A Tested Alliance: The American Airlift to Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War

T t d ll n : Th r n rl ft t r l n th pp r r

David Tal

Israel Studies, Volume 19, Number 3, Fall 2014, pp. 29-54 (Article)

P bl h d b nd n n v r t PrDOI: 10.1353/is.2014.0028

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29

David Tal

A Tested Alliance: The American Airlift to Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War

ABSTRACT

When the Yom Kippur War broke out, Israel turned to the United States, asking for quick replacement of the arms it was losing in the war. It took more than a week before the Americans launched a massive airlift to Israel, consisting of the supply Israel was asking for. The feeling in Israel, and in later historiography, is that the Nixon administration had deliberately delayed the airlift for reasons that are subject to historiographical debate. Some put the blame on James Schlesinger, the secretary of defense, and some on Henry Kissinger, the secretary of state and the president’s national security adviser. This article suggests a different explanation, according to which on the one hand, for the Americans, the delay was not really a delay, and on the second hand, the way Israel made the requests did not transmit to the administration the sense of urgency the Israelis were feeling.

The huge Galaxy C-5A transport planes overflying Israel’s skies, carrying precious commodities and much-needed military supplies, came as drops of water to an arid land and to the distressed Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Or at least, that is the impression one could get from reading the memoirs of Israel’s then Prime Minister, Golda Meir. For example: “We needed those arms really desperately, and in the beginning, they were slow in coming.” She also knew whose blame it was: “The story has already been published of that delay, of the US Defense Department’s initial reluctance to send military supplies to us. . . . Each hour of waiting that passed was like a century for me,” she recounts, until finally, “Nixon himself ordered the giant C-5 Galaxies to be sent.”1

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With that, Prime Minister Meir laid down a historiographical line, according to which, first, there was a delay in the airlift to Israel of arms and supplies that were urgently needed, and second, that it was the fault of the Department of Defense. This argument has been followed by numerous scholars and practitioners: the biographers of US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and of Israel’s ambassador to the US, Simcha Dinitz, described the airlift as a successful endeavor by Kissinger, who managed to overcome the obstacles placed by the Department of Defense and especially by the secretary of defense, James Schlesinger.2

A second interpretation maintains that it was the other way around: in fact, it was Kissinger who delayed the shipments to Israel. Because he viewed the war in a broader framework, he related to it in Cold War terms. He would try to help Israel, but in a way that, on the one hand, would not seriously antagonize US relations with the Arabs, and on the other hand, would allow him to engage in the linkage he liked so much. This meant that there was a price Israel had to pay in return for the arms supply, and he therefore negotiated the airlift in this context.3

A third view, which the records prove is erroneous, is that Nixon decided to launch the airlift out of fear that Israel would use nuclear weap-ons because of its grave military situation.4 Not only is there no evidence to support this claim, but the sequence of events is completely different from that suggested by the proponents of this argument.5

The article rejects both arguments that assume a rift between Secretary of State Kissinger and Schlesinger over the airlift. It will show that in fact, the administration was acting in a much more concerted manner, under the guidance of Nixon, despite his many distractions at the time. More funda-mentally, an element will be added that is completely missing from both explanations—Israeli diplomacy. Both the accepted interpretations have relied almost exclusively on US primary sources, and narrate the story from a US perspective. I wish to broaden the scope of the discussion, however, and to apply the methodology of the “new diplomatic history”, viewing a great power such as the US not only as influencing, but also as “being influ-enced”.6 Through the use of Israeli as well as US diplomatic documents, I will show the unusual intimacy of the relationship between the Israeli diplomats—primarily Dinitz—and senior members of the US administra-tion, first and foremost Kissinger, and the intricate process by which Israeli diplomats were involved in the decision-making in Washington. Not only are the results of the Israeli diplomatic activities of considerable historical interest, but so is the process by which they took place.

A Tested Alliance • 31

6 OCTOBER

When Israel’s prime minister, Meir, awoke in the early morning of 6 Octo-ber and received the report that the Syrian and Egyptian armies would attack Israel “in the late afternoon”, her immediate response was to assume that these armies had deployed their forces out of fear of an Israeli attack. Consequently, she sent Kissinger several messages in which she assured him that Israel had no plans to launch a pre-emptive strike on Egypt or Syria, and asked him to deliver this message to the Syrian and Egyptian governments.7 One thing she would not do was to contemplate ordering a pre-emptive attack, even when it became clear that the Egyptian and Syrian armies intended to start a war. The IDF chief of staff, General David Elazar, tried to convince Meir to agree to a pre-emptive air strike, but she insisted that Israel would not be the first to attack.8

Meir did not consult Nixon or Kissinger when she made this decision, but she was undoubtedly thinking about the US at the time. Meir had met Nixon on 1 March 1973, and when she discussed with him American arms sales to Israel, she said: “If you had doubts about our use of arms, we wouldn’t get them. The arms we get are for self-defense and have also pre-vented war.”9 While this was not necessarily a promise to hold back from a pre-emptive attack, it reflected Meir’s mind-set, according to which Israel must be careful with its weapons so as not to create the impression that it was using American weapons to instigate war. But there was more to it: Meir, and the Israeli political and military leadership, assumed that even in the unlikely event that Egypt and Syria would attack, the IDF would have no problem repelling it and destroying the Egyptian and Syrian armies.10

Kissinger tried to prevent the inevitable, but in vain: at 2 pm, an Egyp-tian and Syrian aerial and artillery bombardment announced the beginning of the fourth round of the Arab–Israeli conflict. This was bad news for the United States for several reasons. One was its domestic situation. The president was deeply entangled with Watergate, which consumed a lot of his time and attention. During the days of war he also had to deal with the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, who had become involved in questionable financial issues during his term as governor of Maryland. Agnew resigned on 3 October, and Nixon had to find a replacement—Gerald Ford.11

The second reason was the sensitive state of US–Soviet relations. The Nixon administration was promoting a policy of détente with the Soviet Union under the slogan “Negotiations, not confrontation”, and the involve-ment of the two superpowers in the war could, and eventually did, fuel


the regional Arab–Israeli conflict and turn it into a conflict between the superpowers.

Third, the developing American–Egyptian relations. After expelling about 15,000 Soviet advisors from Egypt in July 1972, Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat hoped to draw closer to the United States. Beginning in February 1973, “with a view toward building better relations”, Kissinger and Hafiz Ismail, Sadat’s National Security advisor, opened a backchan-nel through which they tried to put the Egyptian–American relationship on a new footing.12 Thus, Kissinger’s actions during the 1973 war were influenced in part by his vision of post-war American–Egyptian relations.13

Kissinger’s reaction to the news that the Egyptian and Syrian military forces had started the war typified his and the administration’s attitude toward it. They were all sure that Israel would “hit back hard” and the Arabs “will be on their knees begging us for a cease-fire.”14 This estimation is significant for understanding the way in which Kissinger—and the admin-istration in general—treated Israel’s requests for military supplies. Nixon, Kissinger, Secretary of Defense Schlesinger, and the other senior officials of the administration acted under no sense of urgency during the first days of the conflict. Kissinger was in constant touch with Israeli diplomats in Washington, and the reports he was given confirmed his initial estimation that Israel would soon turn the tide. “We are operating on the assumption that you will win,” he told Mordechai Shalev, the chargé d’affaires at Israel’s Washington embassy, on 6 October.15 Thus, when they analyzed the Israeli requests for arms, Nixon and his lieutenants felt that they could look at the broader picture, and let other considerations prevail over a decision to send Israel major arms systems, such as tanks and combat planes.

In trying to contain the conflict, Nixon and Kissinger agreed that at this stage it would be better to keep the great powers out of it. Nixon preferred to work together with the Soviets in the spirit of détente, on the assumption that Israel could deal effectively with the crisis and there would be no need for American intervention. Thus, he felt that he could safely tell Kissinger, “Don’t take sides.”16 Nixon was also afraid that standing by Israel publicly would lead to an Arab oil embargo, and even that Arab states not involved in the war would join in. Thus, he told Kissinger that the United States should maintain neutrality: “We don’t want to be so pro-Israel.”17

In accordance with Nixon’s ruling, the Washington Special Actions Group (WSAG), the administration’s crisis-management forum, which met to discuss the unfolding situation and was headed by Kissinger, decided that “No US equipment should move to either side.” This decision was based on the same premises that underlay Nixon and Kissinger’s thinking: Israel


would push back the invading forces within days, and was not in real need of equipment. The CIA director, William Colby, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), Admiral Thomas Moorer, and Under-Secretary of State Kenneth Rush all concurred.18

However, Kissinger and Nixon did not intend to deprive Israel com-pletely of military assistance. Shalev presented Kissinger with a list of “urgent items” that the IDF needed “very much in a hurry”, and Kissinger said that Israel would get what it needed “within reason”.19 But these supplies would not include planes and tanks.

To make it possible for the United States to avoid taking sides, it was necessary to ascertain that the Soviets were doing likewise. To ensure this, Kissinger called the Soviet ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin, and offered to work with him on a Security Council resolution for the restora-tion of the status quo ante in the Middle East. If the Soviets chose to side with the Arabs, “We have to assume some collusion,” Kissinger told General Haig, and in such a case, “We, in my judgment, have to lean toward the Israelis.”20

The first official Soviet response deepened Kissinger’s suspicions that the Soviets were siding with the Arabs. The Soviet government rejected his proposal to convene the Security Council, and was unwilling to admit that the Arab states had started the war. Indirectly, it justified the Arab attack as a means of getting back the territories occupied by Israel since 1967.21 The regional war began to shift toward a conflict between the two superpowers.

Once again, Kissinger’s intention to work together with the Soviet Union and to show neutrality, if the Soviets would act similarly, was based on his conviction that Israel would not need America’s help. To Dobrynin, he said: “Today [6 October] the Arabs are on Israeli territory, but we don’t believe this will last seventy hours and after that the problem will be to get the Israelis back to the cease-fire line.” To Shalev, he commented later in the day: “I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of those that are being dealt with. . . . We are operating on the assumption that you will win.”22 To Jewish Senator Jacob Javits, he said: “We are assuming that the Israelis can take care of themselves.” At the same time, if things worked out badly for Israel, he promised that “we have to go back to the drawing table.”23

These assumptions were based not only on the memory of the 1967 War, when Israel swiftly defeated the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian forces, but also on the reports that Dinitz was giving Kissinger about Israel’s situation. Dinitz’s reports were a mixture of weakness and strength. Even when bringing bad news, Dinitz, Shalev, or Foreign Minister Abba Eban colored it with positive news. During the first days of the fighting, even


when it became clear that the situation was worse than anticipated, the Israelis sent mixed messages. Consequently, Kissinger and Schlesinger based their decisions on the assumption that even when the news was bad, Israel would soon change the course of the war.

7 OCTOBER

Meir was undoubtedly confident that the IDF would manage to turn the tide. She believed that it wouldn’t take them more than three days to defeat the Egyptian army and force it back. For that reason she wished to postpone a Security Council meeting until then. She was also determined to hit the Egyptians harshly, so that “they would not repeat these attack exercises.” The cabinet would later approve these tactics in its meeting on the morn-ing of the 7th.24 However, the reports that poured in from the Sinai and the Golan Heights painted a harsh picture of the IDF’s situation. “Tonight was a bad night,” Meir told the cabinet. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who had just returned from a tour in the north and the south, explained to the cabinet that the situation on both fronts was bad. While it might be possible to create a line of defense on the Golan Heights and not to have to evacuate it completely, in the south the “Canal line is lost”. There were hundreds of Egyptian tanks to the east of the Canal, and Dayan suggested building a second line of defense across the Mitla Pass, about 30 kilometers east of the Canal. “I underestimated the enemy’s power, its ability to fight, and overestimated our power and sustainability,” he admitted. “The Arabs are fighting much better than before. They have got a lot of arms. They hit our tanks with personal anti-tank weapons. The [surface to air] missiles are a difficult umbrella that our planes fail to smash.”25

Unlike Meir’s first impression, Dayan thought that the issue now was weapons, not time. He used apocalyptic rhetoric when describing the situ-ation. It was no longer a war far away from Israel’s pre-1967 lines, but a war in defense of the very nation of Israel—and its people. The Egyptians and Syrians were using large quantities of arms, and it looked as if Israel was facing a long war. In order to win, it was necessary to obtain more tanks and combat planes.26 However, Dayan was also aiming at the future. At this stage, two days after the war had begun, the IDF did not suffer from arms shortages. The problem was Dayan’s prediction that it would be a long war. Logistically, the IDF held stocks, mainly of food and fuel, that would provide self-sufficiency for the state for 90 days, and for fighting it held ten days of military supplies—arms and ammunition.27


The question now was how to communicate the real situation to Kissinger. There was a delicate equilibrium between Israel’s difficulties and urgent need for weapons, against the need to avoid giving the impression that Israel was weak. Dayan thought that Israel should tell Kissinger the truth, but not all of it. “We need to tell Kissinger everything, the whole truth. . . . If only we could get more tanks and planes. We must tell them the truth.” But not quite the whole truth: “We should not cry SOS.” Israel should also tell Kissinger that it was fighting back and the reversal of the adverse trend was in sight.28

Meir and Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon agreed with Dayan to give Kissinger sufficient information to allow him to see the real picture, even where it was pretty bad, but to refrain from showing weakness. Meir attributed great importance to the maintenance of Israel’s image as strong. “There is no greater sin for a small nation than being weak,” she told the members of the Knesset Foreign and Security Committee, “This is a sin, an unforgivable sin.” Meir assumed that Israel’s strength was the determining factor in the Israeli–American relationship. “A great friend told us: ‘You must win!’,” Meir told the committee members, referring to Kissinger. “If, God forbid, we were hit, there is no friendship.” No one—including the United States—would seek Israel’s friendship if it were weak. Victory in the war was necessary not only for the obvious reasons, but also to save Israel’s alliance with the US.29 Dayan agreed: “They will say, you are a paper tiger.”30

Thus, Israel could not admit its weakness while it was asking for arms. And indeed, the Israeli messages to Kissinger did not accurately reflect the dire situation. Meir asked that Kissinger be told that the Syrian armored advance had been stopped, while in the south the IDF was reinforcing its troops to contain the attack, and intended to counterattack on 8 October.31 In her message to Nixon, Meir implied that Israel might ask for combat planes, but she did not indicate a desperate need for replacements. Not yet. What was urgent was the need for time, which was essential to allow the IDF to turn the tide. Meir emphasized that she wouldn’t ask Kissinger for more materiel “if she thought that our situation would not change in our favor. It is a matter of a few days.”32 In a separate message to Kissinger, Meir included a list of items that Israel needed urgently, and referring to the military situation, she wrote only that “We are engaged in heavy battles.” She did not elaborate and avoided telling Kissinger the real situa-tion. Instead, she attributed the difficulties to the decision not to pre-empt, which she implied had been taken because of the US. “We have been forced to adopt a defensive strategy,” she wrote. Shalev, who brought the message


to Kissinger, added that an Israeli jumbo-jet was on its way to New York, and could pick up the equipment and take it to Israel.33

Thus, Kissinger could not have understood from Meir’s message how bad the situation was. He concluded that more than weapons, Israel needed time to allow the IDF to turn the tide. Consequently, he planned to suggest to the Security Council that the two warring sides be persuaded to return to the status quo ante. In any case, he said it would take several days before serious discussions would commence, and Israel would have some time to reorganize and take the offensive. “The important thing is how quickly you can get on the offensive,” he emphasized to Shalev.34

Kissinger was moving along the lines suggested to him by the Israelis, or what he could understand from Israeli messages. He listened attentively to these, and acted—or refrained from acting—in response to the messages. At this stage, the second day of the fighting, the messages he got told him that Israel needed time to finish off the Egyptian and Syrian armies. There was nothing in the messages that indicated otherwise. What was meaning-ful in all this, however, was the open channel between Kissinger and the Israeli diplomats. Kissinger maintained an almost open line with the Israeli embassy, and acted in accordance with what he heard from its diplomats. This intimacy would further increase with the return of Simcha Dinitz, who had been attending his father’s funeral in Israel. When the war had broken out a few days later, on Meir’s instructions Dinitz rushed back to the United States. He was an important link between Israel and the US because of his special position in both countries. Especially significant was his easy access (mainly) to Kissinger. “Dinitz and I became fast friends,” recounted Kissinger,35 and they conversed frequently. By means of this open door to Kissinger, and through him to Nixon, and Kissinger’s readiness to listen to what the Israelis had to say, the Israeli government was able to play an active role in the conduct of American policy toward Israel and sometimes even in the wider Middle East.

The Kissinger–Dinitz channel was the one preferred by Golda Meir instead of going through Israel’s Foreign Ministry and Eban, who was also in New York at this time. Meir liked and trusted Dinitz, and neither liked nor trusted Eban—a piece of information that Kissinger shared with the Egyptian foreign minister.36 Although he was briefed as to the unfolding events, Eban was not part of the active Israeli–American dialogue during those fateful days.

In his first meeting with Kissinger after his return, Dinitz learned what Israel could and could not expect to get during the war: Israel would receive consumables, as well as 100 urgently needed Sidewinder air-to-air missiles


that had been ordered before the war. However, it would not get combat planes “while the fighting is going on”.37

Kissinger, who invariably tried to link everything with everything else, saw another opportunity to make a linkage, this time between arms shipments to Israel and US Middle Eastern policy, as well as with detente. Reflecting on the day after the war, he thought that, on the one hand, Israel’s need for weapons would make it more attentive to American ideas on a diplomatic solution to the Middle East conflict, and on the other hand, because of the military assistance it was getting and would continue to get after the war, Israel would feel that it was not alone in a time of emergency and would be more ready to take risks and make territorial compromises. Another possible contribution Israel could make in return for US military assistance during the war would be its help in dealing with the demands from Congress about the conditions for granting the Soviet Union Most Favored Nation (MFN) status, in an agreement with the Soviets that would allow the emigration of Russian Jews.38

But there were difficulties even with the items approved for delivery. El Al planes were ready to transport these, and Kissinger called Schlesinger, telling him that the president had “decided to go ahead” with the “supply thing”, which included the Sidewinder missiles. However, the Depart-ment of Defense insisted that the El Al planes could land in an American base only after erasing their identification marks. “Those goddamn idiots,” responded Kissinger when Dinitz told him about it.39

8 OCTOBER

This was supposed to be a day of change. The Israeli government had decided to launch counterattacks on both fronts that day. The objectives were to drive the Egyptian army back across the Canal; to repel the Syrian army across the cease-fire line; and to inflict heavy blows on both armies.40 Dinitz car-ried the message to Kissinger, asking both for time and weapons. Kissinger emphasized that “It is important that you’ll hit them strongly and as quickly as possible.”41 Kissinger would urge Israel time and time again to achieve a sweeping victory. Viewing the war both in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict and the Cold War, he thought that Israel, using American arms and being an ally, should demonstrate the benefits of the association with the US for US Arab allies—and for those not allied with the US—to plainly see. In addition, a decisive Israeli victory would allow the war to be terminated and a move to the next step under American terms, and not Soviet.42


Dinitz sensed that he had an argument that would justify a request for arms without surrendering information about Israel’s dire situation. In order to win the war, as Kissinger urged, he explained that Israel needed planes and the other items it had already ordered. “About the planes, it will be difficult,” responded Kissinger, but the other items were under review. And he repeated: “You must hit them hard.”43

The Arabs—and the Soviet Union—seemed to be unaware of Israel’s predicament. Brezhnev responded positively to the American proposal of working together to achieve a cease-fire and a restoration of the status quo ante, and suggested that a cease-fire be accompanied by Israel’s announce-ment of its agreement to withdraw from the Sinai without conditions.44 In other words, Brezhnev called for Israel’s unconditional surrender.

While the IDF forces were engaged in the counterattacks,45 Kissinger gave the good news to Dinitz: the president had approved “in principle” the delivery of replacements.46 However, it remained to be seen what exactly “in principle” meant. Dinitz implied that he could influence its meaning. He told Kissinger that he had received many phone calls from senators who expressed concern and a desire to assist Israel “materially”. “I’m not asking for any initiative on their part,” emphasized Dinitz, nor was he was seeking a resolution in Congress. To all those who asked, Dinitz explained that “I’m in close touch with the government and we have no outstanding problems.”47 A perceptive listener or reader could, of course, discern the opposite: if “outstanding problems” did arise, there were those in Congress and beyond who were ready to help solve these.

But in reality, Dinitz did not wait until trouble would come. He used his ties with politicians and public figures to put pressure on the administra-tion to provide arms to Israel, even if this was done implicitly and indirectly. Thus, he talked with Senators Stuart Symington (D-MI), Walter Mondale (D-Minnesota), Frank Church (D-Idaho), and Henry Jackson (D-WA); George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO; Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve; the Jewish leader Max Fisher, and others. Dinitz also orchestrated a resolution in Congress calling on the administration to “strengthen and equip Israel” so it could meet the attacks against it. The resolution draft was couched in general terms and contained no reference to specific items.48

While Dinitz was anxious to give Kissinger the impression that delay in the administration’s response to Israel’s requests would lead to public and Congressional pressure, Kissinger acted to distance himself from the foot-dragging. In his conversations with Dinitz, Kissinger gave the impression, and sometimes spelled out clearly, that when he was trying to arrange arms


transfers to Israel he was struggling with a reluctant and uncooperative Pentagon. Thus, when Dinitz asked why, after Nixon’s approval in principle, it was still difficult to give Israel the combat planes, Kissinger did not say it was because Nixon did not approve the immediate sending of the planes. Instead, he said that there were various obstacles to overcome in the Defense Department.49

As mentioned above, scholars cite differences and arguments between Kissinger and other members of the administration as the reason for delays in the arms deliveries. However, there was no real argument between Kiss-inger and Schlesinger over this. Kissinger was, however, against delivering planes to Israel while hostilities continued. The Defense Department was an easy target, and Kissinger had no problem pointing a finger in its direc-tion, even if the Department had done nothing he disapproved of. This was a tactic that, according to Kissinger, was common practice in his rela-tions with Dinitz, as he explained in his memoirs: “Like all experienced diplomats, we took great pains to keep our disagreement from becoming personal. One device is to blame, usually transparently—someone else for painful decisions.” Dinitz did so when he “brilliantly” mobilized media and congressmen to put pressure on the administration, without admitting that he was doing so. Kissinger did it when he “had bad news for Dinitz”. Then “I was not above ascribing it to bureaucratic stalemates or unfortunate decisions by superiors.” However, “neither of us fooled the other. I knew Dinitz was orchestrating most pressures, and he understood that I had not reached eminence by losing too many bureaucratic battles.”50

Being the experienced diplomat he was, and based on his long experi-ence of working with Kissinger in the past as the Israeli prime minister’s secretary, Dinitz was well aware of Kissinger’s tactics in policy-making and diplomacy.

The real issue, though, was not the alleged arguments within the administration, but the fact that the Americans could not readily produce planes and tanks within the Israeli time frame. To start with, based on the reports they got from the Israelis, no one in the administration felt it would be justified to pay the political price for an urgent delivery of tanks and planes. The price would be an angry reaction from America’s Arab allies, because it was obvious that it would be impossible to keep such shipments secret. In addition, sending planes and tanks to Israel was a logistical endeavor on a major scale that was hard to accomplish at short notice. The Pentagon just did not have stocks of these on hand that it could ship to Israel right away. In order to comply with the Israeli requests, it was necessary to take the planes and tanks out of the American military


inventory—to which the US military would object. Kissinger explained all this to General Mordechai Gur, the Israeli military attaché in Washington, who was not impressed: “But we face war.”51

9 OCTOBER

The reality unfolding on the morning of 9 October was very different from what had been planned. It turned out that while the attack in the north was successful, it was a complete failure in the south. From the beginning of the war up to this point, the Israeli air force had lost 44 planes and several hun-dred tanks. Even more significant was the recognition that the war would not be over soon. The IDF was equipped only for several days of war, and was losing armor at a worrying rate. “We planned for five days of war, not for months,” Elazar told the war cabinet.52 The fear that there wouldn’t be enough arms to conduct the war became tangible. Matters came to a head when Meir “contemplated a crazy thought”: she would make a quick visit to the United States “to make it clear to Nixon how grave our situation is” and to ask for an urgent shipment of arms.53

When Dinitz brought news of this on the morning of 9 October, Kiss-inger was in shock: “How did it happen? . . . Explain to me.”54 However, it seemed that Dinitz failed to convey the sense of urgency that Meir wanted him to deliver, because even after hearing Dinitz, Kissinger still did not change his attitude to the arms shipments. He thought that the US could not accept Israel’s defeat by Soviet weapons; such an eventuality “would be a geopolitical disaster for the United States” but he was still thinking in terms of Israel’s military supremacy. He “urged” a quick Israeli victory at least on one front, before the UN would call for a cease-fire that would establish the Egyptian and Syrian territorial achievements.55

Dinitz did not correct Kissinger’s assumption. On the contrary, he was ready to accept his reasoning. Accompanied by Mordechai Gur, Dinitz refrained from discussing Israel’s disastrous situation, emphasizing instead that Israel would defeat the Syrians and the Egyptians—it was only a matter of time. But the weapons, “all equipment and planes that we can get,” were necessary to ensure this victory. Still, Kissinger refused to pledge that the US would send planes and tanks before the war was over, and asked General Brent Scowcroft to see “what we can do” about the rest of the supplies.56

As to Meir’s idea of a quick visit, Kissinger “rejected it out of hand and without checking with Nixon. Such a proposal could reflect only either hysteria or blackmail.”57 Kissinger wrote later that he was afraid that Meir’s


visit would force the US “to announce a massive supply policy, destroying any possibility of mediation.”58

The surprising fact is that no one in the administration was aware of the situation in the battlefield. CIA Director Colby, along with Kissinger and Schlesinger, accepted the Israeli narrative unquestioningly. At the time when Dayan was delivering nearly apocalyptic messages to his government, Colby thought that the situation was not so bad for Israel. He reported that Israel was doing well in the Golan Heights and was holding on in the Sinai. He suspected that Israel’s aim was “to lock us in” and that it was trying to extract the maximum possible military supplies from the US, as a sign of America’s unlimited support. Kissinger’s deputy in the State Department, Kenneth Rush, concurred.59 On the other hand, Kissinger argued that full compliance with the Israeli requests “would immediately drive the Arabs wild.” Schlesinger and the other WSAG principals agreed. Admiral Moorer added that “It would trigger the Soviets also” to resupply the Arabs. There was a general consensus that it was necessary to provide Israel right away with ammunition and electronic equipment—Schlesinger explained that “If we don’t, they may run out of ammunition.” At the same time, the view in Washington was that Israel was not in such distress as to make it imperative to send tanks and planes immediately.60

Nixon agreed with the estimation of his lieutenants, but went one step further. Like Kissinger, the president wanted to be sure that Israel would win the war, and that it would be clear who had won. Thus, in addition to the agreement to provide to Israel all it needed in consumables, Nixon was concerned that the Israelis would not limit their operations out of fear of losing more tanks and planes. Thus, he would not send replacements immediately, but he wanted Israel to know that the United States would replace all the planes and tanks that Israel lost in the war. In return, Nixon wanted only one thing: that “Golda [will] call off the Jewish community.”61

Kissinger conveyed this message to Dinitz immediately after his meet-ing with the president. Speaking with him privately, Kissinger repeated Nixon’s pledge to make good all Israel’s losses in planes and tanks after the war. “Use all of your power as if you have 40 more planes,” urged Kissinger. “Do everything to hit them strong and quickly. Don’t spare ammunition or missiles or planes. We will supply you everything. Just hit fast and quickly.” And he ended the conversation “in a choking voice, saying: ‘as long as I’m here I will not abandon Israel’.”62

From here Kissinger moved to another issue, and asked Dinitz to stop congressmen and senators from attacking the president. “I’ll handle it,” Dinitz promised.63


The message was clear: the IDF should attack with full force, even at the cost of losing more tanks and planes, because the US would make up all Israel’s losses. This promise was based also on Nixon and Kissinger’s assump-tion that at this stage, Israel was not in urgent need of the planes and tanks. And they were right. Up to 9 October the IDF had lost 55 planes, most of them Skyhawks and Phantoms. Out of 330 combat planes, 220 remained operative.64 These were painful losses, but the IAF was still in full opera-tional mode. This was so also because of changes in the battlefield. Most of the losses occurred during the first wave of Egyptian and Syrian attacks and during the Israeli counterattack in the south on October 8. After that there was a stalemate in the south, and on the morning of the 9th the IAF destroyed the Syrian SAM batteries almost completely, which meant that Israeli planes were no longer exposed to the threat of the deadly SAMs. Also, the Israeli air force could now provide close support to the ground forces, thus reducing the number of casualties in tanks and personnel. By noon, the IDF had recovered the territory in the Golan Heights it had lost on 6 October.65

In ammunition, here, too, supplies were not in a serious state. At a cer-tain point in the fighting, tank commanders complained of an acute short-age of tank ammunition. Some described the shortage as “catastrophic”. It turned out that there was no shortage; the problem was logistical, of getting the ammunition from depots to the fighting units. At the same time there was a genuine shortage of artillery ammunition.66 What was most disturb-ing, however, was the fear that unlike previous wars, this war would not end soon. Tzvi Tzur, deputy to Defense Minister Dayan, told Meir that the IDF had enough ammunition and stocks for one week. “Beyond that, we’ll have a problem.”67

As it turned out, there was a gap between what Kissinger told Dinitz, what Dinitz conveyed to Jerusalem, and what Jerusalem understood. The understanding in Jerusalem was that Nixon had agreed to provide Israel with all the arms it needed—immediately. Golda Meir even sent warm greetings to Dinitz, praising him for this achievement, and a message to President Nixon thanking him for his consent to sending the arms.68 Alas, this was not yet the case; no promise had yet been made for the immediate delivery of all the equipment Israel had asked for.


10 OCTOBER

On this morning, Admiral Moorer reported to Secretary Schlesinger that the Soviets had begun “a massive airlift” to Syria and Egypt. “Okay,” responded Schlesinger, “you are watching the collapse of U.S. foreign policy, Tom.”69 However, Schlesinger was wrong. The Soviet airlift did not bring a dramatic change in the American supply policy to Israel. Nixon and Kissinger did not think that the airlift called for a similar American response, and the administration was still struggling to find the logistical means to send the consumables. Seven El Al planes were flying back and forth carrying ammunition and equipment, but were unable to cope with the amount waiting to be transported.70 They certainly couldn’t take the six promised Phantoms that Nixon had agreed to send to Israel right away. Kissinger assigned his under-secretary, Joseph Sisco, to lease commercial planes that would ship the supplies and the Phantoms to Israel, but his efforts were unsuccessful.71

Dinitz was determined to make the most of the Soviet airlift, using it to convince Kissinger to approve a direct flight to Israel of American transport planes loaded with all the equipment requested, including the Phantoms. Dinitz presented the Soviet airlift as a direct offense against the United States. “It is fantastic that the Soviets dare to behave that way towards you,” he told Scowcroft. “They provided arms to the Arabs and they incited them,” while “we have to try and see how we get supplies.”72 In any case, now that the Soviet planes were flying to Damascus and Cairo loaded with military supplies, it was no longer necessary to keep the shipments to Israel secret. But Kissinger would not budge. The situation did not call for a profound change in US arms shipment policy to Israel—yet.73 The Soviet airlift would not bring about the change Dinitz was expecting.

In the background of this exchange were news reports arguing that the administration should “defer major arms help to Israel”. According to these, the US was supplying Israel with ammunition and missiles but was holding back on planes and tanks. Public figures such as Senator James L. Buckley and David Blumberg made open appeals, urging the president “to aid Israel with vital military equipment”.74 It is unclear to what extent Dinitz was involved in this, but Nixon did not like these orchestrated pleas. He expressed his displeasure and told Kissinger that he “would not tolerate this and if I hear more of this I will hold [Dinitz] responsible. Will you tell him?” Kissinger answered positively. Nixon was still convinced that Israel would win the war, and that he was doing what was needed under the circumstances. “If we hear any more stuff like this I will have no choice


domestically except to turn on them. . . . They think it helps the Israelis, but it does not. . . . We are helping them,” insisted Nixon. “He [Dinitz] knows that, doesn’t he?”75

Kissinger called the Israeli embassy and asked Shalev to “keep your people under control in what they say to the press,” because “the president is beside himself with what he considered inspired newspaper articles.”76

11 OCTOBER

The public pressure and Dinitz’s insistent pleading did bring some results. In the afternoon of 11 October, Nixon approved Israel’s requests for 40 Phantoms, and was considering approving an additional 40 Phantoms and 80 Skyhawks, to be shipped at a time as yet undecided. In the short term, Israel would get six Phantoms, two every day beginning 12 October. In addition, large amounts of supplies and ammunition were waiting to be sent. The problem remained the means of delivery.77

Things did not go well here. Sisco failed to find a carrier ready to lease planes to fly to or carry weapons for Israel. Consequently, Kissinger asked Schlesinger to take charge and try to charter civilian planes. Kissinger and the president both hoped that with the beginning of the airlift, and with the assurances to replace all the losses of planes and tanks, the IDF would move ahead in full strength, not worrying about losing tanks and planes, knowing that it would get these back.78

12 OCTOBER

The promise to make up all Israel’s losses in tanks and planes when the war was over had no effect on Israel’s military plans, nor did it calm Israeli com-plaints. General Benny Peled, the IAF commander, insisted that the IAF was getting close to its red line, beyond which he wouldn’t be able to send the needed number of airplanes to the battlefield, although the Israeli air force would still be able to continue defending Israel’s airspace.79 Neither he nor Elazar made any reference to the American promise that was supposed to allow the IAF freedom of action even beyond its alleged “red line”.80

Golda Meir, too, ignored the promise. She expressed her dissatisfaction with the number of planes Kissinger promised to send to Israel immediately, as well as with the pace of delivery. She wrote to Kissinger that the IAF was losing more and more planes, and sending two Phantoms a day was “not


even the beginning of [solving] the so urgent problem.” She urged Kissinger to seek ways to send to Israel 40 Phantoms within two to three days. “It is a matter of life for us.”81

Meir’s arguments did not bring any change. It was Dinitz who came up with a different line of argument that would force a change in American policy. Details are lacking of how he devised his plan, as he did not discuss it with Jerusalem. It seems that, impatient with the delays, he decided to go ahead on his own.

First, he would meet Schlesinger. It took several days to arrange the meeting, but eventually the two agreed to meet on the evening of the 12th. Before this took place, Schlesinger reported to Kissinger that the Penta-gon had prepared a package of replacements worth about $500 million. It included 30 Skyhawks, 16 Phantoms, 125 tanks—60 of them M60s, three Hawk batteries, “and a whole range of other things.” According to the Pentagon’s plan, American planes would carry the supplies to the Azores islands, and Israeli planes would pick them up from there. Kissinger approved. He thought that the shipment should go ahead, with limits: “I still think we ought to get something moving, but not in quantities that would get this blown sky high.”82 Nevertheless, he worked hand in hand with Schlesinger in devising and implementing the airlift to Israel.

In his evening meeting with Dinitz, Schlesinger explained that the American response was the result of two factors: the need to take into con-sideration the possible Arab reaction, and the failure to find commercial planes that would agree to ship to Israel. His solution, like the Pentagon’s, was to fly all the supplies Israel asked for—about 100,000 tons—to the Azores, where Israel would pick them up. Dinitz, however, thought that Israel could not carry out its part of the arrangement fast enough, and the result would be that much-needed ammunition would arrive only when the war was over. Dinitz suggested loading with supplies the ten C-130 planes that were included in the American list to be shipped to the Azores, and Israeli pilots would fly them to Israel. Schlesinger thought this a good idea.

Schlesinger then discussed Israel’s requests for planes and tanks. The American policy was to replace the lost planes and tanks, not to increase Israel’s inventory. The resupply would be handled carefully and in a way that would avoid angry criticism from the Arab states. When Dinitz mentioned the option of flying the deliveries directly from the US to Israel using Amer-ican military planes, similar to the Soviet airlift to the Arabs, Schlesinger said that this was a political decision that had not yet been made.83

The above laconic description of the Dinitz–Schlesinger meeting is misleading, or at least according to Dinitz. He described it as “the most


unpleasant meeting he had ever attended” and as “hostile”. The confron-tation came to such a head that he thought of leaving the meeting in the middle of it.84 It is difficult to understand what had upset Dinitz so much. He might not have liked what he heard from Schlesinger, but the secretary of defense did not say anything that Dinitz had not heard before—and afterwards—from Kissinger. The only obvious problem was the simple fact that after six days of fighting, and after the President’s approval to send the supplies to Israel, the operation was moving extremely slowly because of the failure to find charter supply planes, but none of this was Schlesinger’s fault. It was the president, with the direct involvement of Kissinger, who made the decisions that had led to this situation. Either Dinitz was unaware of how decisions were made, or he found it easier to attack Schlesinger, with whom he did not have the kind of relations he had with Kissinger.85

Dinitz shared his impressions and frustrations with Kissinger, whom he met after his meeting with Schlesinger. But now Dinitz dropped a bomb: Golda Meir was planning to call the president, to tell him that Israel had halted its offensive in the north for lack of ammunition. She intended to tell the president that “we have based our operations” on the promised arms deliveries, and since these had not arrived, the operations would be stopped.86

It was as if Dinitz was looking for ways to shake up Kissinger and drive him to act. He would not do it by claiming that Israel was in a desperate situation that would reflect weakness. Instead, he devised an argument that indicated limited strength: Israel was defeating the Syrians, and the only obstacle to the completion of the move was the delays caused by American officials. And indeed, Dinitz’s strategy hit the right nerve. Kissinger’s inten-tion in preparations toward a cease-fire agreement was to see Israel decisively beating the Syrians, and later, hopefully, the Egyptians.

The only problem with Dinitz’s message was that it was not true. He had just received a report from Mordechai Gazit, the prime minister’s counselor, announcing that on the afternoon of 12 October (morning in Washington), “Our forces advanced up to 30 kilometers off Damascus, and its suburbs are within the range of our artillery.” Where critical shortages were mentioned, it was in combat planes. This was the most urgent item that Meir asked to raise with Kissinger.

Furthermore, on the same day that Dinitz told Kissinger that the IDF had suspended its attacks for lack of ammunition, Tzvi Tzur told the For-eign and Security Committee of the Knesset that there was no shortage of ammunition. Israel needed tanks, planes, and ammunition, but the requests


were directed more at the future than the present. That is, while Israel had lost planes and tanks and had used a great deal of ammunition, it did not yet suffer shortages that affected its freedom of operation. In asking for the planes and tanks, the thinking was for the near and more distant future. In the short term, the assumption was that if the war continued longer, and exacted a higher price than so far, the shortages would become critical.87

In the long run, “We will need to rebuild ourselves” when the war will be over, Golda Meir told the Foreign and Security Committee.88 Thus, the requests for arms at this point were aimed not only at meeting the needs of the next few days or weeks, but also to create the basis for larger arms shipments that would allow Israel to restore its arsenal and even improve it.

There was another factor: the assumption in Israel was that the US would agree to supply Israel with larger quantities and more weapons systems during the war than it might approve after it had ended. Thus, it was necessary to obtain a commitment from the Americans while they were more susceptible to Israeli requests.89 In other words, when Colby suspected that Israel was trying “to lock us in” he was not completely off the mark. After all, Nixon did promise to resupply all Israel’s losses, so on the face of it, Israel had no reason to apply urgently for arms it was not short of at this point, apart from “locking in” the US.

Dinitz’ announcement left Kissinger, Schlesinger, and the WSAG principals completely surprised. Kissinger suspected that Dinitz was not being honest with him. He doubted whether there were such critical short-ages in ammunition. On the other hand, “It is a hell of responsibility to take.”90 Schlesinger was just as skeptical: “They simply cannot be that short of ammo, Henry. It is impossible that they didn’t know what their supply was—and suddenly run out of it.”91

William Clements, deputy secretary of Defense, who both in Kiss-inger’s own writing and in the subsequent historiography became the prime suspect for the delay,92 expressed very clearly the reason for the not-so-urgent attitude toward the delivery of supplies when he responded to Kissinger’s accusation that “We should have forced the charters.” “I agree,” he said, “but we did not know it was urgent.”93 And indeed, this seemed to be one major reason for the delay: no one in the administration, including Kissinger and Schlesinger, and certainly those working for them, thought that “it was urgent”. Dinitz was using convolutions in his description of Israel’s situation, fluctuating between tales of success and need. Even when he came to admit that there was an urgent need for arms, he did so while describing how formidable the IDF was. This is why Kissinger and Schlesinger were so taken aback by Dinitz’s news.


There was a consensus within the administration, between the presi-dent, Kissinger, and Schlesinger, about the pace and nature of the airlift to Israel—or its absence—up to the time of Dinitz’s surprising announcement. The consensus was based on the assumption that Israel did not need an urgent shipment of tanks and planes because it was holding up well, and even managing to change the course of the war. However, when it turned out that there was indeed an urgent need of planes and tanks, Kissinger, Schlesinger and the Pentagon with him, were divided in their reactions. Schlesinger wanted to act swiftly and to let American military aircraft “fly all the way in”. This was a decision the president had to make, responded Kissinger.94 Kissinger was still trying to save what remained of his policy—although Israel would get more arms than he thought they should while the war continued, it would not be through the use of American military planes. Here he met resistance from both Dinitz and the Pentagon. Dinitz demanded in a blatant manner that the flight of the American military airplanes be started, adding to this a demand for 40 combat planes, and not only the promised six. When Kissinger tried to resist, Dinitz, who felt that he had gained the upper hand, would not budge. American diplomacy called for an Israeli military offensive, and “We won’t have the offensive if we won’t have the equipment. I never dreamed we would get [only] two planes in six days.”95

Kissinger was fighting a losing battle. He was thinking diplomacy, while the Pentagon was thinking militarily. And this time the Pentagon pre-vailed. When he heard that Israel was suffering from shortages that stopped its offensive, Clements asked: “How can we help now?” and against Kissing-er’s resistance he suggested: “We should now go in with a massive airlift.”96 Schlesinger prepared a detailed plan to deliver Phantoms and arms, and thus Operation Nickel Grass was born. The US Air Force Military Airlift Command loaded C-141 Starlifters and C-5 Galaxies with supplies for Israel. The first C-5 arrived at Ben-Gurion airport on 13 October, loaded with 97 tons of 155 mm Horowitz shells.97 On Sunday 14 October, Kissinger told the president: “It is a massive airlift, Mr. President. The planes are going to land every 50 minutes.” Nixon was satisfied: “Get them in,” and added: “If we are going to do it, don’t spare the horses, just let.” Operation Nickel Grass, which airlifted ammunition, various necessary parts, tanks, includ-ing the M60s, as well as Phantoms and Skyhawks, was at last underway.98 Finally, Israel got what it wanted.


CONCLUSION

Considering the history of Israel–US relations, there was little doubt that Israel would get the arms eventually. The US would not let Israel fall; that was clear from the beginning. What is interesting in this story is the process, rather than the end result. First, the dynamic within the administration, where the major player, Kissinger, was juggling various protagonists to serve his agenda, setting up along the way a historiographical argument according to which the delay was not of his making, but the Pentagon’s. As this article shows, this certainly was not the case. Second, the line of argument that Dinitz used insistently, which had been conceived in Jerusalem, according to which Israel should not reveal any sign of weakness. The assumption was that Israeli–American relations were based on Israel’s strength and power, and there was a fear that the US would abandon a weak Israel. The question of how valid this fear was is beyond the scope of this article, but it seemed safe to assume that if Kissinger had known how serious Israel’s situation was, he would have acted more swiftly to provide the necessary arms. He would most probably also have collected a prize for that. Third, the level of intimacy between the Israeli and American officials, mainly Dinitz and Kissinger. The two talked every day, sometimes several times a day, informed each other, advised each other, and sometimes threatened each other. Kissinger and the Americans listened carefully to what Dinitz and the Israelis had to say, and made decisions based on what they heard: the decision not to supply tanks and planes to Israel immediately was made on the basis of what Kissinger heard from Dinitz, as was the decision to launch a massive airlift to Israel.

Notes

I would like to thank the Israel National Archives staff for their help, and especially Dr. Hagai Zoref, whose help was invaluable. A note about the sources: in order to keep a strict timeline, I added, where available, the exact hour of the composition of the cited document. The time is local, and Jerusalem was six hours ahead of Washington DC. [All file dates are 1973.]

1. Golda Meir, My Life ( Jerusalem, 1975), 362.2. Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger (New York, 2007), 523; Simcha Dinitz,

“The Yom Kippur War: Diplomacy of War and Peace,” Israel Affairs 6.1 (1999): 114; Walter Isaacson, Kissinger (New York, 1992), 518–19.


3. Jussi M. Hanhimaki, Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American For-eign Policy (Oxford, 2004) 308; Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics (Seattle, WA, 2011), 273; Noam Kochavi, Nixon and Israel (New York, 2009), 39; Zach Levey, “Anatomy of an airlift: United States Military Assistance to Israel during the 1973 War,” Cold War History 8.4 (2008): 486–7; Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 258–9; Elmo Zumwalt, On Watch (New York, 1976), 433.

4. Shlomo Aronson with Oded Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East (New York, 1992), 148; Yossi Goldstein, Golda (Beer-Sheva, 2012), 577 [Hebrew].

5. Dinitz, “Yom Kippur War,” 118.6. Elizabeth C. Hoffman, “Diplomatic History and the Meaning of Life:

Toward a Global American History,” Diplomatic History 21.4 (1997): 500.7. ISA, A 4996/3, Mordechai Gazit to Mordechai Shalev, 5 October 1973.8. “Summary of Consultation with the Prime Minister, 6 October 1973,

0805 am,” accessed 27 April, 2013. ISA, http://www.archive.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/ 66FC5A72-27F7-41A6-9969-7ED71A097F57/0/yk6_10_0805.pdf.

9. ISA, A 7062/8, Memorandum of Conversation, 1 March.10. “Summary of Consultation with the Prime Minister,” 6 October, 0805 am.11. Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York, 1978), Vol.

2, 470–5.12. Nixon, RN, Vol. 2, 476–7; Herbert J. Laub, “The Development of the Israeli-

Egyptian-American Relationship from the Death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in September 1970 to the Camp David Agreement in September 1978” (PhD diss., SUNY Stony Brook, 1996), 50–6.

13. Hanhimaki, Flawed Architect, 305.14. Telephone Conversation Between Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger,

6 October, 08:35, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon; Henry Kissinger, Crisis (New York, 2003), 111.

15. Telephone Conversation between Minister Shalev and Kissinger, 6 October, 11:55, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

16. Telephone Conversation between President Nixon and Kissinger, 6 October, 09:25, Kissinger, Crisis, 35–6.

17. Telephone Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, 7 October, 10:18, Crisis, 89.

18. FRUS 1969–1976, XX, Minutes of Washington Special Actions Group, 6 October, 09:01, 294; Minutes of the Washington Special Actions Group Meeting, 6 October 1973, 19:22, 324–5, 328, 333.

19. Telephone Conversation between Shalev and Kissinger, 6 October, 10:55, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon; Telephone Conversation between Minister Shalev and Secretary Kissinger, 6 October, 11:55, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

20. Telephone Conversation between Ambassador Dobrynin and Kissinger,


6 October, 09:35, Crisis, 37; Telephone Conversation between General Haig and Kissinger, 6 October, 10:35, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

21. Message to Nixon and Kissinger from Soviet Government—Telephoned by Dobrynin, 6 October, 14:10, NPL, NSCF, Dobrynin/Kissinger, Vol. 19, 13 July–11 October; Telephone Conversation between Dobrynin and General Scowcroft, 6 October, 17:45, NPL, NSCF, Dobrynin/Kissinger, Vol. 19, 13 July–11 October; Kissinger, Crisis, 53.

22. Telephone Conversation between Senator Jacob Javits and Kissinger, 6 October, 11:01, Crisis, 46; Telephone Conversation between Dobrynin and Kiss-inger, 6 October, 11:25, ibid., 47–8; Telephone Conversation between Shalev and Kissinger, 6 October, 11:55, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

23. Telephone Conversation between Javits and Kissinger, 6 October, 11:01, Crisis, 46.

24. ISA, A 4996/3, Gazit to Shalev, 6 October, 23:55; Gazit to Shalev, 7 Octo-ber 1973, ibid.; Israel Galili to Abba Eban, 7 October, 01:00, ibid.; Consultation with the Prime Minister, 7 October 1973, ISA, aaccessed 25 April 2013, (hereafter: ISA Website) http://www.archive.gov.il/ArchiveGov/pirsumyginzach/Historical Publications/YomKipurWar/.

25. Discussion with the Prime Minister, 7 October, 14:50, ISA Website.26. Ibid.27. Consultation with the Prime Minister, 7 October 1973, ISA Website.28. Discussion with the Prime Minister, 7 October, 14:50, ISA Website.29. Consultation with the Prime Minister, 7 October, 09:10, ISA Website; ISA,

A 8163/8, Protocol Knesset Foreign and Security Committee Meeting, 9 October, 22–3.

30. Discussion with the Prime Minister, 7 October, 14:50, ISA Website.31. ISA, A 4996/3, Gazit to Shalev, 7 October, 01:30.32. ISA, A 4994/3, Gazit to Shalev, 7 October, 14:00.33. ISA, A 4996/3, Shalev to Gazit, 7 October, 10:15; Memorandum of Conver-

sation, 7 October 1973, DNSA, Kissinger Transcripts.34. Memorandum of Conversation, 7 October, DNSA, Kissinger Transcripts.35. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (New York, 1982), Kindle edition, loca-

tion 10474.36. Meron Medzini, Golda (Tel-Aviv, 2008), 557 [Hebrew]; Telephone Conver-

sation between Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed el-Zayyat and Kissinger, 6 October, 07:35, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

37. Memorandum of Conversation, 7 October, 10:00, DNSA, Kissinger Tran-scripts.

38. Telephone Conversation between Haig and Kissinger, 7 October 7, 1973, 09:35, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

39. Telephone Conversation between Haig and Kissinger, 7 October, 15:10, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon; Telephone Conversation between Schlesinger and Kissinger, 7 October, 15:25, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone


Conversations, Telcon; Telephone Conversation between Dinitz and Kissinger, 7 October, 23:20; ISA, A 4996/3, Dinitz to Gazit, 8 October, 06:15.

40. ISA, A 4996/3, Galili to Eban, 7 October.41. Telephone Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, 7 October, 22:30,

Crisis, 109.42. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (New York, 1982), Kindle edition, loca-

tion 10098.43. ISA, A 4996/3 Dinitz to Gazit, 8 October, 00:30.44. General Secretary Brezhnev to Nixon, 7 October, 18:00, NPL, NSCF, HAK

Office Files, Country Files, Dobrynin/Kissinger, Vol. 19 [13 July–11 October].45. ISA Website. Consultation with the Prime Minister, 8 October 1973, 09:50.46. Telephone Conversation between Dinitz and Kissinger, 8 October, 13:14,

Crisis, 123.47. Telephone Conversation between Dinitz and Kissinger, 8 October, 13:14,

Crisis, 125.48. ISA, A 7520/5, Dinitz to Gazit, 9 October, 14:00. See also Kaufman, Henry

M. Jackson, 273–6.49. ISA, A 4996/3, Dinitz to Gazit, 8, 18:00.50. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, location 10474–10488.51. ISA, A 4996/3, Gazit to Dinitz, 9 October.52. Hanoch Bartov, Daddo (Or Yehuda, 2002), 464–8 [Hebrew].53. Discussion with the Prime Minister, 9 October, 07:30, ISA Website.54. Telephone Conversation between Dinitz and Kissinger, 9 October, 01:45,

DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon; Memorandum of Conversa-tion, 9 October, 08:20, DNSA, Kissinger Transcripts, 839.

55. Kissinger, Crisis, 146.56. Memorandum of Conversation, 9 October, 08:20, DNSA, 839; Kissinger,

Years of Upheaval, location 10640.57. Kissinger, Crisis, 146.58. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, location 10648.59. FRUS, 1969–1976, XXV Memorandum of Conversation, 9 October, 09:40,

400.60. Ibid., 398–401; Kissinger, Crisis, 147.61. FRUS 1969–1976, XXV, Memorandum of Conversation, 9 October, 16:45,

411–12; Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, location 10697.62. ISA, A 4996/3, Dinitz to Gazit, 9 October, 20:30.63. ISA, A 4996/3, Memorandum of Conversation, 9 October, 18:10, DNSA,

Kissinger Transcripts, 840; Shalev to Gazit, 9 October, 20:00.64. ISA, A 4996/3, Gazit to Dinitz, 9 October, 23:40.65. Bartov, Daddo, 480.66. Ibid., 499.67. ISA, A 4994/3, Consultation with the Prime Minister, 7 October, 13:40,

Gazit to Shalev, 7 October, 14:00.


68. ISA, A 4996/3, Dinitz to Gazit, 9 October, 20:45; Gazit to Dinitz, 10 October, 12:30.

69. FRUS 1969–1976, XXV, Telephone Conversation Schlesinger and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 10 October, 00:24.

70. Bartov, Daddo, 536.71. FRUS 1969–1976, XXV, Memorandum of Conversation, 12 October, 23:20,

465.72. ISA, A 4996/3, Dinitz to Gazit, 10 October, 18:30.73. ISA, A 4996/4, Shalev to Gazit, 11 October, 00:01.74. John W. Finney, “U.S. Said to Defer Major Arms Help,” New York Times, 12

October, 1; Irving Spiegel, “Buckley Calls on Nixon to Help Israel: Rallies Started Phantoms Urged,” 13 October, New York Times, 13.

75. Telephone Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, 11 October, 11:00, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

76. Telephone Conversation between Shalev and Kissinger, 11 October, 11:10, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

77. ISA, A 4996/4, Gazit to Dinitz, 11 October, 21:50; Gazit to Dinitz, 11 October, 22:15.

78. Telephone Conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco and Kissinger, 11 October, 14:40, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon; Telephone Conversation between Sisco and Kissinger, 11 October, 15:00, ibid.; Telephone Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, 12 October, 08:38, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

79. Bartov, Daddo, 536; FRUS 1969–1976, XXV, Memorandum of Conversation, 12 October, 23:20, 461.

80. Shimon Golan, Decision Making of Israeli High Command (Tel-Aviv, 2014), 753, 757–8.

81. ISA, A 4996/4, Gazit to Dinitz, 12 October, 11:30.82. Telephone Conversation between Schlesinger and Kissinger, 12 October,

17:40, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.83. ISA, A 4996/4, IDF Attaché, to Deputy Minister of Defense, 12 October,

20:45.84. ISA, A 4996/4, Shalev to Gazit, 12 October, 02:45.85. ISA, A 4996/4, Gazit to Dinitz, 12 October, 11:30 and 16:30.86. FRUS 1969–1976, XXV, Memorandum of Conversation, 12 October, 23:20,

460–1.87. ISA, A 8163/8, 2, Knesset Foreign and Security Committee, 12 October.88. ISA, A 8163/8, 23, Knesset Foreign and Security Committee, 10 October.89. ISA, A 8163/8, 7, Meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign and Security Committee,

12 October.90. Telephone Conversation between Schlesinger and Kissinger, 12 October,

23:45, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.91. Telephone Conversation between Schlesinger and Kissinger, 12 October,


23:45, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon; Telephone Conversation between Schlesinger and Kissinger, 13 October, 00:49, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

92. Telephone Conversation between General Scowcroft and Kissinger, 10 October, 20:59, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

93. FRUS 1969–1976, XXV, Memorandum of Conversation, 13 October, 10:45, 483.

94. FRUS 1969–1976, XXV, Telephone Conversation between Haig and Kiss-inger, 12 October, 23:54, DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon; Memorandum of Conversation, 12 October, 23:20, 466.

95. FRUS 1969–1976, XXV, Memorandum of Conversation, 12 October, 23:20, 466.

96. Ibid., Memorandum of Conversation, 13 October, 10:45, 484.97. Justin Giovannettone, “Airlift in Time,” Air Power History 52.3 (2005): 32.98. Telephone Conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, 14 October, 11:10,

DNSA, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Telcon.

A Tested Alliance: The American Airlift to Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War

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