Operation Nickel Grass, The US Air Force's 1973 Yom Kippur War Airlift to IsraelReaders will learn that the decision to conduct, or not to conduct, the airlift to resupply Israel was anything but a foregone conclusion. It took a week of wrangling (October 6 13, 1973) between the White House and the Departments of State & Defense before the decision was made hence the word "politics" in the new, more definitive subtitle of the book.