Six Days of War

by Michael B. Oren

  Anderson arrived in Cairo on the evening of May 30 to find Nasser relaxed and confident, buoyed by King Hussein’s visit. He insisted that Israel had massed thirteen brigades on the Syrian border and would eventually attack, but that Egypt had “elaborate plans” for a counterstrike. His main fear was that Syria, disgruntled by Egypt’s new treaty with Jordan, or one of the Palestinian organizations would start a war in which Egypt would have to intervene. Complimented by Anderson about the fact that intellectuals throughout the Arab world were as committed to him as they were opposed to the notion of peace, Nasser quipped, “I am impressed more by the quality of the people who made these assertions than by the fact that they were made.”

  The discussion at last got down to defusing the present crisis. Nasser belittled the chances for successful arbitration by either the UN or the International Court of Justice, and rejected American mediation outright. He suggested,s instead, a neutral negotiator, but declined to specify whom. As for inviting ‘Amer to Washington, Nasser expressed a preference for sending his vice president, Zakkariya Muhieddin, who had just been named commander of the Peoples Resistance Forces. Anderson agreed, and proposed a reciprocal visit of Vice president Humphrey to Egypt.

  The talk produced a letter in which Nasser finally responded to Johnson’s appeal of eleven days before. The tone was anything but temperate as the Egyptian leader again accused Israel of plotting to invade Syria, of consistently violating UN resolutions, and committing aggression. By contrast, the measures taken by Egypt in the Straits were “only logical,” and it was “unthinkable” that Israeli cargoes could pass. Yet, for all its obstinacy, the cable concluded by accepting Muhieddin’s invitation to Washington and welcoming the American vice president to Cairo. This was precisely the opening the White House had sought. The Middle East Control Group went promptly into high gear preparing for the Muhieddin-Johnson meeting, including ideas for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement and “certain Levantine touches” for Nasser’s ego. Reservations were made for the advance Egyptian party’s arrival on June 5.35

  American policy was registering progress—in planning for Regatta, in spurring the Security Council and renewing ties with Nasser, in spite of still-formidable obstacles. Yet on one issue, and arguably the most crucial—Israel—as many questions as answers remained.

  The swearing in of Moshe Dayan as defense minister was greeted ambivalently in Washington. While not “unduly optimistic,” Barbour thought that the former general’s appointment would bolster his country’s sense of security: “If we are able to keep up the diplomatic momentum…our chances of success with the Israelis are better now than they have been heretofore.” Rusk, more cautious, pointed out that, politically, Dayan was obliged neither to Eshkol nor to Ben-Gurion, and could be expected to strike an independent path. “There are no—repeat no—new indications [that an] outbreak of hostilities is imminent in the period of diplomatic maneuvering ahead,” he advised his ambassadors. But others were less sanguine. Lucius Battle predicted, “This [Dayan’s] appointment increases the likelihood of an eventual decision to resort to military action.”

  The salient question remained: How long would the Israelis wait? Would they hang fire for the month Regatta’s planners deemed necessary to mount the operation or, as U.S. intelligence believed, start the war in two weeks?

  While retaining a gut sense that the Israelis would, in the end, “go it alone,” Johnson was determined to gain as much time as possible for diplomacy. As a counterpoint to Muhieddin’s visit to Washington, the president instructed White House counsel Harry McPherson, then in Vietnam, to stop over in Israel on June 5. He also authorized high-level, candid meetings with Eshkol’s personal emissary, Meir Amit.36

  Compact, energetic (thirty-five years later, he would still be heading Israel’s satellite program), the forty-four-year-old Amit had served with the Haganah and as operations chief in 1956, only later switching from the field to espionage. In 1961, after earning his degree at Columbia Business School, he was appointed head of IDF Intelligence, and two years later took on the directorship of the Mossad. He guided the organization away from Nazi-hunting to tracking Egypt’s missile program, ran—and lost—Eli Cohen as a spy, and scored his boldest achievement in August 1966 with the defection of an Iraqi MiG-21 pilot together with his plane. He had also established ties with Egyptian Gen. ‘Azm al-Din Mahmud Khalil—ties that Amit tried to reestablish in the hope of easing the crisis in Sinai, only to receive no response. Since then he had helped Rabin and Ya’akov Herzog draft the warnings to Eban in Washington, convinced that Israel had to act immediately and that once it did, it would win. Confidently he assured Eshkol, “If he [Nasser] strikes first, he’s finished.”

  Amit was well known in Washington, where his reputation was strictly no-nonsense. “A born Israeli…he is so much more natural and relaxed than Harman and Eban who must constantly prove their authenticity,” Walt Rostow briefed the president, adding, “These boys are going to be hard to hold about a week from now.” Particularly extensive were his contacts in the CIA, and especially with John Hadden, chief of the agency’s Tel Aviv desk. Earlier in the crisis, Hadden had wakened Amit at 2:30 A.M. just to warn him, “if you fire the first shot, you’re on your own.”

  Confirming whether that warning still held was Amit’s first task. His second, no less critical, was to convince the Americans that, “had Israel been allowed to do the dirty work ten days ago, there would have been no danger of U.S. involvement, but now if Israel doesn’t act, the United States will have to in order to save what’s left of the Middle East.” The Israelis did not want Americans fighting for them—“It’s not Vietnam here,” Amit would say—but only to check any Soviet intervention, provide political support in the UN, and expedite arms deliveries. Eshkol tried to make light of Amit’s mission, dismissing it as fantoflach (Yiddish for “house slippers”), but the message it bore was grave: “Israel’s blood is on America’s conscience.”

  Leaving Israel incognito on May 31, Amit was distressed to see several prominent Israelis on board his plane, apparently fleeing the country. In Washington, he was met by James Jesus Angleton, the Americans’ long-standing liaison with the Mossad, which dubbed him “the greatest Zionist in the CIA.” Angleton, to Amit, sounded more bellicose than most Israeli generals, insisting that the Soviets had been planning this crisis for years and that Johnson would secretly welcome an Israeli initiative to thwart them. Regatta, he claimed, “will never get off the ground.” Similar opinions were expressed by Richard Helms, another acquaintance of Amit’s, who added, however, that the final word would have to come from Johnson, Rusk, or McNamara.

  There was one more meeting at CIA headquarters, with thirty Middle East experts who “opened the books” on their estimates of Arab forces and found that they agreed entirely with Israel’s. “The atmosphere was highly explosive, but also filled with good will,” Amit commented, quoting Jack Smith, the department head, telling him, “You’ve been preaching to the converted.” The key discussion, however, still lay ahead, with McNamara.

  The former Harvard Business professor and Ford company president, the architect of much of America’s involvement in Vietnam, McNamara was known for his cold, methodical demeanor. Yet, tieless and in his shirtsleeves, he greated Amit warmly. He sent regards to Moshe Dayan—“I admire that man”—and asked some pointed questions: If a war broke out, how long would it last? How many casualties would Israel sustain? Amit answered succinctly. The war would be over in two days; Israeli casualties would be high, but less than they were in 1948. He presented Israel’s requests for American political and military support, and then, in an effort to draw his host out on the question of a preemptive strike, Amit said that he was returning with a recommendation for war. “I read you loud and clear,” McNamara replied simply: “this was very helpful.”

  Amit’s records show that Johnson called twice during the meeting and was fully apprised of its substance. The Mossad chief thus concluded that the preside
nt, like his defense secretary, was not telling Israel explicitly not to go to war. McNamara would later object to that conclusion: “I cannot believe that he thought that. We were absolutely opposed to preemption. We were afraid that preemption, by provoking the Soviets to intervene, would necessitate American intervention to save Israel.” But Amit had discerned the internal divisions over Regatta in the White House and, apart from supplying some gas masks and medicines, its refusal to aid Israel militarily. If Johnson’s purpose in accommodating Amit had been to allay Israel’s fears and buy more time for diplomacy, the goal had been emphatically missed. Amit would fly home more than ever convinced that Israel gained nothing by waiting, except compounding its losses.37

  It was the same conclusion reached by Abe Harman, most reluctantly, after nearly three weeks of intensive efforts to achieve a modus operandi with the United States. The ambassador was set to return for consultations in Jerusalem, to submit his opinion alongside Amit’s. Before departing, however, he petitioned Rusk one last time for concrete assurances for action. The secretary apologized, saying that he could not provide guarantees beyond what Israel had already received, and cautioned once again about striking preemptively. He also used the opportunity to announce the fact of Muhieddin’s coming visit to Washington, and pledged to keep Israel “in the picture.” Harman was crest-fallen. The administration would now open prolonged negotiations with Egypt; the convoy would be indefinitely delayed. “Does Israel have to tolerate 10,000 casualties before the United States conceded that aggression had occurred?” he asked. Should Egypt attack first, “Israel has had it,” he said.38

  Dayan ex Machina

  Amit would return to a country substantially different from the one he had left forty-eight hours before. The atmosphere of panic had begun to dissipate, to be replaced by a growing sense of equanimity, if not confidence. In the army, the generals had begun to regard ha-Hamtana—the waiting period—as a mixed blessing, permitting the Egyptians to dig in but in increasingly forward lines which, once penetrated, would leave much of Sinai defenseless. A large portion of Egypt’s air force had also been advanced eastward, to well within range of Israeli jets. The IDF, meanwhile, had used the time to perfect its offensive strategies, to train and position its men. The willy-nilly transfer of troops that Gen. Sharon had complained about was over. “The army was bolted and locked,” recalled Shlomo Merom, a senior intelligence officer. “We had only to pull the trigger.”

  Politically, also, the situation in Israel had stabilized. The enervating wheeling and dealing of the previous weeks was past, having produced a National Unity Government including the major opposition parties. This held its first meeting on Thursday night, June 1. Menachem Begin, now minister without portfolio, delivered a characteristically purplish peroration on the destiny of the Jewish nation and the harsh trials awaiting it, to which Eshkol responded, “Amen. Amen.”39 Then, in its first concrete act, the Cabinet decided on a joint session of the general staff and the Ministerial Defense Committee, to be held at 9:25 A.M. the following morning, in the Pit.

  These transformations were the result of many factors—public pressure, improved logistics, the strangely calming realization that Israel indeed stood alone. None was so pivotal, however, as the ascendance of one individual, the new defense minister, Moshe Dayan.

  “It is rather like arguing with an Irishman,” wrote Michael Hadow of his many conversations with Dayan. “He enjoys knocking down ideas just for the sake of argument and one will find him arguing in completely opposite directions on consecutive days.” Indeed, Dayan was a classic man of contradictions: famed as a warrior, he professed deep respect for the Arabs, including those who attacked his village, Nahalal, in the early 1930s, and who once beat him and left him for dead. A poet, a writer of children’s stories, he admitted publicly that he regretted having children, and was a renowned philanderer as well. A lover of the land who made a hobby of plundering it, he had amassed a huge personal collection of antiquities. A stickler for military discipline, he was prone to show contempt for the law. As one former classmate remembered, “He was a liar, a braggart, a schemer, and a prima donna—and in spite of that, the object of deep admiration.”

  Equally contrasting were the opinions about him. Devotees such as Meir Amit found him “original, daring, substantive, focused,” a commander who “radiated authority and leadership [with]…outstanding instincts that always hit the mark.” But many others, among them Gideon Rafael, saw another side of him: “Rocking the boat is his favorite tactic, not to overturn it, but to sway it sufficiently for the helmsman to lose his grip or for some of its unwanted passengers to fall overboard.” In private, Eshkol referred to Dayan as Abu Jildi, a scurrilous one-eyed Arab bandit.

  But whether fans or detractors, no one could impugn the richness of his experience. It began with his service under Britain’s legendary guerrilla leader, Orde Wingate, and then as a commander in the Haganah, an occupation that earned him two years in a British prison. Released in 1941, Dayan served as scout for the Allied assault against the Vichy French in Syria and Lebanon, losing his left eye in the engagement and acquiring his trademark black patch. Next, in the 1948 war, he commanded front-line units in Lod, Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley. Along with his military talents, his political acumen was recognized early, and after the war he became a delegate to the Armistice talks on Rhodes. Four years later, at age thirty-eight, Dayan was chief of staff, pursuing a retaliation policy denounced by most of the world but which made him exceedingly popular in Israel—a popularity only enhanced by his stellar performance in the Suez campaign. Thereafter, as a member first of Mapai and then of Rafi, Dayan was a shrewd, inscrutable politician—close but not beholden to Ben-Gurion, opposed but not implacably to Eshkol. He was “a solo performer,” wrote Rafael, “partly respected, partly feared for his political stunts.”40

  Dayan’s return to public office had the unique result of assuaging both the military and the citizenry, and of galvanizing the Cabinet for the paramount decisions ahead. “Dayan’s appointment was a breath of fresh air,” recalled Gedalia Gal, a deputy commander of a paratrooper battalion, “He symbolized a change…People were anxious not because we didn’t go to war, but because of the government’s apparent fear of war.”

  This impact of this Dayan ex Machina was apparent at the new coalition’s first meeting, Friday night, which the minister of defense dominated. Israel had two choices, he explained: either accept the blockade as a fait accompli and dig in for permanent defense—not a viable option—or strike the Egyptians at once. He stressed that the country’s “one chance for winning this war is in taking the initiative and fighting according to our own designs,” sounding optimistic. “If we open with an attack and break through with our tanks to Sinai, they have to fight our war. What’s more, we have the chance of maintaining our other fronts with limited forces.” His tone then dropped, turning baleful: “God help us though if they hit us first. Not only do we lose our first strike capability…but we’ll have to fight the war according to their plan…and on territory vital to us.”41

  Dayan spoke as if war were a foregone conclusion, but Eshkol had yet to be convinced. Even if there were no diplomatic solution, Israel still had much to fear from the Soviets, he believed. An Israeli expert on Moscow’s foreign policy, Berger Barzilai, a veteran Communist who had been exiled by Stalin to Siberia, had recently told IDF intelligence that the USSR would muster all its influence and power to maintain its Middle East position. Asked pointedly if the Soviets would intervene in a war, Berger replied, “of course.” Berger’s appraisal seemed to be confirmed by yet another cable from Kosygin to Eshkol, another warning that “if the Israel Government insists on taking upon itself the responsibility for the outbreak of armed confrontation then it will pay the full price of such an action.”

  Eshkol’s hopes still focused on the Americans, on their willingness, if not to challenge the blockade themselves, then to back Israel’s effort to break it. In an attempt to verify
such willingness, Eshkol again turned to military intelligence, requesting that it document any sign that the White House might support unilateral Israeli action—the so-called “green light.” Among the evidence collected were remarks by Newsweek columnist Joseph Alsop and the Defense Department’s Townsend Hoopes denying any serious U.S. intent to reopen the Straits and urging Israel to do it alone. According to Abe Feinberg, Goldberg had already convinced Johnson that an Israeli preemptive strike was the only possible course. Also included in the file were intercepted communications showing that Arab leaders no longer regarded the convoy idea as a serious threat. After Muhieddin’s visit to Washington, intelligence warned, the U.S. would probably support reviving the Armistice regime and stationing UN troops on Israeli territory.

  These data spurred yet another, quieter Israeli initiative in Washington. In a private conversation with Walt Rostow, Evron sounded out the administration on a scenario in which an Israeli freighter would test the blockade. Egyptian troops would open fire on the ship and Israel would respond by attacking Sharm al-Sheikh, most likely precipitating war. Would the United States stand by its 1957 commitments to Israel, Evron asked; would it “stand off” the Soviets? The minister suggested that such a plan might better serve U.S. interests vis-à-vis both the Arabs and the Russians, while fulfilling Israel’s as well. If, as both U.S. and Israeli intelligence predicted, Egypt did not fire at the international convoy, the issue of the blockade would never be decided. To Evron’s—and Eshkol’s—surprise, Rostow did not reject the suggestion, but passed it on to the president along with a personal caveat: “Whoever is the bigger winner [in the crisis], we are the sure loser.”42