RESCUING AND REARMING THE USSR’S ALLIES IN JUNE 1967Minister Andrei Grechko: “the Soviet state actively and purposefully opposes the
export of counterrevolution and the policy of oppression, supports the national lib-
eration struggle, and resolutely resists imperialist aggression in whatever distant
region of our planet it may appear.”^78 Grechko himself was well known for his anti-
Israeli, indeed anti-Semitic disposition; he was quoted as declaring, as early as 1963,
“within 15 years the Israelis will be glad if we just permit them to live.”^79 Together
with his Eg yptian counterpart Abdel Hakim Amer, he had hatched the plan to pro-
voke a war against Israel, and its failure in May–June 1967 could hardly have moder-
ated his attitude.^80
Brezhnev’s own speech to the Central Committee developed the key elements of
the authorized narrative in detail. He left a telltale clue to be discovered only when
the text came to light thirty-five years later: an offhand confirmation that the warning
to Eg ypt and Syria about purported Israeli aggressive intent and preparations was
made under a Politburo decision, in expectation that the Arabs would take “appropri-
ate measures.”^81 But at the time, the speech remained secret; speaking with a member
of the Polish Politburo on 24 June, Brezhnev blamed “many mistakes, both political
and military” on the part of “Arab friends,” as well as a murky reference to “treason,”
for “the very complicated situation” in the Middle East, while crediting the Soviet
Union’s influence only for the fact that “the fight was interrupted” when it went
against the Arabs.
Brezhnev did carry out a “changing of the guard” in the Soviet diplomatic team,
especially in Middle Eastern capitals.^82 But the ambassadors who had handled the
crisis were neither demoted nor otherwise penalized. Dmitri Chuvakhin, the envoy
to Israel, was approaching retirement age when the closure of his embassy left him
without a post; until the collapse of the USSR and even afterward, he was held to
have been ousted from the diplomatic service and exiled to Siberia.^83 Western
researchers who sought to interview him were falsely told, as late as September 1990,
that he had died.^84 In fact, he was not only rewarded with an adviser’s sinecure at
ministerial-rank pay but was charged by Brezhnev with compiling a detailed report
on the crisis, which included recommendations for the next conflict.^85 In Cairo,
Pozhidaev was replaced after the war by Sergey Vinogradov, but interpretations that
the former had been sacked for failure disregarded the fact that he too was approach-
ing retirement age and his successor had already been designated in May 1967.^86 At
that time, there were rumors in Moscow about dissatisfaction with Pozhidaev’s per-
formance. But as he was considerably outranked by Sergey Vinogradov after the lat-
ter’s twelve-year tenure in Paris, his appointment in itself may just as plausibly have
reflected the heightened importance that Moscow ascribed to the Cairo post in the
run-up to the 1967 crisis.^87
The plenum’s deliberations, having been kept under wraps, could not silence all
skepticism. To ensure grassroots backing, as Shelest noted, “a series of political moves