the Egyptian President, Gamal Abd al-Nasser an intelligence report that claimed there were Israeli troops gathering on the Syrian border. Dmitri Chuvakhin, Soviet ambassador to Israel, refused an Israeli Invitation to visit the border in order to disprove the report. On May 14, Nasser sent his chief of staff, General Mohamed Fawzi to the border to investigate the report, and was told there were no Israeli troop concentrations. Although, Nasser knew that the Soviet report was wrong, he perhaps interpreted it to indicate Soviet support of an Egyptian offensive towards Israel. On May 15, Nasser sent the Egyptian army to Sinai and on May 18, 1967, Nasser requested that the U.N. Emergency Force (UNEF) withdraw from Egypt. Furthermore, on May 22 he closed the Tiran straits to Israeli ships. The Israelis interpreted the closing of the straits of Tiran as an act of war, and attacked Egypt on June 5, 1967, destroying hundreds of airplanes. The Soviets reacted to Israel's offensive in two ways. Firstly it severed diplomatic relations with Israel and threatened sanctions if fighting with Syria did not cease immediately. Secondly, it told the White House that unless Israel stopped military operations, the Soviet Union would get involved. In the following six days Israel achieved massive victories, until the war ended on June 10, 1967, with a cease-fire. The role the USSR played in the June 1967 war, between the State of Israel and the surrounding Arab countries, remains fiercely debated. Some scholars have argued that Moscow started the war in order to further its position in the area and increase Arab reliance on Soviet aid. Expanding on the notion that a key goal of the Soviet Union in the Middle East in the 1960s was to expand its military presence through the procurement of both naval and air bases. Furthermore, the Soviets chose to involve Egypt in the conflict due to the fear that an incident between Syria and Israel would likely lead to Syria's defeat. Others claim it was due to miscalculations and the Soviets' lack of control over the Arabs. Another theory was that Moscow was attempting to use the Middle East in order to divert attention from Vietnam. Recently a theory has emerged that claims that the main reason for the Soviet move was to demolish Israel's nuclear development before it had obtained a working atomic weapon. The Soviets also viewed Israel's victory in