Inside The Kremlin During The Yom Kippur War

Author : Victor Israelyan
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 9780271041186
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inside the Kremlin During the Yom Kippur War written by Victor Israelyan and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victor Israelyan was a senior ambassador in the Soviet Foreign Ministry when the armies of Egypt and Syria invaded Israeli-occupied territory on October 6, 1973. Critical to the outcome of this conflict were the Soviet Union and the United States, whose diplomatic maneuverings behind the scenes eventually ended what came to be known as the Yom Kippur War. During the crisis, however, tensions between the superpowers nearly escalated into nuclear war. Israelyan is the first Soviet official to give us a firsthand account of what actually happened inside the Kremlin during these three important weeks in 1973. Israelyan's account is a fascinating mixture of memoir, anecdotes, and historical reporting. As a member of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko's staff, he was assigned to a four-man task force that attended the many Politburo meetings held during the war. The job of this task force was to take notes and prepare drafts of letters and other documents for the Politburo. In remarkable detail, made possible by his sharp memory and the notes and documents he saved, Israelyan chronicles the day-by-day activities of Kremlin leaders as they confronted the crisis. For the first time we can see how the cumbersome Soviet policy-making mechanism, headed by the Politburo, functioned in a tense international situation. We see how the actions of Henry Kissinger, Anwar Sadat, Hafiz al-Assad, and other participants in the crisis were interpreted in Moscow. From his own experience Israelyan gives us intimate portraits of top Soviet officials including Brezhnev, Gromyko, and Andropov. His access to important documents&—including letters from Richard Nixon to Leonid Brezhnev, never officially released in the U.S.&—provide a much-needed corrective to assertions made by Kissinger, Nixon, and Sadat about the war. Supplemented by rare photographs and interviews with other Soviet officials, Inside the Kremlin During the Yom Kippur War is more than a record of the past. Israelyan offers a unique vantage point on the continuing Middle East conflict, and his candid assessment of the mindset of Russian leaders is instructive for understanding how the present leadership of Russia faces its new role in the post-Cold War world.

Author : Victor Israelyan
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 027109348X
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book On the Battlefields of the Cold War written by Victor Israelyan and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2003-08-07 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Memoirs are worthless if their authors attempt to present themselves as angels. I resolutely oppose those of my countrymen who shift responsibility for Soviet evils exclusively to the leaders. It is important that each Soviet citizen realize and admit his or her share of the responsibility." —from On the Battlefields of the Cold War For more than forty years Victor Israelyan served in the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rising through the ranks to become one of the Soviet Union's leading diplomats specializing in disarmament negotiations. He was forced to retire in 1987, a casualty of a system that was about to collapse under the weight of its contradictions. On the Battlefields of the Cold War offers unique insight into the volatile inner workings of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, where the battle lines of the Cold War were often first drawn. Israelyan has no patience for those of his compatriots who argue that Soviet foreign policy was ultimately just, save for a few "aberrations" such as the invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan. These acts were intrinsic to the system, and without them the mighty Soviet Union would not have existed as long as it did. The very foundation of Soviet foreign policy, therefore, was untenable, and the entire structure it supported was destined to implode. Israelyan brings to this memoir a wealth of experience, having worked with all the postwar Soviet foreign ministers—from Molotov and Vyshinsky to Gromyko and Shevardnadze—and established diplomatic ties to the West, particularly to the United States. As part of the middle tier of the diplomatic hierarchy, he was privy both to meetings of the Collegium of the Foreign Ministry as well as to the many informal, private discussions among rank-and-file diplomats. Israelyan explains how he and his colleagues, as faithful defenders of Soviet ideology, viewed the United States, the Soviet Union's main adversary and partner. He tells of distinct factions within the Soviet foreign policy apparatus—factions that Soviet leaders sought to hide, fearing that any internal divisions might be interpreted by outsiders as discord. This aging Cold Warrior—one who accepts that he belonged to the party that lost the war—relates a deeply human story whose legacy continues today.

Author : P.R. Kumaraswamy
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136328955
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Revisiting the Yom Kippur War written by P.R. Kumaraswamy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at the political, military and intelligence components of the Yom Kippur War, this work offers interpretations of Israel's conflict with the Arabs. The contributors, Israeli academics, some involved in the war, make a contribution to the understanding of this part of Israel's history.

Author : Walter J. Boyne
Publisher : St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN 13 : 1429901810
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Yom Kippur War written by Walter J. Boyne and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's usually called the Yom Kippur War. Or sometimes the October War. The players that surround it are familiar: Sadat and Mubarak, Meir and Sharon, Nixon and Kissinger, Brezhnev and Dobyrnin. It was a war that brought Arab and Jew into vicious conflict. A war in which Israel almost unleashed her nuclear arsenal and set two superpowers on a treacherous course of nuclear escalation. And a war that eventually brought peace. But a peace fraught with delicate tensions, disputed borders, and a legacy of further bloodshed. The Two O'Clock War is a spellbinding chronicle of the international chess game that was played out in October 1973. It is a story of diplomacy and military might that accounts for many of the dilemmas faced in the present-day Middle East. This is a war that Israel never thought was possible. Surprised by the fury and excellent execution of the Arab onslaught, and perhaps more than a little complacent, Israel suddenly found itself on the point of losing a war because of a lack of ammunition, planes and tanks. The United States, after much vacillation, finally elected to help Israel, beginning a tremendous airlift (code name: Operation Nickel Grass) which incurred the wrath of the Arab states, and their sponsor, the Soviet Union. Fortunately the airlift came just in time for Israeli ground forces to stabilize their positions and eventually turn the tide in the Sinai and Golan Heights. And it was all made possible by an operation that dwarfed the Berlin Airlift and the Soviets' simultaneous efforts in Egypt and Syria. The Two O'Clock War is bound to become the definitive history of a war that quite literally approached Armageddon.

Author : Asaf Siniver
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190238003
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Yom Kippur War written by Asaf Siniver and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Yom Kippur War was a watershed moment in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the modern Middle East more broadly. It marked the beginning of a US-led peace process between Israel and her Arab neighbours; it introduced oil diplomacy as a new means of leverage in international politics; and it affected irreversibly the development of the European Community and the Palestinian struggle for independence. Moreover, the regional order which emerged at the end of the war remained largely unchallenged for nearly four decades, until the recent wave of democratic revolutions in the Arab world. The fortieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War provides a timely opportunity to reassess the major themes that emerged during the war and in its aftermath, and the contributors to this book provide the first comprehensive account of the domestic and international factors which informed the policies of Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan, as well as external actors before, during and after the war. In addition to chapters on the superpowers, the EU and the Palestinians, the book also deals with the strategic themes of intelligence and political of the war on Israeli and Arab societies.

Author : David Rodman
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
ISBN 13 : 1782843647
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War written by David Rodman and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-20 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The State of Israel faced one of its most difficult challenges during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Though the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) eventually emerged as the clear victor in the war, it suffered serious reverses at the outset of hostilities, as well as substantial losses in men and equipment. This book revisits the Yom Kippur War by exploring a number of issues that have not previously received the attention they deserve or that would benefit from a fresh evaluation. Among the issues examined are: the American-Israeli and Jordanian-Israeli relationships during the war; the roles of Israeli nuclear weapons and airpower; the IDF's practice of combined arms warfare; the reasons why the IDF turned the tide of the war more quickly on the Golan front than on the Sinai front; the impact of American arms transfers; and the lessons derived from the war by the United States Army and the IDF. This book, which relies heavily on government documents and other primary sources of information, fills important descriptive and analytical gaps in the academic literature about the Yom Kippur War. No other book compares to it in respect of content and interpretation. It is, in short, essential reading for all scholars interested in the diplomatic and military dimensions of the war.

Author : Abraham Rabinovich
Publisher : Schocken
ISBN 13 : 0307429652
Total Pages : 590 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Yom Kippur War written by Abraham Rabinovich and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated edition that sheds new light on one of the most dramatic reversals of military fortune in modern history. The easing of Israeli military censorship after four decades has enabled Abraham Rabinovich to offer fresh insights into this fiercest of Israel-Arab conflicts. A surprise Arab attack on two fronts on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, with Israel’s reserves un-mobilized, triggered apocalyptic visions in Israel, euphoria in the Arab world, and fraught debates on both sides. Rabinovich, who covered the war for The Jerusalem Post, draws on extensive interviews and primary source material to shape his enthralling narrative. We learn of two Egyptian nationals, working separately for the Mossad, who supplied Israel with key information that helped change the course of the war; of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s proposal for a nuclear “demonstration” to warn off the Arabs; and of Chief of Staff David Elazar’s conclusion on the fifth day of battle that Israel could not win. Newly available transcripts enable us to follow the decision-making process in real time from the prime minister’s office to commanders studying maps in the field. After almost overrunning the Golan Heights, the Syrian attack is broken in desperate battles. And as Israel regains its psychological balance, General Ariel Sharon leads a nighttime counterattack across the Suez Canal through a narrow hole in the Egyptian line -- the turning point of the war.

Author : Dani Asher
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 0786454008
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Egyptian Strategy for the Yom Kippur War written by Dani Asher and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009-09-12 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the military strategy and issues that Egyptian war planners faced during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Of major interest is the relationship between the political and military leaders and how that affected the buildup and course of the conflict. Taking this as a starting place, the author concentrates on how Soviet military doctrinal changes presented themselves between the conclusion of the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War.

Author : David R. Morse
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476620776
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War written by David R. Morse and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-06-08 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1973 Yom Kippur War marked a turning point in the "special relationship" between the United States and Israel. While previous U.S. administrations had taken a relatively even hand in the Middle East, the action saw American support of Israel become virtually unconditional. A massive airlift of military hardware to Israel brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union closer to conflict. As the war--just two weeks in duration--played out along the Suez Canal, U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign amidst bribery allegations. Watergate escalated, resulting in President Nixon's near-breakdown. Despite Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's efforts to supply arms to Israel, he was stymied by resistance in the Department of Defense, which some saw as overly provocative toward the Arabs. Ostensibly a U.S. foreign policy success, the war led directly to the 1974 oil crisis and a permanent rift in U.S.-Arab relations. Drawing on Kissinger's telephone conversations and recently declassified documents, this book tells the story of how the secretary became the chief architect of America's Middle East policy, and how his Cold War strategy played a critical role in the decision to pursue active military involvement.

Author : Walter J. Boyne
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9781429958400
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Two O'Clock War written by Walter J. Boyne and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002-09-14 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's usually called the Yom Kippur War. Or sometimes the October War. The players that surround it are familiar: Sadat and Mubarak, Meir and Sharon, Nixon and Kissinger, Brezhnev and Dobyrnin. It was a war that brought Arab and Jew into vicious conflict. A war in which Israel almost unleashed her nuclear arsenal and set two superpowers on a treacherous course of nuclear escalation. And a war that eventually brought peace. But a peace fraught with delicate tensions, disputed borders, and a legacy of further bloodshed. The Two O'Clock War is a spellbinding chronicle of the international chess game that was played out in October 1973. It is a story of diplomacy and military might that accounts for many of the dilemmas faced in the present-day Middle East. This is a war that Israel never thought was possible. Surprised by the fury and excellent execution of the Arab onslaught, and perhaps more than a little complacent, Israel suddenly found itself on the point of losing a war because of a lack of ammunition, planes and tanks. The United States, after much vacillation, finally elected to help Israel, beginning a tremendous airlift (code name: Operation Nickel Grass) which incurred the wrath of the Arab states, and their sponsor, the Soviet Union. Fortunately the airlift came just in time for Israeli ground forces to stabilize their positions and eventually turn the tide in the Sinai and Golan Heights. And it was all made possible by an operation that dwarfed the Berlin Airlift and the Soviets' simultaneous efforts in Egypt and Syria. The Two O'Clock War is bound to become the definitive history of a war that quite literally approached Armageddon.