Thirteen Days in September
Page 33
During the process of researching this book, I was reminded on several occasions that I had gotten to these sources just in time, but in other cases, I was regrettably too late.
I owe particular thanks to those who read part or all of this book in manuscript: Yossi Alpher, Seth Anziska, Louise Fischer, Jay Hakes, Stephen Harrigan, Steven Hochman, William Quandt, Gerald Rafshoon, Ziv Rubinovitz, and Harold Saunders. The book is far better because of their thoughtful remarks; whatever errors of fact or judgment that remain are my own responsibility.
Michal Baer and Paul Cuno-Booth provided translations from Hebrew and Arabic. My assistant, Lauren Wolf, contributed additional research and much valuable help with the manuscript. My agent, Andrew Wylie, has been a steady friend throughout the process.
This is my sixth book with my editor, Ann Close, a partnership spanning three decades. She has been a wonderful partner, and it is to her that this book is lovingly dedicated.
Notes
PROLOGUE
“exalted” people: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
Rosalynn wept at: Interview with Rosalynn Carter.
He had studied: Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 32.
The question of what: Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 669; “Demographics of Israel,” Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/demographics.html.
should be conquered: Interview with Yechiel Kadishai; Shilon, Menachem Begin: A Life, p. 147; Hasten, I Shall Not Die!, p. 241.
a crank, a fascist: Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 450.
“Begin is a distinctly”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 174.
“Teachers were beaten”: Isidore Abramowitz et al., “New Palestine Party,” New York Times, Dec. 4, 1948.
Arabs from the West Bank: Sachar, A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, p. 707.
about 1,500 Jewish settlers: Figures for the settler population in 1972 were 1,182 in the West Bank, 700 in the Gaza Strip, 8,649 in East Jerusalem, 77 in Golan Heights, for a total of 10,608. “Israeli Settler Population 1972–2006,” Foundation for Middle East Peace, http://www.fmep.org/settlement_info/settlement-info-and-tables/stats-data/israeli-settler-population-1972-2006.
The governor began speaking: Glad, Jimmy Carter, p. 340 fn.
Walter Mondale: Interview with Walter Mondale.
Former Secretary of State: Interview with Gerald Rafshoon.
Carter’s closest advisers: Carter, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land, p. 20; interview with Walter Mondale.
in his office safe: Steven Hochman, personal communication.
“Heavy support”: Hamilton Jordan memorandum to President Carter, June 1977.
“shining light”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 283.
“dearest friend”: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 24.
“It was like talking”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“President Carter knows”: “Begin Bars a Return to ’67 Borders,” New York Times, May 23, 1977.
The profiles Carter was studying: Jimmy Carter speech, “The Role of Intelligence in Preparing for Camp David,” President Carter and the Role of Intelligence in the Camp David Accords, a conference at the Carter Center, Nov. 12, 2013.
The resulting profiles: Jerrold Post, “Personality Profiles in Support of the Camp David Summit,” Studies in Intelligence (spring 1979). The actual CIA profiles are still classified, but both Carter and Jerrold Post, who prepared the profiles, were helpful in describing the general features of the analyses.
The CIA noted his: Post, “Personality Profiles in Support of the Camp David Summit.”
They had each spent: Begin claimed he spent two years in the Vilna prison and in a “Soviet concentration camp.” According to Temko, his actual confinement lasted about a year, from September 1940 to September 1941; two-thirds of his incarceration was spent in Vilna. Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 64. Sadat spent five years in prison.
He was struck by: Carter, An Hour Before Daylight, p. 26.
“If I drown”: “The World: Sadat: The Village Elder,” Time, Nov. 28, 1977.
She was chosen: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, pp. 8–9.
Umm Mohamed: Sadat, My Father and I, p. 3.
occasionally beaten: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, pp. 10-11.
“How I loved”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 3.
According to the oral: See for instance the poem by Salah Abdel Sabur, “The Execution of Zahran,” in Aida O. Azouqa, “Frederico García Lorca and Salah ’Abd al-Sabur as Composers of Modern Ballads: A Comparative Study,” Journal of Arabic Literature 36, no. 2. (2005).
“The ballad dwells”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 6. Sadat’s account of the incident is somewhat at variance with modern sources. See Turner, Suez 1956, pp. 39–40; Mustafa Bassiouni, “A Modern-Day Dinshaway in Egypt?” Al Akhbar English, http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/2887.
“the odious sight”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 10.
“nothing but a scrap”: Quoted in Yunan Labib Rizk, “Gandhi in Egypt,” Al-Ahram, Dec. 19–25, 2002.
“I began to imitate”: Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 13.
Sadat’s obsession with: Ibid., p. 21.
“I was in our village”: Ibid., p. 13.
“My Dear Hitler”: Israeli, Man of Defiance, p. 19.
They were the only whites: Jimmy Carter remarks at the Civil Rights Summit, LBJ Library, April 8, 2014.
“The constant struggle”: Carter, An Hour Before Daylight, p. 230.
“Believer President”: Wright, The Looming Tower, p. 39.
He was baptized into: Glad, Jimmy Carter, p. 113.
“nigger lover”: Balmer, Redeemer, p. 8.
“Sir, I stood 59th”: Carter, Why Not the Best?, p. 59.
“He would ask me”: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 34.
She would note that: Ibid., p. 35.
“God did not intend”: Bourne, Jimmy Carter, p. 81.
the only white man: Carter, Why Not the Best?, p. 66.
“I could not believe”: Carter, An Hour Before Daylight, p. 264.
“our kind of man”: Balmer, Redeemer, pp. 30–31.
Carter himself was not linked: Glad, Jimmy Carter, pp. 134–35.
“I am not a land baron”: Ibid., p. 136.
“What’s the matter?”: Oral History of Jimmy Carter, Georgia Political History Program, May 4, 1993; Godbold, Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter, p. 166. Rabhan later spent time in an Iranian prison—as a hostage, Carter claimed—and then was convicted of bank fraud and served four and a half years in U.S. federal prison. “Despite His Shady Record, USDA Backed Borrower,” Gilbert M. Gaul, Washington Post, Dec. 4, 2007.
In 1972, he expelled: Kissinger, White House Years, p. 1295. Kissinger puts the number of Soviet troops expelled as fifteen thousand, whereas Ezer Weizman estimates twenty thousand. Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 243.
The Israelis were convinced: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 67.
“I am ready to travel”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, pp. 11–12; “I Knew Sadat,” Al Jazeera English, Sept. 28, 2009. The translations of the two accounts vary slightly.
the first in Israel’s history: Richard Steele et al., “Sadat in Israel,” Newsweek, Nov. 28, 1977.
Ten thousand soldiers: Elias Shourani, “The Reaction in Israel to the Sadat Initiative,” Journal of Palestine Studies 7, no. 2 (winter 1978).
in addition to the: Eliahu Ben Elissar in Alterman, ed., Sadat and His Legacy, p. 25.
Without sheet music: Ibid.
Sharpshooters were stationed: Quandt, Camp David, p. 147.
Sadat’s enemies were: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 142.
“Madame, I’ve waited a long time”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 288.
“Oh, no, sir”: Steele et al., “Sadat in Israel”; Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 288.
Sadat was convinced: Ibid., p. 288. Heikal suggests that this conjecture derived from
a comment Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made to Sadat shortly after the 1973 war. Heikal, Secret Channels, pp. 223–24.
“to the Kaaba to pray”: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 98. Elsewhere, Heikal discusses the taboo against Israel extensively. Heikal, Secret Channels.
As the presidential motorcade: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 288.
The Israelis had no: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
All along the way: Ronald Koven, “Sadat Jokes, Laughs with Golda,” Washington Post, Nov. 22, 1977.
Across the street: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 61.
“All that construction!”: Ibid., p. 26.
One of Sadat’s bodyguards: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, pp. 73–74.
“Take these out”: John 2:16.
One witness describes: Armstrong, Jerusalem, p. 274.
“The Crusades have now ended”: Montefiore, Jerusalem, p. 439–40.
At the End of Days: Angelika Neuwirth, “The Spiritual Meaning of Jerusalem in Islam,” in Rosovsky, ed., City of the Great King, pp. 113–14.
“Sadat, what”: Hirst and Beeson, Sadat, p. 266.
“a kippah”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 65.
“All this befell us”: Ibid., p. 66.
Some were shot: Gervasi, The Life and Times of Menahem Begin, p. 107.
“A day of retribution”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 5. Shilon says that Begin’s sister, Rachel Halperin, related a different story. “Some time before the mass murders, her father decided to sneak out without approval from the area where the Jews had been gathered in order to properly bury one of the town’s most prominent Jews.… When Ze’ev Dov was approached by a Nazi officer who questioned him, he answered, ‘This is what I have to do.’ In response, the officer shot him.” Ibid., pp. 5–6.
“May God guide our”: Ronald Koven, “Sadat’s Day in the Holy City,” Washington Post, Nov. 21, 1977.
“We have to concentrate”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 21.
“Every side wants”: Cohen, Culture and Conflict in Egyptian-Israeli Relations, p. 133.
permitted to applaud: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 66.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Anwar Sadat address to Knesset, Nov. 20, 1977.
“We have to prepare for war”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 33.
“No sir”: Menachem Begin remarks in Knesset, Nov. 20, 1977.
“His IQ is probably”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“Begin is absolutely”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 193.
“Up the wall”: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 304.
“He exhibited a rich”: Samuel Lewis, “The Camp David Peace Process,” in Sha’al, ed., The Camp David Accords, p. 57.
“Against the eyes”: Temko, To Win or to Die, pp. 17–18.
In private, Begin was: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 165.
He devoutly believed: Interview with Yechiel Kadishai.
award citizenship to every Arab: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 219.
He went to temple: Interview with Zev Chafets; Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 154.
“Is this not a startlingly accurate prophecy”: Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 396.
“There were only 650,000 Jews”: “President’s Meeting with Prime Minister Begin of Israel,” in Howard, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, vol. 8: Arab-Israeli Dispute, January 1977–August 1978, pp. 336–52; Avner, The Prime Ministers, pp. 421–22.
“Peasants after all”: Ibid., 336–52.
“new specimen of human being”: Begin, The Revolt, p. xxv.
“It is axiomatic”: Ibid., p. xxvi.
His earliest memory: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 21. Temko says that Begin was not actually present when the soldiers flogged two Jews, one of whom died afterward. The doctor who attempted to save him was the Begins’ downstairs neighbor, who himself died of a heart attack a few days later. The event caused a great deal of distress in the Begin household, which is probably what Begin recalled.
“It was a popular sport”: Avner, The Prime Ministers, p. 436.
“to beat those who beat us”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 32.
Even as a precocious: Ibid., p. 34.
In 1929 Begin experienced: Shilon, Menachem Begin, p. 10. Shilon gives the date of Jabotinsky’s visit to Brisk as 1929; Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 37, makes the date 1931. Begin himself says that he joined Betar at age fifteen, which makes the Shilon date more likely. Begin, White Nights, p. 53.
“Jabotinsky became God”: Temko, To Win or to Die, p. 37.
“Emotionally, my attitude”: Jabotinsky, “The Iron Wall,” Nov. 4, 1923, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/ironwall.html.
Begin later admitted: Carter, White House Diary, p. 151.
“All you journalists”: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, p. 104.
“It was as if a messenger”: “Sacred Mission,” Time, Nov. 28, 1977.
“The Middle East after”: Sadat interview with ABC, Nov. 27, 1977.
Palestinians in Athens: Alfred L. Atherton and Harold H. Saunders, “Analysis of Arab-Israeli Developments,” U.S. Dept. of State, no. 295, Nov. 19, 1977.
That was too much: Quandt, Camp David, p. 102.
“It’s a very interesting plan”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 120.
“Not a single Israeli settlement”: Ibid., p. 147.
If the Israelis: Ibid., p. 195.
He made it clear: Zion and Dan, “Untold Story of the Mideast Talks,” Part II, New York Times, Jan. 21, 1979.
“Everyone who went”: “Cairo Expels Envoys of Cyprus in Dispute over Airport Battle,” Associated Press, Feb. 20, 1978.
Sadat responded by: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 125; Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 295.
The first person they: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 268.
Most of them were: Dayan, Breakthrough, p. 121.
“Those who killed Jews”: Henry Kamm, “Begin Hints Strongly at Reprisal for Raid That Killed 37 Israelis,” New York Times, Mar. 12, 1978.
Carter was appalled: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 311.
“wounded in the heart”: Ibid., p. 311.
“not willing to withdraw”: Ibid., p. 312.
Begin’s intransigence had destroyed: Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 247.
He told his aides: Zion and Dan, “Untold Story of the Mideast Talks.”
“nothing for nothing”: Ibid.
“pygmies”: Quandt, Camp David, p. 265.
“my economy”: Post, “Personality Profiles in Support of the Camp David Summit.”
“If the Middle East”: “I Knew Sadat”; Sabry, Al-Sadat, pp. 447–48.
“If I had to choose one”: James Fallows, “The Passionless Presidency,” Atlantic, May 1, 1979.
Carter made lists: Glad, Jimmy Carter, p. 483.
He would take the time: Interview with Philip J. Wise Jr.
“I felt that God wanted peace”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
In July 1978: Interview with Rosalynn Carter; Carter, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land, p. 36.
“It’s so beautiful here”: Interview with Rosalynn Carter; Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 238.
His vice president: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 239.
For Carter to invest: Interview with Samuel W. Lewis, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib000687.
“If you fail, we’re done”: Walter Mondale comments, “Camp David 25th Anniversary Forum.”
“Our main objective”: Cyrus Vance, “An Overview of the Camp David Talks,” undated memo to the president.
“First Egyptian-Jewish peace”: Quandt, Camp David, p. 220.
“We wait for peace”: Jeremiah 8:15.
DAY ONE
“Cuba is absolutely lousy”: Nelson, The President Is at Camp David, p. 20.
“I couldn’t for the life”: Quoted in Walsh, From Mount Vernon to Crawford, p. 281.
“I don’t know what”: Ibid., p. 282.
Carter, a tight-fisted: Gerald Rafshoon, personal communication.
“Cabins,” Carter responded: Gulley and Reese, Breaking Cover, pp. 270–71.
“A sort of Presidential”: Walsh, From Mount Vernon to Crawford, p. 40.
Six miles from Camp: Ted Gup, “Underground Government: A Guide to America’s Doomsday Bunkers,” Washington Post, May 31, 1992. Other estimates of the size of Site R are much larger.
The staff would: Walsh, From Mount Vernon to Crawford, p. 296.
“bullshit artists”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
A number of policemen: National Intelligence Daily Cable, Jan. 19, 1977.
The CIA warned Carter: “National Intelligence Estimate, Egypt—1977,” undated CIA document.
In Israel, steep inflation: “Economic Consequences of a Middle East Peace Settlement: The Best Case,” unsigned CIA memorandum, July 1, 1977.
“What can I do?”: Weizman, The Battle for Peace, p. 307.
“There was a curious”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 323.
Anwar and Jehan argued: Carter, First Lady from Plains, p. 241.
Even talking to: Interview with Abdul Raouf al-Reedy.
“His knowledge of the”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 49.
“He has something godly”: Baha’ al-Din, Muhawarati ma’a as-Sadat, p. 149.
Tohamy was constantly: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 194.
“We all thought”: Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, p. 134.
“What we are after”: Kamel, The Camp David Accords, p. 283.
“here in my pocket”: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 328.
“Israel has to withdraw”: Interview with Jimmy Carter.
“We can do it”: Rosalynn Carter diary of Camp David.
“It will be like a resort”: Haber, Schiff, and Yaari, The Year of the Dove, p. 220.