The Soviet Union and the June 1967 Six Day War (review)

This volume is the most authoritative study yet to appear on the Soviet Union's attitude toward and involvement with the 1967 Six Day War. Based on Soviet and East European documents, the volume comprises a set of analyses by, for the most part, highly knowledgeable and astute researchers working under the exacting and skillful editorship of experts Yaacov Ro'i and Boris Morozov. The volume covers the topic from almost all angles: the perspective of Soviet leaders in the lead-up to, during, and in the aftermath of the war, but also Israel's view of the Soviet role, the U.S. perspective, and the role of Eastern Europe (at least of Bulgaria). The volume also includes a previously neglected area, that of Soviet naval behavior during the war, and an interesting chapter comparing 1967 with the 1956 war. All of this is presented within the excellent framework laid out in Ro'i's opening chapter on Soviet policy and Morozov's chapter on Soviet behavior, both of which draw on declassified Soviet documents in recently published volumes and in Russian archives. The Soviet Jewish reaction to the war, also based on newly available documentation, is covered in one of the chapters, and the book also features a brilliant chapter by Dmitri Adamsky on the 1969-1970 War of Attrition (which is a bit beyond the main topic of the book but is of great interest).

The major contribution of the volume is that it lays to rest many of the often preposterous theories regarding the Soviet Union's interests and role in the 1967 war. Through the documents appended or cited, the authors demonstrate that Soviet leaders did not want the war and, relatively early during the prewar crisis, began consistently trying to restrain their Arab clients, mainly Egypt, from initiating an attack. Soviet leaders were skeptical of the Arabs' ability to defeat Israel and were opposed to becoming directly involved to save the Arab countries, particularly because of concern over a clash with the United States. Leaders in Moscow viewed Gamal abdel Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran (a casus belli) as a mistake, one that Moscow learned about only shortly after the fact. Indeed, one issue not covered in the volume is the brief attempt by Leonid Brezhnev to organize a meeting between Egyptian, Syrian, and Israeli leaders, as proposed by the head of the Israeli Communist Party, Moshe Sneh, to head off hostilities, a point I discussed in "The Soviet Union and the Six-Day War in Light of Archival Materials," Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 3-19. Soviet Foreign Ministry documents not included in the Ro'i-Morozov volume refer to this episode and provide additional reports of restraining efforts by Moscow in talks with the Egyptians. See the items collected in V. V. Naumkin, ed., Blizhnevostochnyi konflik 1957-1967: Iz dokumentov Arkhiva vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 2 vols. (Moscow: Materik, 2003). The Ro'i-Morozov book also provides a much longer (though still not complete) and more accurate translation of Brezhnev's speech to the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee following the war than that previously published by the Cold War International History Project. This latest version covers almost all the important points connected with the war, such as Moscow's defensiveness regarding its moves for an immediate ceasefire, even one "in place," and cooperation with the United States on this—a defensiveness that is probably in response to what Brezhnev mentions as criticism from the Chinese and "extremist" Arab elements. The speech also demonstrates Soviet concern over these same actors' incitement to continuing or renewing hostilities. The documents show what was to become Nasser's acceptance of Moscow's demand for a more restrained policy on the eve of the postwar Khartoum summit—a restraint that caused the Syrians to boycott the meeting and the Palestine Liberation Organization...