The War Prisoners Come Home

"You are clear from Lod to Cairo."

The voice of the towerman at Lod Airport broke suddenly last week as he passed along that seemingly routine flight clearance to a visiting Swiss pilot. The controller could hardly be blamed for the unprofessional display of emotion. The jet that he was routing was a Swiss DC-9 on charter to the International Red Cross. Shortly before takeoff, a convoy of 18 Israeli ambulances with red Star of David markings drew alongside the jet, owned by a charter company called Balair. Slowly, in some cases painfully, 44 men walked or were carried aboard. Those on stretchers wore green pajamas and were wrapped in gray blankets with their hospital records pinned to their chests. All were Egyptians captured by Israel in last month's bitter Sinai fighting; they were going home aboard one of the few direct flights between Tel Aviv and Cairo to take place in 25 years. "This is my last flight. I will not fight anymore," said Muzbach Jaber Abu Halbia, 30, from a stretcher. As he was helped aboard, Egyptian Mohammed Aly, 30, clutched a small blue-bound Koran that had been given to him by the Arab mayor of Hebron. "I believe that peace is coming," said Aly with awe. "Inshallah."

While the Egyptian prisoners were embarking at Lod, an almost identical scene took place 250 miles southwest at Cairo international airport. There, three buses decorated with the Red Crescent --the equivalent of the Red Cross in Islamic countries--drew alongside a waiting red and white DC-6 also owned by Balair. The buses unloaded 26 Israeli prisoners of war, who went aboard the plane. They were the first of 245 Israelis being repatriated. Meanwhile about 8,200 Egyptian prisoners will go home aboard the Balair planes and a chartered Swissair DC-8.*

The prisoner exchange, if it goes well, will take at least a week. Even some hardened veterans of the Middle East conflict were impressed that Egypt and Israel had arranged the transfer without bitter weeks of wrangling. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan went to Lod to greet the first flights of returning P.O.W.s. "At last," he said, "we have arranged things by talks like human beings instead of by tank fire and exploding grenades."

Diplomats in Washington and at the U.N. were cautiously pleased that the prisoner deal had been worked out and that the cease-fire across the Suez Canal was holding. Yet there were serious doubts about what would happen next, particularly as far as Israel was concerned. The prisoner problem is an intensely emotional one for the Israelis. Despite the agreement with Egypt on the exchange, there were no negotiations with Syria regarding the 130 or so prisoners it holds. Last week in Israel, and even in Cairo, there were disturbing rumors of Israelis being tortured and mutilated. Israel's army said that it had photographs of prisoners murdered by the Syrians but refused to show them.

Principal Fear. There is a definite intention, on Israel's part at least, not to be railroaded into a peace treaty with the Arabs. Last week's events followed one another so quickly that the Israeli government appeared to have difficulty keeping up with them. The principal fear is that U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has moved too far and too fast trying to implement his proposals for a Middle East cease-fire and peace. Premier Golda Meir, for one, believes that both sides need more time to assess the uncertain situation and consider what to do next. In a speech to the Knesset (Parliament) last week, Mrs. Meir warned that Israel would make no rapid agreement beyond last week's cease-fire and prisoner exchange. The future, she said, would have to be carefully considered.

One problem for Israel is that national elections originally scheduled for Oct. 30 have been postponed until the end of this year. Even before they take place, opposition parties in the Knesset are attacking the government's conduct of the war. Either before or shortly after the Dec. 31 general election, an official inquiry of some kind is expected to begin.

The next step in peacemaking, unless Israel demurs, will be a full-scale conference to establish such broader arrangements as troop pullbacks and demilitarized zones to be patrolled by the six-country United Nations Emergency Force. U.S. State Department officials last week indicated that the talks could begin in December in Geneva. Still to be worked out, however, is the list of participants at the conference.

The U.S. and the Soviet Union, which jointly arranged the ceasefire, are certain to be on hand, and so, of course, will the belligerents. Palestinian guerrilla organizations, which are under pressure from Moscow to go along with the truce, may also be invited as a group, since the question of an "interim" Palestinian state will be high on the agenda. But Syria, in advance of an Arab summit scheduled to take place next week in Algiers to discuss the Geneva meeting, has demanded that African nations and the European Economic Community also be included.

Israel is reluctant to attend any conference at which either bloc would be participants. For one thing, 28 African nations have broken diplomatic relations with Israel under pressure from Arab members of the Organization of African Unity. For another, Mrs. Meir, already exhausted from two weeks of almost constant peace conferences, flew to London last week to seek the support of 20 Socialist leaders, including Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and West Germany's Willy Brandt. She got comfort from none, primarily because of their fears of angering Arab oil suppliers.

Unsettled Points. For a time last week, it appeared that there would not be even a prisoner exchange, much less a second stage. Israel hesitated over signing the ceasefire, citing unsettled points in Kissinger's six-item letter of intent to U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim. Actually, the Israelis explained later, they did not want to sign the letter on the Jewish Sabbath. "That would have been a bit much," said Mrs. Meir last week.

The signing took place on Sunday in an olive-drab army tent set up in the sand alongside the highway from Cairo to Suez. The point, known as Kilometer 101, marks the farthest Israeli advance into Egypt before shooting stopped on Oct. 25. Inside the tent, at a U-shaped table covered with gray military blankets, three delegations sat down. Finnish Major General Ensio Siilasvuo, 51, the ruddy-faced commander of the Emergency Force, represented the U.N. Major General Aharon Yariv, 53, Israel's former intelligence chief and an adviser to Golda Meir, represented Israel. Major General Mohamed Abdel Ghani el Gamasi, 52, Egypt's assistant chief of staff, was sent by Cairo.

Despite happy fraternizing by troops of the opposing armies outside, Yariv and el Gamasi were stiff and precise. They spoke in English with Siilasvuo but not to each other. They signed three English copies of the Kissinger agreement and then adjourned. Scarcely 24 hours later, the truce came close to being shattered. The trouble was, as Israeli Deputy Premier Yigal Allon told a television audience, that the agreement was "a typical Kissinger document. Each side can find [in it] whatever it wishes."

The Israelis insisted that checkpoints along the road to Suez were to remain under their control, and that trucks carrying food, clothing and medicine to 15,000 civilians in Suez and to Egypt's trapped Third Army were to be inspected by them. They further claimed that they needed to retain control of the road to protect Israeli forces scattered to the south of it. Another reason for Israel's balking was that it wanted to use road-control leverage to get the P.O.W. exchange started quickly.

When blue-helmeted Finnish troops moved in to take over one checkpoint, they got into fistfights with the adamant Israelis. The Finns were winning until the Israelis brought up armored cars. A party of 114 journalists who sought to visit Suez City were also halted by the Israelis. "I was eyeball to eyeball with a shaggy Israeli holding his rifle at the ready," reported TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn, who was in the group. "I told him I was going to Suez. And he told me in no uncertain terms, 'I will not let you pass.' "

Bristling mad after a visit to the trouble spot, General Siilasvuo ordered up an airplane and flew to Jerusalem to talk with Defense Minister Dayan. Siilasvuo said that he was willing to coordinate matters, then barked "but I don't have to ask any permission except from the U.N. to carry out my mandate." Replied Dayan defiantly: "If Suez is a free city, then why are the Egyptians negotiating with us? If they really think it is free, then let them try to take it." Eventually, the two men worked out an agreement on the agreement. Israel was to withdraw from the checkpoints, and at the same time the prisoner-of-war exchange was to begin. Egypt also agreed, however, to let Israeli soldiers inspect supply trucks, even though the U.N. officially controlled the checkpoints. The details were worked out next day in the Kilometer 101 tent by Yariv and el Gamasi. This time the two generals smilingly shook hands and shared a bottle of whisky.

Proceeding Slowly. The generals are scheduled to return to Kilometer 101 this week to begin discussions on disengagement. The U.S. and the U.N. would like talks to proceed as rapidly as possible, to prevent the possibility that the new-found camaraderie might snap and hostilities resume. The big Egyptian First Army, so far unbloodied in battle, is poised close to the Israelis on the west bank of the Suez. Meanwhile, Israeli forces were reportedly regrouping around the Mitla Pass, apparently to hit the Egyptians on the east bank if there was an attack on Israeli forces on the other side.

But Israel, at least, intends to proceed with deliberate lack of speed. Leaving last week's second meeting at Kilometer 101, General Yariv paused to chat with Israeli soldiers. "You see," he said, "the prisoners are going home." "When are we going home?" they asked him. "Oh," answered Yariv, "that won't be for a long time."

*Some red tape, inevitably, was involved in the exchange. In Cairo, two immigration officers demanded to check the names of the departing Israeli prisoners. "These men do not have passports or exit visas," said an Egyptian liaison officer with a smile. "They came into the country by accident, and we must let them leave without the usual formalities."

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