Thirteen Days in September

by Lawrence Wright

  He would later claim: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 64.

  remarking how modern the armaments: Interview with Jimmy Carter.

  “Moshe, you’ve been”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 249.

  “Are you the anti-Christ?”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 140.

  Carter proudly added that: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 171.

  “He seemed to know”: Ibid.

  Carter’s great-grandfather: Littleberry Walker Carter survived the war only to be stabbed to death at the age of forty-two by a business partner in a quarrel over a merry-go-round they jointly owned. Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 10.

  Maybe this was a turning point: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.

  “There are phrases in”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 372.

  “seventeen pages of high”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 363.

  “We would also ask that”: Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 373–74.

  “Gentlemen, the Americans”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 364.

  “a beautiful number”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 375.

  “This is not the time”: Ibid., pp. 374–76.

  “Listen, we’re trying”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 255.

  “What you want to do”: Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 376–77.

  “We will not accept”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 365.

  On the eve of Camp David: Interview with Elyakim Rubinstein conducted by Dr. Nina Sagie, May 5, 1994, Menachem Begin Heritage Center.

  Before Dayan left: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 156.

  directly into a tree: Interview with Aharon Barak; Carter, White House Diary, p. 231.

  “What happened?”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 254.

  “psycho”: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 262.

  DAY SEVEN

  Dayan’s cabinmates: Interview with Aharon Barak.

  He pursued it with: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, p. 45, pp. 162–63; also see Raz Kletter, “A Very General Archeologist—Moshe Dayan and Israeli Archeology,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 4, article 5 (2003), for a catalog of Dayan’s ethical and legal violations.

  “There is a festive air”: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, pp. 142–43.

  “The only thing the”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 386.

  not a single Jew lived: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan, p. 145.

  “Of course”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.

  “Sadat is smarter than”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.

  “You don’t understand anything”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 340–41.

  Sadat told the Jordanian: Ibid., p. 343; Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 253.

  “We must offer al-Rayyis”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 142.

  “Mr. Weizman!”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 261.

  Dayan agreed to meet: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.

  He also learned that Begin: Interview with Aharon Barak.

  DAY EIGHT

  Unbeknownst to the Americans: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 254.

  “This is going to end”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 367.

  “I shall ask for a meeting”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 255.

  “There’s no sense to”: Ibid.

  “Moshe,” Weizman said: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 370.

  History would show: Quandt, Camp David, p. 232.

  Fifteen feet by twenty-two feet: Hans Mark, personal communication.

  “In order to achieve peace”: Quandt, Camp David, Appendix F.

  “It’s all right”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 385.

  “Let me suggest that”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 255.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. President”: Ibid., p. 256.

  “in communication”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 143.

  “It could be really great”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 346.

  An independent authority: Shay Fogelman, “What Israeli and U.S. Leaders of 1977 Hoped Would Be Jerusalem’s Fate,” Haaretz, Nov. 4, 2011.

  The Americans and the Israelis: Interview with Elyakim Rubenstein.

  Jerusalem was a symbol: Ibn ’Asakir, quoted in Sivan, Interpretations of Islam, p. 91.

  He had always been attracted: Sadat, Safahat Majhula, p. 100.

  as many as one million: Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 25.

  Some of Sadat’s fellow: Sadat, Revolt on the Nile, p. 93.

  The king himself felt: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 25.

  “This is the most serious talk”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 386.

  “Seven hours!”: “Behind Camp David,” Menachem Begin speech to Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Sept. 20, 1978.

  “Mr. President, do we ask”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 257.

  “the land of our forefathers”: “Behind Camp David,” Menachem Begin speech to Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Sept. 20, 1978

  The Saudis were also: Meir Rosenne, “Legal Aspects of Negotiations in the Peace Treaty with Egypt: Camp David (1978–1979),” in Moshe Fuksman Sha’al, ed., The Camp David Accords, p. 35.

  “Never!” Begin cried: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 302.

  He pointed out that: More than 60 percent of the Israeli public supported return of some of the occupied West Bank if it enabled peace with Egypt. A majority of Israelis did not share Begin’s “religious and ideological attachment to the whole of the territory.” National Intelligence Cable, Sept. 1, 1978.

  Begin responded enigmatically: Carter, White House Diary, p. 235; Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 386–87.

  DAY NINE

  The West Bank would not: Eban, An Autobiography, p. 436.

  The Arab leaders responded: Aburish, Nasser, p. 270.

  “the first war in history”: Quoted in Jack L. Schwartzwald, “Did Golda Meir Cause the ‘Yom Kippur War’?” New Society, July 9, 2009.

  In any case, Israel: Abba Eban made a number of claims that the Israelis had presented such an offer to the Americans, who passed it on to the Arabs, and that the Arabs peremptorily rejected the overture. There seems to be no evidence that the withdrawal proposal, in the form of a cabinet resolution of June 19, 1967, was anything more than a “foreign policy maneuver,” or that it was ever intended to go beyond a briefing to the Americans, or that it ever actually got passed to the Arabs. Avi Raz, “The Generous Peace Offer That Was Never Offered: The Israeli Cabinet Resolution of June 19, 1967,” Diplomatic History 37, no. 1 (2013): 85–108.

  Although it is not often: Parker notes that, although the date the War of Attrition began is usually given as March 1969, the opening shots were actually fired the previous autumn. The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East, p. 130.

  War of Attrition: Ibid., p. 125.

  Impatient with the state: Parker distinguishes three Israeli-American conceptual errors during this period: “The misjudgment of Egypt’s staying power, the misjudgment of Soviet seriousness, and the fascination with the use of force. The fault lay as much with the Americans as with the Israelis.” Ibid., p. 163.

  “We shall not allow”: Hirst and Beeson, Sadat, p. 122.

  It was the first time: Kissinger, White House Years, p. 569.

  That made the White House: Ibid., p. 585.

  “I have decided to dispense”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 230.

  In a single stroke he upended: Robert Satloff in Alterman, ed., Sadat and His Legacy, p. 151.

  Moreover, the chastened: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 46.

  “Why has he done”: Hirst and Beeson, Sadat, p. 138.

  “It was all, as I would”: Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1299.

  “I remember machine guns”: Shavit, My Promised Land, p. 143.

  This was early in: Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, pp. 151 and 191–92.

  By the end of the war
: Holocaust Encyclopedia, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006124.

  “useless eaters”: Ibid.

  “When I took off my”: Shavit, My Promised Land, p. 145.

  During cabinet deliberations: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 292.

  While there, he studied: Interview with Farouk El-Baz.

  Carter considered Baz: Interviews with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.

  He had been head: “The Negotiators for Egypt,” Washington Post, Dec. 14, 1977.

  Jewish girlfriend: Interview with Meir Rosenne.

  Sadat had appointed Baz: Adel Hamouda, “Osama el-Baz: Malaff Shakhsi Jiddan!” [Osama el-Baz: A Very Personal Portfolio!], El Fagr, Sept. 24, 2013.

  Baz became Mubarak’s: Reedy, Rihlat al-’umr, p. 329.

  At this signal, Sadat: Interview with Farouk el-Baz.

  Carter responded by saying: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 259.

  “in all its parts”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 387.

  “They have both also stated”: Ibid.

  “My right eye will fall”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 229.

  “Reaching agreement with you”: Sabry, Al-Sadat, p. 454.

  “When he gets furious”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 260.

  “I won’t give up”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 369.

  “It is out of the question”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 261.

  “You’re right,” Sadat replied: Sabry, Al-Sadat, pp. 454–55.

  “I don’t know exactly why”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 260.

  “Zbig, I am very much”: Nelson, The President Is at Camp David, p. 121.

  DAY TEN

  Sadat wondered whether: Jimmy Carter diary of Camp David.

  “Come here,” he said: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 260.

  Sadat loathed and feared: Interview with Aharon Barak.

  “for Carter’s sake”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 144.

  The Bar-Lev Line: Gamasy, The October War, pp. 224–25.

  “The Egyptian Army today”: Reedy, Rihlat al-’umr, p. 248.

  “There is no more Palestine”: “Waiting in the Wings,” Time, July 30, 1973.

  Customs officers ripped out: Heikal, The Road to Ramadan, p. 247.

  Nasser got tapes: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 13.

  Sadat responded a few: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 219.

  By that time, Israel: Kipnis, 1973, pp. 68–69.

  She pressured Kissinger: Ibid., pp. 92 and 103.

  “the stage of total confrontation”: “Arabs v. Israelis in a Suez Showdown,” Time, Oct. 29, 1973.

  “Everything in this country”: Arnaud de Borchgrave, “The Battle Is Now Inevitable,” Newsweek, Apr. 9, 1973.

  Menachem Begin warned: Iris Berlatzky interview with Yechiel Kadishai, Menachem Begin Heritage Center.

  About a third of: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 12.

  “I don’t rule out”: Kipnis, 1973, p. 47.

  “a new Israel”: Ibid., p. 113.

  All this confirmed: Ibid., p. 205.

  Once the first wave: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 35.

  The Russians had told them: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 291.

  Replicas of the barricade: Herzog, The War of Atonement, pp. 35–36.

  “havoc-making” angels: Quran 3:124–25.

  There was one date: Gamasy, The October War, pp. 180–81.

  “the lowest of the low”: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 51.

  The night before the invasion: Gamasy, The October War, p. 210.

  That same evening: Kipnis, 1973, p. 282.

  Ashraf Marwan: There is a long and intriguing debate about whether Marwan was actually a double agent. Sadat awarded him a medal after the war, but the head of Mossad at the time defended him as the best agent Israel had ever had. Marwan died after falling off a balcony in London in 2007, in what may have been a homicide. Yigal Kipnis has an informative appendix in his book 1973: The Road to War about this controversy.

  It would still take at least: Kipnis, 1973, p. 273.

  And yet, on the day: Blum, The Eve of Destruction, p. 157; Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 461.

  Each of the 750 boats: Blum, The Eve of Destruction, p. 159; Gamasy, The October War, pp. 207–08.

  Five infantry divisions: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 474.

  “My God,” an Israeli: “The War of the Day of Judgment,” Time, Oct. 22, 1973.

  Sadat had to remind: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 293.

  The Arabs now had better: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 510.

  “In the Golan Heights”: Blum, The Eve of Destruction, pp. 175–83.

  Within twenty-four hours: Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 181; Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 495; Gamasy, The October War, pp. 216–17. Heikal gives a different figure for the loss of Israeli aircraft, which he puts at forty.

  The entire population: Dayan, Story of My Life, pp. 495–96. Gamasy gives strikingly different figures for Egyptian losses in the first twenty-four hours: 5 planes, 20 tanks, 280 dead. Gamasy, The October War, pp. 216–17.

  The Syrians sought to take: Gamasy, The October War, pp. 138–39. According to Kissinger, Israelis learned from captured Egyptian soldiers that Egypt did not even expect to reach the Sinai passes twenty to thirty miles from the canal. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 459.

  On the morning of: Blum, The Eve of Destruction, p. 193.

  “hold on to the last bullet”: Ibid., p. 202.

  Israeli losses by the end: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 492.

  Dayan said he intended: Herzog, The War of Atonement, p. 196.

  perhaps as many as twenty-five bombs: Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 179.

  The Israelis may have decided: Ibid., p. 225. Israel has never publicly acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons. Neither Nixon nor Kissinger mentions the Israeli nuclear option in their accounts; however, Zbigniew Brzezinski affirmed it in his discussion with Carter in “Reflections on the Camp David Accords,” Hotel Del Coronado, San Diego, CA, March 9, 2012.

  he recalls seeing a report: Interview with William Quandt; Elbridge Solby, Avner Cohen, William McCants, Bradley Morris, and William Rosenau, “The Israeli ‘Nuclear Alert’ of 1973: Deterrence and Signaling in Crisis,” CNA report, April 2013, p. 35. The authors conclude, “There was probably a change in the status of Israel’s nuclear delivery systems but the Americans did not interpret such activity as an attempt to coerce them” (p. 46).

  “bleed a bit but not too much”: William Quandt, quoted in Elbridge Solby, Avner Cohen, William McCants, Bradley Morris, and William Rosenau, “The Israeli ‘Nuclear Alert’ of 1973: Deterrence and Signaling in Crisis,” CNA report, April 2013, p. 21 fn.

  By October 11, Israel: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 504. Dayan himself later claimed, “There was no intention of capturing Damascus or even of bombing it.” Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 516. Nonetheless, he pressed to get the Syrian capital within artillery range of Israeli forces.

  The Egyptians had ventured: Gamasy, The October War, p. 277. Heikal, Secret Channels, p. 195, claims the losses were 390 tanks.

  “I am no novice at war”: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 532.

  He grew pale and gaunt: Sadat, A Woman of Egypt, p. 296.

  “All those who died for our”: Ibid., p. 294.

  Moreover, they embargoed: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 545.

  Kissinger’s sympathetic eye: Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 537.

  Three thousand Israeli: Gordis, Menachem Begin, p. 131.

  “MURDERER”: Chafets, Heroes and Hustlers, Hard Hats and Holy Men, p. 45.

  The Israelis wanted revenge: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 573.

  “You won’t get any violent”: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. xxv, “Arab-Israeli Crisis and War,” pp. 658–60.

  Three Soviet airborne divisions: White, Breach of Faith, p. 263; Dayan, Story of
My Life, p. 543.

  To block that scenario: Kalb and Kalb, Kissinger, pp. 563–64.

  troops were actually loaded: Interview with Gary Chapman.

  “a buffoon, an operatic figure”: Gail Sheehy, “The Riddle of Sadat,” Esquire, Jan. 30, 1979.

  “It can be called”: Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 636.

  “camels and date-palms”: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 171.

  Dayan’s pet project: “A City in Sinai,” Time, Jan. 22, 1973.

  “What did you think”: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 172.

  “If anybody told you that”: Hermann Frederick Eilts in Alterman, ed., Sadat and His Legacy, p. 40.

  “Convey this from me”: Carter, First Lady of Plains, p. 261; interview with Rosalynn Carter.

  “Hi, Mohamed”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, pp. 352–53.

  “You’re teasing”: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.

  Carter directed Vice President: Carter, First Lady of Plains, p. 261; Rosalynn Carter’s Camp David diary.

  It was heartbreaking: Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 390–91.

  DAY ELEVEN

  For the last twenty-four: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 262.

  He watched George C. Scott: Interview with Walter Mondale.

  He had once been so bright and promising: Zev Chafets, personal communication.

  The experience had gradually turned: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 140.

  Dayan, on the other hand: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.

  Begin, the Polish lawyer: Interview with Zev Chafets.

  “my charming naughty boy”: “Ezer Weizman,” Telegraph, Apr. 26, 2005.

  “FAMILY MAN AND DEMOCRAT”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 195.

  “Such withdrawals could only”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 325.

  “The West Bank”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 256.

  Before the 1973 Yom Kippur War: Cohen, Culture and Conflict in Egyptian-Israeli Relations, p. 38.

  “human material”: Chafets, Heroes and Hustlers, Hard Hats and Holy Men, p. 37.

  “secure and recognized borders”: William Quandt, personal communication.

  “there has to be a homeland”: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 329.

  All the other shirts: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 255.