The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (19 page)

At four in the morning he switched on the radio and heard the
BBC
announcer say that a
UN
Security Council ceasefire resolution was about to be voted upon with a clear majority. This was the last straw! Instantly, he phoned Eshkol.

“What is it?” the prime minister yawned.

“Forgive me for disturbing your sleep,” said Begin, “but I’ve just heard the
BBC
. The Security Council is about to pass a ceasefire resolution. We have no time left. I propose the army be ordered to enter the Old City forthwith, before it is too late.”

“Speak to Dayan,” said Eshkol, his voice suddenly wide awake. “See what he thinks and get back to me.”

Begin got hold of Dayan and urged him to agree to a quick cabinet meeting to decide on the storming of the Old City. He did. Again Begin spoke to Eshkol and it was decided the cabinet would convene at seven that morning. It was a quick meeting. By unanimous decision the order was given to immediately penetrate the Old City’s walls, the troops to be spearheaded by a parachute brigade.

Some three hours later, after intense combat, the brigade crashed through the Lion Gate, and shortly thereafter came the commander’s message over the wire: “The Temple Mount is in our hands! The Temple Mount is in our hands!”

Soldiers in their hundreds rushed to the
Kotel
, the Western Wall, and there broke into choruses of
“
Yerushalayim Shel Zahav
”
–
Jerusalem of Gold
–
Israel’s new, if unofficial, anthem of the day.

“
Baruch Hashem!
” cried a jubilant Begin, and he proposed there and then that work begin on the reconstruction of the ancient Jewish Quarter which had been razed to the ground in the 1948 War of Independence, and whose inhabitants had either been killed, or taken prisoner, or expelled.
13

On the following day, a contingent of battle-weary and sweat-stained paratroopers peered over each other’s shoulders at Menachem Begin and two of his compatriots as they made their way through the Lion’s Gate toward the maze of shuttered, narrow passages that led to the Western Wall. A few cheered, and a few trailed along, guns slung on their shoulders, forming a sort of unofficial escort. A lingering smell of burning was everywhere, reminiscent of the battle they had just fought.

In those days, the Western Wall was one side of a filthy, narrow alleyway flanked by a profusion of ramshackle Arab slum dwellings that extended all the way westward to the edge of the sharp rise where the ruined Jewish Quarter began. As they moved through this grimy slum, called the Mugrahbi, they could still hear sporadic gunfire in the distance, and the sound of walkie-talkies and orders being shouted in nearby shadowy alleyways.

Step-by-step, Begin walked down the passageway leading to the Wall which he had not seen since 1948, his bespectacled, patrician features alive with a look of eagerness mixed with the reverence of one repossessing a long-lost, much cherished thing. It was that hour of the day when the sun’s rays hit the ancient Wall’s immense stone blocks, some of which were weathered while others appeared freshly hewn from the quarry. The sun’s rays enhanced the Wall’s cinnamon hue and brightened the bouquets of caper bushes that sprouted between the cracks of the higher crevices.

More soldiers showed up and soon a group of them formed a chanting circle around Mr. Begin, dancing and singing at the tops of their voices the song of Psalms,
“
Zeh hayom asah Hashem
” [This is the day the Lord has wrought, let us rejoice and be glad in it].

As Begin touched the Wall, they ceased their song, and utter silence reigned when he laid his head upon one of its weathered stones. He spread out his arms in embrace, and then solemnly drew from his pocket a sheet of paper on which he had written a prayer. He had composed it himself for this very moment
–
a supplication suffused with scriptural and liturgical allusions to the Jewish people’s rendezvous with their most sanctified of places
–
places from which they had been exiled for centuries; places which were what they were because of what had happened in them once upon a time; places which made Jerusalem and Israel what they were; places that made the Jewish people Jewish.

“O God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” he recited, “Lord of Hosts, be Thou our help. Our enemies encompassed us
–
they encompassed us and arose to destroy us as a people. Yet their counsel came to naught and their evil was not accomplished. For there has arisen in our Homeland a new generation, a generation of liberators, a generation of warriors and heroes. And when they went forth to engage the enemy there burst forth from their hearts the call which echoes down the generations, the call from the father of the Prophets, the redeemer of Israel from the bondage of Egypt: ‘Arise up O Lord and let Your enemies be scattered and let those that hate You be put to flight.’

“And we scattered and defeated them, and flee they did.

“The routed enemy has not yet laid down his arms. The Army of Israel continues to pursue and smite him. Lord, God of Israel, watch over our forces who, with their arms, are forging the Covenant You made with Your chosen people. May they return in peace
–
children to their parents, fathers to their children, and husbands to their wives. For we are but the surviving remnant of a people harried and persecuted, whose blood has been shed like water from generation to generation.

“Today we stand before the Western Wall, relic of the House of our Glory, in Jerusalem the redeemed, the city that is now all united together, and from the depths of our hearts there arises the prayer that the Temple may be rebuilt speedily in our days.

“And we shall yet come to Hebron
–
Kiryat Arba
–
and there we shall prostrate ourselves at the graves of the Patriarchs of our people. We shall yet reach Ephrat at the approaches to Bethlehem in Judea. There we shall pray at the tomb of Rachel and we shall recall the prayer of the prophet: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, wailing and bitter lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, for they are not. Refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your labor says the Lord, and they shall return from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for your latter end, and your children shall return to their borders.’”
14

“Amen!” bellowed the soldiers, and they sang and danced, shoulder to shoulder, in an ecstatic circle.

That evening a journalist, an old Begin acquaintance, called and asked him what had gone through his mind when he had touched the Wall.

“When I touched the Wall today I cried,” he answered simply. “I suppose everyone had tears in their eyes. Nobody need be ashamed. They are men’s tears. For the momentous truth is that on this day we Jews, for the first time since the Roman conquest of 70
c.e.
, have regained ownership of the last remaining remnant of our Temple site, and have won for ourselves free and unfettered access to pray there.”

Three days later the Israel Defense Forces completed the capture of East Jerusalem and the entire West Bank from the Jordanians, the entire Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from the Egyptians, and the entire Golan Heights from the Syrians. Israel then accepted the
UN
ceasefire, and felt the jubilation of David with Goliath prostate at his feet.

When the guns finally fell silent, bulldozers leveled the Mugrahbi slum quarter, opening up a vast plaza so that the Western Wall could finally breathe, and Jews could pray there in their multitudes. They prayed for peace, but the Arabs prayed for revenge. Gathering at a summit in Khartoum, Arab presidents and kings surveyed the debris of their shattered armies, shared the rage of their intolerable humiliation, and defiantly swore: “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiation with Israel.” Whatever measures were necessary to drive the Jews back into their indefensible coastal strip – only ten miles wide at one point – were to be relentlessly pursued, beginning with the dispatch of procurement officers to the Soviet Union to fashion these threats into guns. Soviet Russia swiftly began replenishing Goliath’s arsenals, and David’s sling seemed to begin to lose something of its propellant thrust.

In Washington, President Lyndon Baines Johnson reviewed the inflammable situation in the Middle East which, by a quirk of geology, sits astride the largest reservoir of combustible energy in the world. Realizing what a precious commodity it was and understanding how easily it could reignite, he decided it was time to have a personal word with Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. Coincidentally, Levi Eshkol wanted a quiet word with him, too.

Photograph credit: Moshe Milner & Israel Government Press Office

Prime Minister Eshkol with Knesset Member Menachem Begin and O.C. Southern Command General Gavish, visiting troops in Sinai, 13 June 1967

Photograph credit: Ilan Bruner & Israel Government Press Office

Prime Minister Eshkol & O.C. Israel Navy, Admiral Shlomo Harel, on a patrol vessel in the Straits of Tiran, the blockade of which triggered the Six-Day War, 20 June 1967

Photograph credit: David Eldan & Israel Government Press Office

Prime Minister Eshkol with President Johnson at the Texas ranch, 6 January 1968

On 6 January 1968, the White House issued the following matter-of-fact statement:

The prime minister of Israel, Mr. Levi Eshkol, has accepted President Johnson’s invitation to visit him at his Texas ranch…The president and the prime minister will discuss subjects of mutual interest in the bilateral relations between their two countries, as well as the situation in the Middle East in general.

An accompanying confidential directive to press officers, which later came my way, noted:

In the absence of supplementary guidance, there should be no comment on specific details. However, if pressed on such questions as whether arms will be discussed, it may be said on background that since that subject is part of the overall picture, it is reasonable to assume it will be discussed along with all other subjects of the situation.
15

This, above all, was what Eshkol wanted to talk to the president about
–
arms. France, Israel’s longtime backer, had suddenly imposed an arms embargo on the very eve of the Six-Day War. Only the United States could redress the balance in face of the massive Soviet replenishment of the Arab arsenals. Eshkol was out to persuade Johnson to open up his armories and supply Israel, in the first instance, with America’s newest state-of-the-art jet fighter-bomber
–
the
F
-4 Phantom.

I was at this time serving in the consulate general of Israel in New York, to which I had been precipitously posted toward the end of the war, to take charge of the political information section, and to assist Foreign Minister Abba Eban who, with dazzling diplomacy and oratory, was successfully fending off the Arab offensive at the UN Security Council, calculated to have Israel condemned and crippled with sanctions unless it withdrew back to the June 1967 pre-Six-Day War lines. Day after day Eban would dictate to me scintillating speeches with such perfection and accuracy that nary a comma was missing.

Before the summer’s end I was joined by my family, and we quickly set up home in Riverdale thanks, largely, to the welcoming reputation of its Jewish community, and the excellence of its day school.

The first news I had of Prime Minister Eshkol’s impending visit was the phone call I received from Adi Yaffe in Jerusalem, telling me
–
to my utter delight
–
that I was to put myself at the prime minister’s disposal for the duration of his stay, doing what I always did: speech writing, note taking, and document drafting.

I joined the entourage immediately upon its arrival, and for the first couple of days we were lodged at the palatial New York Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. I was so preoccupied with pressing assignments, however, that I had little time to indulge in its luxuries. I was only vaguely aware of the comings and goings of a host of Jewish leaders paying their respects to the prime minister, sandwiched between high-powered politicians like former vice president and presidential candidate Richard Nixon, governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, presidential candidate Senator Robert Kennedy, veteran New York senator Jacob Javits, and a galaxy of other household names all wishing
–
this being an election year
–
to be photographed with the leader of the Jewish State. Likewise, a goodly sprinkling of would-be senators and congressmen, state and federal, joined the prime minister for Sabbath morning services at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, only to be left high and dry, and some ashen gray, upon discovering that no television or press photographers would be allowed into the sanctuary due to the sanctity of the day and place.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Miriam Eshkol, a prepossessing middle-aged lady, was being lavishly entertained by New York hostesses. Between a cocktail party and a fashion show she confided to me her fear that the gift she had commissioned for the Johnsons’ new grandchild
–
a highly crafted, carpentered Noah’s Ark
–
was perhaps a little too parsimonious for the occasion. So she asked me to try to find out what other gifts the grandchild had received from other visiting dignitaries. This was a delicate task requiring discreet enquiries at the White House Protocol Office from whom I learned, much to Mrs. Eshkol’s satisfaction, that her gift was the most extravagant and elaborate the infant had yet received.

The presidential executive jet that eventually flew us to the LBJ ranch drew to a halt on an airstrip that reached almost up to President Johnson’s front door, where a brawny fellow in a ten-gallon Stetson stood waiting by a station wagon, its engine running.

“Okay, Dale, I’ll take over,” said the president. “I want to show the prime minister my acres.” And then, to us all, “This, folks, is Dale Malechek, my ranch foreman.”

After an exchange of “Howdees” the president squeezed his bulk into the driver’s seat, with Mr. Eshkol at his side, while Yaakov Herzog, Adi Yaffe and I squashed ourselves into the back.

The president drove at high speed across white-fenced fields and gunned his vehicle down rutted dirt tracks, causing us all to bounce crazily about. As we approached one particular pasture, a cluster of cows bolted in alarm at the sight of us, leaving just one cow that stubbornly refused to budge. The president honked his horn and nudged it with his vehicle’s fender until it, too, skedaddled.

“That’s Daisy,” Johnson roared with laughter. “She’s as pigheaded as a Texan senator with colic.”

Holding firmly onto his homburg for fear it might fly off, Eshkol looked inquiringly at Dr. Herzog, and above the growl of the engine, asked, “
Vus rett der goy?
”
–
Yiddish for “What’s the gentile talking about?”

“This is my old homestead, Mr. Prime Minister,” hollered Johnson in his pronounced southern drawl, oblivious to Herzog’s effort to answer. “This hill country along the banks of the Pedernales River is where my mammy and my daddy brought me up. Most of my neighbors are my old playmates. I’ve known them all my life.”

“Very nice,” muttered Eshkol. “Very nice.”

We came to a rambling barn where a cowman, wearing a soiled rubber apron and wiping his bloodstained hands on a cloth, moseyed over, stuck his head though the window, and said, “Howdee, Mr. President. Nellie’s just calved.”

Johnson’s big face broke into a sunny grin. “This is Tim Chalker, folks, my chief stockman. Let’s take a look at Nellie,” and out he sprang, a towering Texan rancher followed by a paunchy Jerusalemite
ex-kibbutznik
, and together they walked toward a stall in the barn where they crouched to examine the cow and her wet and wobbly calf. No two men could appear more absolutely unalike in appearance and temperament. One was hardly more than five foot tall, stooped, bespectacled, stoical, with age spots on his balding scalp, the other, over a foot taller, vigorous, groomed, abrasive, commanding, and Brylcreemed. Yet, seeing them there together, squatting in the straw and exchanging deep farm talk, the impending Phantom aircraft request seemed suddenly that much more attainable.

Chummier now than ever before, the president showed refreshed delight speeding across his bumpy pastures back to his house, particularly when Eshkol remarked that the hills, dales, and trees of his ranch reminded him of parts of Galilee. This set off an eager technical exchange about rainfall and aquifers and irrigation techniques, both men hailing from areas of sparse water, and both having spent years searching for remedies. The president told the prime minister about the dams he had built in Texas and the prime minister told the president about the National Water Carrier he had built in Israel. Thus it was that by the time we drew up to the house, the president’s eyes were crinkling in companionable warmth, with one heavily mottled, beefy hand on the wheel and the other resting amiably on Eshkol’s shoulder.

“Time to freshen up,” he said as he took long, lunging strides to his front door. “See you at dinner. Had a fine shoot early this morning. Pheasant! Excellent bird!”

We dined that night at two heavily laden round tables off the living room, with its frontier-size fireplace, antiques, sofas, and old oil paintings of the Texas Hill Country. The president’s initials
–
“LBJ”
–
appeared on everything: on the rugs in the living room, the pillows on the sofas, the china on the tables, the flag in the garden, and on the two stone pillars flanking the front door.

Butlers served a mammoth meal of game bird, and butlers brandished vintage champagne and bottles of fine wine. Dr. Herzog, who was partnered with the secretary of state, Dean Rusk, beckoned over a butler to unobtrusively ask for two green salads, one for him, one for me. Rusk puckered his brow and muttered an apology: “Oh dear, I see our protocol people have slipped up. They should have known you both observe the dietary laws. Forgive us.”

Herzog made light of it. “When I was ambassador in Ottawa,” he chuckled, “I challenged the philosopher Arnold Toynbee to a public debate. He asserted that we Jews were a fossilized relic of an obsolete civilization
–
inert, petrified, dead. I argued we were a vitally alive people, so alive that History could not do without us. Presumably, were he here tonight he would say that keeping kosher is a fossil-like anachronism. And I would say to him it’s a distinction of our eternal identity.”

Even as he was humoring the secretary of state, I noted Herzog giving a sidelong glance at the next table where the president, in a light brown double-breasted suit, cut very full, was shoveling huge portions into his mouth and washing them down with Scotch, all the while keeping up a robust conversation with the prime minister.

Herzog, amusement lurking in his eyes, leaned over to whisper very softly into my ear, “You see why he chooses to host foreign dignitaries at his ranch, far from the Washington press and the bureaucrats? He can be himself here. He wants Eshkol to see
his
America as it really is; meet
his
people as they really are
–
just plain folk. That’s why he showed him around the ranch. The media call it ‘barbecue diplomacy.’ It enables him to get a measure of people. This could never happen in Washington or Manhattan.” At this point the president tinkled a glass, lifted his six-foot-four frame, announced he wanted to propose a toast, perched his spectacles on his bulbous nose, and, extracting a piece of paper from his inside pocket, read:

“Mr. Prime Minister, Mrs. Eshkol
–
welcome to our family table. We are honored and happy to have you here in our home. Here we ask only that you enjoy the warm ties of friendship and partnership that mean so much to each of us, and to both our peoples. Our peoples, Mr. Prime Minister, share many qualities of mind and heart. We both rise to challenge and the resourcefulness of the citizen-soldier. We each draw strength and purpose for today from the heroes of yesterday. We both know the thrill of bringing life from a hard yet rewarding land. But all Americans and all Israelis also know that prosperity is not enough
–
that none of our restless generation can ever live by bread alone. For we are, equally, nations in search of a dream. We share a vision and purpose far brighter than our abilities to make deserts bloom. We have been born and raised to seek and find peace. In that common spirit of our hopes, I respect our hope that a just and lasting peace shall prevail between Israel and her neighbors.”

“Amen!” said Eshkol, prompting the president to elaborate in some detail on America’s efforts for peace around the world
–
in Vietnam, in Cyprus, and in the Middle East
–
then adding: “God once made a promise to the children of Israel: ‘I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant.’”

Having piously said these words, he raised his glass high, and trumpeted:

“Let that be our toast to each other
–
our governments and our peoples
–
as this New Year begins. Its days are brighter, Mr. Prime Minister, because you lighten them with your presence here, and the spirit you will leave behind. I drink to you
shalom
!”

“
Shalom!
” everybody called out, glasses high, imparting a blush of pleasure to Levi Eshkol’s cheeks.

“Note what he said about the biblical covenant,” whispered Yaakov to me. “It’s significant. He had a deeply religious upbringing. Word has it that his grandfather exhorted him to take care of the Jews, and an old aunt supposedly told him if Israel is destroyed the world will end. That’s the special feeling he has for us.”

When Eshkol rose to reply I sat back, relaxed, having long ago learned to match my speechwriting to his style and intentions.

“Mr. President, Mrs. Johnson
–
for Mrs. Eshkol and myself this has been a wonderful experience to be here as your guests at your home in Texas. On our way we saw again the vastness and variety of America, and here in your home we feel the warmth of your friendship and the depth of your view that all peoples are equal, and that all have an equal right to be themselves and to live in peace. As I said to you earlier in the day, Mr. President, your great land of Texas reminds me very much of parts of my own country, though there is, of course, no comparison in size. But like at home, I can see here, too, the results of your pioneering and dedication, and the beauty that man can create when he is free.”

After extolling Israel’s desire for peace and praising the president’s peacemaking efforts worldwide, Eshkol was about to wrap up the toast with a raise of his glass when Mrs. Eshkol tapped his sleeve to offer a corrective whisper. This prompted him to improvise. “Oh yes, of course. Mr. President and Mrs. Johnson
–
in the nearly four years which have passed since we last had the pleasure of meeting you, threefold congratulations have been in order. Twice you have played the role of father and mother to the bride, and now Mrs. Johnson and you have the joy of your first grandson. Please give the baby this modest gift from Mrs. Eshkol and myself.” (He was pointing to the Noah’s ark perched on a nearby side table). “And in drinking your health we wish Mrs. Johnson and yourself all personal joy in the years ahead, and for your country, in the realization of your dream for peace.
L’chayim
.”

“
L’chayim
,” everybody responded, glasses raised, the Johnsons grinning hugely while everybody ooh’ed and ah’ed over the Noah’s Ark. And when the general chatter resumed, the first lady, known all her life as Lady Bird, began circling the tables, smiling and radiant in a lemon-colored dress. Moving from guest to guest, her gaze soon rested on the almost untouched green salads of Yaakov Herzog and myself, causing her to frown and say, “Gentlemen, oh dear! I see you did not eat the bird. Lyndon arranged for a special shoot this morning so that it would be fresh.”