-degree [Celsius] heat.^29This personal example was more than symbolic, and would be inculcated as part
of the doctrine for future offense as well as present defense. After the Yom Kippur
War, Israeli General Ariel Sharon described a major problem that Israeli tanks faced
while confronting masses of Eg yptian infantry: “Every soldier who reaches any point,
no matter how long he is to stay there, immediately digs in. It was most impressive to
see the aerial photos, when one sees the advance of the Eg yptian divisions: the area is
full of ... round holes”—which increased the effectiveness of their shoulder-held
anti-tank weapons.^30
“Zakharov’s headquarters [staff ] in Cairo ... got no sleep for days on end but still
could not keep up with all its commander’s orders. No one knew how many hours per
day the marshal himself slept.”^31 This mystery was cleared up forty years later by
Zakharov’s interpreter: the marshal lay down in his car’s back seat between stops.^32
He was clearly planning a complete overhaul not only of the Eg yptian armed forces
but of the Soviet presence within them. The existing “kollektiv of Soviet military
advisers,” which was now associated with Eg ypt’s debacle, quickly felt his displeasure.
As Egorin recalls,
I heard vivid legends about the work of the military attaché’s staff. Its chief, V.I. Fursov, was
instructed to report to the marshal and present a briefing every day at 0400. Every night,
the subordinates of Vladimir Ivanovich (who was called “Vi” for short) worked all night