This article reexamines the economic and strategic aspects of Soviet-Egyptian relations in the mid-1960s based on recently declassified documents from Russian archives and recently published memoirs in Arabic. The article explores the tensions that developed between the Soviet Union and Egypt as the Soviet government exploited Egypt's economic difficulties to press for basing rights that would help to offset the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. In addition to offering a corrective to scholarly understanding of the Soviet-Egyptian relationship at this time, the article provides a fascinating glimpse into the mechanics of Soviet foreign economic policy and carries revisionist implications for students of the origins of the Six-Day Mideast War.

Drawing on documents and memoirs in Russian and Arabic, this article tells the unknown story of Soviet-Egyptian cooperation in the early phases of the Yemeni Civil War, a war that broke out while much of the world's attention was focused on the Cuban missile crisis and the war between India and Pakistan. Egypt's fateful decision to intervene in the conflict was dependent on substantial Soviet backing, which strengthened the relationship between the USSR and Gamal Abdel Nasser's government in Egypt. In response to a plea from Nasser, Nikita Khrushchev authorized the military transport branch of the Soviet Air Force to embark on a clandestine airlift operation ferrying Egyptian troops into Yemen to shore up the new government there.