February 15: Back at my desk at last, I began studying the outcome of the President's sessions in the Kremlin. As well as confirming their obligations under the October agreement, the Soviets had now also agreed to supply:

-200 T- 62s, their latest and most powerful tanks; ten to come in March 1972 for training, the rest before the end of 1972.

-20 TU-22 bombers (each with a payload of nine tons). Two could be delivered in March, the rest within the year.

-25 MIG-17s to be delivered immediately.

-Electronic equipment to upgrade our electronic capability.

The Soviets had also promised they would help Egypt to manufacture its own MIG-21MFs, construction to start in phases and be in full swing by 1979.

I thought this was naive. They were indispensable to us; but we were important to them-as our problems in manning our own air defenses were at that moment demonstrating.

The story goes back to January 1970 when, with our air defenses in ruins, President Nasir had gone to Moscow to ask for Soviet help. The Soviets had sent two fighter brigades and an air defense division. The deal had three main clauses. The first was that Egypt would buy the equipment. Constitutionally, the weapons would then be part of Egypt's own forces, merely operated by friendly troops. The second was that Egypt would provide food and field clothing for the crews and pay Moscow the equivalent of their salaries in hard currency- 150 sterling a month for a soldier and L. 170 sterling a month for an officer. The third stipulation was that the Soviet personnel would be withdrawn as soon as Egypt could train its own.

So hectic was the expansion of our air defenses, however, that despite the scale of our training program it was only by the spring of 1972 that we had some spare manpower to relieve part of the Soviet crews. At that point, of course, we wanted to relieve the Soviet crews as soon as possible, partly to save hard currency, partly for reasons of national pride. Sadiq  had written to Grechko, requesting the withdrawal of 18 battalions of Soviet SAM crews.

Sadiq 's obsession with communism was another obstacle to my relationship with him, as if we did not have enough problems on that score. In the New Year, Sadiq had made a direct assault on my role He announced that as minister of War he was the only one entitled to make decisions. I should submit everything to him.

"In that case," I replied, "what you need is a chef de cabinet not a Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces."

"Read that,"Sadiq said, handing me a sheet of paper, "you will see I am acting within my powers."   It was a presidential decree dating from Fawziy's time as Minister of War, couched in vague terms but broadly giving the Minister total discretion. I had no doubt that Fawziy had drafted it and got it signed without any independent or contrary advice having been sought.  It is too frequent phenomenon in Egypt that a man of power will tailor a law or a decree to his own ends and then claim, virtuously, to be acting "in accordance with the law."

To stave off Sadiq's demands, I set up a committee to examine the division of functions.  Guwhar, the chief of Organization, and General `Abd al-Ghaniy al-Gamasiy, Chief of Operations, were on it. The unanimous opinion was that the Minister should remain a political figure, responsible for politico-military strategy but leaving military decisions to the Chief of Staff. To avert charges of self-aggrandizement I proposed this should bind only our successors.    Sadiq refused to listen.

Increasingly, the issue behind our dispute was how far Egypt's leadership would let political considerations stand in the way of the nation's needs.  In public the leadership called for an all-out struggle against the enemy and promised full support to the armed forces in that effort.  In private the leadership's paramount concern was to preserve a regime of autocratic privilege, which it upheld by lying to its citizens and then spying on them to see if they believed the lies. Even if the price were the failure of our assault on the enemy, the regime was determined to keep the armed forces subservient to that real, secret end.

The T-62 tanks provided a classic example of this. From the President's February visit we had learned that Moscow was to supply us with 200. We had to plan, in advance, how best to absorb them.

February 26:  A meeting to settle the question.  Sadiq in the chair. The T-62s, with their 115mm guns, were so powerful that, properly deployed, they could exert decisive influence on a battle. I proposed they be allocated to our two armored divisions and kept in reserve to deploy as and when the battle demanded. The Minister, along with Gamasiy and Guwhar, argued that they should replace the T-55s in our two independent armored brigades. (The difference being that our armored divisions functioned as independent battle formations; while the independent armored brigades-independent, that is, of the rest of our armor-were used as support formations.) The T-55s released from the brigades would in turn replace the older T-34s in other formations. I urged this would risk dissipating the potential impact of the T-62, especially if the independent brigades were dispersed in battle, as they could well be, to reinforce a variety of field formations. The Vice Minister, General Hasan, agreed with me.

The tanks were allotted, as Sadiq had decreed, to the 15th and 25th armored brigades. His main reason, I discovered later, was that the regime had doubts --  no more.  Just doubts about the loyalty of the brigadier commanding one of the armored divisions and judged that 100 T-62s in his hands would be a risk to internal security. (Since then, of course, the leadership has changed its view of what is an acceptable opinion and what is not. Now the potential traitors are all patriots, the patriots all traitors. The seesaw of autocracy.)

We were dumbfounded. Since President Nasir's first arms deal in 1955, Moscow had granted Egypt the most generous terms. We were charged half price. We were loaned the balance at two percent interest a year. We could pay off the loan over 10-15 years and in nonconvertible currency. Even at full price, Soviet equipment tends to cost roughly half the price of its Western equivalent. The upshot was that we were getting our arms at roughly one-quarter of their Western price, payable in our own currency. (Examples: the MIG-21 was costing us about E L.250,000 and the T-55 about EL.25,000, approximately $365,500 dollars and $36,765 dollars respectively. In now demanding payment in full and in hard currency, the Soviets were thus effectively quadrupling their prices to us and demanding cash on the barrelhead. That is how Western governments operate. But it baffled us why the Soviets should have adopted this position. They must know we could not afford it. Our only conclusion was that they were hoping Libya or SaudiArabia would finance us.

March 18: Sadiq wasted no time.  He called a meeting of the Armed Forces Supreme Council with himself in the chair. His ostensible purpose was to deny rumors.

He went on to talk about Hasan's visit to Moscow. He had not succeeded in getting the main items we wanted. The Soviet price was now 5.6 million rubles for each TU-22 and 250,000 rubles for each T-62, roughly $8.4 million dollars and $375,000 dollars respectively, and the Soviets had asked that even the ammunition be paid for in hard currency.

I left the meeting wondering precisely what Sadiq was trying to achieve. Rumors in Egypt are frequently not what they seem. Often they are manufactured and spread by the authorities to serve some person or cause. I fancied GeneralSadiq's "rumors" were of that sort. It was well known, certainly among the senior officers of the armed forces, that the new Prime Minister, Dr. `Aziyz Sidqiy favored close cooperation with the Soviet Union. The Prime Minister had therefore become one of Sadiq’s targets. I concluded that Sadiq himself was spreading these rumors to underline his anti-Soviet credentials, and was now seeking new adherents from the bad news of the Soviet terms of sale.

March 19: A morning meeting with Sadiq and General Okunev. Extraordinary news. Yesterday Okunev and Soviet Ambassador Vinogradov met the President.  Okunev said that Sadat had told them:

-He personally had instructed Prime Minister Sidqiy to tell Moscow that Egypt was ready to pay for arms in hard currency. That was why the Russians had demanded it of Hasan.

-Egypt was ready to pay in full, in hard currency, for the MIG-21s and the M-500s (if the Soviets would sell them to us) but not for the TU-22s.

-Instead of buying the TU-22s, Egypt would be reinforced by Lightnings: two squadrons from Saudi Arabia and one from Kuwait.

-We badly needed the T- 62 tanks but could not afford them. It was possible Libya might pay for them, but there were still problems.

-Egypt would pay for ammunition in hard currency.

-Egypt was determined to replace the Soviet SAM crews. But as a gesture we would relieve only 12 battalions, not the 18 stipulated in Sadiq's letter to Grechko.

Amazed, Sadiq could say only that he knew nothing of any of this and would have to contact the President. After Okunev had gone, Sadiq telephoned Sadat. I was beside him. The President confirmed Okunev's account, adding that when he had agreed to pay for ammunition he meant for the expansion of Egypt's own production facilities rather than for ammunition itself.

It was about 10:30 hours when Sadiq put the phone down. He left almost at once for the airport, bound on a scheduled trip to Saudi Arabia. I began the most immediate task: the replacement of 12 Soviet air defense battalions. Suddenly the President phoned. He told me to report at once, bringing with me the Vice Minister, General Hasan.

The President said he wanted the following understood. Our friendship with the Soviet Union was a strategic necessity. We had to maintain it. It was our only card. It was one we needed to play soon. As for bases, we would give facilities to the Soviet Union but never bases. Finally, information revealed to the Armed Forces Supreme Council must on no account be passed to, or discussed by, lower levels.

GeneralHasan then left the meeting. I stayed on, but to talk of other matters. How we were to get the weapons we needed remained unresolved.
 

(To be continued)

Next issue: The tale of two allies.