One of the most enduring myths of the Cold War is the theory that on July 18, 1972, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat "unexpectedly expelled Soviet military advisers from the country." The theory is described in many memoirs and scholarly works, from which readers will learn that the Egyptian president "suddenly" decided to expel "insolent Soviet advisers" who, in addition to their unleashed manners that embarrassed Egyptian officers, prevented him from starting a new war with Israel. Already then, in July 1972, Sadat was supposedly ripe to defect from the Soviet camp to the American camp. Also called the number of "sent" advisers - 15-20 thousand.
The traditional version of the event is condensed, and its perception then and now is set out in the following documentary work, which in itself is a worthy monument of the era.
In August 2007, Isabella Ginor and Gidon Remez published a curious work "The distorted term" expulsion "of Soviet" advisers "from Egypt in 1972". They put forward a number of arguments indicating that the theory of "exile" was created by Henry Kissinger, the Soviet elite and the Egyptian regime. At the same time, each of the parties proceeded from their specific and momentary interests, but together they managed not only to mislead the public, but also the intelligence services of most friendly and hostile states, including Israel's intelligence. Kissinger owns the very stamp “the expulsion of Soviet advisers from Egypt,” and he first spoke of expulsion as one of the main goals of American foreign policy in June 1970.
Ginor and Remez point to a number of obvious inconsistencies between the dramatic PR picture and what was happening in reality.
The first and strongest argument destroying the theory of “deportation” is the mass evacuation of the families of Soviet advisers in early October 1973, on the eve of the Yom Kippur War - 15 months after the “deportation” of the advisers themselves.
The reason why Sadat decided to send advisers - the Soviet Union's unwillingness to provide Egypt with the latest weapons, also does not stand up to scrutiny. The flow of supplies of Soviet weapons in Egypt not only did not stop, at the request of Sadat he was provided with SCAD missiles, the maintenance and launches of which were carried out by Soviet specialists.
Even at the time of the “deportation”, it was clear to any attentive observer of the movement of Soviet military personnel in Egypt that we were not talking about “advisers” - individual specialist officers assigned to Egyptian formations, but about the withdrawal of entire combat units. It was about Soviet combat units deployed to Egypt as part of Operation Caucasus - the rescue of the Egyptian army during the 1970 war. Among the "deported" was a fully-manned air defense division, several experimental Mig-25 squadrons, electronic warfare units, and special forces.
Based on declassified American documents, that for the first time the proposal for the withdrawal of Soviet combat units from Egypt was made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Gromyko during a meeting with President Nixon in May 1971. The motivation of the Soviet side remains unclear, but, apparently, the leadership of the USSR, satisfied with the salvation of the Egyptian ally in the 70th, considered it too costly and risky to further maintain entire combat units on the Israeli front, and decided to confine itself to advisers and instructors, whom no one in 1972 sent and did not withdraw. Around the same time, a similar proposal was made to US Secretary of State Rogers from Egyptian President Sadat. Sadat told Rogers that "Russian ground forces will be withdrawn from the country within 6 months."
Sadat's and Gromyko's proposals played into the hands of Kissinger, who was in the midst of constructing a "policy of detente." Within the framework of this policy, the “deportation of Soviet instructors from Egypt” was one of the most important achievements of Kissinger's political genius - or at least as he described his genius, and which he has remained in history.
In exchange, the Russians and the Arabs got what they wanted, namely that America would not challenge the Arab-Soviet interpretation of UN Resolution 242, which, in their version, required the withdrawal of Israeli troops "from all occupied territories." Gromyko demanded American guarantees that after the withdrawal of Soviet combat units from Egypt, the United States would put pressure on Israel so that it would agree to "conclude a complete and comprehensive peace."
In retrospect, the Soviet leadership made a classic diplomatic maneuver - offering the rival something that it was going to do anyway.
Kissinger said nothing to the Israelis about the impending withdrawal, and on July 18 portrayed the utter surprise and “shock” he continues to express in his copious memoirs.
The three-sided web of Soviet-American-Egyptian claims, double deals, secret passages, coincidences and conflicts of interest remains largely unsolved to this day. A commentary on what happened may be a tirade from the famous film Blat, where a Soviet investigator says to a British one: “You know, this is like an orgy in a dark room. Everyone is fucking someone, but no one knows exactly who.”
Ginor and Ramirez base their version of events, namely, that in July 1972, the withdrawal of Soviet combat units from Egypt, agreed with the Americans, was carried out, and not the "sudden deportation of advisers" on three types of sources: Egyptian secret documents seized by the Israelis during the War Doomsday, memoirs of Soviet participants in the events and on a declassified document from the British Foreign Office, which reflects the perception of the incident from the point of view of friendly to Americans, but uninformed intelligence.
The captured Egyptian documents were translated into Hebrew and published nearly 30 years ago. They alone are enough to debunk the "expulsion" myth. The documents show that nothing happened to the Soviet advisers in July. Among them are the work plans of advisors for 1973. Other documents show that the numbers, ranks and functions of the 1973 advisers were no different from 1972. Some advisers arrived in Egypt in 1971 and remained in Egyptian units until May 1973 - without even a brief recall.
In the spring of 1972, Brezhnev, in preparation for the summit with Nixon, became very interested in the cultivation of Egyptian ties in Washington. The USSR Ambassador to Cairo Vinogradov writes in his memoirs that at a meeting of the Politburo on October 11, 1971, the idea of withdrawing half of the Soviet military personnel from Egypt was approved. On July 16, advisers, in some cases even civilians, were recalled to Cairo on the personal order of the USSR Ambassador Vinogradov. The recall was noticed by curious observers - for example, the French military attaché in Cairo. The same information was provided by secret agents in Cairo to the British military attaché Urvik. Urvik's secret agent was most likely Sadat's son-in-law, Marouane Ashraf. Ashraf was an agent of Israeli intelligence, as many later wrote, most likely a double agent who leaked misinformation to the Israelis, and as it turns out now - possibly a triple agent.
The withdrawal of the Soviet air defense division stationed at the Suez Canal was the most dramatic and noticed event in July 1972. The division was deployed to Egypt in 1969-1970 and consisted of conscripts. The division numbered 10 thousand people.
There are different versions of what happened, but most agree on one thing - after 10 days of nothing and drunkenness in Cairo, the advisers were sent to their own units. The scale, the simultaneous recall of the advisers to Cairo, created the required impression that the Soviet military advisers had indeed left Egypt. While the dispatch of military personnel to Cairo on such a scale was easy to spot, it was almost impossible to spot the return of individual officers - real advisers, not conscripts in combat units.
The most visible confirmation of the "expulsion" of Soviet specialists for Western intelligence services and Israel was the cessation of flights over the Sinai and Israel itself of the then experimental MiG-25 aircraft. Since both Egyptian and Soviet pilots could control the MiG-21 fighters, it was impossible to distinguish the nationality of the pilot on the aircraft of this model. Unlike the MiG-21, the MiG-25 was flown exclusively by the best Soviet test pilots. The withdrawal of Soviet MiG-21 squadrons from Egypt began in August 1970 - immediately after the conclusion of the armistice. The last squadron of the MiG-25 was withdrawn on July 16-17, 1972 and became the most visible "confirmation" of the "exile" theory. Some of the Soviet aircraft, along with instructors, were transferred to Egypt, some to Syria. Since, in any case, the planes carried Egyptian identification marks, and the pilots were in Egyptian uniforms, foreign intelligence was unable to distinguish completely Soviet MiG-21 squadrons from Egyptian squadrons. Most of the memoirs of Soviet pilots say that their units were withdrawn from Egypt before June 3. On July 16-17, the last squadron of the MiG-25 was withdrawn.
Contrary to the widespread illusion that the military-technical cooperation of the USSR and Egypt was buried along with the withdrawal of the advisers, the facts and memories of the participants testify to the opposite. Andrey Jena was suddenly sent to Egypt at the head of a group of 11 specialists in June 1972. His task was to oversee the assembly of the newly delivered Soviet S-20 aircraft, and he reported directly to the Egyptian Air Force Commander, General Hosni Mubarak. Ian writes that six weeks after his arrival, he was informed of the end of the mission. Despite this, two weeks later he was informed about the continuation of the mission "at the request of the Egyptian side." Jena writes that there are much fewer Russians on the streets of Egyptian cities, especially Cairo: “Our multi-storey hotel in Nasser City was empty, the Soviet headquarters was transferred to a private villa. We, too, now lived in a three-story villa not far from the new headquarters.”
Kissinger described the “expulsion” of advisers in triumphant terms: “One area where Soviet policy is utterly upset and confused is the Middle East. The sudden refusal of the services of Soviet instructors in the United Arab Republic is the final touch to the fact that the Soviet offensive in the region has been drowned out. Their influence on Sadat has diminished."
The Soviet diplomat V. Marchenko in his memoirs gives a slightly different and more sober assessment of the incident: “Sadat's break with the Soviet Union was a more theatrical gesture than a real political reversal. The flow of Soviet weapons and ammunition to Egypt has not been interrupted or reduced."
