The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (78 page)

“Is this a tip-off that he’s going to resign?”

“What are you talking about? Speak to Yechiel.” I did not know what else to say.

The next day, Begin spent tortuous hours agonizing over exactly how to communicate to the president that he was unfit to travel in a manner that would not diminish the dignity of his office nor his self-respect. Yechiel asked me to try and draft some appropriate language, but I could find none. Eventually, Begin was prevailed upon to speak directly to Reagan over the phone, and put the matter to him man to man.

“Mr. President,” said Begin, “I deeply regret to inform you that for personal reasons
–
not official ones
–
for personal reasons, I am unable to travel to Washington at this time. If it is acceptable to you, I would like to take up your invitation at some future date.”

The prime minister listened attentively to whatever the president was saying in response, and repeated softly, “Yes, that is correct, Ron, the reasons are purely personal.”

Again, he paused to listen, and then said, “I appreciate what you have just told me, and I reciprocate your kind words of goodwill. As for the idea of the two ministers traveling instead of me, I shall await your letter of invitation. And again, I thank you for your understanding and friendship. God bless you, my friend.”

When he replaced the receiver, he emitted an audible sigh of relief, and muttered,
“
Baruch Hashem!
Thank God that’s over and done with.”

As my office colleagues, all smiles and teases, raised their glasses to me at my farewell shindig, I felt self-conscious, but enormously flattered. Begin had waxed overly lyrical about my contributions as an aide, toasting me as “a cherished friend, an indispensable colleague, a veritable Shakespeare who will make a proud ambassador of our nation.”

Pleased though I was at my appointment to London, I was sorry to say goodbye to some of the people around me, most particularly Prime Minister Begin and, of course, Yechiel. Equally poignant was the thought of taking leave of this room, whose occupants had changed more often than the furnishings. These remained much the same as they were on the day in 1963 when I had first nervously entered, to be greeted by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who had put me at ease with his Yiddish witticisms and repartee.

I had witnessed so much here. I had seen how that most affable of men would, four years later, on the eve of the Six-Day War, display nerves of steel while facing a frightened nation that accused him of indecisiveness. Restraining his generals from precipitate action, he had not only won a war in six days, but sown the seeds of a virtual future alliance with the United States. I had seen Golda Meir sitting there in that same prime minister’s seat, confiding her personal intimacies to Oriana Fallaci. And in 1973, I had seen her steer the nation unflinchingly through the horrors of the Yom Kippur War, despite her advanced age and her ignorance of all things military. Then had come the no-nonsense, analytical-minded Yitzhak Rabin, with whom I had already formed a relationship in Washington. My promotion to the senior rank of adviser had allowed me the vantage point to observe him close-up as he oversaw the most daring rescue mission in living memory – the raid on Entebbe. And now here was Prime Minister Menachem Begin, bidding me farewell as I prepared to return to the country of my birth, carrying the credentials of the country of my birthright.

Packing!

Packing is one aspect of relocation which should never be done under stress. The more organized you are prior to packing, the less tiring and strenuous it is going to be, and fewer are the items likely to be misplaced or forgotten. It was the night before my family and I were scheduled to depart for London, 25 July 1983. We had already shipped off the bulky furniture by container, but we still had to pack our personal belongings. In leaving the packing until the last minute, I had failed to take into consideration the incessant interruptions: telephone calls from well-wishers, and the comings and goings of relatives and friends
–
terrific handshakes, heavy hugs, thumpings on the back, kisses
–
so it was close to midnight before I got round to bagging my own belongings, and the situation had certainly become stressful. And yet again, the phone rang, and Mimi answered.

“The prime minister wants to speak to you,” she called impatiently.

“My passport’s missing,” wailed Yael, our youngest daughter, who was joining us in London for a while, having recently completed her army service.

“Hello, Mr. Begin?”

“Yehuda, excuse my calling so late. I’ve just received a most important cable from the president of the United States and I would appreciate it if you would draft a reply. One of my
bachurim metzuyanim
[outstanding young men (that’s what he called his bodyguards)] will deliver the letter to you immediately, along with my suggested points of reply.”

“Anybody seen my passport?” called Yael.

“Mr. Begin, if you want me to call off London, I’ll do so,” I said, almost at the end of my tether. “I won’t leave tomorrow.”

“No, no. It’s important you go….”

“Abba, I can’t find my passport. Will somebody help me, please?” groaned Yael.

“Excuse me, one moment, Mr. Begin.” I cupped the receiver. “Yael, look in my briefcase. Maybe it’s there.” And then, “You were saying, Mr. Begin…”

“Harry Hurwitz will be starting in a couple of days, so you should go. It’s just that it’s urgent I send President Reagan my cabled reply tonight. And again, I’m deeply sorry for troubling you. My warmest best wishes to your wife. Travel well. And thank you once more for everything.”

The president’s cabled letter turned out to be a page and a half long, while the prime minister’s points of reply were a few paltry, almost illegible lines. They read:

Yehuda
–
Attached is the letter from President Reagan to me. With regard to the response, these are my suggestions:

a) Thanks.

b) Expressions of good wishes to Philip Habib and satisfaction at the appointment of McFarlane.

c) With regard to the visit of the two ministers
–
affirmative.

M.B.

My instant reaction was one of acute exasperation. Well did I recall Begin’s first day in office, when he had told me he never put his signature to anything he had not written or dictated himself. Yet here I was, under the stress of imminent departure on a major ambassadorial posting that was not without risk, and instead of packing and helping Yael find her passport, I was desperately trying to decipher the prime minister’s cramped and cryptic scribble. Still, soon enough my vexation gave way to a second and far more distressing thought: the realization that the man I had come to love and admire over these past six years was so weakened as to be virtually incapable of composing his own reply, in his own inimitable style. This wrenched at my heart.

So I plunked myself down, and frantically began to flesh out the note into a full-blown epistle. In it, the prime minister thanked the president for his generous remarks and expressions of friendship, praised Philip Habib expansively for his dedicated professionalism and invaluable contributions as the president’s Middle East envoy and noted with satisfaction the appointment of Bud McFarlane in his stead. He expressed gratification at the president’s invitation to Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Defense Minister Moshe Arens – both of whom had picked up much of the slack during Begin’s moments of relative inertia – for talks on all the issues of common interest, in place of himself who, regrettably, could not presently travel for personal reasons, and signed off with a fanfare to the everlasting friendship between the two peoples and countries.

With no secretary at hand to type the letter out, I speedily rewrote the whole thing in clear block letters, telephoned the foreign ministry’s communications center and gave instructions for someone to pick it up and send it off, and finished packing as best I could. On the morrow, I set out with my wife and daughter for London.

We were met at Heathrow Airport by a grand welcoming party, consisting of a bevy of embassy staff members, leaders of the Anglo-Jewish community, a squad of Scotland Yard bodyguards who instantly took me under their protection, and a Colonel from the British protocol office who addressed me grandly as “Your Excellency.”

Photograph credit: Sidney Harris

Prime Minister Begin’s urgent note to author on eve of his ambassadorial posting to London, 24 July 1983 (Translation, page 677)

The day soon came when I was to present my credentials to Queen Elizabeth
ii
, a ceremony that required my being trussed up in a tightly noosed and inflexible winged collar and white bow tie. Collar and tie were mounted by studs to a dress shirt, its starched-pleated front as unyielding as a breastplate. A white waistcoat held my middle in like a corset, and all was framed by a black, long-tailed morning coat.

I must have looked grand seated in an eighteenth-century gold-and black-lacquered ceremonial coach, with wheels as high as my head, attended by liveried, top-hatted royal horsemen who handled the team of four white horses as they clip-clopped through Hyde Park toward the gates of Buckingham Palace. There, crimson-uniformed ceremonial guards marching their sentry paths snapped to attention in salute at my entry, while tourists, delighted by the pageantry, applauded and clicked their cameras. I waved back feeling ridiculous, sweating profusely.

Escorted into the Queen’s chamber by an equerry dressed like the Duke of Wellington, I executed the choreographed dance of obeisance in which I had been thoroughly rehearsed by the chief of protocol: one bow of the head at the door, two steps forward, another bow, two further steps forward, one more bow, and then, within reach of the sovereign lady, I duly handed her an embossed document and proclaimed, “Your Majesty, I have the honor to present to you my credentials from President Chaim Herzog as the Ambassador of Israel to the Court of St. James’s.”

The credentials read:

To her Majesty Elizabeth the Second…My Great and Good Friend,

Holding in esteem the relations of friendship and mutual understanding existing between your realm and the State of Israel, and being desirous to develop these friendly relations, I, in accordance with the powers vested in me by law, have decided to appoint Mr. Yehuda Avner to reside near Your Majesty as our Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. The character and abilities of Mr. Avner lead me to believe that he will fulfill the mission with which he is charged in such a manner as to merit Your Majesty’s trust and approbation, and prove himself worthy of the confidence I place in him. I, therefore, request Your Majesty to receive our Ambassador favourably and to give credence to all that he shall have the honour to communicate to Your Majesty on the part of the Government of Israel. May I express to Your Majesty my sentiments of high esteem and send you my best wishes for your well-being and the well-being and prosperity of your realm.

Author mounting carriage to Buckingham Palace for presentation of his credentials to the Queen, 8 August 1983

Your good friend,

Chaim Herzog

The Queen nodded an acknowledgement, took the document into her white-gloved hand, passed it on to her chamberlain, and in a slightly mystified voice, said, “I do believe this is the first time I have ever received credentials from a foreign ambassador actually born in this country. How did you manage that?”

Anticipating the question, I had prepared a rather high-minded response. “Your Majesty,” said I, “though physically born in this country, I was given birth spiritually in Jerusalem, from whence my ancestors were exiled by Roman legions two thousand years ago.”

“Were they really?” said the Queen. “How unfortunate!” And she began to talk about the weather.

This was something to behold. There I was, alluding to the mysteries of Jewish history’s conundrums and there she was, talking about the weather.

Upon presenting my wife, the Queen was intrigued to learn that she, too, was of English origin. Somehow, they began talking about their mothers. My mother-in-law was of a similar age to that of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

“My mother,” Queen Elizabeth was saying to Mimi, “makes me feel quite inept sometimes, as if I am a little girl. Unlike me, my mother, who is now eighty-three, does not need spectacles. And there’s nothing wrong with her legs at all. She can stand about for ages. And she walks very well, too. So if I ever dare say to her that I’m a little tired she snaps back, ‘Utter nonsense,’ and carries on without the slightest sign of weariness. I presume people born in the horse-and-carriage age have more stamina than our generation.” And then, with a sigh, hands folded in a pose of acceptance, “They seem to function at a much more measured pace than we do, don’t you think? They know how to conserve their energies.”

The royal chamberlain interrupted with a judicious signal that it was time I introduce the senior staff members of the embassy, after which he sounded a discreet cough to indicate the audience was over. We all bowed or curtsied in perfect configuration, took two steps back, bowed or
curtsied
again, took two more steps back, bowed or curtsied one last time, and made our way out of the chamber in faultless formation.