The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (49 page)

At the end of the two-hour session the White House Press Office issued the following statement:

The meeting this morning was devoted to a thorough and searching discussion of how to move forward toward an overall settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The president and the prime minister each developed their ideas on the issues involved. They agreed that all the issues must be settled through negotiations between the parties based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which all the governments directly concerned have accepted. They also agreed that this goal would best be served by moving rapidly toward the convening of the Geneva Conference this year, keeping in mind at the same time the importance of careful preparation…. The president and the prime minister will meet again tonight at the working dinner, which the president is giving at the White House.

Photograph credit: Ya’acov Sa’ar & Israel Government Press Office

Following a White House dinner President Carter escorts Prime Minister Begin arm-in-arm to his private quarters for a nocturnal chat, 19 July 1977

Jimmy Carter ran an austere White House, and, consonant with
his innate Calvinism, cast himself in the role of citizen-President. He banned
Hail to the Chie
f
, slashed the entertainment budget, sold the presidential yacht, pruned the limousine fleet, and generally rid his mansion of foppery, artifice, and pretentiousness. He even carried his own bags. So the dinner that evening in the Executive Dining Room was, characteristically, a business suit affair. It was gracious, nevertheless, the president smiling as he opened the proceedings with an announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen
–
history is being made here tonight. This is the first time ever that a wholly kosher menu under strict rabbinic supervision is being served in the White House. And this, in honor of, and out of respect for, our esteemed guest of honor, the prime minister of the State of Israel, Mr. Menachem Begin.”

I joined in the applause wholeheartedly, recalling those occasions when I had dined in this place in the entourage of other prime ministers, picking at some vegetable dish while they enjoyed gourmet
trey
f
. A couple of weeks before our trip Begin had charged me with the almost impossible task of recommending a high-class kosher caterer for the occasion, this at the request of the White House, and in consultation with our embassy. The task was next to impossible because of the ferocious competition between the potential candidates. I quickly surrendered the challenge to the Rabbinical Council of America, a central rabbinic organization which, together with the White House housekeeper, Mary Lou, vetted menus and cast the deciding vote. The result was a succulent banquet of roast lamb, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted potatoes and green beans with almonds, followed by fruit and assorted desserts, all washed down with fine Israeli wines.

The guests were of the Georgetown media elite and politicians, with a goodly sprinkling of Jewish establishment bigwigs, and all applauded and laughed when Mr. Begin, rising to toast his host said, tongue-in-cheek, “Mr. President, before I thank you for your warm hospitality, I have a personal statement to make. I owe you and some others in this historic room a profound apology. I know that my electoral victory came to you as a total surprise, so I crave your forgiveness. And by the by, my name does rhyme with Fagin.”

“Oh my God, is
he
funny!” enthused the woman sitting opposite me, grabbing a pen and jotting down his comment. We were sitting at a long dining table, one of four that branched, candelabra-like, from the top table, where the president and prime minister sat. Hamilton Jordan, the president’s youthful chief of staff, had introduced her to me earlier, giving a name that sounded like Merry Trash. The hand she had extended was cluttered with rings. She was wrapped in garb that looked like grain sacks. Her face was creased, and divided by a pair of horn-rimmed dark glasses. I had gathered that she was a high-flying Washington gossip columnist.

“Wow!” exploded Merry Trash, with a sharp intake of breath. She was reacting to an observation Mr. Begin had just made in his toast that “Israel is a tiny land which God, in His wisdom, endowed with virtually no natural resources. Why? Because when the Almighty took us out of Egypt He told Moses to turn left instead of right. So Ishmael got the oil and Israel got the stones
–
two tablets of stone with their ten ‘shalts’ and ‘shalt nots.’ And by them did we shape a moral civilization, and by them do we strive to live.”

“Oh my God, he sounds so scriptural,” gushed Merry Trash, in a Gloria Swanson surge of passion. “He carries his faith like a humble burden.”

Ignoring this outburst, the man on my right, Senator Richard Stone of Florida, observed dryly, “I understand that things today with the president went somewhat better than expected.”

I concurred.

“Perhaps not stratospherically better,” the senator added, “but apparently you Israelis put a little more on the table than you were expected to, and found a little more than you expected in return.”

“I think the prime minister and the president just liked one another a little more than they expected to,” said Hamilton Jordan easily. He was in his mid-thirties, and looked like an athlete.

Ambassador Samuel Lewis leaned toward us and, lighting up a cigar, remarked. “As you probably know, Senator, the atmosphere of this visit just didn’t happen of itself. A few of us had to work very hard to persuade some people around the president”
–
he was staring at Hamilton Jordan, who smiled back at him – “to reshape the preparations, to give the visit a different spirit, not to be too confrontational.”

Merry Trash began to record what the ambassador was saying, so he threw her a peppery glance and made it clear he was talking off the record. She laid down her pen and, he, pointing with his cigar in the direction of the national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, added, “Zbig, I think, is still skeptical about the soft-touch approach. He would like the president to be tougher with Begin. But in my view the president has got it just right
–
co-opting the man, bringing him along, not engaging him too sharply. The object, after all, is to get him to Geneva.”

Merry Trash (could that really be her name?) effused, “But Ambassador,
darlin
g
, what has Mr. Begin actually conceded? What compromises has he
really
made? What’s he giving that will make the Arabs
want
to go to Geneva?”

A butler distracted Lewis’s attention by asking what he would like for dessert. Selecting the lemon meringue pie, Lewis tossed a smile at Merry Trash, and said, “My dear, that’s what it’s all about
–
making the right choices.” Then, puffing on his cigar, he looked up at the ceiling, as if gazing into an inscrutable future. Obviously, he was not going to be drawn into a question and answer session with this gossip columnist.

“What do you make of Begin as a man?” Senator Stone asked Lewis. “Or is that an indiscreet question?”

“Not at all. I like him. I think we’ve hit it off. I get a different sense of him one-on-one than I’d gotten from the briefings I’d read. Contrary to his popular image, he is determined not to lead Israel into war. My belief is he wants to go down in history as a peacemaker, as a Moses, not a Samson.”

“Good quote,” crunched Merry Trash, her mouth full of apple pie. “Can I use it?”

“No!” said Lewis.

“So, are you saying,” continued the senator, “there’s a chance that ultimately he’ll soften up, go along with Carter on things like the
PLO
and the settlements?”

“No, I’m not. He will be as stubborn as hell on those things, and will resist anything that can be characterized as pressure.”

Dinner now over, people began to mingle, and suddenly I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a distinguished-looking man with cropped silver hair and jovial, guileless eyes encased in thick spectacles, smiling down at me.

“Remember me?” he beamed.

“Justice Goldberg!”

Everyone within reach rose to shake the man’s hand, for no Jew enjoyed more public esteem in American life than did Arthur Goldberg. Now seventy, this son of eastern European immigrants, a one-time labor leader, had been President Kennedy’s secretary of labor and, after that, a supreme court justice. President Johnson made him ambassador to the United Nations and in that role he had been a principal draftsman of the celebrated United Nations Resolution 242. I knew him slightly, having been introduced to him by previous prime ministers.

“May I trouble you for a private word,” he asked affably, and he slipped his hand through the crook of my arm to walk me through the socializing guests, half a dozen of whom were lining up under a Lincoln portrait to rub shoulders with the president and the prime minister, some asking for their autographs.

We crossed a marble hallway to a lounge whose walls were covered in a red silk fabric and where two naval orderlies, all starched in white and gold, saluted rigidly as we entered, and then left. Clearly, Arthur Goldberg was familiar with these corridors.

The elder statesman closed the door and, all his affability gone, said, “I’ve dragged you in here because you’re the one person I recognize from the old days. There are some hard truths your new people in Jerusalem have to understand.”

Flabbergasted, I opened my mouth to respond, but he held up his hand to silence me, saying he expected no comment, no response, no observation; that I was just to listen to what he had to say and pass it on to whomever I saw fit. The first part of the message was that Begin’s visit was not what it appeared to be. Carter, he said, was trying very hard to put a positive gloss on things, to avoid a confrontation. Begin had to appreciate that all American presidents, secretaries of state, and pentagon officials knew only one kind of Israel
–
Labor Israel, the Israel of Ben-Gurion, Eshkol, Golda, Rabin
–
the Israel that was pragmatic, ready for territorial compromise for the sake of peace.

Then, even more passionately, “To most Americans, Begin’s ideology is an enigma. To the president, the ‘not an inch’ posture on the Land of Israel is baffling. It is equally puzzling to most American Jews. Sure, American Jews will support the prime minister in public. It’s the right thing to do. Begin, after all, is the head of a freely elected democratic government. But in private, many Jews are troubled and confused, myself included.”

I tried to get a word in, to tell him he should say this to Begin to his face, not to me, but again he shut me up and went on relentlessly. “The president has sincere feelings toward Israel. But I fear one day, in frustration, he might decide that Begin’s vision of retaining the whole of biblical Israel is so unreasonable – so unreasonable, so unrealistic, so liable to suck the United States into war, that he will decide it is his unbounded duty, nay his religious duty, to save Israel from itself. And if that were to happen, whatever the official disclaimers might be, it would mean only one thing – a settlement imposed on Israel by the Great Powers against its will.”

“But we have a September first, nineteen seventy-five letter from President Ford assuring Rabin that America would never impose a settlement to Israel’s disadvantage,” I said hotly.

“Forget that letter; it’s not a binding commitment. And just in case you’re thinking somebody in the Oval Office has put me up to this, think again. This is me, Arthur Goldberg, talking from the bottom of my heart, Jew to Jew. That’s all I have to say. Thanks for listening. And now I suggest you go back to the party. I’m going home.” And off he went, leaving me with the feeling that a stiletto had just punctured my innards.

When I walked back into the dining room it was resounding with a standing ovation. The president and the prime minister were on the point of leaving, and were waving their farewells. Carter took a step back to allow Begin to fully enjoy the limelight before leading him upstairs to his private quarters for a candid, face-to-face chat. I was now in a position to make an intelligent guess as to what that chat would be about.

Joining the exiting guests who were proceeding from the dining room to the marble entrance hall, where a string trio was serenading us goodnight, I fell into step with Merry Trash, who was in conversation with a large, sharp-nosed lady in green.

“
Darlin
g
, you look stunning,” said the lady, adding conspiratorially, “You know what Aliza Begin is up to tonight, don’t you?”

“Of course I know,” answered the gossip columnist, as if her professionalism had been called into question. “She’s been taken for dinner at La Grand Scene and then to the Kennedy Center to see
Porgy and Bes
s
.”

“Quite a woman, don’t you think?” said the lady in green.

“Millicent darling,” exclaimed Merry Trash, flipping a page of her notebook, “if you have a story to tell me about Aliza Begin
–
speak!”

“Well, you know that Grace Vance [wife of the secretary of state] gave Mrs. Begin a luncheon today.”

“Of course I know,” said Merry Trash archly. “What else is new?”

“Well, I swear you won’t believe what I’m about to say.”

“Try me.”

“When Grace Vance got up and introduced Aliza Begin, we all sat there clapping and waiting
–
there must have been about seventy-five of us
–
waiting for her to stand up and make a speech. But she just sat there.”

“Waddyanno?!”

“I swear! Frankly, it became a bit awkward. There we were applauding, and there was she just sitting there. Finally, Grace prevailed upon her to stand up. So this gray-haired little thing gets up, and she says, ‘Forgive me everybody. I’m the Greta Garbo of the family. I’m the silent one. I don’t make speeches.’ Boy, did we laugh! But then, someone at the next table insisted on asking her what she thought of her husband’s position about the settlements on the West Bank.”

“And her answer?” Merry Trash was scrawling ferociously.

“Strike me dead if she didn’t go straight up to that woman, put a hand on her shoulder, and say, ‘You want to know what
I
think, Madame? Forgive me, but a question like that you have to ask my husband. He was elected prime minister, not me.’ Well, wow! She had us all on our feet in fits of laughter. Talk about class! She’s some smart cookie, that lady.”

“Alla!” Menachem Begin called to his wife, in the highest of spirits, as he strode into the Blair House lounge, still outfitted as it had been a century-and-a-half ago, with immense, overstuffed, carved and inlaid furnishings. Yechiel Kadishai, General Poran, Dan Patir and I traipsed in after him. We had been killing time in an adjacent room, waiting for his return from his private chat with the president.

Clasping his wife’s hands, he beamed, “It went very well, Alla, better than I expected. We reached an understanding on important matters. We parted on the most heartwarming of terms.”

Aliza Begin, dressed in an unpretentious housecoat, laughed her mellifluous laugh, lit a cigarette, and while a fume of smoke coiled from her nose to the ceiling, said in her tobacco-roughened voice, “Excellent! Now sit down and relax, Menachem, and I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

A table had been set in front of the fireplace. It held a large china teapot surrounded by cups and saucers and, around them, rolls, pastries, cheeses, dips, and homemade bread and butter. A business card with the name of a kosher caterer from Baltimore also sat on the table.

I decided this was the moment to tell Begin about my encounter with Arthur Goldberg. He said nothing for a while, leaning forward and burying his face in his hands, deep in thought. Eventually he said,
“
Azoy! So that’s Goldberg’s reading, is it? Well, it’s not mine. Despite our differences, I think my meeting with Carter went encouragingly well, and so I shall report.”