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| April
27- May 10: The President in Moscow again, his
second visit in less than three months and the longest yet.
Significantly, Sadiq
did not go with him. Whatever the President says to me in private,
his public posture remains that of the friend and defender of the Soviet
presence in Egypt, while Sadiq
stays its Number One Enemy. It was ironic that while the President
was in
Moscow, Sadiq
and I in Cairo should have had to deal with two incidents that really
did strain relations with the Russians.
The first came when
the Soviet mission informed us that the Mediterranean fleet was carrying
out an exercise and would like to land troops in the area of Marsa
Matruwh on May 8 and
withdraw them the next day. |
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For obvious reasons that
was , rejected in fairly short order by the War Minister
The next incident
was pettier, but left a nasty taste.
May
8, 1700 hours: I was monitoring an exercise in Central District
HQ when the Chief Soviet Adviser arrived. Okunev complained that
personnel returning to the Soviet Union were being treated in an
unfriendly manner at Cairo airport by our Customs. Some, Okunev
said, might have a gold ring or bangle for his wife or sweetheart, but
such trifles ought not to be treated as smuggling. I rang the Director
of the Defense Intelligence Department. He said it was more serious
than that. For some weeks,Soviet personnel
had been observed buying great quantities of gold.
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| Reluctantly quitting
the exercise, I drove with
Okunev to
my office to make a start on cooling everyone down and resolving the affair.
Within half-an-hour
Sadiq had
arrived, followed immediately by General Hasan
Giritliy, Secretary General of the Ministry.
Sadiq
was soon trying simultaneously to explain to Okunev
that he had no authority over the Customs, while whispering to Giritliy
and me that he knew the Russians had about 200
pounds of gold among them. |
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His suggestion to Okunev
was that everyone should fill in a Customs form, hand over any gold and
depart, on Okunev's assurance as the
responsible officer that they would return if a court required it. When
circumstances had cooled down, Sadiq
said, he would smooth everything over. Okunev
repeated that his men had nothing to declare; and that to hand over trinkets
taken as souvenirs of a year or more 's service in Sadiq
would be a bitter disappointment to them.
The argument was getting
nowhere until Sadiq got a telephone
call. He became more flexible. The same caller rang again.
Sadiq's
attitude changed completely. I was now deputed to go to the airport to
solve the problem. I wanted no part of the squalid little incident, so
Giritliy
was dispatched instead.
Sadiq
never identified his caller and I never asked. But he called him "Muhammad"
from which I deduce it was the President's National Security Adviser,
Muhammad
Hafiz
Isma`iyl, on the line.
We were all due at
a Soviet Embassy "Victory Day" reception that evening. But when
I left Sadiq and Okunevaround
1900 hours I was in no mood for it. Telling my secretary to
make the necessary apologies, I went back to my interrupted training exercise.
I learned the next
day that the Soviet personnel had, of course, been allowed to take what
they had with them. I got the list. The 71
Soviets had been carrying:75 rings, 45 seal-rings, 41 pairs of earrings,
26 necklaces, seven bracelets and three brooches. Total weight of gold
less than three pounds, just over one-half ounce per person.
So much for Defense Intelligence Department's "great
quantities" and Sadiq's
"200
pounds". From all points of view, the affair left a nasty
taste.
May 14: Marshal
Grechkoarrived
in Cairo. At 1900 hours, the President
received
Grechkoand
Soviet
Ambassador Vinogradov. Neither
Sadiq
nor
our Foreign Minister,
Dr. Murad
Ghalib,
was present.
The meeting had been
scheduled to last an hour. Then Grechko
was to pay a courtesy call on Sadiq
at his home in
Zamalik
before going on to a dinner in his
honor at the Officers Club not far away. But
Grechko
was with the President
until
2300 hours,
and when he did finally arrive he said jovially to Sadiq:
"I
have nothing to give you. The President emptied my pockets."
"Well," Sadiq
said, "I hope what he found in them was everything we need."
Over dinner it was
agreed that the new arms contracts would be signed next day, as usual by
General
Hasan.
But when, in a private moment, I asked Sadiq
what the contract would contain he swore he had no idea.
May
15: I was in Sadiq's
office. Hasan came in to tell
us what he had learned the Soviets were offering:
1. SU-17
aircraft: four to come in the next month,
the rest before
the end of the year;
2. BETSHURA (SAM-3)
battalions;
3. T- 62
tanks, half to be delivered in 1972 and the rest in 1973;
4. -a QUADRATbrigade,
to be delivered in 1973;
5. -Spares
and miscellaneous equipment. |
