The Egyptians introduced a new and unusual request. In addition to the demilitarization of Beersheba, they asked for a token Egyptian military governor there, in order to keep up appearances with the Egyptian public. After considerable argument, the Israelis persuaded the Egyptians that this request was absurd. The Egyptians then fell back on an alternative demand. A tiny village named Bir Asluj lay between Beersheba and the Egyptian border. As it was small and without strategic value, the Egyptians hoped the Israelis might allow them the fig leaf of an Egyptian military governor there. The thought of a military governor presiding over Bir Asluj, a gathering of mud huts along the road running from Beersheba to El Auja and Egypt, was surreal, but creation of the position “Military Governor of Bir Asluj” might have made for imposing headlines in Egypt and helped save face for the Egyptian government. “We talked them out of this,” Eytan recalled, “mainly by ridicule.”61
The Egyptians finally suggested a military governor at El Auja, nearer the Egyptian border. Eytan rejected this as well, insisting that Israel could not agree to an Egyptian military governor anywhere on territory it controlled. Bunche understood the Israeli reluctance, but he also felt that the Egyptian need to save face was genuine. He proposed instead that Israel refrain from keeping troops in El Auja, and that both this and a similar assurance from Egypt be included in the final agreement. The Israelis reluctantly agreed to consider the idea.
Bunche continued to draft potential compromises. He reported to the secretary general on February 10, “Negotiations proceeding with tortuous but steady progress toward agreement. Daily discussions and compromise drafts producing results, but continued pressure from all sources remains indispensable.”62 Sasson cabled Sharett on February 10 that he felt Egyptian statements threatening to terminate the negotiation over Beersheba were sincere and that they will regret the failure of the talks but are willing to return home empty-handed if necessary. Eytan reported to Sharett on February 10:
I can see no way out of the impasse in the near future, except if our Government were prepared to make generous concessions, which I see it is not. I have been sitting in this place now for a month, and for all its scenic charm I am not at all sure that if I continue to reside here much longer I shall really be doing the most useful job of which I am capable. In the absence of concessions by us, I can see only two choices before us: either to break off (or “adjourn”) the talks, or to leave here a purely nominal delegation, to sit in Rhodes and listen to anything new the Egyptians may have to say next week or next month or next year. . . . [T]he choice is really only between making further concessions or breaking off the talks. As we shall soon be forced by the Security Council to make these concessions anyway (and more), I am naturally in favor of making the concessions now and securing in return an armistice agreement and a good name at the U.N.63
When the discussions on Beersheba appeared stalemated, Bunche called both delegations to his room. He opened a chest of drawers to reveal two sets of beautiful decorated ceramic plates with the inscription: “Rhodes Armistice Talks 1949.” “Have a look at these lovely plates!” Bunche told them. “If you reach agreement, each of you will get one to take home. If you don’t, I’ll break them over your heads!”64
On February 11, the British government gave an assurance to the United Nations that its force in Aqaba would never be used for offensive purposes, relieving pressure on the Israeli position. Bunche reported to Lie two days later, “Situation improved afternoon thirteenth when Israelis relaxed their position on El Auja and informed me they would withdraw their troops from El Auja and vicinity.”65
Once the negotiation began to move slowly forward, especially on boundary lines, a handful of representatives from each side discreetly began direct talks. These one-on-one meetings— facilitated by an Egyptian on Bunche’s staff and involving Egyptian political adviser Abdul Mustafa (whom the Israelis considered the “real boss of the Egyptian delegation”), Colonel Yadin, and Sasson—gave the Israelis the impression that the Egyptians were becoming more flexible. Sasson suggested the two delegations meet without UN oversight, “in order to remove the contradictions between us in a direct manner and in a friendly atmosphere.”66
Eytan introduced fresh compromises authorized by Tel Aviv over the demilitarized zone in El Auja and positions elsewhere in the Negev, and the delegations became optimistic that an agreement was within reach. On February 16, Bunche cabled the secretary general that with the other issues either settled or on their way to solution, the remaining stumbling block to agreement appeared to be the demilitarization of Beersheba, which the Egyptians still pressed for and the Israelis still refused.
“The matter of Auja has been as good as settled, and this has transformed the whole atmosphere,” Eytan wrote Sharett on February 16. “There now remains only the specific problem of what outposts we shall hold along the Gaza-Rafah front, and the more general question of Beersheba and the Eastern sector. We have used every device to make it clear to all concerned that Beersheba and the eastern sector cannot be touched by an agreement with Egypt and that we can agree to no diminution of our full rights and freedom there. I stated this emphatically to Bunche last night, Elias Sasson as emphatically to the Egyptians this morning, and for good measure Yadin rubbed it into Bunche again this afternoon.”67 Eytan cabled Sharett the following day, “Today has been devoted almost exclusively to Beersheba, for which the Egyptians are putting up a last-minute fight. . . . Incidentally, one of us asked Bunche yesterday evening: ‘The Egyptians seem to be getting all the benefits from this agreement. What are we getting out of it?’ Bunche replied without hesitation: ‘the Negev.’ I hope he is right. It will have made all these six weeks of trouble and endless discussion at Rhodes worth while.”68
The Egyptians insisted the sole reason for their adamant position on an Israeli withdrawal from Beersheba was that such a gesture, which would not affect Israeli military domination of the town, was necessary to win acceptance of the modified agreement by some members of the Egyptian government. Bunche reported to Lie on February 19:
Israelis stand firm on no withdrawal especially while British forces remain at Aqaba. Israelis fear any withdrawal from Beersheba now would weaken their future claim. It will be a major tragedy if either side prevents agreement on either of these flimsy grounds. Projected procedure is to have a revised draft agreement ready by Sunday with all articles agreed upon, if proves possible, except Article VII which includes Beersheba. An Egyptian representative will fly to Cairo with this draft on Sunday . . . . I can swing everything left but Beersheba. On that it seems I need help critically.69
Bunche met the next day with the Egyptian delegates until three in the morning, and worked until eight-thirty on a draft agreement that left out the demilitarization of Beersheba. The Israelis approved it, and although Beersheba remained an obstacle for the Egyptians, they agreed to take a copy with them for consultations with the Egyptian government on Monday. This was the last chance for an agreement. “If unfavorable,” Bunche wrote, “negotiations will be adjourned. Our fingers are severely crossed.”70
Bunche informed Lie that in his view the Israelis were not bluffing and would end the talks rather than concede on Beersheba, and asked the secretary general to intercede directly with the Egyptians. On February 20, Bunche cabled Lie:
If you consider it advisable Fawzi Bey might be informed that in my view Israelis are not repeat not bluffing on issue of withdrawal of their forces from Beersheba. If Egyptian delegation after consultations in Cairo Monday return to Rhodes and attempt to renew negotiations on Beersheba Israelis have advised me they will walk out of the conference. . . . This is a thoroughly honorable agreement for the Egyptians and in view of their military position a unique one. They will lose very much if they refuse to sign.71
Lie saw Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Fawzi three times in as many days to press the case. At Bunche’s request, Lie explained that the Israelis were not bluffing over Beersheba and reminded Fawzi that the armi
stice agreement would accomplish for the Egyptians what the Security Council had been unable to do since November 4, 1948. “In view of the disastrous Egyptian military position, this was a unique opportunity and a thoroughly honorable agreement.”72
On Wednesday, February 23, the Egyptians returned. They conceded Beersheba. They would sign the agreement. Yadin thanked Bunche for his efforts, noting that “patience pays.” The signing took place at a solemn ceremony on February 24, 1949, in the winter dining room of the Hotel des Roses. The delegations sat on either side of Bunche, around a large square table decorated with a simple white tablecloth and fresh flowers. As the five signature copies were being signed, Bunche looked over at General Riley, whose eyes were filled with tears. “It was the greatest moment of my life,” Riley later told Bunche. “The first time I had helped to make peace, instead of war.”74
That evening they held a party to celebrate the achievement, and relaxed and dined on food flown in by the Egyptians from the renowned Groppi’s pastry shop in Cairo. Eytan sat with Seif El Dine, who showed him pictures of his family. Eytan observed:
It was an atmosphere as different as one could imagine from that of the first day in the corridor, with its averted heads. . . . In the course of the six weeks we spent together at the Hotel des Roses, we became quite friendly with the Egyptians. Their earlier attitude may have been due to insecurity, or to shyness; I am certain it was not caused by any deep-seated hostility. . . . We felt that night, and I am fairly sure the Egyptians did too, that we had not only brought the fighting phase to a formal end, but had laid the foundations, if not of love and affection, at least of normal relations between our two countries.75
The armistice allotted about 135 square miles of the contested land to Egypt, while making roughly 100 square miles neutral territory and giving the remainder to Israel. The division at al-Faluja was successfully evacuated, and its deputy commander, Gamal Nasser, would later become president of Egypt. Until the Camp David Accords almost thirty years later, the armistice remained the most significant, and perhaps the only meaningful, diplomatic achievement in the Middle East.
The armistice was enthusiastically received in Israel, where the news dominated the press. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion called it “an historic triumph, no less than the military victories.”76 The reception was more muted in Cairo, as the government faced the challenging prospect of selling it to a surprised public. Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi issued a short statement stressing that the armistice had “no political character,” dealt only with “purely military questions,” and did not “in any way affect the political future of Palestine.” Government censors prohibited the Egyptian press from printing copies of the agreement, concerned over the possibility of a “violent reaction,” which never occurred.77
As expected, negotiation with Israel’s other Arab neighbors went comparatively smoothly, although Bunche had by that time returned to New York. Israel signed armistice agreements with Lebanon on March 23, Jordan on April 3, and Syria on July 20.
After completing his term as director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Walter Eytan became Israel’s ambassador to Paris in the 1960s. From 1970 until his retirement in 1978, he was chairman of the Israeli Broadcasting Authority. Yigael Yadin retired from the Israeli army in 1952 to study archeology at the University of Jerusalem, where he earned his PhD in 1955. He became a noted archeologist, leading prominent digs in Hazor, Masada, and Megiddo, and was one of the principal translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1970 he became head of the Institute of Archeology at the Hebrew University, before returning briefly to politics as Israel’s deputy prime minister from 1977 to 1981. Reuven Shiloah became the founder and first director of the Mossad, Israel’s secret intelligence service. Yitzhak Rabin, who left the negotiation before it was concluded in protest over Israeli concessions, became Israel’s prime minister and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his leading role in negotiation on the Palestinian issue. He was assassinated in 1995 for his attempts to establish peace in the region. Abdul Mustafa became the assistant secretary general of the Arab League and was a foreign policy adviser to the king of Saudi Arabia. In 1952, King Farouk of Egypt appointed Colonel Sherine as his minister of war. Objections to Sherine’s lack of qualifications for the position by Egyptian army officers, already resentful of high-level corruption and the embarrassment of Egyptian defeats in the 1948 war, precipitated a coup that overthrew the monarchy and installed a military dictatorship.
For his efforts at Rhodes, Ralph Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, over other nominees that included Sir Winston Churchill and George Marshall. He was the first black American, and the youngest person ever, to receive the award. He initially turned it down, explaining in a letter to the Nobel Prize Committee, “You don’t work in the [UN] Secretariat to win prizes,” but relented when Secretary General Lie ordered him to accept it. Bunche, who would also be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, sixty-nine honorary doctorates, and countless other honors, chose to remain at the United Nations where he became under-secretary general for special political affairs.78 His fame was not universal, though. During one of many press interviews, a journalist noticed Bunche’s five-year-old son playing in Bunche’s office. The reporter asked the child if he knew what his father did. “Yes, of course,” he replied. “He’s a U.N. radiator.”79
Bunche continued his work with civil rights in the United States, joining with his friend Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1963 March on Washington and again in Selma in 1965. Harvard University offered him a full professorship, and President Kennedy asked him to become his secretary of state, but Bunche remained at the United Nations until his death in 1971. When asked how he had managed through the successful negotiation, Bunche replied:
Like every Negro in America, I’ve been buffeted about a great deal. I’ve suffered many disillusioning experiences. Inevitably, I’ve become allergic to prejudice. On the other hand, from my earliest years I was taught the virtues of tolerance; militancy in fighting for rights—but not bitterness. And as a social scientist I’ve always cultivated a coolness of temper, an attitude of objectivity when dealing with human sensitivities and irrationalities, which has always proved invaluable—never more so than in the Palestine negotiations. Success there was dependent upon maintaining complete objectivity. Throughout the endless weeks of negotiations I was bolstered by an unfailing sense of optimism. Somehow, I knew we had to succeed.80
Chapter 7
The Cuban Missile Crisis
1962
The seeds of the Cuban Missile Crisis were planted on New Year’s Day 1959, when an insurrection led by Fidel Castro replaced General Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship with a Marxist government that turned Cuba into a client of the Soviet Union. The United States, alarmed by the establishment of a communist beachhead in the Western Hemisphere just ninety miles from the Florida coast, tried to destabilize the Castro regime, and in April 1961 landed twelve hundred armed Cuban exiles on the Bay of Pigs in a failed attempt to spark an uprising. Nearly all were killed or taken prisoner.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev worried that sooner or later the United States would try again with better luck and preparation, and spent the next thirteen months searching for a way to protect his new and vulnerable Caribbean ally. While vacationing in Bulgaria in May 1962, he conceived an idea that with a single stroke could eliminate the possibility of future U.S.-backed invasions of Cuba and nearly double the Soviet offensive nuclear-strike capability against the United States. “Why not,” Khrushchev asked, “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants?”1 By placing Soviet missiles on the island, he could bypass the Soviet Union’s seventeen-to-one inferiority in strategic nuclear forces and reduce the warning time for incoming missiles from twenty minutes to less than three. “My thinking,” Khrushchev explained, “went like this: if we installed the missiles secretly and then if the United States discovered the missiles were there after they were already poised and ready to strike, the A
mericans would think twice before trying to liquidate our installations by military means. I knew that the United States could knock out some of our installations, but not all of them. If a quarter or even a tenth of our missiles [in Cuba] survived—even if only one or two big ones were left—we could still hit New York, and there wouldn’t be much of New York left.”2
With Castro’s consent, the operation, code-named Anadyr, began that summer. Over the course of five months, more than eighty ships, the entire sealift capacity of the Soviet Union, secretly transported forty-two medium-range missiles, forty-two long-range bombers, one hundred sixty-four nuclear war-heads and fifty thousand troops, advisers, and engineers, along with fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and support vehicles and equipment across the Atlantic.
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