“We Will be Two Ismails”
The failure of US President Richard Nixon to make good on his post-reelection vow to press Israel was evident when Prime Minister Golda Meir, visiting Washington in the spring of 1973, offered no concessions in return for continued arms supply. Reports from “Mossad spy” Ashraf Marwan and others of imminent Egyptian attack led Israel to call a costly alert in April; US statesman Henry Kissinger took credit for getting the Soviets to make Egyptian President Anwar Sadat delay the offensive until after a summit with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in California in June. But evidence shows that the ultimate timing of a joint offensive with Syria in October had already been determined. While Sadat’s envoy Hafez Ismail impressed Kissinger with peace proposals in Washington, War Minister Ahmed Ismail shuttled between Moscow and Damascus to coordinate war plans and weapons supplies. At the summit in August, Brezhnev took a belligerent stance. The USSR’s support for the impending attack was exemplified by delivery of Scud missiles with Soviet operators, and participation in the final councils of war.