The Glory (94 page)

The 1981 air strike which destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor evoked worldwide criticism. The American government even held up
deliveries of aircraft to Israel, to signal its disapproval. Ilan Ram-On, the youngest of the eight pilots who made the strike,
was my source for many details. At one point I asked Ilan, who had risen to command an F-16 squadron, what he would have my
book say about the attack, if he were to write it himself. He replied after a pause, very seriously,
“That it took the Gulf War to prove the need and worth of the operation.”

Right on target. Only when Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles were falling on Israel, and on American troops in Saudi Arabia,
were all questions answered about an exploit that deprived Iraq of nuclear warheads.

A final word to the readers of
The Glory
.

Menachem Begin once told me that when his term as Prime Minister was over, he would retire from politics to write a book about
the Jewish epic of the twentieth century, which he would call
Dor Hashoah V’hat’kumah,
literally
The Generation of the Destruction and the Resurgence
, embodying both the Holocaust and the rise of Israel. The mischances and tragedies of the protracted Lebanon War overwhelmed
him, and he retired into a depressed solitude and died. The book might have been a great one, but he never wrote it.

Though I have had no such conscious plan or ambition in mind, the historical novels I have written over the past thirty years
—
The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, The Hope, The Glory,
and
Inside, Outside
— come near at least in scope to the scheme Menachem Begin envisioned.
The Winds of War
began, in fact, as a book about the Battle of Leyte Gulf; yet the art of fiction has its own strange workings. As they finally
evolved, my two World War II novels tell of the Holocaust in the only way I believe that the unparalleled crime can be grasped,
if never completely understood; that is, as the covert deed of an outlaw major power governed by mass murderers, and screened
off too long from the rest of mankind by the fog of a global war. In
The Glory
and its prologue,
The Hope
, I have tried to limn Israel’s early heroic half century; and in
Inside, Outside
, a novel of the American Jewish experience during those years, I have as it were scrawled my small signature in a corner
of the panorama.

These five books have occupied the central years of my working life. Their merit is for others to judge, today and in years
to come, if they last. Looking back, I perceive them as a single task of bearing witness, my
Generation of Destruction and Resurgence
. That task is done, and I turn with a lightened spirit to fresh beckoning tasks; concluding my work on
The Glory
with old words often found at the close of our rabbinic commentaries, which express what is in my heart.

Finished and complete,

Praise to the Lord Eternal.

Herman Wouk

1964–1994

5724–5754

Also by Herman Wouk

The Caine Mutiny

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“A novel of brilliant virtuosity, remarkable for its finely realistic atmosphere and sharply observed characters. … So convincingly
has Mr. Wouk created his officers, so subtly has he contrived the series of incidents that culminate in the final drama, that,
given both the characters and the situations, the climax is perfectly acceptable. … It is fiction that all along the line
throws off real problems and faces them in mature fashion.”

—Times Literary Supplement

The Winds of War

“Hypnotically readable. … Wouk is a matchless storyteller with a gift for characterization, an ear for convincing dialogue,
and a masterful grasp of what was at stake in World War II.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

War and Remembrance

“Wouk’s real genius lies not just in the narrative power of his books, but in his empathy with the people and the times of
which he writes. … The genius of
The Winds of War
and
War and Remembrance
is that they not only tell the story of the Holocaust, but tell it within the context of World War II, without which there
is no understanding it.”

—Washington Post

Available in paperback whereever books are sold

Like no other novelist at work today, Herman Wouk has managed to capture the sweep of history in novels rich in character
and alive with drama.
The Glory
carries forward the story of Israel’s early years, which culminated in the miraculous triumph of 1967’s Six-Day War in
The Hope
. As Wouk here portrays the young nation facing formidable new challenges and pushed once again to the brink of annihilation,
he sets the stage for today’s ongoing pursuit of peace.

A MAGNIFICENT SAGA—ENCOMPASSING TWO NOVELS,
THE HOPE
AND
THE GLORY
—THAT BRINGS BRILLIANTLY TO LIFE THE EPIC ADVENTURE OF ISRAEL’S FOUNDING AND STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE.

Taking us from the Sinai to Jerusalem, from dust-choking battles to the Entebbe raid, from Camp David to the inner lives of
such historical figures as Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, and Anwar Sadat, these extraordinary novels have the authenticity and
authority of Wouk’s finest fiction—and together strike a resounding chord of hope for all humanity.

“A sprawling, action-packed novel. …
The Glory
is gripping historical fiction. Wouk’s portraits of historical figures are altogether convincing.”

—P
HILADELPHIA
I
NQUIRER

“A genuinely enjoyable read. … Wouk is a master. …
The Glory
is even better than
The Hope
, and probably is Wouk’s best work since
The Winds of War
.”

—D
ETROIT
N
EWS

“In this historic panorama Mr. Wouk’s skill—and his purpose—is wonderfully apparent. There is historical scope in
The Glory
that conveys indelibly the sense of history that dignifies the past and sustains the present.”

—W
ASHINGTON
T
IMES

Herman Wouk’s acclaimed novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning
The Caine Mutiny; Marjorie Morningstar; Don’t Stop the Carnival; Youngblood Hawke; The Winds of War; War and Remembrance;
Inside, Outside; The Hope;
and
The Glory
.

^*
Jeptha: special unit of army engineers who design and build matériel for Zahal’s unique needs.
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