ABSTRACT
Rafael Eitan's arrival in Moscow in the pre-coup days of August 1991 took place in an atmosphere of great political tension. Rafael, a former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), is a soldier-farmer. The new prime minister, Valentin Pavlov, had just demanded full powers to carry out economic reforms, after he had plunged the country into a deep crisis, by allotting three days for a mandatory exchange of ruble bank notes. In mid-April Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir asked to arrange a meeting between himself and his Soviet counterpart Pavlov, on the occasion of the opening of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Established in London and headed by Jacques Attali, the bank is an international vehicle of financial aid to Eastern Europe. This meeting typified relations between Israel and the USSR at that stage. The growing atmosphere of openness did not result in a strategic reassessment of mutual positions, only the continuation of traditional attitudes.
