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On 27 September Nasser publically announced his Soviet arms deal by saying

that the Czechs had actually delivered military supplies and equipment. 396 The deal

involved the Egyptians supply to the Russians with staggered payments of cotton

and rice in return. 397 The agreement was estimated to be worth between ninety and

two hundred million US dollars, according to Eisenhower. The US President also

asserted that following the conclusion of the arms arrangement, the Soviets offered

the Israelis their own arms deal. The Israelis had rejected the Soviet offer, he

said. 398

Britain’s initial reaction was to call this ‘Egyptian blackmail’. In a minute by

Sir Robert Hadow and Sir Harold Caccia the two noted that ‘Whatever policy we

adopt must avoid giving the other Arab States the impression that blackmail and

neutralism pay’. 399

Ghaleb, in an interview with Al-Jazeera in 2008, recalled a discussion with Ali

Sabry, Nasser’s aide, who said that he believed that the arms supplied by the Soviets

would enable Egypt to defeat Israel in military confrontation. Ghaleb, in return

expressed to Sabry, his belief that the objective of the arms supplied was not to

initiate a conflict with the Israelis as such an escapade would result in strong and

dire consequences for Egypt from the West, a matter the Soviets well understood. In

396 As the process of Soviet arms to Egypt reached its conclusion Copeland reported that K Roosevelt
met with Nasser. The Egyptian Prime Minister informed him of the Soviet offer and his acceptance.
To Nasser’s surprise K Roosevelt’s reaction was positive as he saw it as a way to increase the
Egyptian leader’s popularity and by doing so a peace settlement with Israel could be reached through
Nasser. Both K Roosevelt and Copeland assisted Nasser in drafting the speech in which he would
announce in it his arms deal. K Roosevelt went further as he suggested to Nasser to claim that the
arms were brought from Czechoslovakia. See Copeland, The Game of Nations, 156-60.
397 Nutting, Nasser, 101.
398 D.D. Eisenhower, The White House Years 1956-61: Waging Peace (London: 1966), 25.
399 BDEEP, Series B, Part III, vol. 4, ‘Egypt and the Defence of the Middle East’ 1953-1956. Doc. 600:
FO 371/113675, ‘Egypt and Russian arms’: minutes by Sir Robert Hadow and Sir Harold Caccia on
the importance of designing a common response with the Americans, 23 September 1955.

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