{"id":154082,"date":"2024-05-28T10:43:42","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T07:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=154082"},"modified":"2024-07-09T11:31:51","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T08:31:51","slug":"eshkol_stuttering_speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/eshkol_stuttering_speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The Prime Minister’s Stuttering Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If only Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, prior to addressing panic-stricken Israelis on live radio on May 28, 1967, had reviewed his short speech to ensure that everything was in order\u2014or, better yet, rehearsed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If only word processing existed then, it would have obviated the need for Eshkol\u2019s top aide, Adi Yaffe, to scribble a change to the text that the Prime Minister\u2014fresh off a cataract procedure, exhausted from late-night meetings in the lead <\/del>up to the Six-Day War and having rushed to the Tel Aviv broadcast studio to deliver his remarks\u2014struggled to read. Confused by the wording, Eshkol whispered to Yaffe in Hebrew, \u201cWhat does it say?\u201d (again, this was a live broadcast) and stumbled and stuttered. That undermined Israel\u2019s confidence in its 71-year-old leader, led to Eshkol being compelled to relinquish his other job as Defense Minister, necessitated the government\u2019s being expanded on an emergency basis to include opposition parties and, at least temporarily, tarnished Eshkol\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Prime Minister Levi Eshkol speaking at the podium of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, 1967. Photo<\/a> by IPPA, the Dan Hadani Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The episode would become known as Eshkol\u2019s Stutter, hardly Israel\u2019s parallel to Abraham Lincoln\u2019s stately Gettysburg Address at wartime a century earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t what Eshkol said, but how he said it\u2014and its context was everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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IDF tanks near Jerusalem’s famous Montefiore Windmill, during the Six-Day War, 1967. Photo<\/a> by Boris Carmi, the Meitar Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By the time Eshkol addressed the nation, Israelis were white-knuckled, fearing for the country\u2019s survival after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in mid-May evicted United Nations peacekeepers from the Sinai Peninsula and deployed his own troops there, then blocked the Straits of Tiran to cut off Eilat from Israel\u2019s Red Sea commerce\u2014an act of war under international law. Israel\u2019s military mobilized, and Tel Aviv residents dug ditches in anticipation of mass fatalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reassurance through a national address was needed. Eshkol\u2019s meetings at the Defense Ministry\u2019s Kirya compound in Tel Aviv ran long, leaving no time to record the address that afternoon at his office on the grounds. Instead, he went across the street to a radio studio to speak live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a vacuum, Eshkol\u2019s mistakes during the address were minor. Cross-outs and insertions dotted the 1\u00bd-page text, and Eshkol handled them fine, with slight hesitations and stutters here and there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His pivotal screw-up centered on one word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prime Minister Levi Eshkol during a visit to Dimona in southern Israel, 1967. This image<\/a> is part of the Israel Archive Network project (IAN) and has been made accessible thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Yad Levi Eshkol Archive, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage and the National Library of Israel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It occurred near the end of a broadcast that ran just over three minutes. Listening to a recording of the speech today while following along on the typed text containing the handwritten changes, the drama builds. That\u2019s because Eshkol reached the end of the first page, flipped to the second page\u2014we hear the crinkle of the paper\u2014and immediately encountered the fifth word crossed out and two scribbled words above replacing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of reciting, \u201cLikewise, directions of activity were specified for withdrawing<\/em> the [Egyptian] military concentrations from Israel\u2019s southern border,\u201d we can imagine Eshkol\u2019s confusion upon encountering the handwritten Hebrew word for moving<\/em>. (Italics added for this article.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s when Eshkol turned to Yaffe and whispered his question. Yaffe made a hand-rolling motion to signal Eshkol to quickly continue. An engineer cut the sound for seven seconds. Silence. The sound returned, and Eshkol proceeded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the whisper, the sound cut and the resumption\u2014all vital to understanding the magnitude of the screw-up\u2014aren\u2019t grasped by listening to the audio recording today. Rather, those key components, and Yaffe\u2019s gesture, come courtesy of an archived interview<\/a> the Israel Broadcast Authority conducted years later with Yigal Lossin, who was working that day in the studio\u2019s sound engineer booth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The audio that exists is Eshkol\u2019s address after it was edited\u2014the whispered question and the seven-second pause were deleted\u2014for rebroadcast later that night, because Eshkol\u2019s staff realized the magnitude of the P<\/del>rime Minister\u2019s blunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The edited speech in Hebrew can be heard here:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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