and pontificate in clever Yiddish while I carry the burden alone. But I’m a soldier! I need orders! Dayan is the only—”
“I have a file full of dirt on Dayan.”
Rabin grabbed Elie’s arm. “Burn it! Just burn it!”
“Eshkol promised to appoint me to run Mossad.”
The chief of staff turned away, and Elie was afraid he would bang his head on the concrete wall. This was a crucial moment. The bargaining would be short and decisive. “But I’d rather deal with a sabra.”
Rabin turned back, and a boyish smile cracked his face. “Weiss, you’re a mamzer! Wicked!”
“My price is the same. Give me your word, and I’ll burn Dayan’s file.”
“But I don’t appoint Mossad chiefs.”
“Not yet. But you will when you become prime minister.”
“Me?” Rabin laughed. “You are meshuggah. I’m a hundred years too young for that job.”
“I’m a patient man.”
“Sure. I give you my word. When I’m prime minister, I’ll appoint you to run Mossad.” Yitzhak Rabin patted his shirt pockets. “Damn, I’m out. Give me a cigarette, will you?”
Chapter 42
On Saturday morning, June 3, Lemmy went outside to check if the paint on the Jeep had dried. He passed his hand on the hood, feeling no stickiness, only tiny specs of dust embedded in the paint.
He woke Sanani up, and they cut molds for the letters U and N out of cardboard pieces. The car doors were open, and the Voice of Israel played Hebrew ballads on the radio.
At ten a.m. the radio uttered the familiar series of beeps preceding the news, and they stopped to listen. The lead item was that King Hussein had piloted his own plane from Amman to Cairo to sign a treaty with Nasser, submitting the Jordanian army to Egyptian command. The second item was an announcement from Prime Minister Eshkol, welcoming Moshe Dayan as defense minister in a unity government that also included opposition leader Menachem Begin.
“Yes!” Sanani lifted the paint brush, which he had just dipped in black.
“Don’t start!” Lemmy grabbed his hand.
“Why?” Sanani was laughing as he tried to free his hand and splatter Lemmy with paint.
“Because I think today is our day.”
Elie Weiss was not surprised to see the prime minister deflated, barely bothering to look up as government ministers and IDF generals filed into the conference room. The new defense minister, Moshe Dayan, appeared in khaki uniform that carried no rank or insignia, placing him in a gray area between the civilian and military leaders. He took a seat next to Yitzhak Rabin, who raised his glass of water in a symbolic toast. Dayan grinned and patted the chief of staff on the shoulder.
Abba Eban spoke first. “I must report with indelible regrets that our repeated excursions across the oceans have come to diplomatic naught. This is the last word from President Lyndon Johnson.” The foreign minister read from a piece of paper. “I’d love to see that little blue and white flag sailing down the Straits of Tiran, but I can’t do anything at this time.”
Eshkol sighed.
“The American president’s final decision,” Eban continued, “must be analyzed prudently. For example, embodied in the latter part of his message is an expression of absolute negation—anything—regarding American intervention. However, he left a door poignantly open by utilizing words of friendly intonation, such as the emotional love and the endearing little in reference to our national flag.”
OC operations, Ezer Weitzman, sneered and tossed a pencil on the large table.
“In diplomatic terms,” Abba Eban said, “the phraseology is carefully chosen to deliver a secondary message. I believe Johnson intended to give us a non-explicit permission to engage in active self-defense. I submit to you therefore that the United States has assented implicitly to our pending engagement in a unilateral military endeavor.”
No one responded to Abba Eban’s short dissertation which, Elie suspected, was due to the attendees’ difficulty in comprehending it.
“I agree.” Chief of Mossad, Meir Amit, was disheveled after a long flight from Washington via Paris. “The Americans blew us off. We’re on our own. But they won’t punish us for taking action. Our CIA liaison, Jim Angleton, is a good friend, and he told me as much. He took me to meet McNamara, and we showed him the evidence of Egyptian poison gas stockpiles. They agree we must act, but they’ll stay out for fear of instigating World War Three.”
“Exactly,” Moshe Dayan said. “And the Soviets are afraid of the same thing, so they won’t step in to fight for the Arabs.”
“Unfortunately,” Amit said, “the Soviets are better at saying one thing