War Breaks out

That night I fell into an exhausted sleep. Hours later, earsplitting sirens awakened me. Right on the dot of nine o’clock, Monday morning, the air raids began. A hotel employee banged on my door.

“Hurry! Get dressed and follow me,” he ordered.

He escorted me to an outside staircase—an open-grated fire escape. Since my room was on the eighth floor, I had to go down that many flights plus two others to reach the security of the lowest level. All the hotel guests had been sequestered in the basement. While we waited for information, we talked about the bombing we heard in the distance.

Having had no access to current events, I asked Bill McDonald, a Chicago correspondent, for an update. He told me that President Nasser and the Soviet Union had exchanged incorrect intelligence about Israel amassing troops on Syria’s border. Nasser began gathering his own troops on Israel’s border. To Israel, Nasser’s actions were viewed as an act of war. They responded immediately with preemptive strikes at Egypt’s military airfields and Cairo’s international airport. That was the bombing we were hearing.

As soon as the all-clear whistle sounded, the basement crowd returned to the central part of the hotel, this time using elevators. I left with them and had just opened my room door when the telephone rang.

“Are you all right?” Hank asked.

While we were talking, another air-raid siren sounded. Once again, I was escorted to the fire escape and descended the eight plus flights to the basement. I had a fear of heights and the open-grated staircase, so many stories above the pavement, frightened me.

Once the all-clear whistle sounded for the second time, I immediately went to the front desk.

“Please change my room to a lower floor,” I requested.

The clerk gave me a second floor suite and bellhops transported my luggage.

For the next two days, as the air raids sounded, the hotel guests traveled from their rooms, to the basement, and out to the hotel grounds. I never saw Hank during these hectic cycles, but he called numerous times.

The next day Bill asked, “Would you like to join us for a tour of Cairo?”

“Yes, I would.”

I was eager to leave the hotel grounds as I had now been there for four days (two on my own and two as a captive). Since the bombing was at the military and Cairo airports, miles away from the Hilton, I felt completely safe. I was wedged in the backseat between two reporters while Bill sat in the front passenger seat.

He leaned around while we were driving and told me, “Israel just destroyed Egypt’s entire air force.”

We hadn’t been on the road for more than a few minutes when we were stopped by a checkpoint guard and asked to show our identification. Our taxi was immediately surrounded by a group of black-uniformed policemen bearing machine guns.

A young soldier scanned the inside, stopping to stare at me. I tried to look unconcerned when he asked for our documents. All the reporters had their press credentials. I had nothing.

One of the reporters slipped me his ID after he had showed it to the officer. Chills raced down my spine as I passed it to the guard. With enormous effort I steadied my shaking hand.

Thank goodness the press card had no photo on it and the guard could not read English. Although we passed the inspection, we couldn’t continue and were ordered back to the hotel. I don’t think I took a full breath until we were some distance from the checkpoint. Then all five of us let out a collective sigh of relief.

When we approached the Hilton, another correspondent drew near. Mike Landsky was a large man—well over six feet tall and relatively heavy. His shirt was soaked with blood. His face was covered with black and blue bruises. One eye was swollen shut, and his head was bloated like a basketball.

“What happened to you?” Bill asked.

“They saw me taking photos from that building,” he said, pointing across the street. “The police caught me on the staircase.”

“Then what?”

“I held the stair rails and kicked them as they rushed me. One guy reached over and hit me with his belt. The buckle blinded me. That’s when they got me.”

Once they finished beating him, they confiscated his camera gear. The police dragged him back to the Hilton and dumped him at the entrance. The hotel staff cleaned his wounds, and he waited for Bill to return.

The Cairo Hilton held almost all the non-Egyptians in the country. With so many Americans and Israelis inside, the building became a target and was specifically threatened. Evacuation plans by the U.S. government were formed.

There were a total of 567 of us, which turned out to be too large a group to leave at one time. Consequently, half were ordered to take a train to the portside city of Alexandria, about 120 miles west of Cairo. The other half would stay at the Hilton and leave on the day of the rescue.

A few hours after the first half left the Hilton under escort, it was decided to send four more. This small group was made up of Jack Howard (an African-American dentist), Sven Johnson (a Swedish diplomat), Mary Clark (a Fulbright Scholar’s wife, living in Alexandria), and me. I said a heartfelt good-bye to Hank and joined the other three for a cab ride to the station.

We were unusually quiet during the long train ride through the countryside. I looked at the blackness beyond the window and wondered, “What will happen next?”

Дата добавления: 2015-08-27