Leon Uris (30 page)

LONDON

General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne dropped the copy of the newspaper on his desk. He lit a cigar and studied the reports. Mark Parker’s story was creating a sensation not only in Europe but in the United States. Tevor-Browne had a request for instructions from Sutherland, who refused to take the responsibility of issuing an order to board the
Exodus
.

Tevor-Browne knew that part of the blame was his. He had chosen Bruce Sutherland for the job of commander himself, and he had failed to act on the letter from Alistair which had warned that something was going to happen unless Sutherland was replaced.

Humphrey Crawford entered Tevor-Browne’s office. Crawford was a pasty-faced career man in the Middle East section of the Colonial Office, and served as liaison between the army and the policy makers at Whitehall and Chatham House. “Afternoon, Sir Clarence,” Crawford said nervously. “It is time for our meeting with Bradshaw.”

Tevor-Browne arose and gathered some papers together. “Mustn’t keep old Cecil Bradshaw waiting.”

Cecil Bradshaw’s office was in the Institute of International Relations at Chatham House. For thirty years he had been one of the top men in formulating British Middle East policy.

At the end of World War I, Britain and France competed for influence in the Middle East. When the British got the Palestine mandate, Bradshaw had been one of those, with Winston Churchill, who had pushed for the creation of an Arab state out of half the mandate. The state they were instrumental in forming was Trans-Jordan. The entire purpose for bringing it into being was to turn it into a British military base. British subsidies made possible the establishment of Britain’s Arab army, the “Arab Legion,” and the choosing of a king for Trans-Jordan. He was the Hashimite Arab Abdullah, mortal enemy of Saud of Saudi Arabia.

At the end of World War II the Labour party swept into power with promises—among others—to help establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine and a refuge for the survivors in Europe. Cecil Bradshaw led that strong faction in Chatham House which convinced the new Foreign Minister that these promises were charming but not very practical and that Britain’s interests lay with the Arabs. The Arabs’ ten million square miles were rich in oil and included a vital canal.

General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne and Humphrey Crawford were ushered into Cecil Bradshaw’s office. The latter, a fat man in his sixties, stood looking at the wall with his back to them, his pudgy hands clasped behind him. Humphrey Crawford sat down nervously on the edge of a seat. Tevor-Browne made himself comfortable in a deep leather chair and lit a cigar.

Bradshaw talked to the wall. “Congratulations, gentlemen,” he said in a voice filled with sarcasm and quivering with anger. “I see we made the news today.” He turned and patted his rotund stomach and smiled. “You expected to find me in a lather. No indeed, no indeed. Whitehall called this morning. As expected, the Minister has dumped this
Exodus
business into my lap.” Bradshaw sat behind his desk, glanced at the reports, and snatched off his thick horn-rimmed glasses with a quick gesture. “Tell me, Sir Clarence ... was your Intelligence staff dead or merely out for tennis? And I believe you have a bit of explaining to do about Sutherland. He was your idea.”

Tevor-Browne refused to be bullied. “I believe the establishment of camps on Cyprus was your idea. What is your explanation?”

“Gentlemen,” Crawford said quickly to avert a clash, “we are faced with a peculiar situation in this
Exodus
affair. This is the first time any publicity has carried into the American press.”

Bradshaw laughed a wheezy laugh. His big apple cheeks reddened. “With all of Truman’s talk the Americans have only allowed ten thousand Jewish refugees into the country since the end of the war. Certainly Truman is for Zionism ... as long as Palestine isn’t in Pennsylvania. Everyone talks idealistically but we are still the ones with a million Jews on our hands, a million Jews who could ruin our entire position in the Middle East.” Bradshaw replaced his glasses. “
Star of David, Moses, Palmach, Gates of Zion, Door of Hope
, and now the
Exodus
. The Zionists are very clever people. For twenty-five years they have made us the villains in Palestine. They write words into the mandate articles and the Balfour Declaration that were never meant. They can argue a camel into thinking he is a mule. Good Lord ... two hours with Chaim Weizmann and I’m about ready to join the Zionists myself.” Cecil Bradshaw took off his glasses again. “We know
your
sympathies, Tevor-Browne.”

“I resent the implications, Bradshaw. Perhaps I am one of a few hardheads who say the only way we are going to hold the Middle East is by building a powerful Jewish Palestine. I don’t speak of Jewish interest but I speak of British interest.”

Bradshaw interrupted. “Now let’s get to this
Exodus
affair. The implications are absolutely clear. We gave in on the
Promised Land
but this time we will not give in. This boat is in our waters and not in French waters. We will not go on board, we will not send them to Germany, we will not sink them. They will sit in Kyrenia until they rot. Rot—do you hear that, Tevor-Browne?—rot.” His hand began to shake as he grew angrier.

Tevor-Browne closed his eyes. “We cannot fight this out on moral grounds. We have no cause to keep three hundred children who were raised in concentration camps from entering Palestine. Oil ... canals ... Arabs be damned! We have no cause! We made ourselves look ridiculous by sending the
Promised Land
refugees to Germany.”

“I know your sympathies!”

“Gentlemen!”

Tevor-Browne stood up and leaned over Bradshaw’s desk. “There is only one way we can win this
Exodus
affair. The Jews have planned this whole incident to create propaganda. Turn the tables on them. Let the
Exodus
sail this minute. That is what they don’t want.”

“Never!”

“Can’t you see, sir, that we’re playing right into their hands?”

“That ship will not sail as long as I am in Chatham House!”

MARK PARKER

DOME HOTEL

KYRENIA, CYPRUS

STORY GAINING MOMENTUM. KEEP THEM COMING.

KEN BRADBURY, ANS LONDON

KYRENIA, CYPRUS (ANS),

BY MARK PARKER

It is a ridiculous sight. One thousand armed soldiers, tanks, artillery, and a naval task force all looking helplessly out at an unarmed salvage tug.

The battle of the Exodus ends week one in a draw. Both the British and the refugees are holding fast. To date no one has boarded the illegal runner which has threatened to blow itself up, but from the quay it is only a few hundred yards distant and a pair of field glasses brings the boat an arm’s length away.

The morale of the three hundred children on the Exodus seems to be phenomenal. They spent the week in the harbor alternately singing and catcalling to the British troops on the quay and sea wall.

Mark’s reports went out daily, each new one adding new and interesting details.

When Cecil Bradshaw made the decision to make a test case of the
Exodus
he knew there would be a barrage of adverse criticism. The French press staged its usual uproar, although this time the insults were so terrible that the likes of them had not been heard in the history of the Anglo-French alliance. The story spread throughout Europe, and even the British press became split and questioned Whitehall’s wisdom in not letting the
Exodus
sail for Palestine.

Bradshaw was a wise politician and he had weathered many storms. This one was a storm in a teacup and it would blow over, he was sure. He sent a trio of friendly journalists to Kyrenia to counter Parker’s reports, and a half dozen experts worked full time to explain the British position. The British had a case and it was being presented well, but it was difficult to offset natural sentiment for a group of refugee children.

If the Zionists are so sincere, why are they endangering the lives of three hundred innocent children? The whole thing is a sinister and cold-blooded plot to create sympathy and becloud the real issues of the Palestine mandate. It is obvious we are dealing with fanatics. Ari Ben Canaan is a professional Zionist agitator with a record of years of illegal operations.

Newspapermen from half a dozen countries landed at the Nicosia airport and demanded permission to enter the Kyrenia area. Several large magazines also sent in teams. The Dome Hotel began to look like a small political convention headquarters.

In cafés in Paris the British were denounced.

In pubs in London the British were defended.

In Stockholm there were sermons.

In Rome there were debates.

In New York bookies were laying four to one that the
Exodus
wouldn’t sail.

At the end of the second week Ari granted Mark permission to board the ship. Mark picked what he believed to be the ripe moment and arranged it by preset signals. Since he was the first outsider to board the
Exodus
his next three reports were carried by every newspaper on the front page.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH EXODUS SPOKESMAN ARI BEN CANAAN
:

KYRENIA, CYPRUS (ANS).

Today I became the first correspondent to interview Ari Ben Canaan, the spokesman for the children on the Exodus. I confronted Ben Canaan with the barrage of British reports maintaining that he was a professional Zionist troublemaker and with other Whitehall accusations. We spoke in the wheelhouse of the boat, the only place aboard not teeming with humanity. Today the children seem still to be in top spirits but are starting to show physical effects of their two-week siege.

Ben Canaan, thirty, and a strapping six-footer with black hair and ice-blue eyes, could be mistaken for a movie leading man. He expressed his gratitude to well-wishers around the world and assured me the children were holding up fine. In reply to my questions he answered, “I don’t care about the personal attacks on me. I wonder if the British added that I was a captain in their army during World War II. I admit I am a Zionist troublemaker and I will continue to be one until they keep their promises about Palestine. Whether my work is legal or not is a matter of opinion.”

I pressed him about the British arguments and the importance of the Exodus. “We Jews are blamed for many things and we are used to it. In anything concerning the Palestine mandate that cannot be explained logically and reasonably they drag out the old excuse that it is some sinister plot of Zionism. I am really amazed that they haven’t blamed the Zionists for the trouble they are having in India. Fortunately for us, Gandhi is not Jewish.

“Whitehall is using that tired whipping boy, the mysterious Zionists, to cover three decades of dirty work, lies to both Jews and Arabs, sellouts, double crosses, and betrayals in the mandate. The first promise they broke was the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which promised a Jewish homeland, and they have been breaking promises ever since. The latest double cross has come from the Labour party, which, before the elections, promised to open the doors of Palestine to survivors of Hitler’s regime.

“I am astounded at Whitehall’s crocodile tears over our victimizing of children. Every child on the Exodus is a volunteer. Every child on the Exodus is an orphan because of Hitlerism. Nearly every child has lived in either German or British concentration camps for six years.

“If Whitehall is so concerned about the welfare of these children then I challenge them to throw open the gates of Caraolos to inspection of the newsmen. It is nothing more or less than a concentration camp. People are kept behind barbed wire at machine-gun point with insufficient food, water, and medical care. No charges have been brought against these people. But they are being forcibly detained in Caraolos.

“Whitehall talks of our trying to bully them into an unjust solution of the mandate. There are a quarter of a million Jews in Europe who survived out of six million.

“The British quota of Jews allowed into Palestine is seven hundred a month. Is this their ‘just solution’?

“Finally, I argue the right of the British in Palestine. Have they more right to be there than the survivors of Hitler? Let me read you something.”

With that, Ben Canaan took a Bible from the desk of the wheelhouse, opened it to Ezekiel, and read:

“Thus saith the Lord God; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the nations, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob wherein your fathers abode and they shall abide therein and even they and their children and their children’s children forever.”

Ari Ben Canaan put the Bible down. “The gentlemen at Whitehall had better study their claims further. I say the same thing to the Foreign Minister that a great man said to another oppressor three thousand years ago—LET MY PEOPLE GO.”

The day after his “Let my people go” report Mark followed up with the inside story of Operation Gideon, including details of how British trucks had been used in the escape. British prestige hit a low-water mark.

On Mark’s advice, Ari allowed other newsmen to board the
Exodus
and they clamored to be let into the Caraolos camp.

Cecil Bradshaw had expected criticism, but he had not reckoned on the furor that had been created. Meeting followed meeting, as for that moment in time the eyes of the world focused on Kyrenia harbor. To allow the
Exodus
to sail would be completely disastrous now.

General Sir Clarence Tevor-Browne flew secretly to Cyprus to take command and see whether something could be done.

His plane landed in the small hours of the morning under security measures at the Nicosia airdrome. Major Alistair met him and they quickly entered a staff car and it whisked off toward Famagusta headquarters.