Remembering the 1973 Yom Kippur War
Transcripts on ’73 War, Now Public, Grip Israel
Excerpt:
As Syrian tanks rolled toward the Galilee unimpeded, he understood that he had misread the signals.
“I underestimated the enemy’s strength, I overestimated our own forces,” he is quoted as saying in an early meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir and others. “The Arabs are much better soldiers than they used to be.” Then: “Many people will be killed.”
Seeking a means of salvation, he urged recruiting older men and Jews from abroad.
Ms. Meir considered a clandestine trip to Washington to persuade President Nixon to help.
A colleague asked what she hoped to get.
“Let him give whatever he has,” she replied. “Does he have tanks in Europe? Let him give them. You want Phantoms? Let him give. Let him see this as his front and not let our guts spill until he gives us one missile.”
In the end, Ms. Meir did not go. But after appealing to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, she did get Mr. Nixon to send an airlift of matériel that made all the difference in Israel’s favor in the 20-day war.
Comment: More information here and here. I was in seminary school at Tennessee Temple in Chattanooga at the time. I wasn't much of a news hound back then. I went to school from 8 until noon, worked from 12:30 until 8:30 and did homework into the night.
Scratch that! I was working for IBM in Tampa. then.
ReplyDeleteThe 1973 oil crisis followed: "The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia) proclaimed an oil embargo "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war; it lasted until March 1974"