6
“YELLOW ARAB HELMET, BLUE RUSSIAN EYES”
A. Nasser’s Moscow talks and Georgian spa
Foreign reports about “friction” in Nasser’s talks in Moscow claimed once again that
Eg ypt was alarmed by Soviet reluctance to continue military aid.^1 West German
experts shared with an Israeli counterpart their impression that “the visit was typified
by disagreements ... Nasser tried to sound out the possibility of Soviet intervention
on Eg ypt’s side in a new outbreak of war with Israel. The Soviet reply was apparently
no, with a recommendation that Nasser refrain from warlike initiatives.” There were
“persistent rumors among the diplomatic corps in Moscow that USSR is interested
in resumption” of diplomatic relations with Israel. However, one perceptive German
specialist added: “it is very likely that this data ... originated in deliberate Soviet dis-
information, which is trying intentionally to display disagreement between Cairo and
Moscow in order to camouflage coordinated operative decisions that may have been
made during Nasser’s visit.”^2
No major conflict between Nasser and his Soviet hosts was in evidence when it was
announced that he was extending his stay from seven days to ten in order to spend
7–9 July “resting in the Moscow region.” Again, various political speculations were
made in the West as to the reason.^3 But Nasser’s “rest” was actually a checkup, which
began on 6 July, at the Kremlin clinic, a facility of the Health Ministry’s Fourth
Directorate—the VIP medical service for the Soviet elite. Its chief, Dr Evgeny
Chazov, who would treat the nomenklatura for over twenty years, related in his mem-
oir how Brezhnev called him within a day of Nasser’s arrival, at the request of physi-
cians attending “one of our close foreign friends.”
Nasser’s medical condition had deteriorated beyond the diabetes he discussed with
Marshal Zakharov. His doctors reported that in the past year he had suffered steadily
intensifying pain in his legs, which now would not allow him to walk any distance;
the five-hour flight to Moscow was agonizing and he had to lie down most of the
time. Nasser’s own retinue was “panicky” even about holding the examination, as the
very news that it was necessary might have disastrous domestic repercussions. At their