part because of Bruria Shaked, his girlfriend, whom he’d met while

part because of Bruria Shaked, his girlfriend, whom he’d met while commanding the tank unit after 1973. While he was a thinker and a brooder and in many ways a loner, Bruria was outgoing, playful, funny and full of life. She sensed his need for a shoulder to lean on, a hand to hold at the movies or on a Saturday stroll on the beach. They made their apartment a home. The shelves creaked under the weight of Yoni’s books. Often on a Saturday, when Nava and I dropped in to see them, an old 33 rpm record would be playing on the stereo. Yoni would be sitting puffing on his pipe, reading, and smiling. But outside this domestic haven, he still struggled. He had looked forward to commanding Sayeret Matkal. But there was a growing distance between him and those he led, a kind of dissonance between these more typically Israeli youngsters and the aloof, reflective, intellectual side of their commander. There was another tension as well. Sayeret training was notoriously tough. Yoni earned the admiration of his men by participating personally in the most difficult of the exercises. But just as he pushed himself to his limits, he insisted relentlessly on seeing the same drive in them. This was a challenge all sayeret commanders faced to some extent. I had, too. But a number of the officers had gone to the kirya to urge that Yoni be replaced. He knew this. Though I tried to reassure him, telling him that every sayeret commander was different, with his own strengths and weaknesses, he became only more determined to push himself and those around him harder. No we were in the final countdown for Entebbe. It was a life-or-death mission not just for us, but the hostages, an operation in which even a second’s hesitation or tension or uncertainty could prove fatal. I was worried that the rumblings of uneasiness in the unit might prove an additional obstacle that wasn’t worth the risk. When I tried to persuade Kuti to stick with the original plan, however, he was insistent. He told me to get ready to fly not into Uganda, but to Nairobi. I'd been re-assigned to accompany a Mossad team to Kenya. Our first task would be to get the answers to the questions Rabin had asked us. Then, we would be in charge of arranging for the Kenyans to allow us to refuel the C-130s on the way out, and to set up a medical facility for any injured soldiers or hostages. During the attempted rescue, I would also be the channel of communications from the Nairobi side of the operation to Kuti, tens of thousands of feet above Entebbe in a command 707. Dan, as overall commander, would be in charge on the ground. 174 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011645