by Herman Wouk
“A stall, then,” said Barak.
The CIA man coldly smiled. “Zev, I’d venture that all the way up to the Oval Office, nobody has ever said outright that the flotilla was a stall. Nobody had to. Not like Israel, where you talk every matter to death. It can be prudent to stall sometimes, to explore ideas that will probably go nowhere, and never to spell that out in so many words as policy. This whole thing was a French notion. That should be the tip-off.”
“All right, Chris,” exclaimed Pasternak, “got it! ‘International flotilla’ is a diplomatic dodge. Contradicts all the cables we’ve had from the U.S.A. since Nasser closed the straits, but fine. Now what?”
Cunningham consulted his watch, and began to dial on a jack phone plugged in by his chair. “Now I’ll put in the call.”
Several audible long rings. “Good morning, Major. Christian Cunningham here…. Nice to talk to you. Is the Secretary available?” A considerable tense pause. “Oh, Mr. Secretary? …Thank you sir, I’m fine. Sir, here with me in my home is an Israeli general, an emissary from Prime Minister Eshkol…. Yes, sir, intelligence…. Mr. Secretary, his identity is a secret, but of course if you… Thank you. He comes with a message for you alone…. Yes, sir, I recommend that you see him urgently…. Understood, Mr. Secretary. We’ll be waiting.” He hung up. “He’ll call us back.”
“How did he sound?” Pasternak asked.
“Very interested. I believe he’s telephoning the President.”
Neither Israeli batted an eye, but Barak was astonished. Cunningham was not the head of the CIA, nowhere near the top, and the Middle East desk was by no means the biggest section. Was Pasternak as relaxed as he looked, slumped there in a puddle of seersucker, or was he too feeling the tightness of the moment?
“Sam, you missed the couscous last night at Zev’s place,” said the CIA man. “Better than in Marseilles.”
“Nakhama’s a Moroccan, Chris, it was bound to be good. I met Nakhama, you know, before this lowlife did. I told him she was the prettiest girl in Tel Aviv. Biggest mistake of my life. She’d be making couscous for me today if I’d kept my mouth shut.”
“Perhaps she wouldn’t have fallen for you.”
“Inconceivable.”
The ringing phone sounded to Barak like sudden thunder. “Hello? …Thanks, Major, put him on…. Mr. Secretary? Yes, sir… No, in civilian clothes, of course.” Cunningham allowed himself a nod at the others, his eyes gleaming through the glasses. “The Shirley entrance…. Yes, Mr. Secretary.” With a flourish he put down the receiver. “Let’s go to the Pentagon, Sam.”
“Good luck,” said Barak. “I’ll be at the embassy, waiting to hear.”
***
Driving along the river in his car, Cunningham held forth on his favorite theme. Pasternak should not forget the Soviets for a minute, he warned. The Arabs were Russia’s high-visibility clients. They would fight a war as planned and drilled by Russian instructors, with Russian tanks, planes, artillery, and missiles. Therefore, with things going so sour in Vietnam, it could hardly break President Johnson’s heart, or the Secretary’s, if Israel were driven to give Nasser a nasty biff.
“But as Dulles told Selwyn Lloyd,” Cunningham reminded him, walking up the steps of the Shirley entrance, “they can’t possibly say that. So pay very close attention, and whatever the words are, listen for the Russian music.”
A marine major with gold shoulder loops waited for them in a foyer dominated by grand color portraits of the President and the Secretary of Defense. Pasternak was struck by the crisp gleaming splendor of the Pentagon, even here in a side entrance. America! How different from the rundown Kirya entrance, where girl soldiers gossiped, eating sunflower seeds, and the small main foyer usually needed sweeping! But there was nothing grand about the Secretary of Defense as he jumped up, crossed the spacious office, and greeted them with brisk handshakes; a natty middle-sized man in rimless glasses, with slick black hair and a ready smile. “Chris, much obliged.”
“At your service, sir.”
The Secretary motioned the Israeli to a couch at the far end of the room. Cunningham melted away like a wraith, and the Secretary took an armchair, his manner unhurried. All the time in the world! So far so good, thought Pasternak. He had expected a quick formal exchange across a desk top.
“Did you just get here, General?”
“I arrived last night, Mr. Secretary.”
“Then you’ve had some rest.”
“I’m fine, sir.”
“We have a mighty healthy regard here for Israeli intelligence.”
“Thank you. We make more than our share of dumb mistakes.”
“Coffee?”
“Chris Cunningham gave me plenty, Mr. Secretary.”
“You know Chris well, I gather.”
“We met in the war. OSS and Zionist underground cooperated.”
The Secretary smiled. “Quite a feat, getting hold of that Iraqi MiG. How did you do it?”
Not unskilled in “listening to music,” Pasternak thought he heard a friendly note. Clearly Cunningham had told the Secretary, and the Secretary was letting Pasternak know that he, too, had a special relationship with the CIA man.
“Well, that’s a long story, sir. We can send you a report if you wish. Mainly it was a lot of very dull hard work. Months of wasted time, false leads, disappointments, the usual. The key was making contact with a disaffected pilot. Our air force chief asked us to get him a MiG, so in the end we got him a MiG.”
“We have a healthy regard for your air force, too.”
“So do we, sir.”
“Yes. Well now, your Prime Minister seems to have his hands pretty full these days, with one thing and another.”
There it was, the cue to speak.
“I’ve known him since I was a boy, Mr. Secretary. Levi Eshkol can handle whatever comes. I bring a message from him, and what I have to say requires no reply from you. The Prime Minister wants you to know how matters stand from his viewpoint.”
The Secretary’s genial look was gone, replaced by hard attention. His lips were a line. “Go ahead, General.”
“Sir, unless the United States acts soon, in a way that decisively changes the picture, Israel will have to do something.” Pasternak very deliberately paused.
The Secretary’s half-closed eyes behind the glasses searched his face, and he echoed in a flat voice, “Do something.”
“Yes, sir. Our country can’t put up indefinitely with a mobilized menace on all three borders. With repeated public threats of our imminent destruction. With the economic burden of keeping our reserves on alert, week after week. It’s intolerable.”
“We don’t believe here,” said the Secretary in slow cold tones, “that Israel’s destruction is imminent.”
“Nor do we, but the Arab governments are publicly threatening to destroy us, and they’re in full military posture to try. We must take that seriously.”
“Granted.”
“So we have to do something soon.”
“What do you call soon?”
“A few days.”
“Cigarette?” Pasternak accepted one from the silver box. The Secretary extended his flaming lighter.
“Thank you, sir.”
They smoked in a measurable silence.
“How long will it take you?”
Despite a jump of his heart Pasternak matched the Secretary’s even tone. “We estimate two to three weeks.”
“What casualties do you anticipate?”
“Six to eight hundred.”
Pursing his lips, the Secretary looked at Pasternak for a space. “What do you want of us?”
“No military assistance, sir. Two things. One, we trust the Sixth Fleet will remain on station. Two, we expect political support after the cease-fire.”
The Secretary sat back in his chair, raising his eyebrows. “Political support…”
“Mr. Secretary, in 1956 we withdrew from the Sinai in good faith. We took that risk, though we won a bloody war. We
acted on President Eisenhower’s guarantee that America would uphold the freedom of the straits and the status quo in Sinai.”
The Secretary soberly nodded. “That is true.”
“But that was to be the responsibility of the UN, sir, and the UN has miserably failed, as you know. We’ve waited nearly two weeks for an international political solution. Our enemies have been massing at our borders all that time, digging in, hardening up their positions, making their military pacts, and openly preparing to strike. The Prime Minister frankly advises you that this can’t go on much longer, and trusts you will understand.”
After a meditative moment, and a long hard look straight in Pasternak’s face, the Secretary said, “I will tell you something, General, if you can tell me that only Levi Eshkol will hear it, and that he will not breach my confidence.”
“Sir, I can give my word on that.”
The Secretary spoke slowly, choosing his words. “President Johnson has received from Dwight Eisenhower a verbal communication through an intermediary. Eisenhower’s message states that in view of Israel’s good-faith withdrawal from Sinai in 1956, and the American guarantee of the status quo which Nasser has now abrogated, the United States should not interfere with Israel’s freedom to act. Eisenhower calls this ‘a debt of honor.’ That was his exact term.” The Secretary stood up and offered his hand. Pasternak was on his feet on the instant. “Your Prime Minister’s frankness is appreciated. Tell him from me that the messenger has well and faithfully discharged his mission.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.”
In the bright sunshine outside, Chris Cunningham was waiting by his car. Before Pasternak could speak he held up a flat palm. “If anything that transpired in there is my business, I’ll know about it. Where are you headed?”
“My embassy.”
“Good, I’m going downtown too.”
***
The ambassador’s greeting was a tired wave from behind the desk. Stoop-shouldered, gray with fatigue, Abe Harman looked on the verge of collapse. He was as energetic and keen a man as Pasternak knew, he always looked like that, and he never collapsed. “So?” he inquired heavily, when Pasternak finished his account of the meeting, “what do you make of it?”
“You’re the diplomat, Abe.”
“‘How long will it take you?’ That was his first reaction?”
“Word for word.”
“I believe you’ve accomplished more in a morning than we’ve managed to do here in weeks.”
“Back-channel messenger, that’s all.”
“Yes. Frustrating for the front channel.”
“Ambassador, where’s Zev?”
“On the Hill. The Secretary of State is testifying on the crisis before a congressional committee. Are you going right back home?”
“I leave on the three o’clock shuttle to New York. El Al goes at six.”
“If you’ll write up a précis of the meeting, I’ll get it to Tel Aviv at once.”
“Fifteen minutes,” said Pasternak.
“Okay. Use my private office.”
Pasternak scrawled away in the small rather airless inner room, at a desk where the ambassador’s wife smiled from a photograph. When he came out again and put the précis before the ambassador, Barak was there, looking remarkably cheerful, even excited.
“Here’s Sam now!” The ambassador too appeared bucked up, and only half as stooped as usual. “Tell him, Zev!”
“Tell me what?”
“Dean Rusk just sang some amazing new music to congress,” said Barak, “as Chris Cunningham might put it. He testified that the United States is now planning no action except through the UN.”
Pasternak pulled down his mouth corners in incredulity. “Through the UN?”
“You hear?” exclaimed the ambassador. “The UN! Paralyzed by the Russians and the Arabs, still denying there’s any emergency!”
“Bye-bye flotilla, then, eh?” said Pasternak.
“Even as rhetoric, perhaps,” said the ambassador, “and that’s not all. Listen to what happened afterward. Tell him, Zev.”
“The media hounds outside the conference room shot questions at him,” Barak said. “He brushed them off, and picked only one question to answer. Somebody yelled, ‘Mr. Secretary, is America going to restrain Israel from precipitate action?’ Rusk jerked a hand, said, ‘I don’t think it’s our business to restrain anyone,’ and hurried off.”
Pasternak glanced from the ambassador to the attaché. “And his manner while testifying? That’s important.”
“I thought he was acting on brand-new instructions that he didn’t like. Also, that the question might well have been a plant.”
A moment’s meditation. Then Pasternak said, “Defense talked to the President, and the President talked to State. The situation has changed. Eshkol’s message worked. That’s my estimate.” About the Eisenhower message to Johnson he would not say anything, ever, except to his Prime Minister.
“Ours, too,” said the ambassador.
Barak said, “Green light, Sam?”
“Amber, anyway,” said Pasternak.
The three men sat in silence. Barak found himself yearning to be over there after all, in any post where he could lead troops against enemy fire. For unless Nasser could now be induced or bribed or scared into reopening the straits—and that seemed unlikely, with the Egyptian dictator riding a hysterical wave of war-fever popularity—the remaining question was when and how war would come.
“You’re monitoring Arab reactions?” the ambassador asked Pasternak.
“Always.” Sam glanced at his watch, and mentioned several staff intelligence people. “I have to go out for an hour. When I get back I want to meet all of them in your conference room.”
“Done.” The ambassador picked up the telephone.
Barak asked, “Will you stay over here?”
“No, I’ll leave on schedule.”
“I’ll take you to the airport.”
35
On the Eve
At her dressing mirror Yael Nitzan was pleased with what she saw. Something about Washington, even the hairdressers. Class. After a while in Beverly Hills all hairdos looked alike, no matter what you spent, especially if you were blond. This coiffure made her look different, fresher, younger, and it cost half what she would pay out there.
But Yael was very worried about the war, about Aryeh, and about Kishote, estranged as they were. She had no intention of vamping Pasternak, but he had telephoned her to say he was coming to Washington and wanted to see her. So he was still vulnerable. Nice! Here she was. It was her rule, whenever they met, to give him pangs of regret and make him wish that he had never let her get away, and preferably that he had never been born. She wasn’t sure that he was the head of the Mossad, but since what he did now was unclear, and his last post had been chief of military intelligence, the talk might well be true. In any case he would know more about what was happening than almost anybody. He might not tell her much, but she could read Sam Pasternak from tones of his voice and shifts of his eyes.
Gravelly voice on the house phone. “It’s Sam. Shall I come up?”
“No, no. I’ll be right down.”
They had the enormous main restaurant almost to themselves; breakfasters gone, too early for the lunch crowd. Yael ordered a cheese omelette, and devoured it with appetite while Pasternak drank coffee.
“How do you stay so thin? You look beautiful, wonderful, seventeen.”
“Shtuyot [nonsense]. And you’re getting fat. It’s not good for you.”
“Nobody to take care of me. So, motek, you’re divorcing Yossi.”
Yael halted in breaking a roll. “Who says so?”
“You’re not?”
“Sam, what’s going on back home? What will happen? Nasser’s absolutely frightening on TV. My lawyer talked to his brother in Herzliyya yesterday. He said they’ve started digging a thousand new graves in blocked-off public parks, because the military cemeteries are already cr
owded. All the shopwindows in Tel Aviv taped up, the buses hardly running—”
“Yael, yih’yeh b’seder [it’ll be okay]. If we have to fight, we’ll win.”
“We will, Sam?”
“Yes. Look, you’ve been away too long, getting all trembly in the knees like this. Why sit over here and worry about stupid rumors? Come home with me! I’ll get you a seat tonight on El Al.”
“Are you crazy? Think I came east just to see you? I have some urgent business in New York tomorrow.”
“Do you have a fellow in Los Angeles?”
Yael looked him in the eye. “How can I hide anything from an intelligence genius? Yes, I do.”
“Who is he?”
“Since you ask, he’s my dentist.”
Pasternak blinked. “Who? Your guy?”
“Yes. Very handsome, very sexy. Jewish, married, funny, and thin. Thin as a pole.”
“A sexy dentist? Tartai d’satrai [Contradiction in terms].”
“And you? Still messing with all those bohemian girlfriends in Tel Aviv? How do you keep them straight?”
“The fact is, motek, I’ve slowed down.”
She looked hard at him. “You mean you now have to be more prudent.”
“Well, that’s right.” He gave her a sly coarse grin, and old emotions broke through layers of Yael’s lost time. They had been so right for each other, a kibbutznik of the pioneer Pasternaks of Mishmar Ha’emek, and a Nahalal girl of a founding family! But he had married a rich Yekke of Swiss immigrant parentage, and she had paid for a crazy afternoon in Paris with a forced marriage to a Polish outsider. Pasternak broke into her thoughts as though they were audible. “Come on home, Yael.”
“And then what?” Yael exclaimed, throwing down her knife and fork. “You don’t know what America is like, Sam, really. For you it’s all politics and intelligence. This is a world of mentschen, Sam, not of shleppers. At home I went crazy trying to get anything done. Here you breathe, you function. Here business is business! A promise is a promise, a contract is a contract, a phone call is a phone call, an appointment is an appointment, a deal is a deal, a yes is a yes, a no is a no. What have you got there in those four cubits of a country? An army, fine. An army, thank God! And outside the army, what? Shleppers, shleppers, shleppers!”