A different version. And it looks like the "alert" business is hardly news.
Although formally accepting the cease-fire, Israel continued to improve its military position on the west bank of the Canal, effectively isolating the Egyptian forces on the east bank. For unclear motives, the USSR engaged in a series of military and diplomatic actions that US President Nixon's administration saw as being quite provocative; refusing a Soviet plan for the superpowers to police a truce in the Middle East with their own force and concerned that the USSR would unilaterally intervene with strong military forces, on 25 October the US placed its forces on world-wide military alert. A new Soviet-American agreement was quickly reached; The Security Council reaffirmed its call for a cease-fire and recreated the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF: seeCase119: Suez War, 1956-1957) to supervise it. Furthermore, the five permanent Council members were prohibited from participating in a peacekeeping force in the area. The US military alert was then gradually lifted. On the same day, the USSR told the US that it would act to relieve the surrounded Egyptian force with Soviet forces unless Israel permitted Egyptian supplies to be provided; the US thereupon pressured Israel to return to the 22 October lines, but this pressure was resisted. A visit by Kissinger to Egypt, however, broke the impasse, and on 11 November Israeli and Egyptian military commanders signed an agreement for negotiating a withdrawal to their earlier positions and for the relief of the isolated Egyptian troops.
usc.edu
And this looks like the truth:
# Oct. 24 - Brezhnev ultimatum - ceasefire must be enforced by joint US-USSR force to save Egyptian army, Or Russia would intervene unilaterally - Russia went on military alert and began to resupply Egyptian 2nd Army in the north, supposedly with nuclear warheads on SCUD missles.
# Oct. 25 - Nixon order DEFCON 3 alert and sent note to Brezhnev urging UN solution
history.sandiego.edu
The RUSSIANS went on alert FIRST. Nixon's alert was a RESPONSE to that!
Hardly the way the Guardian and NYT are telling it. |
