Ultimatum (5 page)

From an inside pocket the man produced a
plastic-covered
identity card. ‘Deuxième Bureau,’ he said. ‘Please come with us, m’sieu. They wish to talk to you at
headquarters
.’

‘Talk? About what?’

The thin man shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have no idea, m’sieu.’

Pierre Gamin was not as astonished as he tried to appear. He’d foreseen the possibility. That was why he’d given Réné St Clair of
Paris
Match
a
letter to Virginie, Gamin’s wife, for delivery that night in Paris. Inside the letter was a sealed envelope addressed to Jules Boyer.

Réné St Clair had left Beirut on an Air France flight about the time Gamin’s first telephone call to Paris came through. The letter to Jules Boyer contained all that Pierre Gamin had intended to say in that call … and rather more.

At noon the two Benz trucks belonging to D. B. Mahroutti Bros shed the escorting Citroëns. Shortly afterwards they reached the border posts at Masnaa. There, having
completed
the necessary formalities, they were passed through. A few kilometres on they were joined by an escort of Syrian armoured cars. These kept sufficiently far from the trucks, two ahead and two following, to allay curiosity. It was, in any event, a road on which military activity was
commonplace
.

Little more than an hour after leaving the border the motorcade arrived safely in Damascus.

At eight o’clock that night the Lebanese Minister of Defence, at home changing for an official dinner, received an urgent call from Damascus on a scrambler line. It was an awkward time for the Minister who was in his bath and already somewhat late, but since the caller was the Syrian Minister of Defence he at once went to the phone. In a somewhat agitated voice his caller informed him that the Mahroutti Bros’ trucks had arrived at the Military Ordinance Depot between one and two that afternoon. Later, when the packing cases were opened, it had been found that two of them
contained
scrap metal of the same weight as the equipment missing from them.

The Lebanese Minister, having expressed astonishment and dismay, was quick to grasp the point. ‘So there has been substitution,’ he said.

‘Yes. It was evidently the purpose of the Israeli attack. Of the two packing cases that are missing one contained a warhead, the other the detonating component. I understand
they are always kept apart until the weapon is assembled for operational purposes’

‘So they’ve got a warhead but no delivery vehicle.’ The Lebanese Minister paused. ‘I wonder if that’s what they wanted. After all, they have the Lance missiles.’

‘Yes. There’s no way of knowing. It may be they were interrupted, or they took the smaller packing cases because they were more easily transported.’

The Lebanese Minister said, ‘How would the Israelis have known which contained the warheads and detonators?’

‘In the same way they learnt about the consignment,’ said the Syrian Minister. ‘Their intelligence service is highly efficient. Somehow, somewhere, there has been a leakage.’

‘Not at this end, I assure you,’ said the Lebanese Minister. ‘The nature of that consignment was known only to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport and myself.’

‘Of course, my dear Bakkal. We accept your assurances without question. The leakage could well have taken place at the French end. However, it is most unfortunate that the Israelis were able to reach Shed 27, kill all our people there and remove the packing cases without detection.’

Conscious of the implied criticism, the Lebanese Minister said, ‘It was indeed unfortunate. It is to be the subject of a full enquiry. But you will recall that when I offered to
provide
a Lebanese military guard you assured me your Syrian officers would not require assistance.’

‘Quite so. We were anxious not to draw attention to the consignment. This dictated our policy. And still does.’ He paused. ‘I am sure you will agree, my dear Bakkal, that there is nothing to be gained by recrimination. The situation is too serious for that. Particularly in view of the report published by
Al
Hayat
this morning. That really has complicated matters.’

‘I agree. We are taking strong action. But newspapers are newspapers and they look for sensational stories. An Israeli attack is always news, especially one on the Port. Unhappily the media people are now in full cry. Late this afternoon our security police arrested a
Le
Monde
reporter. He has found
out a good deal. For example that the dead men were Syrian army officers.’

‘In the name of Allah! Why were we not told?’

‘I gave instructions that you were to be. It was late this afternoon. Our people cut off a telephone call the reporter was making to his Paris office. At first he was only repeating the
Al
Hayat
story, but as soon as they realized he knew more they cut him off. That was before he was able to tell Paris that the dead men – but for one Israeli – were your officers.’

‘What can you do to him?’

‘Not much. We have to be careful with the French. But of course they are very much involved. They may not object too strenuously if we hold him. At least for some time.’

‘The longer the better,’ said the Syrian Minister. ‘We need time. We are having a special meeting of the Cabinet tonight to consider these developments. I was anxious to talk to you first. If the truth gets out – and it looks as if it will – the political implications are extremely serious. We shall of course be guarded in any statements we release, and we shall have to consult with the French Government and
yourselves
.’

‘Will you be disclosing the nature of the weapons?’

‘I cannot say at this stage. The fact that the Israelis must now know – if they didn’t already – will influence our judgement. The whole affair will have to be considered on the basis of political advantage, with special regard to
international
repercussions. I will keep you fully informed.

‘Thank you, my dear Samedi. I will let you know of all developments at this end. I shall instruct our police and military authorities to assume that the missing equipment may still be on Lebanese territory. We shall maintain the utmost vigilance, you may be sure.’

There followed the usual exchange of courtesies and the conversation ended.

On October 8th
Le
Monde
published Pierre Gamin’s story: A consignment of agricultural machinery from France to
Syria, said
Le
Monde,
had been the objective of the Israeli commando operation in Beirut Port on the night of October 5/6. The ‘agricultural machinery’ had evidently been of a sufficiently confidential nature for special precautions to be taken for its safety while in the Port. So much so that five Syrian army officers, including a colonel, had been assigned secretly to protect it, although the machinery had been
consigned
to a well-known Beirut firm of agricultural machinery distributors for delivery to the government irrigation works at Bekàa.

All the Syrian officers had been killed in the course of the Israeli attack, continued
Le
Monde,
adding sagely:
There
is
considerable
speculation
as
to
why
Syrian
army
officers
should
have
been
guarding
French
agricultural
machinery
purchased
by
the
Lebanese
Department
of
Agriculture.
The newspaper did not explain that it was their reporter, Pierre Gamin, who had done the speculating once he had elicited a hotch-potch of facts from a member of the
Byblos
’s
crew, from a policeman who had been present when the bodies of the dead men had been found in Shed 27, and from an attractive secretary in the Port Captain’s office.

In a leading article commenting on the Israeli raid and the strange circumstances surrounding it,
Le
Monde
observed:
The
conclusion
seems
inescapable
that
the
‘agricultural
machinery’
consigned
to
Beirut
was
a
French
arms
shipment
destined
for
the
Syrian
military
forces.
That
it
was
shrouded
in
such
secrecy,
and
attracted
the
attention
of
an
Israeli
commando
operation,
suggests
that
it
must
have
been
of
a
very
special
nature.
Until
such
time
as
the
French
Government
issues
a
statement
in
clarification
there
is
likely
to
be
much
uninformed
speculation.
This
can
only
be
damaging
to
France.

The cat was well and truly out of the bag.

Intense diplomatic and media activity followed publication of the
Le
Monde
report.

In Damascus the Syrian cabinet was called together for the third time in twenty-four hours, on this occasion primarily
to consider the situation in the light of the
Le
Monde
report.

It was decided that no statement about the missing weapons should be made until the matter had been discussed fully with the French Government. The Minister of Defence was deputed to brief the Syrian Ambassador in Paris, and instruct him to call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the Quai d’Orsay without delay.

There was long discussion by the Syrian Cabinet on the delicacy of the situation, observing that, although directed against Syrian military personnel and equipment, the Israeli operation had taken place on Lebanese not Syrian soil. It was finally agreed that the Lebanese Government should be asked to report the incident to the United Nations
Organization
and to lodge a strongly-worded protest against Israeli aggression.

Over the weekend of October 9th/10th there were urgent cabinet meetings in Paris, Damascus, Beirut and Jerusalem. Notwithstanding intense pressure from the media none of the governments concerned was prepared to issue a statement. All enquiries were met with a firm ‘no comment’.

On Monday, October 11th, the Syrian Minister of Defence announced that part of a shipment of arms, ‘products of high technology with an exceptional potential for destruction’, had been interfered with by an Israeli commando unit while in transit to Syria. No mention was made of the place or date of the incident, the outcome of the ‘interference’, or where the arms had come from.

This guarded statement was soon overtaken by events for the next day the BBC evening news service in London carried a report that the target for the Israeli commando operation in Beirut harbour on the night of the 5th/6th October had been a consignment of tactical nuclear missiles supplied by France to the Syrian Government in terms of a secret agreement. It was understood that the Israelis had succeeded in seizing
only a small part of the consignment. Accounts of the
incident
, continued the BBC, were as yet confused and
contradictory
but it had been established that a number of Syrian army officers and at least one Israeli soldier had been killed.

The Israeli Government at once denied that it was in any way involved. It repudiated in advance any charge of aggression and challenged the Lebanese and Syrian
Governments
to furnish evidence in support of the allegations made.

On the following day
The
Times
confirmed and amplified the BBC report. The missiles supplied by the French to the Syrians were, said the newspaper, France’s latest battlefield support weapon, the Pluton, a surface-to-surface tactical missile with a nuclear warhead. Aerospatiale of Paris,
continued
the report, were largely concerned with its production, having been responsible for project management,
aerodynamic
studies, guidance and control systems. The propulsion units were provided by SEP of Pateaux, France. In a footnote to the report
The
Times
’s
aviation correspondent listed Pluton’s vital statistics as:

He recalled that in 1974 the French press had suggested that Pluton might be on offer to foreign countries in view of reports that the United States had supplied its tactical Lance missile to Israel, although equipped only with conventional explosive warheads.

If the technical data given by
The
Times
’s aviation
correspondent
were not understood, at least the concluding item of his footnote was:
A
nuclear
warhead
of
15
kilotons
would
be
more
destructive
than
the
atom
bomb
on
Hiroshima
in
1945.

At the meeting of the French Cabinet that night there was anxious and angry discussion. The decision some months earlier to supply Pluton to Syria had been hotly contested by several members of the Cabinet. They had spelled out clearly the dangers of introducing nuclear weapons to the Middle East and the international repercussions likely to follow. The Minister of Defence had on that occasion reminded the Cabinet of the United States’ sale of Lance missiles to Israel and pointed out that the Israelis were well ahead with the development of their own nuclear weapon: a two-stage, surface-to-surface rocket with nuclear warhead and a range of 450 km – well in excess, he emphasized, of France’s Pluton. The Israeli project, MD-660, had been in existence for at least six years. France, he said, could
certainly
not be accused of having initiated the introduction of nuclear arms to the Middle East. Annoyed and frustrated at finding himself under attack for what had been a Cabinet decision, he concluded, ‘If we do not supply these weapons to Syria the Soviet Union will.’ Having said that he
produced
an elegant silk handkerchief, dabbed at his forehead and sat down.