Former US diplomat Henry Kissinger denied deliberately delaying airlifts of weapons to replenish Israel’s depleted supplies during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, saying it was in fact due to logistical problems and the fact that Washington initially thought Israel was already winning.
Three years after the war, a retired US Navy admiral told the New York Times that Kissinger had deliberately delayed the supply of weapons in Operation Nickel Grass because he “wanted Israel to bleed just enough,” to soften the way for post-war diplomacy.
However, in an interview broadcast by Channel 12 news on Monday to mark Kissinger’s recent 100th birthday, the former secretary of state said of his comment that “nothing happened that could be interpreted in that way.”
Amid a series of Israeli intelligence failures in the lead-up to the war, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on October 6, 1973, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.
“To make the airlift of a country available to a war-making country that is in the middle of a war is not something that is normally done. Has in fact never been done,” Kissinger said in the interview, which was carried out on an unspecified date.
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“It was also the week in which vice president [Spiro] Agnew resigned, so it takes a special Israeli attitude to even ask that question, if you forgive me,” Kissinger said.
“I mean this was a huge step we took. It saved Israel,” the former secretary of state said.
March 1, 1973. US president Richard Nixon seated in the Oval Office with Israeli prime minister Golda Meir and Henry Kissinger. (Karl Schumacher/The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum/ National Archives and Records Administration)
Kissinger said that at the start, the US was under the impression that Israel was already winning the war.
“If you look at the days of the war… until Tuesday morning, we thought Israel was winning and was crossing the canal. It was only Tuesday afternoon that [Israeli ambassador to the US Simcha] Dinitz came back to the United States [and explained the situation]. And it was not until Tuesday evening that I could reach Nixon because of the Agnew [situation],” Kissinger said.
When the war broke out, then-US president Richard Nixon was dealing with the resignation of Agnew over financial crimes, as the administration additionally grappled with the Watergate affair.
Kissinger had been in the job for less than a month.
In addition, according to the report, Kissinger has said then-US defense secretary James Schlesinger opposed the supply of weapons to Israel due to concerns of setting a precedent, and a potential response from Moscow.
The IDF’s Hermon Outpost in the Golan Heights on October 20, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. (Defense Ministry Archives)
Kissinger said that in fact, much of the delay was due to the logistical issues of which planes could transport the weapons.
“We told the Israelis they could pick up any equipment with El Al, on that day we promised Israel that we would replace all its losses, and therefore said expend all equipment that you need, because we’re here. On the fourth day we started trying to get an airlift going,” Kissinger said.
“The normal thing is not to use the military airlift unless you’re a party to this [conflict]. It took [time] to find out whether that civilian airlift was possible against the opposition of the… military,” Kissinger said.
Nixon famously eventually said “tell them to send everything that can fly.”
Kissinger also said Israel considered a ceasefire a few days into the war, which he assessed was a “bad idea.”
“What happened also was on Thursday the Israelis were thinking of making a ceasefire. And we told them we will support anything you put forward. But in my judgement it is a very bad idea to make a ceasefire when you’ve lost territory,” Kissinger said.
The statesman, who turned 100 on Saturday, played a pivotal role in US foreign policy, with a long, and at times highly controversial, record.
He would later define “shuttle diplomacy” as he traveled between Israel and the capitals of the Arab world for talks.
