THE SIX DAY WAR

Randolph Churchill sat at home and tuned in on one the recent Israeli-Arab conflict. His son Winston, a journalist, covered the week of the war at the front. Their chronicle begins with a quick, lucid historical briefing which owes much to Christopher Sykes' Crossroads to Israel. Then it delves into the Aqaba crisis, the "six day war" proper, international reactions, and the aftermath through mid-July. Of particular interest: remarks on the dynamics of Israeli politics and the structure of the armed forces, the strains of mobilization and the reasons for their victory (a much swifter one than foreign observers realized at the time)...and a discriminating distribution of excerpts from speeches and interviews. The subject-matter is replete with preposterous moves by Nasser, but the pro-Israeli bias behind the authors' British detachment remains under control. They offer modest editorials about U.N. impotence, the refugee problem, and the prerequisites for a genuine peace. Having emphasized the responsibility of schizoid U.S. policy and Soviet arms-pushing for the militarization of this ancient strife, they conclude that the superpowers should stop "playing politics" in the Middle East. Little here for students of long-range causes and effects, but highly readable raw material for the under-informed and the battle replayers.