Yet still the Jordanians battled. Khalidi called for air cover; his request passed from Riyad in Amman to Cairo, where Fawzi conveyed it to the Syrians. With Jordan beleaguered and Egyptian tanks crossing the Negev, now was no time to hang fire, the general said. Fawzi’s reply came at 9:30 that night: Syrian planes would attack Israeli forces in the Jenin area at first light tomorrow.31
In fact, Syria had little air force left. Two-thirds of it—2 Ilyushin-28 bombers, 32 MiG-21’s, 23 MiG-17’s and 3 helicopters—had been eliminated in eighty-two midday sorties conducted by the IDF against the air bases of Dmair, Damascus, Saiqal, Marj Rial, and T-4. The Iraqi base at H-3 was also hit and ten of its planes destroyed. Shorn of the element of surprise, the Israelis lost ten planes as well, most of them to ground fire. Six pilots were killed, two of whom managed to bail out, only to be butchered by Syrian villagers.32
“Our forces carried out a heavy bombing of the enemy throughout the northern sector,” declared Hafez al-Assad. “The enemy has lost most of its air power.” The Syrians claimed that they, and not Israel, had started the war, that sixty-one Israeli planes had been downed, and Haifa’s oil refinery razed. “We have decided that this battle will be one for the final liberation from imperialism and Zionism…We shall meet in Tel Aviv,” proclaimed President Atassi.
The Syrians’ sword-rattling merely hid their shock at the devastating blow just dealt them. Central front commander Mustafa Tlas, having narrowly escaped his tent as Israeli jets peppered it with cannon fire, quickly moved his headquarters to the rear. “Major Tawfiq al-Jahani offered me a cigarette to calm my nerves, but I refused it and swore off smoking from that moment on.” But not all of Syria’s officers were numbed. “We must attack before Israel preempts and surprises us with a combined armored and infantry assault,” Assad urged at a meeting of the junta that afternoon. Atassi raised the possibility of striking Israel through Lebanon to lessen the danger of a counterattack on Syrian territory. But the Lebanese proved resistant to the idea, and orders were instead issued to begin Operation Victory at 5:45 the next morning. In preparation for the offensive, Syrian artillery was to open fire on Israeli settlements—Rosh Pina, Ayelet HaShachar, and Mishmar HaYarden were singled out—along the thirty-mile front.33
The shelling commenced at 2:30 P.M. and intensified throughout the afternoon. Residents of the settlements furiously lobbied the government to invade the Golan and so free them once and for all from the Syrian threat. Yariv warned of a Syrian offensive forming in the central Golan sector, opposite Kibbutz Gadot, and reported that Russian communications had been intercepted in the area. Rabin requested permission to strike preemptively, at least across the DZ’s but Dayan would not be persuaded. With Israeli forces already fighting on two fronts, they hardly needed to face a third, the defense minister reasoned. Reluctantly, he allowed IDF artillery and planes to return Syria’s fire, but warned them to avoid hitting civilian villages. As long as Damascus refrained from land operations, Dayan decided, there would be no war in the north.34
Dayan’s efforts to limit the conflict—earnest or, as Lior believed, disingenuous—could not diminish the fact that tens of thousands of men, Arabs and Israelis, were already engaged in combat. Though the course of the fighting, particularly in the air, had gone in Israel’s favor, there was no way of predicting the directions it would ultimately take. The same chaos that had characterized political events of the preceding months continued to hold sway in the war. But the context also remained salient—a context comprised not only of the actions of Israel and the Arab states, but of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the UN.
Diplomacy Stumbles
The phone in the presidential bedroom started ringing at 4:35 A.M. On the other end was Walt Rostow, reporting that war in the Middle East had commenced. Rostow had spent the previous two hours in the Situation Room, listening to the first reports of military activity. Only once these were verified did he put through his call. Johnson said, “thank you,” calmly, then made several calls of his own—to Rusk, McNamara, and Goldberg. Then, after a quick breakfast, the president joined Rostow, Richard Helms, and Earle Wheeler in the Situation Room where, the log recorded, “all HELL broke loose.”
The problem was basic intelligence. The Americans knew only that several Sinai airfields had been rendered unserviceable, and that a ground war was now under way. Egyptian sources claimed that Israel had initiated hostilities with an attempt to bomb Cairo and block the Suez Canal, losing 158 planes in the process. But Israeli officials—Eban and Evron—swore that Egypt had fired first, dispatching waves of jets in the direction of the border and penetrating the Negev with tanks. U.S. intelligence sources nevertheless concluded that Egyptian estimates were “probably highly inflated,” and should be “reduced by a coefficient of ten.” Israel, rather, had acted preemptively and had quickly gained the upper hand in both its air and ground maneuvers.
Such news brought little joy to the administration, however. “There was no relief at the early indications of Israeli successes,” McNamara remembered, “We had no idea how things would work out, whether we might not have to get involved directly ourselves.” Rusk, though relieved that the Israelis were not “being driven onto the beaches,” remained “angry as hell” at them for undermining Regatta and the Muhieddin visit, which he still believed might have yielded results. Johnson also felt saddened by the failure of his diplomatic efforts—later he wrote, “I have never concealed my regret that Israel decided to move when it did”—and apprehensive about the future course of the war.35
The deepest of those fears concerned the Soviets and their willingness to intervene. At 7:47, a general on duty at the Pentagon’s War Room called McNamara and told him that, “Premier Kosygin is on the ‘hot line’ and asks to speak to the president.” The hot line, locally known as Mo(scow)link, had been installed in the Pentagon after the Cuban missile affair and used subsequently for conveying holiday greetings, but never during a bona fide crisis. The defense secretary had the hot line patched into the White House Situation room.
“What should we say?” McNamara asked.
“My God,” was Johnson’s reply. “What should we say?”
Kosygin waited for acknowledgment that Johnson was indeed present before dispatching his message: “It is the duty of all great powers to achieve the immediate cessation of the military conflict. The Soviet Government has acted and will act in this direction. We hope that the Government of the United States will also act in the same manner and will exert the appropriate influence on…Israel.”
The reply came half an hour later, when Rusk conveyed to Gromyko his “dismay” at reports of the fighting, and assured him of Washington’s efforts to prevent it. “We feel it is very important that the United Nations Security Council succeed in bringing this fighting to an end as quickly as possible and are ready to cooperate with all members…to that end.” Finally, the president himself wrote, opening his cable with “Dear Comrade Kosygin”—in the Kremlin, some people thought it was a joke—agreeing with the Soviet concept of great power duties and reiterating Rusk’s request for swift action in the Security Council. “You may be assured we will exercise all our influence to bring hostilities to an end,” Johnson pledged.
The “constructive and friendly” nature of these exchanges—seventeen more would follow—went far toward assuaging American anxieties regarding the Soviets’ state of mind. Yet Johnson was loath to take any chances. To avoid the impression of collusion with Israel, he ordered the 6th Fleet, including the carriers America and Saratoga, to remain near Crete, and a marine landing team to continue its leave on Malta. An embargo of all U.S. arms shipments was also levied on the entire Middle East. The sole communication with Levi Eshkol was indirect, conveyed by Harry McPherson as he arrived in Israel, and very brief. “May God give us strength to protect the right,” wrote Johnson.36
Presciently, even while addressing urgent strategic matters, Johnson was already thinking of a possible postwar settlement in t
he Middle East. The notion that war might facilitate, rather than void, such a breakthrough was not new to American thinking. As early as May 15, Harold Saunders had suggested that the White House consider whether, “if fighting starts, there is some gain in delaying our response long enough to allow a clear Israeli military victory (presuming they’re able)…[and] whether there’s anything to be gained from a blowup in the form of settling borders and, maybe even refugees.” Two weeks later, Eugene Rostow empowered a Middle East Task Force of senior military and civilian officials to submit their “brightest ideas” on a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. “Let us not forget that a crisis is also an opportunity,” he reminded the Force. “Many patterns become loosened, and doors open. Let your minds rove over the horizon.”
Now, as the first day of the war drew to a close, Walt Rostow wrote the president recommending “we should begin…talking with the Russians and, if possible, with others about the terms of a settlement.” This would be achieved by trading Israel’s newly acquired territories for Arab concessions. “A cease-fire will not answer the fundamental questions in the minds of Israelis until they have acquired so much real estate and destroyed so many Egyptian planes and tanks that they are absolutely sure of their bargaining position.” As a first step in this direction, European ambassadors in Washington were alerted to the fact that “the military events of the next few days will determine the possibility for diplomacy to solve the wider problems.” The Israelis were also asked to put forth their ideas about a postwar arrangement.37
The pitfalls of that diplomacy, however, were painfully evident already in the opening phase of the war. Regatta was effectively dead, a fact confirmed that morning by the refusal, even before they learned of the fighting, of Japan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Portugal to join the operation. The Muhieddin visit, though not formally canceled, was indefinitely postponed. Arab ambassadors in Washington rejected American affirmations of neutrality in the conflict, and accused the U.S. of willfully misleading Egypt by encouraging Israel to attack. Beginning in Beirut, U.S. embassies and consulates throughout the Arab world were assaulted by angry mobs. Nor was the situation calm domestically. When State Department spokesman Robert McCloskey said, “our position [on the war] is neutral in thought, word, and deed,” American Jews protested vehemently. An embarrassed Rusk was compelled to explain that “neutral, a great concept in international law, is not an expression of indifference.” Thus constrained, the administration had little choice but to react multilaterally, through the UN, as indicated by its first communiqué on the conflict:
We are deeply distressed to learn that large scale fighting has broken out in the Middle East, an eventuality we had sought to prevent…The United States will devote all of its energies to bring about an end to the fighting and a new beginning of…peace and development of the area. We call upon all the parties to support the Security Council in bringing about an immediate cease-fire.38
Johnson’s assumption was that the Security Council, once confronted with an actual war, would work swiftly and effectively to end it. Word of the fighting first reached UN headquarters at 2:40 A.M. from Gen. Rikhye, who reported that Israeli planes had bombed Egyptian positions in Gaza and strafed a UNEF column, killing three Indian soldiers. Bunche then called the secretary-general’s residence, awakening him with the words, “war has broken out!” Forty-five minutes later, forgoing his quotidian morning meditation, U Thant was en route to UN headquarters. At virtually the same time, Gideon Rafael phoned Danish ambassador Hans Tabor, Security Council president for the month of June, and informed him that Israel was responding to “a cowardly and treacherous” attack from Egypt. Rafael had been instructed to read a statement to that effect to the Council, but by 6:30 those instructions had changed. Receiving an envelope marked “Your Eyes Only,” Rafael learned of the destruction of Egypt’s air force. His orders were now to delay the adoption of a cease-fire resolution by any means and for as long as possible.
A similar delay, paradoxically, was being sought by Mohammad El Kony, Egypt’s ambassador. He, too, had complained of “a treacherous premeditated aggression,” against Gaza, Sinai, and Egyptian airports, and announced that “Egypt has decided to defend itself by all means in accordance with the UN Charter.” But El Kony had also spoken at length with Cairo and believed that an immense counterattack was now under way. He and the other Arab ambassadors—Tomeh of Syria and Jordan’s al-Farra—were in a jubilant mood, listening to radio reports of Arab victories and receiving congratulations from Communist and other friendly delegations. “We deceived the Israelis,” El Kony boasted to Federenko, insisting that the only planes Egypt lost were plywood models. “We shall see who wins this war.”39
Convened at 9:30 A.M. by the USSR and the British—the French representative, Roger Seydoux, “wondered whether the meeting was necessary”—the Council quickly foundered. Arab delegates objected to the very notion of a cease-fire, while Gideon Rafael declared that Israel would take a “frigid view” of any attempt to order its forces back to the border. Federenko denounced Israeli “adventurism…encouraged by covert and overt actions of certain imperialist circles,” and threatened to veto any resolution that failed to condemn Israel expressly. Stalemated, the Council recessed for “urgent consultations,” but among the delegates only Goldberg seemed committed to pursuing such talks. Federenko shut himself up, incommunicado, inside his embassy, the Arabs were triumphant, and the Israelis mum. Circumstances seemed unpropitious for launching the peace process Washington had in mind.
And yet Goldberg persisted in viewing the war as a long-awaited opportunity, both diplomatically and personally. The youngest of eight children whose father, a Chicago greengrocer, died when he was three, Goldberg had worked his way up from urban poverty to become a nationally known labor lawyer. Appointed labor secretary by Kennedy, he later gave up a seat on the Supreme Court to accept the president’s offer to name him America’s ambassador to the UN—a decision he quickly came to regret. Long-winded and dry, he was overshadowed by his eloquent predecessor, Adlai Stevenson, and despite his daily contact with Johnson, cut off from the decision-making process he had hoped to influence. Increasingly opposed to the war in Vietnam, Goldberg seriously considered resigning.
All that changed with the Middle East crisis. Goldberg, an outspoken Zionist whose support for Israel had often caused friction between him and the State Department, could now capitalize on his close ties with both Tel Aviv and the White House to act as a primary go-between. When, on May 15, Goldberg was entertaining fellow UN ambassadors aboard the Circle Line ferry around Manhattan, Johnson dispatched a Coast Guard cutter to retrieve him with the news that the Egyptian army had entered Sinai.
Now, at 4:40 A.M. on June 5, Goldberg was on the phone first with the Situation Room and then with Bunche, coordinating the emergency session of the Security Council. His idea was to secure a simple cease-fire in place. At midday, he asked Rafael what Israel wanted. Rafael’s reply was, simply, “time.”40
Time was already dwindling, however, as rumors of Israeli victories reached New York. At 6:30 P.M., India insisted that the Security Council reconvene to restore the status quo ante bellum of June 4. The draft, implicitly legitimizing both the blockade and the eviction of UNEF, was fundamentally unacceptable to Goldberg. Coordinating closely with Johnson and Walt Rostow, he joined with Britain’s ambassador, Lord Caradon (the former Hugh Foot, the last British governor of Cyprus and a one-time official under the Palestine Mandate), in tabling an alternative resolution. This called upon the warring parties to cease firing immediately, to “insure [the] disengagement of forces,” and to “refrain from acts of force regardless of their nature and to reduce tension in the area.” The language was designed to compel Egypt to reopen Tiran and to remove its troops from Sinai.
Goldberg’s view, he later attested, was that “we would have to act quickly before the situation congealed if we were to have a chance of restoring peace.” Federenko also appeared to be awaken
ing to that fact, having learned of the situation in the field. But he still balked at approving a resolution that did not provide for the withdrawal of Israeli troops and recognition of Egypt’s rights in Tiran. He proposed postponing further discussion until the following morning, and advised Goldberg in the interim to consult with El Kony. “The Arabs always seem to accept yesterday’s formulations too late,” Goldberg reminded the Egyptian ambassador, with whom he enjoyed cordial relations. But cordiality did not count; El Kony refused to consider the American draft.41
American efforts to transform the third Arab-Israeli war into a permanent peace—to change the context—had begun inauspiciously. Neither the Arabs nor the Soviets as yet were interested in stopping the fighting, much less in reaching a settlement. The Israelis, for their part, were resolved to prevent a cease-fire for forty-eight hours at least, and to link any cessation of hostilities to an Arab declaration of nonbelligerency. In his latest delaying tactic, Rafael announced that Abba Eban was flying to New York and would address the Council the following day. The foreign minister was hoping that no decisions could be reached before he arrived and pressed Israel’s case. “In going to battle we did not determine our objectives,” he wrote his UN ambassador, “but we did know what our goals were in terms of more secure and stable existence and for getting us closer to peace.”42
“The First Day’s Turkey Shoot”
The very notion of peace, for Arab and Israeli soldiers, could not have seemed more distant. By that evening, the opposing armies were pitted in desperate battles that would soon determine the course of the war—indeed, of the entire Middle East.
Six Days of War Page 33
