Yosef Govrin was formerly Israeli ambassador to Romania (1985-89) and ambassador to Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia and to the UN in Vienna (1993-95). Since retirement in 1996 he has been a research fellow at the L. Davies Institute of International Relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Govrin has based his research on a comprehensive selection of foreign policy documents, diplomatic reports, official statements and commentaries, interviews, press reports, memoirs and parliamentary debates. He presents a detailed account of the fascinating relationship between Israel and the Soviet Union. His work analyses the era from the month preceding Stalin's death to the weeks following the Six Day War - one of severance, resumption and then severance again- along two parallel processes. On the one hand, commercial, cultural and tourist links were formed and there was a gradual increase in the number of exit permits granted to Jews to emigrate to Israel.
On the other hand, there emerged a number of areas of confrontation, most notably the Soviet policy in the Middle East aimed at forming a united Arab anti-western front in the face of Israel's wish to entrench its security and independence with western assistance, and Israel's fight for the cause of Soviet Jews. This book won the Israel's Prime Minister's Prize in 1991 when first published in Hebrew.