DOCUMENT Transcript Shows That Kissinger Dreaded All-Out Israeli Victory in Yom Kippur War Then-U S secretary of state feared too much winning would make Israel harder to influence BY COLUM LYNCH AUGUST 9 2019 11 17 AM For Henry Kissinger the prospect of an Israeli defeat during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War was always unthinkable A victory by a Soviet-armed Arab coalition against a U S -armed Israel would shatter Washington’s strategic advantage in the Middle East and send the message to other Cold War clients that they “need to rely on the Soviet Union ” the then-U S secretary of state told his staff But Kissinger also harbored doubts about the virtues of an all-out Israeli victory that resulted in a decisive Arab surrender As he participated in cease-fire talks to end the war in a phone conversation with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin he confessed that “My nightmare is a victory for either side ” It was a sentiment that Dobrynin shared according to a declassified transcript of the Oct 13 1973 conversation made public Friday by the National Security Archive The superpower phone chat is Foreign Policy’s Document of The Week It possible that Kissinger’s remark was made to lift Dobrynin’s spirits as he was seeking the Soviet diplomat’s support for a cease-fire that would leave the Soviet Union’s Arab clients with less land than they started with and a bloody nose they would not long forget An Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria had launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur in an effort to reclaim land it lost in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War The offensive initially caught Israel and the United States—whose intelligence agencies saw little prospect of an Arab strike—entirely off guard and it rattled Israel’s sense of military invincibility At the time of the conversation Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was still holding out hope that his forces could reclaim lands captured by Israel But just over a week later Israel had largely surrounded Egypt’s Third Army forcing the Arab coalition to accept the terms of a U S - and Soviet-brokered cease-fire But there may very well have been more to Kissinger’s preference for a negotiated peace He believed that Israel’s reliance on a massive airlift of U S tanks artillery and ammunition— dubbed Operation Nickel Grass—to repel a series of Arab military forays would make Israel realize it was not powerful enough to go it alone The National Security Archive 2130 H Street NW Suite 701 Washington DC 20037 www nsarchive org 1 2 8 9 2019 Transcript Shows That Kissinger Dreaded All-Out Israeli Victory in Yom Kippur War – Foreign Policy “The Israelis have learned that their original idea—that they could use the stockpiled equipment that they had from us to score a big victory over the Arabs if we pressed them too hard is no longer possible ” he said in a previously declassified briefing to his staff “If they get into another war they must do it with our enthusiastic backing or they are lost ” “As far as Israel is concerned we have to be taken even more seriously than we have been in the past ” he added “And our insistence on a more politically oriented policy cannot go unheeded ” Colum Lynch is a senior staff writer at Foreign Policy Twitter @columlynch TAGS DOCUMENT EGYPT HENRY KISSINGER ISRAEL MIDDLE EAST WAR https foreignpolicy com 2019 08 09 document-of-the-week-henry-kissinger-dreaded-all-out-israel-victory-in-yom-kippur-war # VIEW COMMENTS 2 2