It had been a little more than two weeks since Egypt and Syria began a coordinated offensive against Israel, blowing past the cease-fire lines established after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and capturing much of the Sinai Peninsula and some of the Golan Heights. But the Israelis had recovered from the initial shock of the Yom Kippur attack, and with the help of a significant U.S. resupply effort, pushed the invading armies back. The Soviets had undertaken a resupply effort of their own to aid the Egyptians, but now the Israelis had crossed the Suez Canal, encircled Egypt’s Third Army, and violated a superpower-brokered cease-fire by moving into the city of Suez. So worried was Brezhnev about the fate of his Egyptian ally that Kissinger believed the Soviets were contemplating a military intervention.
