Thirteen Days in September

by Lawrence Wright

  In October 1971, Sadat went to Moscow to demand more weapons. He had already declared 1971 as the Year of Decision. “We shall not allow 1971 to pass without deciding the issue, whether through peace or war—even if it means sacrificing one million lives,” Sadat had grandly announced that summer. But his fateful pledge rested on the promise of the Soviet Union to supply Egypt with additional modern arms, and his very public declaration placed him in a quandary as the calendar was moving forward to call his bluff.

  The Soviets had already supplied Egypt with sophisticated anti-aircraft missile batteries and other armaments. The country was overrun with Soviet political aides, intelligence agents, foreign service officers, and more than fifteen thousand combat troops. Their domineering presence had begun to remind the Egyptians of the days of the British occupation. The Soviets were also uneasy. It was the first time they had placed their own troops in jeopardy in a non-Communist country. That made the White House nervous, especially after the Israeli Air Force shot down four aircraft flown by Russian pilots.

  Sadat felt that Soviet military aid was designed to keep Egypt just far enough behind Israel that it wouldn’t be tempted to actually use the weapons. Despite his repeated entreaties to the Soviets to fulfill commitments they had already made, the additional arms never seemed to arrive, and Sadat began to look increasingly feckless in the eyes of his countrymen. He returned from Moscow that fall with a guarantee of missile-equipped aircraft, along with Soviet experts to train Egyptian crews in how to operate them. Sadat desperately wanted the new weapons in place before the end of the year, but two months later, he still had nothing to show for the promises made in Moscow. The Year of Decision ended and the Year of Derision began.

  The Soviets were in the middle of a much more important secret negotiation—détente with the United States—and the arms buildup in the Middle East was a concern to both superpowers. There was no place on the globe more likely to set off a catastrophic confrontation between them. Each had vital interests in the region that they believed had to be defended at all costs, but the continual skirmishing between their allies, and the increased sophistication and destructiveness of the weapons available to belligerents, meant that the fate of the United States and the USSR wasn’t entirely in their own hands.

  In May 1972, Nixon visited the Soviet Union, and the first declaration of the newly revealed détente emphasized the need for military relaxation in the Middle East. Sadat was beside himself. He thought he would never get his weapons now. He summoned the Soviet ambassador. “I have decided to dispense with the services of all Soviet military experts,” he told the stunned envoy. “They must go back to the Soviet Union within one week from today.”

  This apparently rash action turned out to be one of the most brilliant maneuvers in Sadat’s career. In a single stroke he upended the diplomatic structure of the Middle East and the strategic balance of the superpowers. It was one of America’s greatest victories in the Cold War, and yet it was completely unexpected. By pulling Egypt out of the Soviet embrace, Sadat was able to steer his economy away from the socialist model that had retarded its development. Moreover, the chastened Soviets began speeding up the arms shipments, hoping to regain Sadat’s favor. The U.S. found itself with a new ally in its lap—and new responsibilities. Camp David would not have been possible if Sadat had not thrust his country into America’s zone of influence.

  An added benefit, as far as Sadat was concerned, was that all parties misinterpreted his reason for Soviet expulsion. Israel, the Soviets, and the West all concluded that Sadat had thrown out the Soviet military because he had decided against going to war. In fact, he realized that he could not fight a war so long as the Soviets exercised a restraining hand.

  “Why has he done us this favor?” Kissinger asked his aides. “Why didn’t he demand all kinds of concessions first?” To compound the confusion, the Americans got a note from Cairo in September explaining that Egypt was not seeking any special consideration from the U.S. because of its action. While deploring American partiality to Israel, the letter expressed a willingness to reopen the Suez Canal, which had been closed since the 1967 war, and set no preconditions for talks with the U.S. “It was all, as I would come to realize, vintage Sadat,” Kissinger later recalled. “His negotiating tactic was never to haggle over detail but to create an atmosphere that made disagreement psychologically difficult.” Sadat perceived that agreement on broad concepts was more important than were complicated formulations in a treaty destined to be ignored or disavowed. “I cannot say that I fully understood Sadat’s insight then,” Kissinger admitted. “Great men are so rare that they take some getting used to.”

  ERIK BRIK WAS BORN in the Lithuanian city of Kovno (now called Kaunus), in the year 1936. His father was a lawyer who headed the local Zionist office; his mother was a teacher. In June 1941, the same month that the Nazis occupied Begin’s hometown of Brisk, they also marched into Kovno. “I remember machine guns mowing down Jews,” he would later tell Israeli journalist Ari Shavit. “I remember the Jews of my hometown being murdered en masse by the Nazis.” He was five years old.

  The Nazis didn’t have to do all the work themselves. This was early in the project of mass extermination, and in Kovno, a center of Jewish culture and learning, the Nazis found that they could stand aside and let the citizens of the city beat their former neighbors to death. Thousands of Jews were shot or bludgeoned while people gathered to watch or take a hand in the slaughter. Similar homicidal orgies took place in other Lithuanian cities and in the Ukraine. But the deepest reaches of depravity were still to be fathomed.

  For the next three years, the Brik family lived in the Kovno ghetto. Erik was one of 1.6 million Jewish children in the territories occupied by the Nazis. By the end of the war, more than a million of those children would be dead. In the final months, the Nazis decided to eliminate all the Jewish children, because they were “useless eaters” who contributed no labor. German soldiers went from house to house in the ghetto, rounding up everyone under twelve. Erik’s mother hid her eight-year-old son, but after the slaughter was over, he had to dress up with elevator shoes and a hat, pretending to be adolescent. Eventually, his father was able to smuggle Erik out of the ghetto in a canvas sack tossed onto a horse cart. His mother escaped soon after. For six months they lived behind a double wall in the cottage of a family that gave them refuge, coming out only at night. During the days, as they sat in the dark behind the wall, Erik’s mother made him her only student, teaching him math, Latin, and history.

  Erik’s father continued to labor in the ghetto until the end of the war, when he was finally reunited with his wife and son. Like many survivors, the Brik family then made a long journey through the wreckage of Europe, being robbed by Russian soldiers along the way and abused by anti-Semites in Poland and Hungary, until they arrived in the British zone in Austria, where they were met by soldiers of a Jewish brigade. It was like a dream. The soldiers spoke Hebrew, a language Erik didn’t yet know.

  Finally they boarded a ship to Haifa. Erik’s aunt was waiting for them. She bought him Israeli clothes—khaki shirt, trousers, and sandals. “When I took off my old clothes I shed the past, the Diaspora, the ghetto,” he said. “I was a new person. An Israeli.”

  He also took a new name: Aharon Barak.

  Barak quickly learned Hebrew and assimilated into Israeli society. He became the youngest faculty member at Hebrew University’s law school; he was dean at the age of thirty-eight, and Israel’s attorney general three years later. He had a reputation for integrity and toughness; it was he who had indicted the wife of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which opened the door to Begin’s eventual election over Rabin’s replacement, Shimon Peres. Barak brought an end to the official tolerance of political corruption that had characterized the country until that point.

  Even in high office, Barak still gave the impression of a professor with his head buried in abstruse legal theorems. His fingers were covered with ink stains, his pants did n
ot always match his jacket, and his hair grew shaggy from neglect. He seemed to be a man who never looked in the mirror. During cabinet deliberations he was remarked for his doodling and the occasional sigh. Just before Camp David, he had been appointed to the Israeli supreme court, the youngest justice in the country’s history. Begin had to make a special appeal to the court to allow him to join the delegation.

  In this new stage of the Camp David negotiations, Barak was matched with Osama el-Baz, a fellow prosecutor—he had been appointed the district attorney of Cairo, after graduating at the top of his class from Cairo University’s law school. Slight, almost elfish, with a sallow complexion and a raspy voice, Baz was easily mistaken for a teenager, but his intellect was impossible to miss. One of nine children, Baz came from a distinguished academic family. His father had been a well-known Islamic scholar. One of his brothers, Farouk, was a geologist who worked on the Apollo lunar landings. Osama himself spent six years at Harvard Law School, gaining two advanced degrees. While there, he studied with Henry Kissinger and Roger Fisher—the same man who had helped Cy Vance prepare for Camp David.

  Carter considered Baz to be the most extreme of all the Egyptian delegates. He had been head of the Harvard Society of Arab Students and had written Sadat’s assertive speech in Jerusalem. Despite his zealous reputation, Baz had had a Jewish girlfriend while he was studying in the U.S.; in fact, he had asked a member of the Israeli delegation to bring a menorah to Camp David so he could send it to her.

  Sadat had appointed Baz to be Vice President Mubarak’s chief political officer, with the instruction to teach “the future president” what he had learned at Harvard. As Mubarak’s right-hand man, Baz was one of the most influential figures in the Egyptian government, but the cherished perks of his job never interested him. He maintained a defiant simplicity, riding the bus to work and eating the humblest Egyptian fare—ful and falafel—in everyday restaurants. He had a horror of social events and tended to hide in his work. Even at Camp David, he would sit quietly at dinner, wary and solitary, picking at his food; but during conferences he would spring to life, often with slashing responses that betrayed both his unyielding ideology and his mastery of the material. Sadat trusted Baz more than anyone else in his delegation. At times, he would bring Baz into meetings, ostensibly as a translator and notetaker. They had a prearranged code: when there was something put forward in a meeting that Baz didn’t agree with, he would subtly raise his head, then look back down at his notes. At this signal, Sadat would table the proposal.

  CARTER’S EXPERIMENT with the two proxy negotiators began at eight that Wednesday morning. Without Sadat or Begin in the room, there was a different atmosphere, although one that placed their two delegates in a very awkward spot. They were the two most brilliant legal minds at Camp David, but instead of arguing a case in a courtroom they were negotiating the future of their countries with the president of the United States.

  Baz and Barak met with Carter and Vance for eleven hours that day. Carter began by attacking the issue of Resolution 242, which the Israelis had objected to because of the phrase “inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war” in the prologue. To avoid setting a precedent for the West Bank if Israel withdrew from Sinai, Barak came up with an ingenious formulation. Israel would agree that Resolution 242 applied to the West Bank, but once the autonomy agreement was in place and the Palestinians had secured political control, the territory would no longer be formally “occupied.” Therefore the question of withdrawal was moot. Carter responded by saying Barak could be a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Carter went on to suggest deleting the contentious phrase from the main text of the agreement while noting that both parties agreed to Resolution 242 “in all its parts.” The entire text of the resolution would be stuck in an appendix. Barak agreed to this stratagem, but Baz hesitated. Resolution 242 was a central plank in the Egyptian platform, and the degree to which it appeared to be downgraded to accommodate Begin meant that it came at the expense of Egyptian priorities. Carter disarmingly offered to let Baz delete any phrase in that part of the text that he did not like. Baz pointed to the sentence “They have both also stated that there shall be no more war between them.” He reasoned that if Israel did not withdraw from Sinai, another war might be necessary. When Barak posed no objection, the first concrete agreement of the Camp David summit became a reality.

  Another seemingly small but intractable problem was solved when it was decided to use the term “West Bank” in the American and Egyptian versions of the agreement, and “Judea and Samaria” in the Israeli text. On the question of the Sinai settlements, however, Barak said he could not even discuss it because Begin felt so strongly about the issue. That very day Begin had vowed to Brzezinski, “My right eye will fall out, my right hand will fall off, before I ever agree to the dismantling of a single Jewish settlement.”

  In that case, Baz said, Egypt would not commit to open borders and full diplomatic recognition.

  By now night had fallen. The men were discussing the problem of refugees when Baz asserted that Israel could not be a part of deciding which Palestinians could return to the West Bank. Carter set his pen down and stared at Baz. In such moments, Carter doesn’t shout, but his blue eyes blaze and his fury is clearly apparent. He said that he had previously talked to Sadat about this very issue. Had Sadat now reversed himself?

  Baz finally admitted that he had not actually talked to Sadat about the matter; it was actually his idea, but he thought Sadat would agree with him.

  “Reaching agreement with you has become impossible,” Carter said. “I want to talk to President Sadat.” He then stood up for Baz to leave.

  Aharon Barak was a bit shaken by the flash of presidential anger. “When he gets furious, he’s really furious!” Barak recalled. On the other hand, the basic framework of an agreement seemed to be taking shape. “Now I have faith in Israel’s sincere desire for peace,” Carter told him.

  Barak went back to the Israeli cabin and briefed the others on what had transpired. Despite all the progress that had been made, the summit was coming down to a single issue: the Sinai settlements. Weizman had spoken to Sadat earlier that day to see if there was any way to soften his opposition. “I won’t give up a single inch of my land!” Sadat had declared.

  Later, Carter went looking for Begin and found him in the projection room watching a movie. The president described the Sinai agreement that Vance and Brzezinski would present to Dayan and Weizman. Once again, Begin said he would not sign anything that called for the removal of the settlements, and Carter replied that there would be no agreement without it. The success of the summit balanced on this issue.

  “It is out of the question,” Begin said.

  SADAT WAS WATCHING television when Osama el-Baz arrived to tell him of his disastrous encounter with Carter on the issue of the returning Palestinian refugees. “You’re right,” Sadat replied. “It is impossible for me to agree to an article like that. But you know my strategy, Osama. We want to gain Carter for our side. I know he’s a weak man, but let’s be patient.”

  “It’s not his right to talk in your name,” Baz grumbled. “I’m the one representing you.”

  “We must make do,” Sadat said. “What will Carter do now?”

  “He will call you, sir.”

  “I won’t talk to him now. I want to think.” Sadat told Baz to turn off the light as he left so Sadat could pretend that he had retired. “Tell the secretary I am sleeping and no one is to contact me at all.”

  When word came to Carter that Sadat was unavailable, he grew suspicious. He knew the Egyptian president was a night owl, and it seemed out of character for him to go to bed at nine thirty p.m.

  When Rosalynn returned from a day in Washington, she found Jimmy reading in bed. He told her it had been a fairly good day; matters had gone better than expected with the Israelis but abysmally with the Egyptians. When they went to sleep, he was still feeling upbeat.

  Suddenly, in the middle of the night, Car
ter awakened with a horrible premonition. Suspicious things were happening with the Egyptians, he believed. He recalled the violent argument he had observed on Sadat’s porch the day before. The strange behavior of Baz in the meeting today. The lights out in Sadat’s cabin hours before he normally retired. All of these moments crowded together in a worrisome conspiracy and kept him from falling back to sleep.

  Rosalynn stirred and then woke when she realized Jimmy was up. It was four a.m., and he was clearly agitated. “I don’t know exactly why, but I have an uneasy feeling about Sadat’s safety,” he admitted. He roused Brzezinski, who came over in his pajamas, along with the head of the Secret Service detail. “Zbig, I am very much concerned for Sadat’s life,” Carter said.

  Day Ten

  Hassan el-Tohamy, Mohamed Ibrahim Kamel, and Ahmed Maher confer with Jimmy Carter

  AT EIGHT A.M., Jimmy and Rosalynn looked out the window of Aspen Lodge and saw Sadat setting out for his morning constitutional. Immensely relieved, Carter rushed out to join him.

  Sadat kept a brisk, military pace as they marched through the forest paths. Carter was in an expansive mood, although he didn’t tell Sadat about his apprehensions of the night before. Sadat confided that since the trip to Gettysburg, he had seen Carter in a different light—as someone who could understand the ravages of war, not just the damage to material things but to the spirit of a defeated people as well. They talked about how long it was taking America to get past the psychic wounds of the Vietnam War. Sadat wondered whether the people of the Middle East would ever recover, even if they made peace at Camp David.