The Glory Read online

  Copyright © 1994 by Herman Wouk

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: June 2002

  Little Brown and Company and the logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group

  The Glory is a work of fiction set in a background of history. Israeli and other public personages both living and dead appear in the story under their right names. Their portraits are offered as essentially truthful, though scenes and dialogue involving them with fictitious characters are of course invented. Any other usage of real people’s names is coincidental. Any resemblance of the imaginary characters to actual persons living or dead is unintended and fortuitous. The simplified map, of a region much subject to clouded boundary disputes, is intended only to illustrate the narrative. Further clarification of certain distinctions between fact and fancy appears in the Historical Notes at the end of this volume.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-06889-5

  Contents

  Copyright Page

  Preface to the New Edition

  Leading Characters

  Prologue

  PART ONE: The Dreamers

  1: The Cousins Berkowitz

  2: The Telephone Call

  3: Reprisal

  4: Two Little Words

  5: Golda

  6: The Test

  7: The Shocks

  8: Noah Departs

  9: The Wild West Show

  10: Spécialité de la Maison

  11: The Dogfight

  12: Lost Victory

  13: Shayna’s Wedding

  14: The Raid

  15: The Big Parade

  16: The Concepzia

  17: Rumbles

  PART TWO: The Awakening

  18: Earthquake

  19: Fathers and Sons

  20: The Third Temple Is Falling

  21: We’ll Break Their Bones

  22: The Black Panther

  23: Kissinger

  24: The Fork in the Road

  25: Everything That Can Fly

  26: That Crazy Bridge

  27: The Crossing

  28: Sharon Halted

  29: Goodbye to Glory

  30: The Bridge Arrives

  31: Golda and Kissinger

  32: Nakhama and Emily

  33: Beaten-Out Willows

  PART THREE: The Peace

  34: Amos and Madame Fleg

  35: “We Unbelievers”

  36: Shayna and Kishote

  37: The Challenge

  38: Why Dov Died

  39: The Peacemaker

  40: Moshe

  41: Doomsday

  Epilogue: “And He Shall Reign”

  Historical Notes

  Praise for Herman Wouk’s epic saga of Israel’s founding and struggle to survive

  The Hope

  “Heroic storytelling. … Wouk’s fictional characters humanize history.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “It was given to Wouk, probably by the spirit of Tolstoy, to provide us in The Winds of War and War and Remembrance with the most convincing fictional transformation of World War II. He has done the same thing here for the struggles of the infant state of Israel. … The Hope is moving, informative, ultimately a glorification of man’s possibilities. It is in this new country of Israel — where the values of the citizen are the values of the family, where the soldier is also a scholar — that modern man has the most hope. The title is apt, the book is magnificent.”

  — Anthony Burgess

  “Herman Wouk is a master of the historical novel.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  The Glory

  “Superb. … A stirring novel of a brave period and place. … There is historical scope in The Glory that conveys indelibly the sense of history that dignifies the past and sustains the present.”

  —Washington Times

  “Wouk long ago proved his skill at the delicate balancing act which is the historical novel. … He has said that his mission in writing The Hope and The Glory is to give ‘a vivid sense of what it was like to live in that embattled little land’ when these historical events were taking place: he accomplishes what he set out to do, and earns the fireworks that grace his final pages.”

  —Erica Wagner, The Times (London)

  Books by Herman Wouk

  Novels

  AURORA DAWN

  CITY BOY

  THE CAINE MUTINY

  MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR

  YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE

  DON’T STOP THE CARNIVAL

  THE WINDS OF WAR

  WAR AND REMEMBRANCE

  INSIDE, OUTSIDE

  THE HOPE

  THE GLORY

  Plays

  THE TRAITOR

  THE CAINE MUTINY COURT-MARTIAL

  NATURES WAY

  Nonfiction

  THIS IS MY GOD

  THE WILL TO LIVE ON

  To

  THE ISRAELIS

  Valorous in War

  Generous in Peace

  Above All to Those Who Fell

  To Save the Land

  Preface to the New Edition

  The Glory is in essence the historical novel that I first set out to write, about the beginnings of the reborn Jewish State in the Holy Land. The Yom Kippur War of 1973, I thought, epitomized the drama of Israel’s struggle to live on: the surprise two-front attack on its most sacred day, the Russian superpower’s grim backing of the Arab assault, the uphill fight against huge odds in manpower and arms, and the stunning turnaround victory that broke the encircling Arab front and brought a peace treaty with Egypt.

  Mortal combat on the battlefield, high drama in the diplomatic arena, just the substance for a historical novel; that was how I presented my project to an old Israeli friend, a retired major general who had known command in the field and advocacy in Washington. He heard me out, then commented with weary good will, “Don’t try to do it in one war. It’s a hundred-year story.”

  He was partly right. I did have to write an entire novel of equal length, The Hope, to set the stage of the Yom Kippur drama.

  There is really no understanding Israel’s formative years — or even the current violence as I write, in March 2002 — without factoring in the hostility to the Jewish State of the now-defunct Soviet Union, especially after the Six-Day War of 1967. If not for Russia’s implacable fight at the United Nations to cancel and even reverse the outcome of that astounding victory, the history of the Middle East might have taken a different course. The region might now be at peace.

  The first hundred pages of The Glory throw a clear light on what happened then. The United States and Israel agreed to hard-fought exact wording of a U.N. resolution calling for withdrawal of all parties from territories occupied during the war. Kosygin tried and failed to insert what he referred to as two little words, i.e., fromALL THEterritories occupied during the war. The harsh showdown between Lyndon Johnson and Alexsey Kosygin over the “two little words” embodies the crux of that era. Those “two little words” are current coin in journalism, even as they climax my hundred pages. With the all-out backing of the Soviet Union, the Arab nations were emboldened to fight on to eradicate Israel, and the signal of that decision was the battle scene that opens The Glory, the sinking of the destroyer Eilat during the armistice that ended the war.

  Part of the fascination of the Yom Kippur War — and I confess to a fascination
with that seesaw conflict on the battlefield and in the corridors of power, with its ramifications through Moscow, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Washington — part of the fascination, I say, lies in the figure of the Egyptian leader, Anwar Sadat. Arguably the greatest Arab of modern times, Sadat planned and executed the surprise attack with canny brilliance, then journeyed to Jerusalem to make peace with Israel. Golda Meir, when asked who was the hero of the war, sharply rejoined, “Sadat! He dared.” Egypt still celebrates the day Sadat’s war started, naming bridges, avenues, and monuments “October 6th.”

  During my years of research, much of it done in Israel, I was asked innumerable times, “How will you end the story?” For the end was not in sight when I started my work in the 1980s, any more than it is today in 2002. The illusory Oslo “peace process” has foundered. In the changed world scene after the horrific events of September 11, Israel still contends with ongoing terrorist incursions and stands alert against missile threats from a distance. Yet world perceptions of Israel’s long struggle with the global evil of terrorism has been changing. I see hope for both sides in this change; and as for glory, Israel’s history demonstrates how readily it will trade battlefield glory for true peace, as it did with Anwar Sadat.

  The history of the military and diplomatic struggles in The Hope and The Glory is offered as accurate, based on years of arduous research. Where imaginary figures take part in actual historical scenes, the Historical Notes in the back of each volume clarify what is real and what invented. A wise old Israeli, who helped me greatly in my research, exclaimed on reading some early chapters, “Oh, you’re not going to make it an army story, are you? There’s so much more to Israel than the army!” True enough. But life and death for Israel in those days hung on the army and on the diplomats. A simple rule for the reader to bear in mind is this: aside from the four fictitious protagonists, Israeli political figures, diplomatic characters, and military persons of the rank of lieutenant colonel and above are real people of the time.

  Herman Wouk

  March 2002

  Leading Characters

  The Barak (Berkowitz) family

  ZEV BARAK, born in Vienna, name Hebraized from Wolfgang Berkowitz. Army field officer, military emissary to America, later military attaché in Washington

  Nakhama, his wife

  Noah, his son, in love with Daphna Luria

  Galia, his daughter

  Ruti, his daughter

  John Barkowe (Berkowitz), nickname Jackie (“Dzecki”). American cousin of Noah, making aliya. In love with Daphna Luria

  Leon Barkowe, his father

  Bessie Barkowe, his mother

  Michael Berkowitz, Zev’s religious brother, a scientist

  Lena Berkowitz, Michael’s irreligious wife

  Reuven, their son

  Julia Levinson, French girl, later Noah’s wife

  The Pasternak family

  SAM PASTERNAK, born in Czechoslovakia. Kibbutznik, combat officer, later in military procurement and the Mossad

  Amos, his son

  The Luria family

  BENNY LURIA, Sabra, born in Moshe Dayan’s moshav. Air Force commander

  Irit, his wife

  Yael, his sister (Yossi Nitzan’s wife)

  Daphna, his daughter

  Dov, his son

  Danny, his son

  Nitzan (Blumenthal) family

  YOSSI NITZAN, combat officer, born Joseph Blumenthal in Poland (nickname Don Kishote)

  Yael (Luria) Nitzan, his wife

  Aryeh, their son

  Leopold, Yossi’s brother (emigrates from Israel to America, changes name to Lee Bloom)

  Shayna Matisdorf, Yossi’s first love, later marries Michael Berkowitz

  The Cunningham family (American)

  CHRISTIAN CUNNINGHAM, a CIA officer

  Emily, his daughter

  Bradford Halliday, army officer, Emily’s husband

  Prologue

  The world is stunned. The eternal victims of history, the Jews, have risen in a single generation from the ashes of the Holocaust to win, in six swift days of June 1967, the greatest military victory since the Second World War.

  In the West the media stammer astonished admiration. In Communist and Arab countries they rage against aggressive Israel and claim that American carrier planes took part in the air strikes. In the United Nations the Soviet Union leads a bitter fight to reverse the victory politically and force the Israelis back behind the old armistice lines of 1949. But various withdrawal proposals worked up by the Russians and the Americans are rejected one after another by the Arab governments, who in August have met in the capital of the Sudan and issued the Khartoum Declaration, embodying irrevocable NO’S — NO negotiation with Israel, NO recognition of Israel, NO peace with Israel.

  In Israel, and among Jews around the world, all is light, gladness, joy, honor, and euphoria …

  PART ONE

  The Dreamers

  WHEN THE LORD RETURNED US TO ZION,

  WE WERE LIKE DREAMERS.

  THEN OUR MOUTHS WERE FILLED WITH LAUGHTER,

  AND OUR TONGUES WITH SONG …

  Psalm 126:1, 2

  1

  The Cousins Berkowitz

  On a blustery morning in October 1967, the destroyer Eilat, returning from patrol off Sinai, was approaching Haifa at a leisurely ten knots to conserve fuel. In the unsteady charthouse Noah Barak, a lieutenant of twenty-three with the haggard overworked look appropriate to an executive officer, was checking through a sheaf of navy yard requisition forms: hull repairs, engine maintenance, work on radar and signal gear, and — marked in angry red ink VERY URGENT — missile countermeasures.

  The officer of the deck spoke through the voice tube. “Sir, collision course out here.”

  “Coming.”

  The day was fair, the sea moderate: rolling glittery blue swells, a few whitecaps, brisk chilly north wind. The sun was high over Mount Carmel, and ahead was the long stone Haifa breakwater. On the port bow some two miles away, a large rust-streaked white vessel was also heading for the channel entrance. Noah asked, peering through binoculars, “How long has he held course?”

  “Since 0700, sir, no change.”

  Noah buzzed the captain. “Sir, request permission to go to twenty knots.”

  “What’s up?” Noah told him. The captain yawned. “Well, so what? You say we have him to port. He’s got to give way —”

  “Sir, it’s one of those Italian automobile ferries.”

  “Oh, l’Azazel. Those fellows never heard of the rules of the road. How far out are we?”

  “Four miles to number-one buoy, sir.”

  “Very well. Go to twenty, Noah, and take her in.”

  The Eilat leaped ahead, smashing through the swells. The automobile ferry slowly fell back to port, then dead astern. When the Eilat entered the harbor and approached the naval base, the captain came up on the bridge, clean-shaven and in a fresh uniform, and took the conn to tie up alongside its sister ship, the Jaffa. These two old British one-stackers, purchased out of mothballs and reconditioned by the Israelis, were the capital warships of the Jewish navy, dwarfing the huddle of gray patrol and torpedo craft that made up most of the little sea force.

  Noah shouted to the executive officer waving to him from the Jaffa’s bridge, “Shlomo, what’s the word on the countermeasures?”

  “The word is we have to sail without them again,” Shlomo yelled back. The two destroyers spelled each other in the Sinai patrol station.

  Noah uttered a pungent Arabic curse. “I’ll go to supply section this morning and set fire to the place.”

  “Let me provide the kerosene and a blowtorch,” called back the Jaffa’s exec.

  By now the automobile ferry was inside the breakwater, slowing as it passed from foaming swells and sea winds to flat murky harbor calm. At the bow a young man about Lieutenant Barak’s age leaned on the rail, dressed in a tan sport jacket, gray slacks, and a red racing driver’s cap. He somewhat resembled the exec of the
Eilat, and this was no coincidence, for they were distant cousins who had never yet met. Like Noah Barak the young man was broad-shouldered and round-faced though not as tall, and like Noah he had a thick thatch of straight hair, sandy instead of black. “I’m here,” he was murmuring. “I’m here. Everybody thinks I’m crazy, but I’m the sane one, and I’m dizzy with joy.”

  The sight of the destroyer racing ahead of the ferry had thrilled him, an honest-to-God warship flying the blue-and-white Star of David, and this approach to Haifa was giving him a yet greater thrill, his first close look at the Promised Land: sun-drenched white buildings mounting the green Carmel slopes, a waterfront crowded with the parti-colored funnels of docked ships from many lands, a naval base lined with combat craft, and on flat ground to the north, imposing chemical plants and oil refineries. The whole panorama was stirring his blood like brass band music.

  A deep voice behind him in Hebrew: “Beautiful view, yes?”

  The burly speaker wore soiled jeans and an old leather wind-breaker. His coarse jowly face was scraggly with black bristles, and his overgrown grizzly hair stirred in the breeze. On the three-day trip from Italy the newcomer had seen this man before, a loner of some sort, sitting apart in the dining salon or the shabby little disco, smoking big cigars.

  “Ken, yofeh m’od.” (“Yes, very beautiful.”)

  “Ah, so you’re an American.” The man switched to guttural English.

  The young man laughed. “Three words in Hebrew, and you can tell?”

  “You must be bringing in that new blue Porsche.”

  “That’s my car.”

  “Tourist?”

  “Nope, making aliya.”

  The pudgy face showed amused surprise. “You’re coming to Israel to live? For good? From America?”

  “Why not? For a Jew nowadays, this is where it’s at, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Kol ha’kavod! [All honor!] But look here, you may run into problems with that Porsche at the Mekhess. You know what that is, the Mekhess?”