“Just an old poem about the cold of hate and the fires of passion.”
The sailor chuckled: “Well, I can’t think of anyone that I hate right now, and passion’s gonna have to wait until we get back to Athens.” Both laughed—the fleshpots of Athens were well known and beloved by the entire fleet—and headed for their too warm bunks and a few hours’ sleep.
“By the way, sir, happy birthday.” Gadsden had forgotten that the newborn day, October 6, 1973, marked his having survived to the ripe old age of 24. Neither man knew that before the moon had again run through its phases, both would be baptized in fire as the ice of a war grown cold quickly melted.1
Ice and Fire
Following World War II, the clash of political ideologies backed by the militarism developed during years of constant conflict forced nations into one of three increasingly armed camps. The Western Bloc, those nations that (more or less) embraced the principles of democracy and capitalism, looked to the United States for leadership. That nation had emerged from World War II as a true superpower: highly industrialized, tremendously wealthy, and the only possessor of the atomic bomb with its fearsome destructive capability. The Eastern Bloc, most members having been rapidly indoctrinated in the joys of communism after Soviet occupation in 1945, carefully watched Russia (formally the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) for its cue. The USSR’s sheer land mass, tremendous military-industrial base, and its development of an atomic weapons’ program in the late 1940s guaranteed its place as the world’s second superpower.
A third camp, that of non-aligned nations, constantly dwindled over time. In an increasingly bipolar world, its axis drawn through the United States and the USSR, neutrality was dangerous. Neither the American CIA nor the Russian KGB had scruples about toppling a government and replacing it with a more pliable regime. Besides, both powers were more than willing to trade money and weapons for allegiance to their cause. What matter if the image on the coin was that of Washington or Lenin, or if the weapon was stamped Kalashnikov or McDonnell-Douglas? If these gifts came with ideological price tags, so be it: rallying cries were always needed and “Free the working class” worked as well as “Pay the working class more” in most situations. So, one by one, Third World nations abandoned their cries of Pan-Africanism and Pan-Asianism to militarize and take their proper place as card-carrying, gun-bearing capitalist lackeys or communist dogs (take your pick, remembering that the status could change based upon the origin of the next monetary donation or shipment of weapons).
This bipolar world was one of often unreasoning hatred firmly based in the almighty opposites of capitalism and communism, of democracy and totalitarianism. No middle ground existed. Witch hunts and purges proliferated on all sides, generating a howling fear which only increased existing hatred. By the early 1970s, it was as if humanity was locked in ice, a very Cold War.
But this Cold War was not without its flames. The price of admittance for a Third World nation was often paid, and willingly so, in blood. From the hills of Greece to the jungles of Malaysia to the mountains of Peru, men and women waged civil wars for political control of their nations or settled old scores with their neighbors using weapons and funds provided by one or both superpowers.
One popular conception of the Cold War presents it as a clash of surrogates—the United States and the USSR struggling vicariously on third world battlegrounds. If so, the great puppeteers were not very accomplished at controlling their strings. In 1950, North Korea’s rush across the DMZ disconcerted that nation’s supposed Russian masters, while it has never been unusual for Americans to be fired upon by weapons of their own manufacture. Apparently the only thing the superpowers were worse at than “managing” foreign wars was direct intervention. Vietnam and Afghanistan were debacles of the first order, toppling those individuals in power to the right and left, and providing proof positive that entrance into a conflict requires a reasonable strategy for exiting the conflict. Unfortunately, the Cold War, by its very nature, allowed only one possible exit strategy: the complete elimination of the opposition.
By mid-1973, that elimination had not been realized, though certainly an excellent opportunity for a thorough rearrangement of much of the world’s topography had been barely averted during the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early 1960s. The strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction (aptly abbreviated as MAD) embraced by both the USA and the USSR promised a most unsatisfactory conclusion if passions ran uncontrolled, so brinkmanship and plausible deniability became the order of the day. Though the wall of ice could be chipped by such endeavors as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) of 1972 and smoothed by reciprocal visits of dignitaries, it would continue to exist.
But neither superpower reckoned with their client states in the Middle East. There the fire of war burned hot, fed by religious passion and a desire for revenge. There those who dispensed the tools of war so readily in the name of ideology would discover that their world could easily end in fire—the flames of a nuclear holocaust.
Setting the Stage
In March 1971, as President Richard Nixon and his Presidential Assistant for National Security Affairs, Henry Kissinger, struggled to disentangle the United States from its involvement in Vietnam, American congressmen engaged in the yearly fiasco of budget-planning. Their proposed allocations, a direct reflection of public sentiment regarding Vietnam in particular and war in general, stressed reduction of conventional military forces. Projected cuts in appropriations for naval construction, amounting to a billion dollars in 1973, concerned the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. On March 5, he routed a telling memorandum up the chain of command:
“I find this potential force reduction, in addition to the requirements for broad cuts in planned procurements designed to modernize our forces for the future, to be unacceptable in the face of the Soviet threat… I have informed you repeatedly of my concern for the continuing degradation of Naval capabilities… In my judgment, the end FY 70 forces gave us a 55 percent probability of success if we become involved in a conflict at sea with the Soviet Union… While I judge our naval forces today have only a 35 percent chance in an engagement with the Soviet Union, that level of confidence is reduced to 20 percent based on [new budget projections]. It is perfectly clear that we are unable to support the fighting of a war overseas by the U.S. or allied forces should the Soviet Union challenge the U.S. for control of the seas…”2
Zumwalt’s concerns were valid. By 1972, major naval assets of the Soviet Union, on a hull for hull basis, outnumbered those of the US Navy by 820 to 447. The disparity would increase as aging American warships, many built during World War II, made their final journey to the salvage yards. Only in the category of carriers would the Western superpower maintain a clear superiority, and in most potential theaters of operations that superiority could easily be challenged by land-based communist air power.3
Far more telling as to the potential for conflict was the increasing number of Soviet ships at sea throughout the world. Between 1956 and 1972, ship-days (days at sea per hull) had increased from 500 to 14,500 in the Atlantic Ocean, from none to 1,900 in the Caribbean Sea, from 200 to 5,900 in the Pacific Ocean, from none to 8,900 in the Indian Ocean, and from 100 to 17,700 in the Mediterranean Sea.4 In the last named theater of operations, ship-days of the USSR’s Fifth Eskadra considerably exceeded those of the US Sixth Fleet.5 Greater Soviet presence at sea also increased the direct confrontations between vessels and aircraft of the two superpowers, ranging from near-misses and collisions to charges of gunfire (hotly denied, of course). Frequently, officers on both sides would simulate attacks on ships and aircraft of the opposite fleets—but only in the name of realistic training. In times of increased international tension, such confrontations tended to be more numerous, with the potential for assuming deadly proportions.6
The Nixon White House, very much aware of the anti-militarism prevalent in public opinion, developed a three-prong approach to maintaining political power. Internationa
lly, the Nixon Doctrine called for support of foreign allies without committing American troops. This aid would take the form of both cash and military materials. Meanwhile, Kissinger sought détente—a thawing of the Cold War—through both public and private meetings with communist leaders, most visible in the continuing SALT talks and in paving the way for Nixon to visit Communist China. Domestically, the Nixon approach was far more subtle, at least until federal investigations revealed the Watergate break-in of June 1972. Each of these strands would play a key role in the events of October 1973.
Détente was acceptable to Moscow, as long as it did not give the appearance of weakness within the Soviet Union. Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party and leading member of the Politburo (the penultimate governing body of the USSR), had no illusions that any direct military confrontation with the United States held the seeds of nuclear holocaust. Imbedded in the Russian memory was how the Russian Empire had stumbled to its destruction in 1914 by letting the intemperate actions of clients rather than calculation drag it into World War I. Still, the world was a troubled place, and Soviet client states did not always practice restraint. Thus Brezhnev could not have been surprised when, on October 3, 1973, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt informed the Soviet Union that Egypt and Syria planned to employ the weapons supplied by their communist benefactors to settle, once and for all, the “Middle Eastern Question.” Realizing that Sadat would attack Israel regardless of Brezhnev’s opinion, the Soviet leader began the evacuation of Russian non-combatants from Egypt while warning the Arab leader that his attack must be successful since the Soviet Union could not guarantee full replacement of expended or destroyed material.7
The Yom Kippur War
The Arab–Israeli War of 1973 has several names. It is often referred to as the October War, having opened and ended within the same month. Arabs frequently refer to the event as the Ramadan War, as it was fought during that holy month of the Muslim calendar, while Israelis invariably refer to the incident as the Yom Kippur War, since the initial Arab assault came on that Jewish holy day.8 Outside the Middle East—in that unforgiving portion of the world the events of 30 years past are still quite relevant and daily cry for revenge—the conflict is more often than not simply remembered as the precursor to the Confrontation of 1973.
Regardless of name, history records that at 1400 hours on October 6, Egypt and Syria unleashed a massive assault on unprepared Israeli forces. By the end of the first day of combat, Syrian armor had achieved significant gains along the Golan Heights, the most direct route into Israel, while Egyptian forces had pierced the Bar Lev Line, Israel’s strong but undermanned defensive positions along the Suez Canal. Israeli commanders were shocked by the lavishly equipped Arab forces. Most surprising of all were the man-portable Sagger wire-guided anti-tank missiles and the dense concentration of SAM (surface-to-air missile) sites. Israeli armor and air losses quickly mounted, and reserves considered adequate for a repeat of the Six Day War of 1967 suffered rapid depletion. The Israeli government immediately appealed to the United States for emergency military aid.
Despite the knowledge that Soviet shipments of weapons to Arab states had not wavered (freighters stuffed with weapons and munitions had left the Black Sea port of Odessa bound for Egypt and Syria as the conflict began, while an airlift continuously operated through the first days of the war), the Nixon government hesitated. Some sources blame Kissinger for the delay in supporting the only ally of the United States in the Middle East, claiming that he felt a military defeat would make Israel more willing to consider concessions necessary for a lasting peace in the region. Others point to the State Department’s unwillingness to face a potential oil embargo by Arab nations. In truth, President Nixon’s time was so consumed by the rapidly progressing Watergate scandal, coupled with the cloud of corruption surrounding Vice President Spiro Agnew, who would resign on October 10, that it impaired sound judgment throughout the executive branch.9 Only late on that same day did the president authorize Operation Nickel Grass, the resupply of Israel by the Military Airlift Command (MAC). He approved the operation’s continuance for over a month, until the first seaborne supplies would arrive at Israeli ports.10
As events unraveled, a rapid Israeli mobilization allowed counter-attacks against both Syria and Egypt to begin as early as October 8. On the Golan Heights, Israel rapidly achieved dominance. By October 11, its artillery and planes were actually attacking targets inside Syria and an advance against the Syrian capital, Damascus, appeared feasible. Strikes against Egyptian forces in Sinai were repulsed on October 8 and 9 with heavy losses, though they slowed the Egyptian advance and allowed the concentration of further Israeli reserves. By October 10, Egyptian forces had at last advanced beyond the protective umbrella of the fixed SAM sites located on the western bank of the Suez Canal. This allowed Israeli ground forces, strongly supported by air power, to stabilize the front and to begin a series of counter-actions culminating in a massive armor battle on October 14. Tank losses ran over 20:1 in favor of the Israeli forces, shattering Egyptian morale and opening the door to an advance to the canal itself.
The Yom Kippur War did not limit itself to land. In the Mediterranean, an aggressive Israeli Navy quickly achieved dominance despite being outnumbered by a factor of 2:1. The most outstanding action was the Battle of Latakia, fought near the Syrian port of that name on October 7. There six Israeli missile boats engaged and sank a small patrol craft with 76mm gunfire and a minesweeper with a Gabriel missile, then dueled with three Syrian missile boats. Despite the fact that the Soviet Styx missiles employed by the Syrians possessed twice the range of the Israeli Gabriels, effective use of electronic counter-measures (ECM) and chaff led to the destruction of all three Syrian vessels without a single Israeli loss.11 After this encounter, Syrian and Egyptian vessels kept to port, allowing Israeli boats a free hand in supporting coastal operations.
Strengthened by the now rapidly arriving American aid, Israeli forces crossed the Suez Canal on October 16. By October 21, Israeli armor had advanced to within 40 miles of Cairo while isolating the Egyptian Third Army in the Sinai. On the Golan front, despite reinforcements dispatched to Syria by Iraq and Jordan and a threat of direct intervention by Soviet paratroopers, Israeli brigades held positions only ten miles from Damascus. Clearly, if a quick political solution could not be found, Israel’s military solution—the total conquest of those countries that had attacked it by surprise—would irrevocably destabilize the Middle East.
The world’s leading statesmen had been seeking that political solution since October 11, when the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, had broached the subject with Kissinger, along with a stern warning that Russia would commit its airborne troops to Damascus rather than allow the Israelis to capture it. On October 16, Soviet pressure on the United States to curb Israel had increased when Sadat formally requested that the Soviet Union initiate a cease-fire motion in the United Nations. Further pressure on the United States appeared the following day, when members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced an embargo on supplies to Israel and its supporters.12 On October 20, Kissinger himself arrived in Moscow. The following day, Kissinger and Brezhnev agreed on the text for UN Security Council Resolution 338, calling for an immediate cease-fire followed by negotiations to reach “a just and durable peace settlement in the Middle East.”13 Jointly introduced by the United States and the USSR in the Security Council on October 22, the resolution immediately passed. Kissinger flew from Moscow directly to Tel Aviv to pressure the Israeli government into accepting the cease-fire. Both superpowers felt certain the war would end that same day. Unfortunately, they had reckoned without the Arabs and Israelis.
Within hours of the cease-fire going into effect, the isolated and increasingly desperate Egyptian Third Army attempted to escape from its pocket. Blaming the Israelis for the resulting military operations, Brezhnev sent a strongly worded message to Washington. Kissinger immediately press
ured his UN ambassador to try again, and another attempt at an armistice was set for October 24. In the hours after the abortive escape attempt, however, Israeli forces had resumed military action all along the Egyptian front, steadily expanding their bridgehead on the Egyptian side of the canal. This time, both sides ignored the UN resolution.
Frustration reigned among the key leaders of both superpowers. In the United States, the frustration was accompanied by the genuine exhaustion of Nixon, whose every waking moment revolved around Watergate, and the globe-hopping Kissinger. Late in the evening of October 24, Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin delivered a message to Kissinger from Brezhnev. In part, it read:
“Let us together, the Soviet Union and the United States, urgently dispatch Soviet and American military contingents to Egypt to ensure implementation of the Security Council decision of October 22 and 23 concerning the cessation of fire and all military activities, and also of our understanding with you on the guarantee of the implementation of the Security Council decisions. It is necessary to adhere without delay.
I will say it straight that if you find it impossible to act jointly with us in this matter, we should be faced with the necessity urgently to consider taking appropriate steps unilaterally. We cannot allow arbitrariness on the part of Israel.”14
Cold War Hot: Alternate Decisions of the Cold War Page 24
