How the USSR and the USA stopped the Yom Kippur War
I persuaded Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Gorovoy for an interview for almost a year. Exactly 50 years ago, he became one of those who participated in ending the fourth Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War.
The confrontation in the Middle East between Egypt, Syria and a number of other Arab states on the one hand and Israel on the other drew into this fierce conflict between the USSR and the USA and threatened to escalate into a direct armed conflict between the nuclear superpowers.
Coincidentally or not, the current escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict occurred exactly half a century later – on October 7, 2023. Just like the Yom Kippur War began on October 6, 1973, on the religious holiday of Yom Kippur, revered by the Israelis.
“Fifty years have passed, but little has changed. The same problem, the same theater of action, the same irreconcilable positions of the parties,” says 91-year-old Vladimir Ilyich. It was declassified only in 2020.
Today Vladimir Gorovoy told MK about this unique operation of the Soviet intelligence service.
Destroyed Israeli tanks near the Egyptian city of Ismailia during the Yom Kippur War
In 2020, a page about Vladimir Gorov appeared on Wikipedia: “…During a business trip to The United States managed to complete a complex task of exceptional importance, as a result of which Soviet intelligence obtained data of the highest level of secrecy for many years.”
For his courage and heroism, by a “closed” Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR exactly half a century ago, on December 21, 1973, Vladimir Ilyich Gorovoy was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 11276).
For 13 years he worked with a group of American agents. Its leader was cryptographer John Anthony Walker, duty communications officer at the headquarters of the US Submarine Fleet Commander in the Atlantic region.
It was Walker who handed over to our intelligence service the schemes of the encryption machines used and the keys to them. In world history, before this, there was only one operation of this scale – the British hacking of the Nazi Enigma encryption machine during World War II.
Thanks to cooperation with Walker, the USSR was able to record and read coded correspondence from completely closed communication lines of the Armed Forces The United States, including its main strike component – the submarine nuclear fleet.
In October 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, a powerful squadron of the Soviet Navy stood opposite an equally, and perhaps more powerful, American squadron in the Mediterranean Sea, and the world found itself on the brink of a nuclear disaster. In this confrontation, the one who had accurate information about what was happening and was able, based on its analysis, to correctly build an algorithm for his actions prevailed.
…Vladimir Ilyich and I are sitting and looking at the capital from the height of Moscow City. There is non-stop information on the news about what is happening today in the Middle East.
He recalls the affairs of days gone by.
“HAMAS”, “IDF” – it sounds like what It's an unknown code. Code…
—You can build a bridge from what was to what is happening. During the Yom Kippur War, the USSR was able to achieve enormous political success – it forced Israel to peace. And this despite massive military-technical assistance from the United States. We forced the Americans to join this process in order to avoid the unpredictable consequences of the development of the crisis due to Israel's position aimed at the complete defeat of the Arabs. Such a triumph has never been repeated.
— He himself came to our embassy in Washington in 1969. I found out the address from the phone book. He did not suspect that across the street there was an FBI counterintelligence observation post. From there they photographed all visitors entering and leaving. Walker was lucky. He accidentally chose the day when a film was shown at the embassy for workers of Soviet institutions. There was a stream of spectators entering the building. He got lost among them. I acted at random, but it turned out well.
– May be so. Upon entering, he asked to meet with an intelligence officer. During the conversation, he told me where he works, what secret materials he has access to, and offered to cooperate with us. It was impossible to miss such an offer. The terms of further communication were agreed upon with him. Then they changed his clothes and took him out of the territory in an embassy car. Over the next 17 years, work with Walker went smoothly. Of these, 13 were my share.
John Anthony Walker
— In 1969, I was 37. I was writing a diploma at our specialized educational institution. The defense was due in three weeks. Suddenly a call to management. The person to whom I was sent for a conversation, an intelligence officer, as I learned later, from God, as they say, asked me for a long time and corrosively about work, studying at a special faculty, family, and touched upon operational topics. Then he said that we were talking about carrying out a very important task in a country with a strict counterintelligence regime, with the danger of high-profile expulsion in case of exposure, not to mention failure. “How do you like it?” – he asked. I replied: “I am an officer, I will go wherever you send me.” He winced: “This is not about that. This task will require extreme composure, constant and tireless tension. You will be working with the most valuable agent in our country.” A month later I was already in Washington.
— Soviet diplomats were allowed unhindered movement within a 25-mile zone around the American capital. Permission was required to travel outside its borders. The presence of surveillance always had to be taken into account. One day, my family and I drove to Kentucky to visit Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system in the world. The distance to it from Washington is 1070 km. Both along the road and in the cave itself we were vigilantly looked after by external surveillance officers.
– Second secretary of the embassy. Average diplomatic position. Most of the embassy employees were ordinary diplomatic workers who had nothing to do with intelligence. I worked with Walker alone; no one else was involved in this operation. Because when two people know, sooner or later everyone will know.
— We saw each other twice a year: in the summer the family flew from Moscow for a while, I spent the New Year at home. Ensuring the safety of maintaining contact with agents required a very significant amount of time for operational preparatory work, as well as constant readiness to launch an urgent operation at the agent’s signal. You never know what could happen to him both in the extraction of materials and in his personal life. He's still not a professional. And an intelligence officer, when working with an agent, must do everything to first of all ensure his, and, in fact, his own safety. Family life in this case would seriously complicate the fulfillment of these requirements.
— The main problem in working with Walker was his relationship with his wife. When he just started collaborating with us and was forced to leave home to travel to Washington to transfer materials, his wife Barbara suspected him of treason. He tried to explain his absences and the appearance of extra money in the house by drug trafficking. But one day she found in his desk drawer a box with a thick wad of money and some diagrams, clippings from local maps with notes and descriptions of roads. The woman demanded an explanation. Walker flew into a rage and beat her, but the situation could not be improved. Walker eventually admitted that he was working for the Russians. To calm her down, he offered to accompany him on his next operation. She was driving the car, John was removing bookmarks from hiding places. The amount received reconciled her with her husband’s side hustle.
“When recruiting, he immediately stated that he would cooperate for money due to financial difficulties. One of the main operations of Soviet intelligence, which became possible only thanks to Walker, was the decryption of ciphergrams from the Yom Kippur War, the fourth war of the Arab-Israeli conflict. When describing its course, historians mainly pay attention to ground actions. But in fact, the Soviet confrontation with the Americans developed on the water. We had no ground combat capability. The whole plot and culmination of events took place at sea.
The Jews were expelled from Palestine twice. The second time for almost two thousand years, after which the population of Ancient Judea scattered throughout the world. For almost 400 years, Palestine was under the rule of the Ottoman Turks.
The First World War crushed four empires, including the Ottoman Empire.
The League of Nations transferred the Palestinian territory to British administration. At the end of World War II, the UN, in connection with the mass migration of Jews from various countries of the world to Palestine, considered the British proposal to create two independent states in Palestine, Jewish and Arab. In December 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted a corresponding decision, supported by 33 of its members, including the USSR. This was a kind of payment for the suffering of the Jewish people.
Before this, the civilized world allowed the Holocaust, because not a single country accepted en masse the Jews who fled Nazi Germany.
At that time, the Zionists (a political movement for the return of Jews to their historical homeland) supported the UN decision. The Arabs were categorically against it. Having lived on these lands for hundreds of years, no one asked them if they wanted to share their territory.
On May 14, 1948, the National Council proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel.
The first Arab-Israeli war of 1948–49 broke out, which was started by the Arab states, who disagreed with the UN decision. The Israelis called it “War of Independence,” the Arabs called it “Catastrophe.” The Israelis were victorious and captured significant territory intended for the Arab state. Then new wars followed, as a result of which the Arabs lost more and more.
They suffered especially serious territorial damage as a result of the so-called Six-Day War (from June 5 to June 10, 1967). It was started by a surprise attack by Israel. The Arabs suffered a crushing defeat, and Israel increased its area by 3.5 times, including at the expense of the territory of Syria and Egypt.
“It was obvious that sooner or later the Arab states would try to return the lands seized by the Israelis. The USSR supported Egypt and Syria, the USA supported Israel, continues Vladimir Gorovoy. — The Yom Kippur War in 1973 began with a surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian troops, taking Israel by surprise. The Egyptians easily broke through the Bar Lev defensive line, crossed the Suez Canal and penetrated 15–20 km deep into Israeli territory. Syria led an offensive against Israeli fortifications on the Golan Heights, which were taken from it in 1967. Israel found itself caught between two fires. But the army managed to regroup its forces and carry out urgent mobilization. And the situation leveled off, and then changed sharply in favor of Israel. The Egyptian troops were almost completely surrounded, and the Syrian ones were defeated and driven back to their territory. Israeli tanks were 100 km from Cairo, artillery took up positions 40 km from Damascus. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat begged the Soviet leadership for emergency intervention. The Arab troops were threatened with complete defeat, which the Soviet Union could not allow.
Egyptian tanks destroyed during the Yom Kippur War
“This would lead to the loss of the USSR’s position in the Arab world, which had been developing for decades. The American administration was in a similar position; it could not refuse to support Israel. The USSR and the USA took tough positions in protecting their allies, which directly led to their confrontation in military terms. At the same time, the leaders of both countries realized the danger of this situation. However, Israel, trying to finish off the Arabs, continued its offensive.
— Arab countries have imposed an embargo on the sale of oil to the United States. Naturally, gasoline prices soared. Long lines appeared at gas stations, which was very costly for Americans who couldn’t imagine life without a car. Everyone basically knew that there was another escalation in the Middle East. But in general, ordinary people did not really delve into what catastrophic consequences, in addition to rising prices, this could lead to. Although in terms of the intensity of the stop and the likelihood of a direct clash between the USSR and the USA at sea, everything was no less serious than during the Cuban Missile Crisis ten years before.
Each side demonstrated that it was ready to go to the end. Up to the use of nuclear weapons. We have deployed medium-range missiles in Egypt. We also took into the air our newest fighter at that time, the Su-25. He took off from an airfield near Astrakhan, flew to the combat area and defiantly made several circles over Tel Aviv. Israeli aviation was powerless to do anything. It was clearly shown that if something happened, Tel Aviv would be our target. By the way, the pilot received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The intensity continued to rise. From our side, 57 ships were brought up, from the Americans – 48. By the end of the 20th of October, we already had 95 ships. Several more submarines approached. Imagine, two of the most powerful fleets in the world stand against each other, ready to engage in battle at any moment.
“There was too much at stake.” It must be said that contact with the White House on the issue of settlement was constantly maintained. President Nixon was anti-Soviet, of course, but still with a certain amount of sympathy. On October 20, US Secretary of State Kissinger flew to Moscow to discuss ways out of the growing crisis in Soviet-American relations. As a result of negotiations, on October 22, the UN Security Council adopted a Peace Resolution on a joint Soviet-American proposal. But Israel continued fighting. The Americans introduced the second level of combat readiness for the strike air group in the fleet, the penultimate one before opening fire. The Soviet side demonstrated its combat readiness by conducting exercises at sea before their eyes.
“And no one wanted to strike first.” By October 24, the situation for the Arabs had deteriorated so much that the Soviet Union demanded that the Israeli leadership, under threat of the most serious consequences, stop its aggressive actions, and also warned the Americans that if they were passive in resolving the crisis, it would take all necessary measures unilaterally. That is, either we together force Israel to peace, or… On October 25 at night, Secretary of State Kissinger held a meeting of the heads of the most important departments. Only five people. It was decided to send us a response with a veiled threat of the most unpredictable consequences, but at the same time, American troops around the world were instructed to avoid as much as possible any actions that could be interpreted by the Russians as a military provocation. Before this meeting, we did not know to what extent we could put pressure on them. Who knows, what if they get stubborn? But from the decrypted messages it became clear that the Americans would not agree to an armed conflict, especially the use of nuclear weapons, because of Israel. I don't think we were ready either. But we could assess the risks using the information we intercepted thanks to John Anthony Walker. And therefore they pushed their interests, since they had information about their true intentions. Unlike the Americans, who do not know ours.
– Yes. On October 25, hostilities began to fade, and on the 26th they stopped completely. The war lasted 19 days. Egyptian and Syrian territories were preserved, moreover, Israel returned some things to Egypt. Then Egypt, the first Arab country, recognized the existence of Israel in 1979. And the Syrian Golan still remains with Israel. And Syria still does not recognize the existence of this country.
Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Gorovoy
— It was New Year's Eve 1974. I came on vacation and relaxed at home. Suddenly the bell rang: at such and such a time a car will be waiting for you at the entrance. I open the door and the intelligence chief is sitting there. He is silent, I am silent. Suddenly someone called, and he had a phone in his car, a great rarity in those days. I see that we are approaching Dzerzhinsky Square.
I was informed that they would be presenting the highest award of our country. I thought it was the Order of Lenin. But there were two boxes…
– This is my job. I stayed there for 7 years, an unusually long time for a mid-ranking diplomat. And then another 6 years, meeting him in various countries. In addition, at a certain point, Walker had problems at work, and it was necessary to figure out how to help him.
— His clearance to work with classified documentation was expiring. He had to undergo a special check to renew his admission. As part of the inspection, the financial situation of the person being inspected, his expenses, bank accounts were usually studied, neighbors, relatives were interviewed, etc. If everything was in order, a stamp was placed on a special pink form. This meant that the employee could work quietly until the next inspection. Walker turned to us to help him forge this document. Because he wouldn't pass the test. He could get the pink piece of paper quite easily. In those days they were kept almost in the public domain. A stamp was needed. But we didn’t help him with this.
“To do this, it was necessary to remove such a piece of paper with a seal from somewhere for a long time. But by the time he gets to the Center, by the time he makes his way back, by the time I return him to Walker… It will take weeks. What if the papers run out in the meantime? Too risky.
And someone at the top decided that he should solve this problem himself.
After reflection, Walker decided to take a different path. I went to the workshop where they make keys and make stamps and seals. There he said that he had lost his stamp at work, paid 2 dollars 38 cents and soon received the coveted pink piece of paper, which extended access to all classified materials for another 5 years.
“Perhaps he thought we were right.” As a last resort, he could, as an option, quickly quit. In this case, we discussed with him the possibility of selecting a replacement for him. Such a candidate was already in mind. But at that moment everything worked out.
– Yes, his relationship with his wife ended fatally. They moved to a nice house in a prestigious area, it seemed that life was about to get better. All these years he rose through the ranks, established himself very well and reliably in the eyes of his superiors, and even joined the Ku Klux Klan to show that he was a true conservative American. But the women ruined him… Because of suspicions, justified and imaginary, of Walker’s amorous connections, Barbara constantly created scandals for John. In addition, she was addicted to alcohol. In response, John cut back on giving her money. A divorce followed, after which the children remained in the care of their mother. Barbara demanded financial help, threatening to report her ex-husband to the FBI. All our warnings about the danger, recommendations, demands to normalize relations were perceived by him with understanding. But only until the next conflict. Walker asked us to resolve the issue with his wife “drastically.” This request, naturally, was ignored. And one day, a drunk Barbara called the FBI and said that her husband was a spy. Soon he was arrested…
“At the trial, he explained that he did not betray his homeland, but contributed to the preservation of the military parity of nuclear powers and thereby the preservation of peace. This is truly something our Service can be proud of. In the Yom Kippur War, we defended not only our national interests, but also defended the interests of humanity. They were not allowed to slide into possible nuclear madness. Alas, today nothing fundamentally new has appeared to solve this old problem. Where to find a place in tiny Palestine for two states deeply hostile to each other and how to achieve their peaceful coexistence on this piece of Middle Eastern land? It seems to me that the Arab-Israeli conflict is insoluble in principle. Each side has its own truth. Each believes that it has an exclusive right to this land.
50 long years have passed since I closely followed the progress of military operations in Palestine from Washington. And today I read the news on the Internet, watching an incomparably more furious battle, full of mutual hatred and boundless cruelty, of the same opponents, ready to go to the end, even if it costs the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. In 1973, we were able to find a way to temporarily stop this bloodshed. Let's hope that in the current situation a Solomonic solution will be found.
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