The Glory (67 page)

“And the President’s letter?”

“He wasn’t threatening you. If the phrasing was unfortunate —”

She interrupts, “Mr. Secretary, why did you agree to an urgent night session of the Security Council, altogether? Why a midnight
vote on a cease-fire resolution? Why couldn’t they have met today? Wasn’t that soon enough?”

With a sharp satiric look from under drooping lids, Kissinger says, “Yes, while your army kept advancing and advancing, eh?
Brezhnev was in such a sweat to put the deal through that we wrapped it up in four hours. His hurry proved greatly to Israel’s
benefit, as you’re bound to agree when I give you the details.”

He glances at Barak, and she gestures at her military secretary to leave. In a big room cloudy with cigarette smoke, various
cabinet members and generals sitting around on motel-style furniture begin to fire questions at him as soon as he appears.
Moshe Day an holds up a hand. “Let him talk. What happened at the airport, Zev?”

“Minister, they cheered him.”

“
Cheered
Kissinger?”

“Yes. He seemed surprised.”

“He should be,” says a bitter voice out of the smoke, “after selling us out.”

Another bitter voice. “The people are tired of the war, and they don’t know the cease-fire terms.”

“What’s his demeanor?” Dayan asks. “What did he say?”

After a moment, Barak replies, “He says it’s the best deal he could get for us. And that he detoured here with much difficulty.”

“Ha! He had to come,” says old Yisrael Galili, and it occurs to Barak that here is Golda’s true white eminence, with snowy
thick hair suited to his years. “It was getting close to a vote in the Security Council, and she wouldn’t knuckle down to
his terms, not until he promised to come straight here from Moscow and explain himself. He was worried enough to do as she
insisted. I predicted that he would.”

Later the bigwigs are lunching at a large U-shaped table with Golda at the head, Kissinger on her right, and Dayan on her
left. At the foot of the table sits Barak, convenient to the orderly who brings him a despatch as he eats a compote dessert.
One glance and he hurries it to Golda. She peers at it and passes it to Kissinger. He clinks a glass with a fork. “Gentlemen,
I have the pleasure to tell you,” he says, “that Egypt accepts the cease-fire terms.”

The hand-clapping is temperate. “Interesting, isn’t it, Mr. Secretary?” observes Dayan, with a shade of sarcasm. “They were
pressing for the cease-fire, not us. Yet we accepted it the moment the Security Council voted it, ten hours ago, and they’ve
waited until the very last minute to agree.”

Kissinger says in his slow accented rumble, “Conceivably that has been done for domestic political reasons. In any case, it’s
a great relief.”

“Your time is short, Mr. Secretary,” says Golda aridly, “so let’s go on to the military briefing.”

“By all means.”

In a smaller room lined with rows of chairs, Dado describes at a blown-up army map how Adan’s division is about to cut off
the Third Army at Suez, while Sharon, with smaller forces in worse terrain, is well on his way to Ismailia. It is a deliberate
disclosure of top-secret battle intelligence, for Golda has ordered Dado to tell Kissinger everything.

“I thank you, General,” he says to Dado. “You must understand that I was getting none of this information — none — in Moscow,
though I pleaded and pleaded for it.”

“Anyway, now you know,” says Golda. “Can’t you see what a difference a few hours would have made? In fact, would
still
make? And it would only strengthen your hand with the Soviets, Mr. Secretary. Against them, we’ve been fighting America’s
battle in the Middle East. You and I both know that.”

“Well, anything that’s really a matter of a few hours, Madame Prime Minister, can hardly be prevented by a cease-fire. There’s
always a little slippage in cease-fires, such as we encountered in Vietnam.” He smiles ingenuously at her. “And now I really
should be going, or my staff will be wondering whether I’ve decided to make aliya and stay here.”

This unexpected sally about his own Jewishness brings a burst of relieving laughter from the Israelis. Dayan escorts him from
the room and Golda says to the others, “
‘Slippage’
! How do you like that?
‘Slippage’
!”

Galili says, “No doubt Mr. Sadat knows all about slippage too.”

“Well, if he tries it, we’ll show him slippage,” she says. “Excuse me, gentlemen, while I see our Jewish friend off.”

I
n a mud-splattered uniform, rifle slung on her shoulder, Galia Barak stands by a runway watching dark shadows flit roaring
across the faded orange streaks of sunset; Phantoms returning to Tel Nof, releasing their drogue parachutes as they land.
Among the pilots leaving their planes she recognizes Dov Luria, shorter than the others and walking with his own jaunty spring,
swinging his helmet. But Dov does not notice her, absorbed as he is in thinking ahead to this last debriefing (so it seems)
of the war. Are the great scary days really over? He feels exhilarated at having survived, yet strangely let down. Much later,
emerging from the squadron room, he halts amazed. “Galia! How did you manage this?”

“Glad to see me?” The demure smile is somewhat marred by the mud streaks on her face.

“Why, sure, but what to all the devils happened to you? You’re red mud from head to foot.”

“Oh, a stupid lorry went splashing through a puddle on the road and got me.”

The bulky G suit makes their brief embrace awkward. As they walk to the base commander’s quarters she tells him how, on hearing
that Egypt accepted the cease-fire, she wheedled a twelve-hour leave from her supply depot supervisor. She laughs, hugging
his arm. “It helped to tell him that my fiancé flies a Phantom.”

“Syria still hasn’t accepted,” he says soberly, “and I’m sorry Egypt did. We’ll soon see —”

“You’re
sorry?
By your life, Dov, haven’t you had enough of this rotten war?”

“Hamoodah, we had them on the run. We should have smashed them so they wouldn’t try it again for twenty-five years. All this
cease-fire does is throw a spanner in the works and save them. Damn Kissinger.”

“Leave it to Golda. She knows what she’s doing.”

“Ha, en brera, poor Golda. What does your father say? Have you talked to him?”

“Not in days. Even my mother hasn’t. He’s never home.”

Tea and cakes are on the table, where his parents and brother sit waiting for him. They greet Galia with warm badinage about
her muddy state, and as she goes off to clean up, Danny presses Dov to describe his last strike. With the usual hand gestures
and aviator jargon, Dov holds forth to the shiny-eyed redhead, now much taller than he is, while the parents exchange wry
glances. “Anyway, it’s stopping,” says his mother, “and thank God for that! Now let the politicians pick up the pieces. A
fine fashla they made of it.”

“It isn’t over, I bet,” says Danny.

“It’s over,” says the base commander flatly. “I have no air operations scheduled for tomorrow. It’s over, and none too soon.”
Both parents arc relieved to their very souls that Dov has come through safe, though neither has said a word about it.

“We were told at the debriefing,” says Dov, “that we remain on Aleph Alert.”

“Of course,” says his father. “That’ll go on for a week, Dov, till we’re sure the truce holds. Golda’s broadcasting at eight,
and we’ll learn more then, but it’s over.”

“Well, then off with this suit for a while, eh?” He jumps up to kiss Galia with unabashed ardor as she returns, freshly washed
and combed. “Motek, did I mention that your coming here was a great, great idea? I love you.” The words and the kiss make
her visit worthwhile. The suit smells of fuel and sweat. She adores the smell, the coarse suit, and the aviator inside it.

Coming on the air Golda Meir sounds exhausted and far from triumphant. Dr. Kissinger’s visit has been reassuring. Positive
developments are occurring in the direction of peace. The government has reason to believe that Syria will soon accept the
cease-fire. Lasting good is bound to come out of the enormous sacrifices and brilliant victories of this hard war. The Jewish
people owe eternal gratitude to the fighters who threw back the enemy, above all to the heroes who fell. So she concludes.
As the Israel Philharmonic recording of “Hatikvah” follows, throbbing and melancholy, Dov drops his head on an arm. Over the
music, he says in a muffled voice, “
Itzik … Eric … Heshi …
it stopped too soon. Too soon.”

Galia puts an arm around him, and his father says huskily, “You did more than enough.”

That night the engaged couple are in Dov’s room, listening to a Mozart piano concerto. At least, that is what his father hears
through the door when he knocks, several times. “Dov? Dov?”

A pause, then a hoarse reply. “Yes, Abba?”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Well, in a moment.” It is quite a long moment. “Sure, come in.”

Galia and Dov are fully clothed, if somewhat intertwined, and they both look amused and a bit sheepish. “Want to hear some
Mozart?” says Dov. “Sit down and join us, Abba.”

“I think you’d better get some sleep, hamood. I’ll have Galia driven to the bus stop.”

Dov extricates himself and sits up straight. “What’s happening?”

“The cease-fire is being violated right and left.” Benny Luria’s face is set in his hard wartime look. “Base is back on red
alert. Word from central headquarters,
‘Prepare for strikes at dawn.’
”

Galia clutches Dov’s hand hard.

“So it’s on with the suit,” he says. “Big surprise.”

After managing an uneasy doze of a few hours, Dov walks to the revetments in early twilight. “Well, Yaakov,” he says to his
plane captain, with a slap on the Phantom fuselage, “Is G’mali ready to ride again?” “Camel, My Camel” is a popular Yemenite
song, and Dov has long since dubbed his aircraft G’mali, My Camel.

The dark-skinned sergeant grins. “G’mali ready and eager, sir.”

As Dov settles into his ejection seat and Yaakov hooks him up, a familiar unwelcome thought recurs.
Of all things, let me not have to eject over Egypt
. To be transformed in an instant from a winged warrior, crossing the sky at twice the speed of sound, to a pathetic dangler
on parachute cords, falling into angry probably murderous hands …
Shut it out, shut it out
. One more ride, maybe a few more, and back to Galia.

Ignition!

Four Phantoms howl into the upper air, where the sunrise of October 23 glints on their wings. An hour later, as the base commander
waits at the runway, peering into the sky, three return from that flight. Benny Luria waits and waits. Only three.

I
n two days of continuing “slippage” on both sides, a superpower confrontation unmatched since the Cuban missile crisis now
blows up. Amid all the recriminations only one battlefield fact is clear: the Egyptian Third Army is trapped in the Sinai
desert, south of the Great Bitter Lake. Its repeated efforts to break out have failed. Some forty-five thousand battle-worn
soldiers and two hundred fifty tanks are cut off from water, food, fuel, and medical supplies in the barren sandy wastes,
with nothing to save them but intervention by outside forces.

Anwar Sadat’s demands for succor increase in stridency by the day, until General Secretary Brezhnev himself warns President
Nixon that unless the United States will agree to joint military action to relieve the Third Army, the Soviet Union may unilaterally
intervene. This kicks off a high state of alarm in Washington. Chilling CIA reports confirm that seven Russian airborne divisions
are now on full alert, a Soviet flotilla is moving through the Dardanelles with detectable nuclear cargo on two of the ships,
and most ominous of all, the Soviet airlift in the huge Antonov transports
has ceased
. Those are the planes that take airborne troops into combat.

During a long night while Richard Nixon, beset by eight separate Senate impeachment motions over Watergate, is trying to get
some sleep, the crisis mounts. An emergency meeting at the White House of military and cabinet leaders, chaired by Secretary
of State Kissinger, takes some tough steps: the return of B-52 bombers from Guam, the despatch of more aircraft carriers to
the eastern Mediterranean, and in Germany the Eighty-second Airborne Division called to the highest state of readiness. Most
drastic of all, an urgent warning flashes to American forces worldwide of a preliminary nuclear alert,
DEFCON THREE
.

Toward dawn, when Soviet intelligence is bound to have picked up all these signals, President Nixon’s reply goes to Brezhnev,
cautioning that unilateral action by the Soviet Union will bring “incalculable consequences” and a few hours later at a Security
Council meeting Egypt withdraws the request for joint superpower action. With this the Soviet Union is off the hook, and the
crisis abates. The Russian trump card of unilateral intervention, whether bluff or threat, has been called, and it has failed
to relieve the Third Army.

That same morning a wild hullabaloo ensues in the United States over the short-lived nuclear alert, with angry hints in Congress
and the media that the President faked the entire emergency as a distraction from Watergate. The whole world is in shock from
the brief bloodcurdling doomsday moment. The Security Council is paralyzed. In a sudden reversal, the Americans find that
the plight of the Third Army is now on their hands, the Russians having been foiled as rescuers, and Dr. Kissinger’s role
shifts to an all-out clash with Golda Meir over a UN proposal to send a “humanitarian convoy” with nonmilitary supplies to
the Third Army. Golda demands, as a quid pro quo, that Egypt not only agree to return all prisoners swiftly, but to negotiate
face to face with Israel the terms of a genuine cease-fire.

At this Sadat balks, bound by the Khartoum pledge,
No recognition of Israel, no peace with Israel, no negotiation with Israel
. But Golda too holds firm, under heavy American pressure; face-to-face dealing, or no convoy! Near midnight Friday, October
26, Kissinger warns Ambassador Dinitz that if Israel prefers to be raped, very well, she will be forced to yield. The Security
Council is meeting in about nine hours, and if by then Golda has not given in on the convoy, the United States will not oppose
whatever action is voted to relieve the Third Army; possibly including sanctions against Israel as well as the landing in
Egypt of Soviet troops! “You are committing suicide,” he admonishes the ambassador.