The Soviet-Israeli War, 1967–1973. The USSR’s Military Intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli Conflict

THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973

From here, the aviation historian Danny Shalom also takes his own flight of fancy:
“Foreign ... radio and TV stations broadcast live about the panic in Cairo’s streets.
The IAF could not understand the commotion that echoed in from Cairo,” though
its commander, Hod, was pleased with the outcome.^16
As a check of contemporary media showed, the incident actually exemplified the
paucity of Western news coverage from Cairo, the effectiveness of Eg yptian censor-
ship, or both. Not only were there no live broadcasts, but the first mention of the
boom incident appeared in the foreign press only ten days later, in reports that were
datelined elsewhere and highly exaggerated:

four Israeli jet fighters flew an unprecedented reconnaissance mission over Cairo on June

17 and got away without being fired on, despite prompt radar warnings when they crossed

into Eg ypt, according to reliable diplomatic reports from Cairo ... The Israeli Mirage

planes crisscrossed over the Eg yptian capital freely for six or seven minutes before a dozen

Eg yptian MiG jet fighters were scrambled to intercept them. But it was too late.^17

By the time this emerged, a reshuffle of top Eg yptian commanders had already
been reported, in a variety of versions as to the officers involved and the reasons for
their ouster or promotion.^18 Once revealed, “the failure ... to react to the Israeli pen-
etration ... was said in Cairo to have been the decisive factor in the abrupt dismissal
early last week of the Eg yptian air force commander ... and the chief of air defense,”
and it was suggested that Nasser had replaced the former with “a Soviet-trained offi-
c e r.”^19 This rationale, and the very connection of the purge to the boom incident, was
disputed even at the time; whereas the incoming appointees were clearly acceptable
to the Soviets, so were their removed predecessors.
The outgoing EAF commander, Mustafa Shalaby el-Hinnawy, was a pioneer of
Soviet orientation in the force: during the Suez/Sinai clashes of 1956, he was the only
Eg yptian pilot already qualified to fly a MiG-17, and led the force’s first squadron of
these aircraft into combat.^20 His replacement in June 1969, Ali Mustafa el-Baghdady,
was of similar background. Moreover, he had headed Eg ypt’s Air Defense Force since
it was officially constituted as a separate service a year earlier, and had already been
replaced there in May by Mohammad Ali Fahmy, who would remain at the post
through the 1973 war and become a national hero. Baghdady, then, was actually
promoted to command of a larger service, despite the failure of the air-defense system
that he had built. The “air defense chief ” who was reportedly scapegoated for the
17 June incident was in fact Hassan Kamel Ali, a “special assistant for air defense,”
through whom Baghdady had reported to the minister of war, and since no replace-
ment for him was announced his post was apparently abolished.^21
So the personnel changes that followed Nasser’s humiliation did not necessarily
reflect a shift toward greater reliance on the USSR. But another reminder was served
on Eg yptians and Soviets alike that restructuring along Soviet lines would not suffice