The Glory (56 page)

Quelling his own pulse of alarm, Barak says calmly, “But the Arabs haven’t yet accepted.”

“I’m telling you what Dobrynin’s threat is.”

Desk voice box: “Mr. Ambassador, your call’s going through.”

At almost the same moment the telephone rings. “Yes? … By all means, put him on. … Zev, it’s Reston of the
Times
. Take that scrambler call and tell Golda about Dobrynin. I’ll be along.”

Golda sounds wide awake and reasonably cheerful. “Oh, it’s you, Zev. Nu? Something good for the Jews?”

“Simcha will be right with you, Madame Prime Minister. He’s talking to the
New York Times
.”

“Fine. That’s more important. Me he can talk to anytime.”

Barak is baldly describing the Dobrynin threat and the way it was conveyed at the White House, when Dinitz comes in and takes
the scrambler phone. “Sorry, Madame Prime Minister — What? Yes, Kissinger thinks it’s serious. Deadly serious.” Long pause.
“No, the Pentagon meeting was terrible. Flat denial of broken promises or slowdown. They’ll speed up Phantom delivery to two
planes every three days.” Another pause. Dinitz rolls his eyes at Barak. “Golda, I
told
them we need forty at once. Impossible. Out of the question. Meantime I’m meeting Kissinger in an hour and I must have instructions.
… Yes … Yes … Yes, I understand.” He turns to Barak. “Write this down, Zev, word for word.
‘If the Secretary thinks it wise to proceed with negotiations — for a cease-fire cosponsored by the Soviet Union and the United
States — Israel will interpose no objection.’
”

From the scrap of paper on which Barak has scrawled, Dinitz slowly reads the words back to her. “Very well, Madame Prime Minister.
… Yes, I understand. … Of course, no matter what time, I’ll call you.” He hangs up and regards Barak with heavy sad eyes.
“By my life, that’s a rotten message for me to bring to the American Secretary of State.”

“Why? Listen, Simcha, it’s a smart shifty message,” Barak says forcibly. “Now Kissinger can parley and stall, and she knows
he
wants
to stall until the battlefield picture changes. As long as there’s talk of a cease-fire, those airborne divisions won’t go,
will they?”

“Probably not.” The ambassador brightens. “As usual, she may be two steps ahead of all of us. Henry Kissinger included.”

I
t is in fact a long night. Barak’s head has hardly hit the pillow in his hotel room, so it seems, when the telephone rings.
The sun is blazing through a dirty window. What now? Has the stall worked?
Or are those Soviet troops landing?
He grabs the telephone.

“Morning, Bradford Halliday here. Are you a jogger?”

“What? Ah, why?”

“I run a few miles before work. Maybe you could join me, and we could talk. Things are happening.”

Barak blinks at his watch. Half past eight. “General, I’ll walk as far as you like. Running, no.”

“Good enough. At the corner of M and Thirty-third there’s a parking lot. Meet me there at nine.”

Merlin comes bounding out of the car ahead of the general, and makes friendly leaps and licks at Barak’s face. Halliday, in
a fuzzy purple running suit, says, “Merlin, stop.” The dog desists, and trots at his heel down to the towpath, where fallen
leaves carpet the packed black earth with random color, and float all over the muddy canal. Broad and blue, the Potomac glitters
through the barren trees of the embankment.

“Good place to run, except for the traffic fumes,” says Halliday, striding off at a fast pace. “You people have won your little
game, you know.”

“Eh? How’s that?”

“You haven’t heard? You will, soon enough.” His long steps are hard to keep up with. He looks straight ahead as he speaks.
“I don’t know how much will be made public, just yet. What I tell you now is secret, for your ambassador only. You Israelis
have gotten a very distorted picture of this entire airlift business.”

“I’m all ears, General.”

“Very well. Early this morning Dr. Kissinger told the President that Defense has located three C-5As which could fly at once
on an airlift, if that is his desire. Those are our giant transports, you know, matching the Antonovs. The President told
him, and this is a pretty direct quote,
‘Hell, the Arabs will hate us as much for three planes as for three hundred. Put everything in the air that can fly.’
” Halliday glances at Barak. “
‘Everything in the air that can fly.’
How about that from President Nixon, whom the Jews have never supported?”

“To be honest, I’m stunned.”

“Okay. Now let me speak frankly about Dr. Kissinger, meaning no slur on a co-religionist of yours. The President has been
up to his chin in hot water trying to survive, and your war has been low on his agenda. He’s been leaving that policy to Dr.
Kissinger, probably figuring you’d smash the Arabs in a few days. I guess Dr. Kissinger thought so, too. Our department’s
directive from Kissinger was crystal-clear.” Halliday’s voice slows to a deliberate quoting pace. “ ‘No need to rush materiel
to Israel and anger the Arabs. This war is our opportunity to break the political stalemate. Our aim is to play honest broker.
Decisions about filling the Israelis’ supply demands are left to the Defense Department’s judgment of their actual needs.’
Then on Tuesday, four days into the war, Mrs. Meir hits the panic button, wanting to fly here and talk to the President. Mind
you, the night before we were assured by your attaché, General Gur, that Israel would be ending the whole thing any day.”

“We had a disastrous couple of days, October seventh and eighth.”

“No doubt. My point is that Defense has been carrying out State policy all along — go slow, don’t irritate the Arabs, preserve
our neutral-broker status, avoid an oil embargo. That was behind the whole charter idea, which is now up the flume. The air
force will start today on an all-out airlift, refueling in the Azores.” Halliday throws him a look of glittery pride. “And
now that we have our orders, Barak, I assure you military transport command will out-deliver the Russians two to one, though
it’s five times the distance, and none of our European allies and friends except Portugal will let us land.”

“It’s terrific news, General.”

“Not to me. The cease-fire will be voted in the UN anyway in a day or so, but this futile airlift gesture will finish us with
the Arabs. An oil embargo’s inevitable, and for the next twenty years the Soviet Union will be calling the shots in the Middle
East. That’s not good for us or for you.”

“Well, I don’t quite share your pessimism.” Barak is warming up and recovering stride, taking deep breaths of the sweet autumn-smelling
Washington air, tainted by the blue haze of the morning traffic on the Key Bridge. “I think I’d better hurry on to my embassy.”

“Right. I’ll walk back a ways with you and then have my run. Come on, Merlin.”

As they pass through a stream of chattering teenage girls on bicycles, Halliday says, “Dr. Kissinger’s a historian, and one
hell of a shrewd article. The way he wants it to come out, the Pentagon’s been the foot-dragger, he’s been your advocate,
and now he’s won. The truth as I see it is otherwise.”

“What’s the truth, General Halliday?”

“The truth is, the President’s waked up to the war, however late, and
he’s
ordering the airlift. Maybe to rescue an ally. Maybe to stand up to the Russians for prestige reasons. Maybe Congress and
the media have gotten to him. Maybe even to hold off Mrs. Meir going on TV! His reasons are none of our business. He’s the
commander-in-chief, and you’ve got your airlift, but not because Dr. Kissinger has ridden to your rescue, and not over my
secretary’s dead body. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Barak. The silence between them grows long as they stride back toward Key Bridge. Barak’s mind is already on
his return home, and on the possible effect on the war of Nixon’s belated move.
Everything that can fly!
Astounding, historic, but can it still make a difference? A squirrel runs across the path. With a yearning backward look
at it, Merlin trots straight on. “I have to compliment you on that dog, General.”

“He does heel, but that’s about it.” Halliday points ahead. “You can take that crosswalk over the canal. At the top of the
hill there’ll be cabs, no problem.”

As they shake hands, Halliday appears to relax, though not to smile. “Israel is very highly respected at the Pentagon. That
hasn’t changed.”

“Good to know, sir.”

“A lot of people here forgot, I think, that Superman is a comic strip. Some of yours, too, maybe.”

“Maybe. On a personal note, if you’ll allow me, my son Noah didn’t talk till he was three, and was a total wild devil. He’s
an outstanding naval officer.”

“Well, the trouble is, by contrast my girls seem to have been born talking a blue streak.”

Barak can’t resist saying, “Mother’s genes.”

“Obviously.” Halliday still does not smile. “You knew her long before I did, and she values your friendship and your correspondence.”
Barak thinks that the eyes faintly warm in the general’s long sober face, and that he is going to say more. “Come on, Merlin,
boathouse and back, five miles. Goodbye, Barak.”

A
mid much scurrying about of excited aides in a din of Hebrew, Motta Gur is on the phone, shouting army acronyms. “B’seder,
check again, I’ll stay on the line …” Covering the mouthpiece, he snaps to Barak, “When you get home tell Nehemiah to find
his head and screw it back on.” He is referring to the army’s quartermaster general.

“What’s Nehemiah’s problem?”

“The Pentagon’s suddenly offering us
ten C-130 transports
for immediate airlift as well as three C-5As, and wants to know what we need most. Nehemiah is all excited, and right away
he says shells, shells. Zev, I know we’ve got enough shells to fight till Hanukkah. We manufacture them ourselves! They’re
piled up in depots or loaded on trains, or coming to the front in trucks, but they’re somewhere. Helicopters, tanks, howitzers,
air-to-air missiles, antitank missiles,
those
we need … Yes, Nehemiah? … So? What did I tell you? And it’s the same story with armor-piercing, you’ll see —”

Barak retrieves his document case and waves a farewell to Gur, who returns a harried gesture. Dinitz’s secretary meets him
in the corridor. “There you are, General. The ambassador’s waiting for you. I’m still working on getting you out today.”

Dinitz’s color is better, though the eye-hollows are deeper and purpler. “So? Halliday’s turned friendly, has he, like the
rest of the Pentagon?”

“Not exactly. That man’s viewpoint doesn’t shift with the wind.”

“Let’s hear.” Dinitz cuts off his calls, lights his pipe, and listens with an intent air and an infrequent nod. “Yes, there’s
always another side, and he’s a pretty shrewd article himself, that Halliday,” he says when Barak finishes. “He makes a case.
But you weren’t there last night in the Pentagon, when I sat for two hours, banging my head against that blank wall of frozen
faces.”

“They were acting on Kissinger policy, he claims.”

“Yes, so he says. Zev, ask yourself one thing. If John Foster Dulles or William Rogers were sitting in Henry Kissinger’s chair
today, would this airlift be going? Not a chance in hell, I say —”

His secretary looks in. “General Barak, there’s a Laker flight from New York to London that you can catch at JFK, and in Heathrow
you can connect to El Al. I’ve booked you through, and a driver’s waiting downstairs.”

“B’seder.”

“So, Zev, you’re off? I wish I were going with you. Well done.”

“Well done? I haven’t done a damned thing.”

“How can you say that? You know what the Secretary of Defense said to me, at the end of that miserable meeting? He said, ‘Who
exactly is that white-headed fellow? What’s his job?’ When I told him you were Golda’s military secretary, he looked skeptical.
If I’d said, ‘He’s Nixon’s Jewish cousin from Tiberias,’ he’d have believed me. Pleasant journey.”

A
t Kennedy airport Barak dives for the one unoccupied telephone in the long row near the plane gate, where people gabble in
several languages.

Emily’s voice: “Of course, operator, I’ll take the call — Wolf! Where
are
you? The embassy said you’d already left for Israel.”

“I’m at JFK, and I had only one quarter, so I’m calling collect —”

“Great, scrumptious, a bargain. Listen, got time to talk to my father? He’s here, playing with Chris.”

“A little. My plane’s posted a delay.”

“Jehosephat, were we ever snookered!” Cunningham’s reedy voice, as he comes on, is high with indignation. “Détente this, détente
that, and meanwhile those Russians turned the Arabs loose on you and beefed them up with fleets of Antonovs while we sat idle,
letting you and our whole Middle East position go down the tubes! The airlift probably comes too late, but it’ll sober up
the other side at least, show them America isn’t sleeping straight through this big disaster. … What, Emily? Yes, by God.
Right! Barak, Chris spoke his first word this morning, and you know what it was?
Grandpa!
Grandpa, loud and clear. Five by five! Have a good trip, and remember Ezekiel:
‘I am against you, Gog, saith the Lord …’
Even if there’s a cease-fire, the Arabs will blow it. There’s a miracle in the making. Don’t despair.”

“Me again, Wolf.”

“Em, did he really say
‘Grandpa’
?”

“He sure said something. It might have been
‘sandbar,’
or
‘ham hocks.’
Anyhow, his grandpa is delighted, he’s been dancing the kid around on his shoulders. Zev, whatever you do, keep writing to
me, won’t you? These few days have been a blood transfusion, my darling. I’ve come out of a coma. I’ll handle my troubles,
one way or another, but I have to know you’re there. You’re my anchor.”

“I’ll write, Queenie.”

“Lovely. Will you ever forget the picnic? I keep reliving it. Imagine, a white-headed soldier and an air-headed ex-schoolmarm,
smooching in the bushes! Who would believe it? How beautiful it was!”