Panic 1973

There have been many accounts of the October war from an Israeli, Egyptian or American perspective. Not many have been written from a Russian perspective. There is, however, a notable example of the latter. Published about a decade ago, Primakov's book (above) gives the Soviet version of events. Among other things, it casts doubt on Sadat's sanity.
Many times, I and others have painted Sadat as inept, and prone to err. His delusional thinking led to the October 14 attack, the refusal to send forces back to the west bank of the canal, the rejection of  Kosygin's cease fire request and the senseless squandering of the 25th brigade. To this awful record, Primakov's book may add something:

If this account is true, it is a grave indictment of the Egyptian President. How could he have been that clueless? Surely there was a misunderstanding--when he said "surrounded by Israeli tanks" he was referring not to Cairo, but the Third Army? Or did the expansion of the Israeli bridgehead at the end of the war, to a point fairly close to Cairo, cause "a clearly panicked Sadat" to lose his mind?
In light of Egypt's break with the USSR after 1973, this whole episode might be a Soviet invention, to discredit Sadat. He himself claimed that Shazli had suffered a breakdown around October 19--a claim rejected not only by Shazly but Gamasy. But in view of Sadat's delusional thinking during the war and the desperate circumstances at the end, I consider the Soviet version slightly more probable.