The Glory (51 page)

“Easy, Chris,” says Halliday, with a side-glance at Barak.

“By George, the jigsaw puzzle falls together, doesn’t it?” the CIA man rasps. “Those malignant scoundrels mean to nail down
a decisive Soviet victory in the Middle East, with those Antonovs plus a quick cease-fire. They’re more cautious as a rule,
this huge airlift is pretty adventurous, but they’re counting on the President’s weakness and Kissinger’s rubber conscience.”

Emily enters, wiping her hands. “Einstein picked up his dish and splatted corn mush all over his puss. Relativity. Relatively
speaking, he’s a fiend. Dinner in fifteen minutes, gents.”

“I should have told you, Em,” says Halliday, looking at his watch, “I won’t be here. Sorry. In fact, I have to go in a minute.”

“Too bad.” A shadow flits across her face. “Lamb roast.”

Cunningham gets up. “I’ll now have a chat with my genius grandson about mass and energy, until dinner.”

Halliday holds out his hand to Barak. “Look, I admire you people. You understand that.” They shake hands. “I really hope your
government goes for the cease-fire. As my history prof at the academy pointed out, Thermopylae was magnificent, but nobody
survived.” He kisses Emily’s cheek, says, “Sorry about the lamb roast, dear,” and leaves.

“I know what
he’s
going for,” says Emily, “and it’s no goddamn lamb roast. Not that I have much right to grouse, with you here. Any booze left?
Ah, yes. Lovely.”

“He’s a very able man.”

“Bradford Halliday is an exceptional man, and a good father,” says Emily, drinking, “and I won’t let the louse into my bed.”

Startled, Barak asks, “Why? If it’s none of my business, say so.”

“Indeed it is. If you hadn’t shut off my letters, I’d have written a ream —”

A telephone rings in the den. Emily answers it and calls, “Zev, a woman for General Barak.”

He jumps up. “The embassy. Thanks.” Emily closes the door behind him as he goes in.

A cultivated woman’s voice, faintly British, quite goyish, nobody in the embassy: “General Barak? Please hold for the Secretary
of State.” Barak waits for a long minute.

A deep Germanic voice, the most recognizable in the world. “Hello, General, Simcha Dinitz gave me this number. I hope my call
is not inconvenient.”

“Not at all, Mr. Secretary.”
(This cannot be!)

“Vell, how fortunate. I vould like very much to see you, General Barak, as soon as possible.”

“I’m at your disposal right now, sir.”

“Excellent. Ve’ll send a car.”

“That’ll be fine. The address—”

“Ve have the address. The car vill leave now to pick you up.”

Barak walks into the living room and says, “Guess what? I’m going to see Kissinger.”

She opens saucer eyes. “Wow, you clannish Jews. You sure stick together, don’t you?”

W
rong bridge,
thinks Barak as the limousine crosses the Potomac in purple lamp-lit twilight,
if we’re going to the State Department
. But they are not. The black-uniformed driver turns into the back gate of the White House, passes through with a few quick
words to the sentry, and parks the car. In the entrance lobby he hands a brown paper bag to the gorgeously uniformed young
Marine orderly, asking, “Has he arrived?”

“Yes, he’s in the Map Room. Follow me, General.”

The awe of the White House is on the Israeli, though in his attaché years he often walked these august halls. The orderly
knocks at a door. Unmistakable voice: “Yes, come in.” Kissinger sits alone at a long polished table, tubby and rumpled in
a dinner jacket, black tie askew, looking through a pile of documents. The orderly hands him the paper bag and leaves.

“Please sit down, General. Ve meet here for privacy,” Kissinger rumbles, waving at a chair. “The State Department is a goldfish
bowl.” He opens the bag, peers into it, and sniffs it. “You know, Abba Eban vunce told me that General de Gaulle’s first vords
to him, ven he received him before the Six-Day War, were,
‘Ne faites pas la guerre!’
But I say to you — and your Prime Minister has told me to talk to you exactly as I vould to her —
Faites la guerre!
Fight! Fight as hard and as fast as you can, because as things stand on the battlefield you’re in terrible trouble, and so
are ve, vit the Soviet cease-fire proposal.”

He extracts and unwraps a sandwich from the bag, and sighs with pleasure over it. “Roquefort on rye. Food of the gods. My
fiancée has put me on a starvation diet. But I’m about to host a banquet for the President of Zaire. Banquet food isn’t food.
I had no lunch. Forgive me if I eat vile ve talk. Vot’s really happening over there, General? Who’s vinning the war?”

“I wish I could say we are, Mr. Secretary.”

The Secretary bites into the sandwich with gusto, and gives him a sharp look. “Do you vish that? But vouldn’t that undercut
your mission? Mrs. Meir mentioned half-jokingly that she vould send her military secretary to ‘get an airlift,’ after I urged
her not to come herself. I told her Dinitz and Gur are doing nobly. But she sends you, so — fine.” He eats, and says after
a moment, “My God, what a hideous notion, for her to fly here. Not like her at all, to go into such hysterics.” The heavy
German accent seems to fade away after a while, or rather Barak stops hearing it.

“Mr. Secretary, she is cool as can be. It was Moshe Dayan’s idea, and she thought better of it.”

“Thank God. You know what they were saying in the Pentagon? If Golda Meir could come here during a war, that showed the Israelis
must be winning and didn’t really need any help.” With a glance through thick glasses over the sandwich, he says in an off-hand
way, “You’ve been at the Pentagon today. What’s your impression?”

“That all your Arabists have been lend-leased to Defense, Mr. Secretary, and are making policy.”

“Hm! Not bad.” Kissinger glances around at the handsomely furnished room, which looks out through bushes at a floodlit brownish
lawn. “You know, this is where Franklin Roosevelt conducted World War Two? The Map Room, he named it. He got the idea from
the war room Churchill had aboard the
Prince of Wales,
at the Argentia conference. A lucky room.” After a pause while he eats, Kissinger says, “All right, on Golda’s say-so I’ll
talk to you as I would to her in private. No diplomatics, nothing on the record. I’ll discuss two things, the cease-fire and
the airlift.”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary.”

“Cease-fire first. The Egyptians will want you to first agree to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines. Just for starters. That you
won’t do, I realize. You’ll want a return to the lines that existed right before Yom Kippur. Forget it. Over, dead, gone.
In the Pentagon they say,
‘How can we make the Arabs give back to Israel their own land that they’ve recaptured?’
What lies ahead as things stand now is a cease-fire in place, a disaster for you, then a tortuous political process which
will not help and may harm you. So, I say again,
Faites la guerre!
Change the picture on the battlefield!”

“We’re trying, Mr. Secretary.”

Kissinger nods. “The Russians won’t move for the cease-fire at the UN without us, not for a few more days. That much, détente
has accomplished. It’s no small thing. But we can stall only so long.”

“How long?”

“By Saturday, General, the United States will be in a very awkward spot. If the Russians move the cease-fire and everybody
else votes for it — which of course you can count on — how can we veto a unanimous resolution for peace?”

“Do the Arabs want a cease-fire, Mr. Secretary?”

“The Russians want it, that we know. As to the Arabs, we have to wait and see.” He seems about to say more, then eats, and
goes on abruptly. “Now, about an airlift. I’ve pressed since day one for expediting the items you’re short of. Dinitz will
confirm that. But until last night, I tell you man to man that I understood transport in Israeli aircraft was all you wanted.
Now things have changed. Journalists and congressmen, of course, will start howling for an immediate colossal airlift by the
United States Air Force. They think those things happen like turning on a faucet. I expect more realism from Golda Meir, and
less dramatics.”

“She will be happy, sir, if she has your word that an urgent airlift is in the works with your backing.”

The Secretary gives him a long solemn look. “General, the President has told me,
‘Israel mustn’t be allowed to lose.’
That’s why the Sixth Fleet has sailed east and taken station off Crete. It’s a signal the Soviets understand. He may be very
distracted, but his instinct for foreign policy is still keen. The President knows that if you’re defeated the Russians will
dominate the Middle East, the Arabs will be impossible to deal with, and the world balance will tilt against the United States.
I don’t know why the Pentagon doesn’t share that view, but I assure you I do.”

“Then am I to tell my Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary, this: that you yourself recognize the need for the airlift, that resistance
within your government, specifically at the Pentagon, is causing delay, but that the President and you will ensure that the
airlift flies by Saturday?”

Staring at him, the Secretary of State finishes the sandwich and brushes crumbs from his dinner jacket. “I begin to see why
Golda sent you.”

“Am I mistaken, sir?”

An impatient shrug. “General, the airlift is a problem for the Pentagon and the Department of Transportation. I’m lost in
all this talk about civilian charters, painted-out military markings, and so on—”

“You said Israel must achieve a military success by Saturday, Mr. Secretary, or the U.S. may face a dilemma at the UN. In
my country it’s already Thursday. An immediate all-out battle, very costly in weaponry and blood, is the task you’re laying
on us.”

“I’m not. For your own preservation you must do it.”

“Yes, but how do we fight on after that, Mr. Secretary, if all-out resupply is not in the air by then? If we’re overwhelmed,
no matter how well we fight, by the sheer weight of Soviet metal?”

In slow, heavy, irritated tones, the Secretary says, “Listen, General, our national concern is not just the predicament of
our good friend Israel. Mrs. Meir understandably thinks of nothing else, but we must also consider the welfare of our European
allies and Japan, and our détente with the Soviet Union, the one present ray of light in world affairs. This war must lead
to a peaceful long-range settlement in that vital oil region. There are those in the Pentagon who cry that if we now give
Israel any help at all, we
‘blow our role as honest broker.’
Those are the elements we deal with, hour by hour.”

“Mr. Secretary, what would you say to my Prime Minister, if in fact she had flown here and was now sitting in this chair?”

“Well put.” The anger dims from the Secretary’s face and voice. “Number one,
for God’s sake keep me accurately informed of the battlefield situation
. If I’m in the dark about that, how can I be a useful friend in negotiations? Second, don’t talk or even
think
cease-fire anymore, while you’re losing in the field. The other side is brutally quick to sense weakness. They’ll just keep
upping the price. Third, the status quo ante is
gone
. For good! It was always an unstable stalemate. It couldn’t have lasted. Mr. Sadat fooled you by crying wolf for years and
then launching a war that looked unwinnable, just to break up the political ice. I’m sure his success has amazed him. He’s
proved himself a statesman, and you may hate him now, but with such an astute personality you may in time do business.” The
Secretary glances at his watch. “As for the airlift, I would emphasize the President’s resolve that Israel must not lose the
war, and ask her patience. And please, no dramatics.”

“Mr. Secretary, I’ve read your work on Metternich,
A World Restored
.”

“You have?” Kissinger looks surprised and pleased. “Was it all right?”

“Outstanding. In one passage you call a statement of Castlereagh’s
‘thin gruel.’
”

This surprises a hearty laugh from Kissinger. “I must go. I would tell Mrs. Meir one thing more. She’s thrown her voice very
effectively across the ocean. But I’d hasten to add, General Barak is no dummy.”

“You’re a flatterer, Mr. Secretary.”

In Jerusalem, for some time before the alarming Brezhnev cease-fire proposal reaches Nixon and is relayed to Dinitz, a fateful
strategy conference has been going on in Golda Meir’s office. More senior officers are crowded into the Prime Minister’s conference
room than Sam Pasternak can remember from his days in the Mossad; and since then, this is the first time he has been included
in such a meeting. Out of the government for nearly a year, Sam has been keeping his mouth shut and scribbling notes on the
different view-points:

Allon:
Transfer all available forces south and cross the Canal at any cost, because hitting Syria won’t end the war …

Dado:
No, Syria now. The world’s waiting for Israel to do something, and we can move tomorrow only in the north …

Benny Peled:
Agrees. Air Force almost down to the red line, can operate for three or four more days, wants quick action, hit Syria now
…

Dayan:
Neither option viable. No decision can be forced on either front, we lack the strength. Retreat and dig in north and south,
harden up defensive positions — the Purple Line and the Sinai mountain passes — and regroup to fight another day …

Pasternak is thinking that Dado long ago foresaw this dilemma and warned the politicians that, with the cuts in the military
budget, he could not wage all-out war on two fronts. The question now is, which way to hit out? At which front to throw all
strength to seek a decision in the war? Round and round the arguments have gone while Golda Meir sits silent at the head of
a long table, yellow-faced with fatigue and concern; almost like a wax museum effigy of herself, which puffs smoke and brings
cigarettes to its mouth with one movable arm.