He found on his desk a garbled telephone message from one Leon Barkowe, something about a son in Israel whose car had been confiscated. It took Barak a moment to recollect those distant Berkowitz relatives in Long Island whom he had not seen or spoken to in years. Another major task for the military attaché! But family was family, and even if the name was now Barkowe, a Berkowitz was a Berkowitz. He was about to return the call when a buzz on his intercom summoned him to the ambassador.
Abe Harman, a paunchy deathly pale man who sat in a perpetual slouch, and whose sleepy manner belied a razor-sharp alertness to every nuance of America-Israel relations, greeted him with a groan. “Always something. My wife’s down with a stomach flu, and she’s supposed to address a WIZO tea at the Mayflower this afternoon. She called me and said Nakhama should do it —”
“Nakhama? Abe, Nakhama’s never made a speech here, her English isn’t that good. Anyway, she’s no speaker, forget it!”
“Zev, I’ve already talked to Nakhama, and she jumped at it. Sorry, but at three hours’ notice I had little choice.” With a foxy side-glance Harman added, “Will the world go under if she isn’t a big hit? What did you accomplish at the Pentagon?”
“In one word, bopkess [goat shit].”
“Ah, so the goats are still grazing there.” Harman heavily nodded. “Expected. Still, you lodged our protest against the breach of contract. Americans believe in contracts, live by them. They’ll feel the pressure. So, you’re off to Chicago tonight? I’ve got a major misery here at the Shoreham. Speech to a thousand Conservative rabbis. You’re sure you don’t mind about Nakhama?”
“Of course not. I’m surprised she’s doing it, that’s all.”
“Zev, just when you think you have them figured out, they cross you up.”
“Wisdom of Solomon, Ambassador,” said Barak, and he went back to his office, where he began a letter to Colonel Halliday about missile countermeasures. He had not gotten far when a coding clerk phoned him. “Sir, General Pasternak is calling on the scrambler.” It was like a red light flashing on an engine dial. Sam Pasternak, high in the Mossad and perhaps its secret head by now, had not used the secure telephone since the end of the war. Hurrying to the coding room, Barak shut himself into the soundproof booth, and Pasternak came through clearly.
“Zev? We have a serious development here.” Deep solemn Pasternak tones, no trace of his usual irony. “I’m sorry to be breaking this news to you. The Egyptians have sunk the Eilat with a missile attack.” Barak caught his breath, and Pasternak went on briskly, “Don’t be too alarmed. Helicopters are out there right now picking up survivors, lots of them. Patrol boats are speeding to the scene. Chances are very good that your son is okay.”
“Where and when did this happen, Sam?”
“Off Port Said around sunset. The missiles came from the boats in the harbor, no question. Abe Harman and Gideon Rafael have to be told right away.” Rafael was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. “The whole picture has changed, Zev. The balance of forces has shifted, and we’re in a new situation. A new era.”
Words from the Book of Job flashed into Barak’s mind. “The thing that I greatly feared has come upon me.” He had on file the intelligence about the missile boats in Port Said, and the navy chart which showed where the destroyers were patrolling off Egypt and Sinai. It had seemed to him a risky and provocative showing of the flag, and he had been concerned about Noah in that spot, but sea strategy was not his business.
“Have you been monitoring the Egyptians?”
“Yes. They’ve picked up the distress and rescue signals, and they’ll call for a UN Security Council meeting tomorrow to claim the ship was in their territorial waters. Which it wasn’t. They’re bubbling with joy.”
“Not for long,” Barak said.
“Well, that’s the big question now, how we respond. The Prime Minister is meeting now with Dayan and Foreign Minister Eban.” The brisk dry tones of the intelligence man slowed and warmed. “I’ll stay in close touch, Zev. I’ll track the survivor list and let you know any news of Noah, the minute I hear.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
That was like Pasternak. Their friendship went far back to service together in a paramilitary youth group. Sam was a Czech by birth, the toughest of the tough, yet in his way a good Jewish boy, devoted to his mother and sisters, if not to an estranged wife. They had come a long way together in the army, before Sam had detoured into the Mossad.
Ambassador Harman’s pouched eyes reddened and his pallid face turned a shade grayer when Barak told him the news. He said with a thick sigh, “So they haven’t learned their lesson yet? Well, they will, believe me. I hope your son is all right. Ah, Zev, what a sad, sad business.” He gestured at a typescript on his desk. “My speech is out the window. My title was ‘The Coming Peace.’ I meant every word, too.” Narrowing his eyes, the ambassador went on slowly, half to himself, “I may be hearing from the State Department any minute. From senators, from Jewish leaders. Maybe I should call Dean Rusk myself. I’ll think about that. Let me have a quick military analysis, Zev, the complications, the reprisal options. Something I can have in hand —”
“At once, Ambassador.”
First Barak called Gideon Rafael in New York. Taking the news in stride, the UN ambassador asked businesslike questions about the attack, and said he would summon his staff that evening to plan Security Council tactics. On Barak’s desk lay the start of his letter to Halliday. Too late, too late! He had an impulse to tear it up, but at that moment Nakhama came in. She wore a dark gray suit, and a feathered red hat was perched on her thick glossy black hair. “Like my hat? Zena Harman said the women at these things all wear hats. I just bought it at Garfinkel’s. It was on sale. It isn’t too much? Too red? Is the feather too silly?”
Should he tell her of the sinking? She was made up as for a party, and her eyes snapped with excitement. The idea of substituting for the brilliant Zena Harman had put her in high spirits. “It’s a nice hat. What will you talk about?”
“About Noah. You know, how it feels to be a mother of a son fighting for Israel. About how we reacted when he first showed up in uniform. How we worried during the war, and were so glad when it was over. And for a laugh, about his capturing a fortress with nobody in it. How does that sound? Too personal?”
Rapid estimate before answering her: the tea should be over by five, the hatted ladies heading home for dinner. Even if the Egyptians claimed the sinking in the next hour or two, it would not make the network news right away. “Well, the question is, are you nervous?”
Nakhama threw back her head and laughed, and the hat fell off. “L’Azazel, how I hate hats!” she said, retrieving it. “Nervous? Why? It’ll be fun. What have I got to lose? Don’t worry, I won’t disgrace you. Where is there a mirror?” She plopped the hat on her head, tilted it, and it looked very chic. “How’s that?”
For answer, impelled by a pulse of love for her, he came and kissed his wife. Why panic her? Noah might well be in a helicopter right now, soaking wet but safe. That she was prettier than Emily Cunningham was an old story, but she was rarely this animated nowadays. Twenty-three years ago the sort of sweet faintly mischievous charm with which she now glowed had bewitched him into marrying a Moroccan waitress after knowing her for a week, over his parents’ anguished objections. “Well, it sounds like a first-class speech. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Poor Zev, off to Chicago tonight, aren’t you? Will you have time to eat at home first? Galia and Ruti volunteered to cook dinner.”
“That’s a novelty I won’t miss.”
When she left it lacked a few minutes of three. He turned on his desk radio, and listened tensely to the bulletins. Not a word about the Middle East. Fine. The letter regarding the countermeasures still lay before him, and tearing it up, he realized, would be foolish. The Jaffa still sailed, and missiles could hit torpedo boats and patrol craft as well.
Awareness bore in on Barak that not only had the war with the Arabs ente
red a new phase; so had warfare at sea. No vessel had ever been sunk by a ship-to-ship missile until now, nor had any western country even tested such a weapon. Russia, the arsenal of the Arabs, had leaped at a stroke into the world lead in waterborne missile combat. Hard times ahead for Noah’s navy, and a major shock on the global scene. The Soviet Union’s massive edge in land armies was balanced off by superior American air and sea forces; but the Styx was suddenly a proven threat to the Sixth Fleet, and for that matter to all of NATO’s surface warships.
Meantime, the wait for news. Zev’s father had told him more than once that his hair had begun to turn white during the long silences of Zev’s service in the British army, fighting Rommel in North Africa. At the time Zev, in the flush of soldierly youth, had shrugged off the old man’s anxiety with some amusement; and now he was the old man worrying about his son. It had all happened fast. Who could have predicted that Noah would be hit at sea, by the first Arab blow after the Six-Day War? Nobody would be mothballing uniforms soon, that was now clear.
And what to say tomorrow in Chicago? By then the Egyptian coup would certainly be in the news. His standard act required drastic revision, and “Messianic times” was out for sure. On the other hand, it occurred to him that in this changed picture the forty-eight Skyhawks might be forthcoming.
He began scrawling rapidly in his clear Hebrew script on the green pad.
Sinking of the Eilat — Implications and Options
Egypt is militarily prostrate. In reprisal for this attack on the Eilat, our air force can sink every single Egyptian naval vessel afloat. It can level any targets in Egypt, from military bases to whole cities. Our armor forces can roll unchecked to Cairo. How then could Colonel Nasser have dared to violate the cease-fire with such a major act of war? Is it suicidal lunacy?
Not in the least. To begin with, the sinking is a feeble first signal of Arab defiance in defeat. It proclaims that the “no’s” of the Khartoum Declaration were not mere Arabic rhetoric, but hard policy. After the war our optimists were saying that it was only a matter of time before King Hussein or Colonel Nasser called Moshe Dayan on the telephone, offering peace for return of their lost territories. The telephone call came, all right, and it sank my son’s destroyer.
The military loss is serious but endurable. The political damage to Israel’s newfound world stature is something else. Our reprisal must be sure, swift, stern, and adequate to discourage any further such gross violations of the cease-fire agreement. For the Egyptian casualties, however heavy, that must result, Colonel Nasser will bear full responsibility, as he does for the lives lost on the Eilat.
As for the form of the reprisal, air strikes would cause an uproar in the UN and bring on Soviet threats which could get ugly. Back of the Egyptians always stand the Russians. That is why Nasser has risked this stroke. An armored raid in force across the Canal seems more likely. We lack bridging equipment, but a crossing on pontoon rafts against the demoralized Egyptian army may be feasible, razing army bases, industrial plants, perhaps Port Said harbor facilities before the Russians can intervene. But even such an operation will require a logistical buildup, and much planning and rehearsal. A reliable yet daring commander will be absolutely essential —
Barak stopped writing and stared at the opposite wall, where a picture of the Defense Minister, now a world hero, returned a one-eyed stare. An armor man himself, Barak was thinking how he would mount such a cross-Canal strike, given the assignment. A big challenge, a big opportunity; yet if things went wrong and the Egyptians put up any resistance at all, a big risk of an operational fiasco and political disaster. The sinking of the Eilat showed that their will to fight was far from crushed.
His eye fell on the weekend Ma’ariv lying on his desk, and there on the front page was the picture of just the man to pull it off. Don Kishote! The news story was that Lieutenant Colonel Yossi Nitzan had been awarded the Medal of Valor, Second Class, for his risky and costly tank dash to El Arish, which had spearheaded the victory in the Sinai ground fighting. Kishote was now the operational officer of Northern Command, a long step upward on the maslul but a post very far from Sinai. There were able field commanders in Southern Command, but nobody quite like Don Kishote.
He put in a call to Pasternak. Sam knew and admired Yossi Nitzan, and he had Moshe Dayan’s ear.
3
Reprisal
At about the time the Eilat went down, Lieutenant Colonel Yossi Nitzan was driving across the Golan Heights under lowering gray clouds, while around him tanks and armored personnel carriers roared and rumbled to their night positions in a haze of exhaust. Addressing the brigade after a dry run of a live-fire exercise, he had been hard-nosed and unsmiling, balancing brief praise for good performance with severe ticking off of sloppy lapses. No trace of humor had lightened his admonition that in Dayan’s presence tomorrow, the hazardous drill had better come off without incident. To his army equals and to some women, Yossi Nitzan could be the prankish high-spirited Don Kishote, Hebrew for Don Quixote, a nickname he had acquired as a daredevil teenage recruit; but in the field he was the soberest of commanders, except when a rare combat situation called for savage boldness.
Back in his headquarters tent he was at a plank desk planning a last early-morning rehearsal of the drill, when Dayan telephoned. “Where is Dado, Yossi?”
“At Kibbutz Gal-Ed, Minister.”
“Why there?”
“He felt he should go and talk to them. A tractor driver was killed by an infiltrator mine.”
“I know about that. Tell him tomorrow’s plans are changed. Cancel the exercise. I want to confer with him and with you. The Egyptians have sunk the Eilat with missiles. My helicopter will leave at dawn.”
Dealing with military shock was nothing new to Don Kishote. “Many losses, sir?”
“We’re still pulling them out of the water. It’s bad enough.”
Speeding to the kibbutz in a jeep, Kishote found the Northern Commander on his feet haranguing the weather-beaten old-timers and their gray-headed wives in the dining hall, but to his surprise the rows of chairs were half-empty. Evidently the younger kibbutzniks, who had been clearing mines or toiling in the fields all day, preferred sleep to a pep talk by the conquering hero of the Golan Heights. A stout old lady in greasy overalls raised a hand, stood up, and broke into Dado’s speech.
“Pardon me, that’s all fine, Dado, but when will it ever end? What is it all leading to? That’s what we want to know. What was the use of winning a war? Every night my three grandchildren still have to sleep in the shelter. My daughter says she can’t raise kids this way. She and her husband talk of moving to Netanya, where he has family. He’s a mechanic, he’d make good money. What do I tell them?”
A murmur of agreement among the oldsters.
General David Elazar looked at her without words. She faltered and sat down. Even in silence Dado was somewhat scary: broad-shouldered, craggy-faced, with tumbled black hair, heavy black eyebrows, and a wide mouth that could curve in a fierce sudden scowl. “All right, Esther,” he said in the warm voice he used with civilians, “I understand you, believe me. But if Jews like your family leave Gal-Ed because you feel life here is unbearable, we may as well disband the army and forget about having a country. Because that’s the one enemy war aim, don’t you see, to drive us out of our Land? Their defeats in battle haven’t changed that aim one bit. Look, we routed them, didn’t we? The Egyptians and Syrians were helpless after six days, crying to the Russians and the United Nations for help. I could have taken Damascus in forty-eight more hours. The Jordanians collapsed even before that, on the third day of the war, and already they’re sending infiltrators here again —”
The stout lady interrupted from her seat with quavering bravery. “We know all that better than you. So what?”
Dado’s voice hardened. “So last time the infiltrators paid, as you also know, Esther. We blew up their base and killed half of them. We’ll take care of this gang, too. We’ll make life unbearable for
all your attackers. And where will it all lead to? To peace.” He struck a heavy fist on a palm. “In your time, or in your daughter’s time, or in your grandchildren’s time, but peace! Because for us life will go on being bearable, and better than bearable, beautiful. And for the Arabs, in the end we’ll make enmity unbearable. That I swear. The army will see to that. Life here on the border is hard, but this kibbutz is Israel. The army exists for you. So do I.”
Kishote perceived, from the way the elderly kibbutzniks listened with moistening eyes, that this was what they needed to hear. Far from the victory euphoria in the cities, exposed on the farmland frontier, at least they weren’t being forgotten. Other questions shot at the general about better army protection, newer alarm systems, government subsidies promised but not forthcoming. He fielded these briskly, and made an end with a wave to Kishote. The two officers partook of cake and soft drinks with the kibbutzniks, and soon left.
As they walked to the jeep and jumped in, Kishote told the general about the Eilat, and Dayan’s change of plan. Dado took the news without comment, leaned back in the rear seat and closed his eyes. The jeep reached the main road and sped northward, tires hissing on rough tar. After a long time he spoke. “Missiles. A serious escalation. A new game.”