ד.1 | Forming the War Cabinet
The second day of the war was one of the most dramatic and perhaps the most difficult for the Israeli leadership. It began with optimism as shown in Allon’s telegram to the embassy in Washington (see the previous chapter) summing up the first day of fighting (See: Telegram No. VL/769). On the basis of this belief, Israel made every effort to stop all initiatives to declare a ceasefire that would freeze the existing situation. At 01:30 Golda composed another telegram, expressing her appreciation to Kissinger for stopping the initiative of Egyptian Foreign Minister Zayat to call for a special session of the General Assembly. She repeated that it was undesirable to convene the Security Council until the Egyptians had been pushed back to their own side of the border, which she thought would take about three days. She added that Israel was planning to attack strategic targets deep in enemy territory, but promised that there would be no attack on civilian targets (See: Telegram No. VL/770).
During the early hours of the morning, feverish contacts took place between the Israeli foreign minister and his staff and the US State Department on convening the Security Council. Eban reported that in a telephone conversation Kissinger said that the Americans could not oppose convening the Council, and therefore they were considering doing so themselves, in order to adopt a resolution on a ceasefire and a return to the 6 October lines. They would prolong the discussion as much as possible, so as to give Israel freedom of action on the military front. In any case, according to Kissinger, carrying out the American strategy was “dependent on our agreement” (See: Telegram No. NR/46). Later it was reported that the Americans had decided to postpone their call to convene the Council, and that their ambassador to the UN had been successful in postponing any resolution to the following day at 10:00. In fact, the Egyptians and Syria also opposed a ceasefire, in light of their military success.
During the next hours it became clear that the optimistic reports were not supported by reality on the ground. During the night of 6/7 October and the following morning the military situation worsened from Israel’s point of view. The Egyptian army expanded the bridgeheads it had constructed and deployed additional forces across the Suez Canal. During the night many of the outposts that constituted the “Bar-Lev Line” along the Canal were surrounded, and some of them were captured by the Egyptian army. The situation in the north was also desperate. In the centre and the southern part of the Golan Heights, the main Syrian force broke through the IDF’s lines and penetrated deep into the Heights, faced only by sparse Israeli forces.
At 07:30 the prime minister crossed the lawn that separated her bureau from the IDF’s command headquarters (the ‘Pit’), and heard an update from the COGS, “Dado” Elazar. “We have had a bad night,” said Elazar, and gave details about the difficult position on the Golan Heights, while the situation at the Suez Canal “was a little better” (See: Cabinet Document No. 7).
During the first hours of the war Golda created the forum that would conduct it together with her. This unofficial “war cabinet” was based on the members of the “inner kitchen cabinet”: the prime minister, Dayan, Allon and Galili. They were joined, as needed, by other ministers, the COGS and other senior military officers, the head of Mossad Zamir and others. The cabinet dealt mainly with the management of the two principal theatres – the military and the political one. The latter focused on discussions in the UN Security Council on a ceasefire, and contacts with the American government to obtain urgently-needed supplies. Managing the political arena was greatly assisted by the close ties between Golda and Kissinger. At first messages were transmitted by exchange of telegrams between Gazit and Dinitz in Washington, who served as the contact with the Americans through Kissinger’s deputy as National Security Assistant, Scowcroft, and Lawrence Eagleburger, his assistant at the State Department. After several days a direct communications line with the embassy was installed in the bureau. Eban, who was in New York, was involved in the discussions at the UN, but was largely kept out of political contacts with the Americans.