Office of the Historian

138. Message From the Soviet Leadership to President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger1

Moscow, October 6, 1973.

The Soviet leadership got the information about the beginning of military actions in the Middle East at the same time as you got it.2 We take all possible measures to clarify real state of affairs in that region, since the information from there is of a contradictory nature. We fully share your concern about the conflagration of the situation in the [Page 565] Middle East. We repeatedly pointed in the past to the dangerous situation in that area.

We are considering now as well as you do, possible steps to be taken. We hope soon to contact you again for possible coordination of positions.”3

  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Records of Henry A. Kissinger, 1973–1977, Lot 91 D 414, Box 1, Nodis Miscellaneous Docs., Tels., Etc., 1973–1977. Secret; Nodis. A note on the message indicates that Dobrynin transmitted it by telephone at 2:10 p.m.↩
  2. On October 6, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel by crossing the cease-fire lines into the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, areas which had been held by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. See Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XXV, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1973, Documents 97–114. Kissinger, who was in New York but returned to Washington that morning, and Dobrynin had begun discussing the situation by telephone at 6:40 a.m.↩
  3. Both Kissinger and Scowcroft continued to be in contact with Dobrynin by telephone concerning possible actions the United States and the Soviet Union could take. See ibid., Documents 108 and 109.↩