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You May Fire When Ready, Part 5:
The Arab-Israeli Missile War of 1973
by Chris Oakley
 Summary:
In the first four chapters of this series we examined the circumstances that led to the escalation of the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict from a regional struggle between mutually hostile neighbors into global nuclear war. In this installment we’ll see how the Israelis, the Arabs, the United States and the Soviet Union tried to pull themselves together in the aftermath of global nuclear holocaust.
It took until just after 6:00 AM U.S. Eastern Daylight Time on the morning of October 7th for U.S. authorities to re-establish communications with the Soviet government. Part of this was due to the simple fact that the destruction of both Washington and Moscow by ICBM strikes meant the “hotline” between the superpowers had been knocked out of commission and would inevitably take a great deal of effort to restore. There was also the matter of radioactive particles in the atmosphere interfering with the transmission of phone and radio signals across vast distances. Last but not least, locating the senior CPSU leadership-- or more accurately what was left of it--was a highly daunting task given the utter chaos which had descended on Russia and the naturally secretive mentality of the Communist ruling circle that had been part of Soviet politics since the days of Lenin and Trotsky.
And even when President Nixon finally did get a link with General Secretary Brezhnev, the Soviet leader wasn’t entirely sure at first that Nixon was on the level in wanting to arrange a cease-fire between the United States and the Soviet Union. The initial reaction among Brezhnev’s cabinet to Nixon’s call was that this might be a distraction to keep them off-balance while the U.S. inflicted a final crushing blow on the Rodina. It wasn’t until Secretary of State Henry Kissinger spoke directly to the Soviet premier that Brezhnev was at last convinced the American president was serious about wanting to end the hostilities that had pushed the world to the brink of apocalypse.
The American president and the Soviet premier spent the next two and a half hours walking a diplomatic tightrope in their efforts to achieve a workable cease-fire. One wrong or misinterpreted phrase could spell disaster for all parties concerned. To facilitate the peace-making process, both superpowers stood down their respective nuclear arsenals while the negotiations were in progress; one of the key planks of Nixon’s cease-fire offer was a proposal for both the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce and eventually eliminate their respective remaining nuclear warhead inventories.
In the Middle East, where the chain of events leading to World War III had started, the situation had deteriorated into something close to anarchy. The Egyptian and Syrian governments, having been effectively decapitated, were in no position to do anything to keep their panicked citizens under control. Even the Israeli government, which had managed to remain largely intact thanks to its evacuation from Tel Aviv before Soviet warheads obliterated that city, had its hands full trying to calm down a panicked citizenry in the face of a catastrophe unprecedented in human history.
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