Six Days

by Jeremy Bowen

‘Millions of television’: Shevchenko, p. 121.

  ‘When at last instructions’: ibid., p. 134.

  ‘Moscow also took military’: Isabella Ginor, ‘The Russians Were Coming: The Soviet Military Threat in the 1967 Six-Day War’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 4 No. 4, December 2000.

  ‘Ambassador Goldberg’: Memo to Arthur Goldberg, chronology of Soviet delay on Security Council meetings, 26 June 1967, State Dept Historical project: both in NSC, Box 20; also Gideon Rafael, Destination Peace, pp. 153–8.

  ‘But in a private meeting’: Shevchenko, p. 134.

  ‘President Johnson summoned his new “Special Committee”: McGeorge Bundy on the hotline meetings and the Middle East, 7 November 1968, NSC, Box 19; Rostow, Memo for the Record, 17 November 1967, NSC, Box 18.

  ‘When, in late afternoon’: Memo for the Record, ‘Who fired the first shot’, 19 December 1968; CIA analysis, 5 June 1967; Rostow, Memo for the Record, 17 November 1968: all NSF, Box 18.

  ‘The State Department’s own legal advice’: Memo from Leonard C. Meeker, legal adviser to Secretary of State Rusk, 5 June 1967, NSC, Box 18.

  ‘Abu Deeb, the moukhtar’: Hikmat Deeb Ali’s story based on oral history in Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians, pp. 55–9.

  ‘By six, Brig. Gen. Avraham Yoffe’s’: Churchill, p. 112; Barker, p. 87.

  ‘Ori Orr’: Orr, IDF Magazine.

  ‘The commander of Israel’s southern front’: Elon, pp. 11–12.

  ‘Rabin called Gavish’: interview with Gavish.

  ‘The Egyptians do not like’: quote in Churchill, p. 118.

  ‘Ariel Sharon rubbed his hands’: Dayan, p. 48; account of Abu Agheila fighting from Van Creveld, pp. 186–7; Barker, Arab-Israeli Wars, p. 70; Pollack, pp. 67–70; Dupuy, pp. 258–63.

  ‘One of their doctors’: Dayan, p. 56.

  ‘By eight in the morning’: War File, pp. 74–8.

  ‘At Central Command’: interview with General Hadidi.

  ‘The US Embassy’: Cairo Cable 8539 to State, 5 June 1967, NSC, Box 23.

  ‘Anwar El Sadat’: Sadat, p. 176.

  ‘The editors in the newsroom’: Elkins quote from Moskin, p. 69.

  ‘less than fifteen hours’: Elkins, dispatch quoted in War File, p. 70.

  ‘The Jordanian command’: Schliefer, pp. 175–6.

  ‘Tel Aviv disappeared’: Cameron, p. 337.

  ‘Since mid-afternoon’: Memos from Rostow to LBJ, 5 June 1967, NSC, Box 18.

  Day Two

  ‘The Israeli paratroops’: Fighting at Ammunition Hill based on interviews with Hagai Mann, Doron Mor, Jacov Hetz (Chaimowitz), Arie Weiner and Shimon Cahaner, Jerusalem, 9 May 2002; also Pollack, p. 305; Moskin, pp. 258–9; Muttawi, pp. 133–4.

  ‘But General Narkiss wanted’: Narkiss, pp. 156–7.

  ‘At least sixty men were wounded’: Diary of Central Command, 6 June 1967, quoted in Mission Survival, p. 225.

  ‘Waiting in a jeep’: interview with Yoel Herzl, Netanya, 6 May 2002.

  ‘this was fighting of a sort’: Gur, quoted in Churchill, p. 134.

  ‘A mile away in the Old City’: Schliefer, p. 179.

  ‘Tank fire could have finished’: Moskin, p. 272.

  ‘You’d approach a house’: interview with Yoseph Schwartz, Jerusalem, 9 May 1967.

  ‘the noise was deafening’: Rose, pp. 263–4.

  ‘Before the Israeli troops’: Schliefer, p. 183.

  ‘Moshe Yotvat’: interview with Moshe Yotvat, Tel Aviv, 7 May 2002.

  ‘Among them was Yossi Ally’: Kibbutz Nachshon bulletin, 6 June 1968.

  ‘Hikmat Deeb Ali’: Hikmat Deeb Ali’s story based on oral history in Lynd (ed.) Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians, pp. 55–9.

  ‘In Beit Nuba’: Dodds and Barakat, p. 39; also PRO FCO 17/217: ‘Jordan’s 1967 Refugees’: a research report by the American University of Beirut, 31 October 1967.

  ‘A Jordanian battle group’: details from Pollack, pp. 308–10; Barker, Six-Day War, p. 113; Dupuy, pp. 309–10, interview with Elad Peled, 25 November 2002.

  ‘It was like a line’: Tal quote from Churchill, pp. 113–14.

  ‘During the night Cairo’: Pollack, p. 71.

  ‘The most impressive thing’: interview with Omar Khalil Omar, Gaza City, 1 December 2002.

  ‘Major Ibrahim El Dakhakny’: interview with El Dakhakny.

  ‘Ramadan Mohammed Iraqi’: interview with Iraqi.

  ‘General Riad told King Hussein’: Hussein, p. 81.

  ‘In her villa in Amman’: interview with Leila Sharaf.

  ‘mostly pointed their men’: Pollack, p. 463.

  ‘The attack was stopped’: Barker, p. 131.

  ‘The attack was all that’: Mayzel, pp. 137–40.

  ‘An American military analysis’: Israeli-Arab confrontation, National Military Command Center May 1967, NSF, Box 104.

  ‘On the eve of the war’: Seale, Asad, p. 113.

  ‘In Beit Nuba, Zchiya Zaid’: quoted in Kol Ha’ir, 31 August 1984, www.planet.edu.

  ‘On the edge of the village’: Dodds and Baraket.

  ‘Its morning report said’: Cairo Radio (Arabic), 0304 GMT, 6 June 1967.

  ‘After their disturbed night’: Armbrister in Chace, p. 114.

  ‘In Washington the CIA’: President’s Daily Brief, 6 June 1967, NSF, Box 19.

  ‘Inside, the staff’: Cairo Cable 8572 to State, 6 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘An hour later’: Cairo Cable 8583 to State, 6 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘Britain’s ambassador in Kuwait’: PRO/FCO 17/598: Arthur, Kuwait to FCO, 6 June 1967.

  ‘Arab oil-producing countries’: President’s Daily Brief, 6 June 1967, NSF, Box 19.

  ‘In Damascus’: Damascus Cable 1248 to State, 6 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘The king was in constant’: US policy and diplomacy in the Middle East Crisis, 15 May to 10 June 1967, ‘Effecting the Israeli–Jordanian Ceasefire, January 1969, NSC Box 20.

  ‘Reports of appalling losses’: Muttawi, p. 138.

  ‘Thanks to Voice of the Arabs’: Muttawi, p. 158.

  ‘The British military attaché’: PRO FCO 17/275, Dispatch No. 2, Defence Attaché, British Embassy, Amman, 22 June 1967.

  ‘We must stop the fighting’: Amman Cable 4092 to State, 6 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘Narkiss was keeping’: Narkiss, from Central Command war diary in Mission Survival, p. 226; Mordechai Gur in Churchill, p. 137; Schliefer, p. 177.

  ‘Rubi Gat’: interview with Rubi Gat, Jerusalem, 1 June 2000.

  ‘On the Jordanian side’: Schliefer, p. 178.

  ‘General Riad and King Hussein’: Hussein, p. 88.

  ‘We agree to the retreat’: ibid.

  ‘Hussein and his chief of staff’: Amman Cable 4128 to State, 6 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘Hussein summoned the ambassadors’: Amman Cable 4095 to State, 6 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘Generals Narkiss, Dayan and Weizman’: Narkiss, p. 219; interview with Doron Mor; Central Command war diary, 6 June 1967 in Mission Survival, p. 226.

  ‘It took until the afternoon’: Pollack, pp. 310–11; Barker, Six-Day War, p. 113; Dupuy, pp. 309–10; interview with Elad Peled, Jerusalem, 25 November 2002.

  ‘Most of Jenin’s’: interview with Haj Arif Abdullah, Jenin, 28 November 2002.

  ‘General Riad was calm’: Hussein, p. 90.

  ‘When he returned to Amman King Hussein’: Amman Cable 4108 to State, 6 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘Their fears were based’: interview with Dr Ihsan al Agha, Rafah, 30 November 1967. He is a local historian in Khan Younis who has so far documented 516 killings of civilians, using at least two sources for each. He spoke to heads of families, eyewitnesses and close relatives. He also found lists made by Egyptian authorities of families who wanted compensation. Massacre stories also corroborated by others in Gaza and interviews with refugees in Amman.

  ‘Shara and the other women’: interview with
Shara Abu Shakra, Khan Younis, 30 November 2002.

  ‘By Tuesday afternoon’: El-Gamasy, pp. 67–71.

  ‘Field Marshal Amer, the obvious scapegoat’: Heikal, pp. 181–2.

  ‘The Egyptians sent out’: Paris Cable 19927 to State, 6 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘At the headquarters of the Cairo’: interview with Hadidi.

  ‘More than half’: PRO/FCO 8/679: Graham (Kuwait) to Balfour-Paul (British Residency, Bahrain), 21 June 1967, NSC Box 20.

  ‘Lieutenant Mohammed Shaiki’: Bernet, p. 150.

  ‘The Egyptian army’: Cairo Radio, 0320 GMT, SWB, Vol. 2479–2504.

  ‘By 5 p.m.’: AP, Lightning Out of Israel, p. 99.

  ‘Near the front’: interview with Gavish.

  ‘That would mean sending’: Dupuy, p. 271.

  ‘US ambassador Goldberg’: Shevchenko, p. 134.

  ‘There was one more twist’: Ambassador Thompson on the hotline exchanges, 4 November 1968, NSC, Box 20; 6.30 timing from Lall, p. 51.

  ‘The Americans had offered’: Memo to Arthur Goldberg, chronology of Soviet delay on Security Council meetings, 26 June 1967, NSC Box 20.

  ‘nobody expects’: Memos for Rostow from Nathaniel Davis, 5 June 1967, NSC, Box 20.

  ‘In Khan Younis, for the second day’: interview with Abd-al Majeed al Farah, Khan Younis, 30 November 2002.

  ‘As the fighting in Gaza went on’: PRO/FCO 17/496: Situation in Middle East, 6 June 1967.

  ‘In the mountains above Qalqilya’: interview with Maa’rouf Zahran, Qalqilya, 29 November 2002.

  ‘Memdour Nufel’: interview with Memdour Nufel.

  ‘Fayek Abdul Mezied’: interview with Fayek Abdul Fattah Mezied, Qalqilya, 29 November 2002; figures from Qalqilya city archives.

  ‘Red light from’: interview with Khalil.

  ‘One of the officers’: Draz, pp. 135–46.

  ‘Just outside Jerusalem’: interview with Moshe Yotvat, 7 May 2002.

  ‘Ben Ari said afterwards’: MER, p. 224.

  ‘In the evening, towards midnight’: Narkiss, p. 242.

  ‘In the 1950s, Har Zion’: Elon, The Israelis, p. 234.

  Day Three

  ‘For two hours’: Schliefer, including dialogue, pp. 189–90.

  ‘On the Mount of Olives’: Tleel, p. 161.

  ‘By the third day’: PRO/FCO 17/275: Dispatch No. 2 from British Military Attaché, Amman, 22 June 1967.

  ‘At one in the morning’: Schliefer, including dialogue, pp. 189–90.

  ‘Then “a tremendous stentorian voice”’: Cameron, p. 339.

  ‘In Amman the minister of information’: interview with Sharaf.

  ‘Yahya Saad’: Draz, pp. 49–54.

  ‘Back in Sinai, General Gamasy’: El-Gamasy, p. 64.

  ‘Gamasy knew that a retreat’: Ibid., p. 65.

  ‘When the British defence attaché’: PRO/FCO 17/496: Tel Aviv to FCO, 12 June 1967.

  ‘Along the route of the retreat’: Cameron, p. 343.

  ‘Yoffe’s tanks drove all night’: report from Yediot Aharonot, 30 June 1967, quoted in Mission Survival, pp. 193–6.

  ‘At dawn air strikes’: interview with Uri Gil.

  ‘The general staff in Cairo’: Churchill, pp. 171–2; Pollack, pp. 72–3; Wright, pp. 346–9.

  ‘Finally, General Narkiss’: Churchill, p. 139; Narkiss, p. 245.

  ‘Rubinger, a photographer’: interview with Rubinger.

  ‘From his garden’: Schliefer, p. 193.

  ‘Two hundred Palestinian doctors’: AP, Lightning Out of Israel.

  ‘Hamadi Dajani, a Palestinian trader’: interview with Ahmed and Hamadi Dajani, Old City, 23 November 2002.

  ‘Velni and Ronen’: eyewitness testimony in Bamahane, IDF Magazine.

  ‘I told my driver’: Churchill, p. 140.

  ‘The Sunday Times’: McCullin, pp. 91–2.

  ‘Also driving up’: interview with Ava and Moshe Yotvat, Tel Aviv, 7 May 2002.

  ‘McCullin followed the soldiers’: McCullin, p. 92.

  ‘One of them was Goren’s jeep’: Yossi Ronen, IDF Magazine, ‘Bamahane’, http://info.jpost.com/supplements.

  ‘The Palestinian dentist’: Tleel, pp. 165–6.

  ‘Goren, said the Rabbi “did not stop”’: Yossi Ronen, IDF Magazine, ‘Bamahane’.

  ‘For Israelis it was the emotional climax’: interview with Rubinger.

  ‘Major Doron Mor’: interview with Doron Mor, Afula, 28 November 2002.

  ‘Herzl Bodinger, the Israeli’: interview with Bodinger.

  ‘Then I thought’: interview with Gavish.

  ‘Around eleven o’clock’: description of Combats by Commanders – Northern Front, IDF Spokesman’s Office, quoted in MER, p. 226.

  ‘More Israeli tanks arrived later’: Dupuy, pp. 313–14.

  ‘Raymonda Hawa Tawil’: Tawil, pp. 91–3.

  ‘It pressed home’: Amman Cables 4127 and 4128 to State, 7 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘The Israeli air force’: figures from IDF 947/192/1974: collection of statistics.

  ‘Sharif Zaid Ben Shaker’: interview with Prince Zaid Ben Shaker.

  ‘The US ambassador, Findley Burns’: Amman Cable 4125/4128 to State, 7 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘When the war started’: interview with Badial Raheb, Bethlehem, 22 November 2002.

  ‘Finally, the Soviet military’: Sergei Tarasenko, ‘Blitzkrieg in Sinai’, Novoe Vremya, No. 21, 1997, pp. 32–3.

  ‘Outside Amer’s bunker’: Cairo Cable 8641 to State, 7 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘Despair settled over the city’: Armbrister in Chace, p. 114.

  ‘After three days sheltering’: interview with Kamel Sulaiman Shaheen.

  ‘Moshe Dayan broadcast’: Voice of Israel, 7 June 1967, quoted in MER, p. 226.

  ‘A few hours after’: report from AP, Hilary Appelman, 31 December 1997, quoting Narkiss’ recollection of interview; www.middleeast.org.

  ‘One of the paratroopers’: Moshe Dayan, pp. 311–14.

  ‘Later in 1967’: report from AP, Hilary Appelman, 31 December 1997.

  ‘Israeli soldiers went from’: interview with Haifa Khalidi.

  ‘At nine in the evening’: MER, pp. 225–6.

  ‘Bombing continued in and around Jericho’: Dodds and Barakat, pp. 41–2; also PRO/FCO 17/217: American University of Beirut Research report on Jordan’s 1967 refugees.

  ‘Zaid Ben Shaker’: interview with Zaid Ben Shaker, Amman, 6 June 2002.

  ‘The first wave of refugees’: PRO/FCO 17/214: ‘The Refugee Problem in Jordan’, 3 August 1967; from UNRWA Refugee affairs RE 400(7) Emergency camps, Jordan; letter by Lawrence Michelmore, UNRWA Commissioner General, 10 July 1967.

  ‘Save the Children’s’: information on Hawkins’ life from Save the Children archives.

  ‘But Hawkins and the British’: Save the Children Fund Jordan; Quarterly report for the quarter ending 30 June 1967; administrator’s report by Lt.-Col Skelton.

  ‘Thirty years before Western’: PRO/FCO 26/116: Littlejohn Cook Memo, 7 June 1966.

  ‘Official denials’: PRO/FCO 1016/780: FCO to Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai and Muscat, 7 June 1967.

  ‘In London an official’: PRO/FCO 26/116: Littlejohn Cook Memo, 7 June 1966.

  ‘In Saudi Arabia’: PRO/FCO 17/599: Jeddah to FCO, 11 June 1967.

  ‘He told the American magazine’: Nutting, Nasser, p. 441.

  ‘What was certain’: PRO/PREM 13/1620: Record of phone interview, 7 June 1967.

  ‘At first, the Jordanians’: Figures from Dupuy, p. 315.

  ‘After the war’: Lev, p. 139.

  ‘The Americans were turning’: ‘An Approach to Political Settlement in the Near East’, 7 June 1967, NSC, Box 19.

  ‘President Johnson was’: Memo for the Record, 7 June 1967, NSC, Box 18.

  Day Four

  ‘He said he had left’: New York Times, 20 June 1967, quoted in Churchill, pp. 167–8.

  ‘This was a valley of death’: Sharon, quoted in
Churchill, p. 171.

  ‘I think the Egyptian soldiers’: quoted in Pollack, pp. 78–9.

  ‘Brigadier Abdel Moneim Khalil’s’: interview with Khalil.

  ‘Another Egyptian commander determined’: interview with Major-General Saad el Shazli, Cairo, 16 December 2002.

  ‘Cairo had become’: Cairo Telegram 8687 to State, 8 June 1967, NSF.

  ‘The CIA produced’: President’s Daily Brief, 8 June 1967, NSC, Box 19.

  ‘The English language Egyptian Gazette’: Armbrister in Chace, p. 114.

  ‘A member of the Central Committee’: Heikal, Sphinx and Commissar, p. 173.

  ‘Richard Helms, the Director’: Memo for the Record, 7 June 1967, NSC, Box 24.

  ‘In Moscow post-mortems’: Soviet ambassador’s comments on Arab–Israeli dispute; CIA intelligence information Cable, 31 May 1967, NSF, Box 106.

  ‘Another Soviet official’: CIA to White House Situation Room, 8 June 1967, NSF, Box 107.

  ‘But most of the evidence’: CIA Intelligence information Cable, 7 June 1967, NSF, Box 107.

  ‘A columnist in the Cairo newspaper’: CIA Sitrep, 10 June 1967, NSC, Box 21.

  ‘Raymonda Hawa Tawil’: Tawil, pp. 95–6.

  ‘Tawfik Mahmud Afaneh’: interview with Tawfik Mahmud Afaneh, Qalqilya, 29 November 2002.

  ‘Eleven-year-old Maa’rouf Zahran’: interview with Maa’rouf Zahran.

  ‘On the first full day’: interview with Samir Elias Khouri, Bethlehem, 22 November 2002.

  ‘Fifteen miles to the south’: Gazit, p. 37.

  ‘Nazmi Al-Ju’beh’: interview with Nazmi Al-Ju’beh, Jerusalem, 24 November 2002.

  ‘Among the euphoric Israelis’: Kollek, pp. 196–8.

  ‘Tanks from Tal’s division’: Churchill, pp. 176–7; Dupuy, p. 278.

  ‘Around twenty miles’: see www.ussliberty.org.

  ‘He felt “good and warm inside”’: Quote from Dead in the Water, BBC documentary about the Liberty, 10 June 2002.

  ‘On 8 June’: Summary of Proceedings, Court of Enquiry, 28 June 1967, NSF, Box 109.

  ‘Liberty had been redeployed’: see www.ussliberty.org.

  ‘At 1350’: transcript in Cristol, pp. 210–23; also in Bregman, pp. 121–2.

  ‘The man looking through the next’: details from Dead in the Water.

  ‘James Halman, one of the radio’: James Ennes, Assault on the Liberty, quoted in Bamford, p. 212.

  ‘Liberty was still trying’: details from Dead in the Water.