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

THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973

while awaiting the arrival of his advisers’ full complement, he directed the work of the

experts already in Eg ypt for rehabilitation of the Eg yptian army. ... the work of

Lashchenko’s group for setting up the defense of the Suez Canal was meanwhile convincing

the Eg yptian military leadership of the necessity to have Soviet military advisers.^6

Talks to formalize the Soviets’ expanded role dragged on all summer, with a con-
stant traffic of delegations between Cairo and Moscow.^7 Despite Nasser’s express
request, the advisers’ standing was a major point of contention. Evgeny Primakov,
Pravda’s Cairo correspondent during the June war, was widely considered an intelli-
gence operative, and this was soon confirmed when he was formally attached to the
Soviet embassy.^8 He wrote on 10 August to his editor, who passed the report on to
the International Department of the Central Committee: “For the present critical
moment, the UAR [Eg ypt] would appear to need a large group of our instructors on
the west bank of the Suez Canal who could participate directly in repelling new
attempts at aggression by Israel.” The advisers, he noted, would also “facilitate the
consolidation of all healthy elements.”^9
There were, then, unhealthy elements who objected to enhancing the Soviets’ sta-
tus. As Lashchenko reminisced in 1991,

we found out that Eg yptian generals and officers were in those days conducting a polemic

in their own circles about the advisers. Some of them completely shared the president’s

position that [the advisers] were necessary for the army; others opposed it vehemently.

Typically, members of the senior command were categorically against the advisers. Junior

officers supported the president’s decision.

As Malashenko put it,

Certain Eg yptian political and military activists did not desire Soviet advisers among their

troops. ... They feared that the Soviet advisers would exert a certain influence on the per-

sonal makeup of the Eg yptian army, would supplant its commanders and undermine their

authority, and would also increase the UAR’s dependence on the USSR ... The Eg yptian

side opposed granting the chief military adviser the right to report ... directly to the presi-

dent, and to set up a staff; equipping the advisers with radio equipment, and many other

issues. ... They even tried to avoid using the term “adviser” and instead used “specialist,

expert, consultant.”^10

The latter point would remain contentious for years, and the confusion caused by
the alternating terms would help to mask both the arrival and the withdrawal of regu-
lar Soviet formations.
Lashchenko stressed the ideological motivation, or excuse, for this resistance: “we
soon were convinced that many Eg yptian generals were as frightened of [our] ‘com-
munist spirit’ as of fire—the ideological influence that the advisers might have on
junior officers and enlisted men.” But more specifically, he pinpointed the hard core
of opposition in a group that he called retrospectively “the most reactionary generals