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deliveries to Israel. The initial American reaction was one of reservation,
but apparently this caused considerable unrest in some quarters in Washington,
given Israel’s initially threatened military situation. On Sunday
morning, the cia operator at the American embassy in The Hague in
charge of communications with headquarters in Langley, Virginia, received
a critic from cia headquarters. Such a coded telegram requires a
response within a few hours. He therefore contacted the cia Chief of Station
in The Netherlands, Carlton B. Swift Jr., who had arrived in The
Hague in the summer of 1973. 35
Swift was instructed to approach the Dutch Cabinet to supply Israel
with as many weapons and spares as possible. The critic emphasised that
the political heads of the American Embassy had not been informed of
these instructions. The critic that Swift received contained this brief request
to the Cabinet to satisfy the Israeli requirements to whatever extent
possible. 36 Swift carried out his brief in discrete fashion. On Sunday
morning he contacted the Head of the Dutch Internal Security Service
(the bvd), D. Kuipers, and the Intelligence and Security Co-ordinator of
the Ministry of General Affairs, (the Prime Minister’s Office) F.E.
Kruimink, who later confirmed that he and Kuipers were unexpectedly
called at home by Swift on Sunday, October 7, to discuss a matter of great
urgency. 37 Swift’s request found a receptive audience. Kruimink was to
play an active role in the deliveries of arms. 38
As we said earlier, a meeting on Monday, October 8, of the five Cabinet
members most involved led to the conclusion that The Netherlands
should support Israel. Both Van der Stoel and Vredeling deny that military
support was discussed at this meeting. 39 Nonetheless, a remarkable
incident occurred that same day. As the newspaper De Telegraaf reported,
‘two days after the outbreak of the war’, two Israeli transport planes
arrived at Gilze Rijen airport. A note in the Den Uyl archive, written by
Den Uyl himself, reads: ‘Two days after the outbreak of the war in the
Middle East, the Cabinet allowed several Israeli transport planes that had
come to The Netherlands to fetch armaments to return empty-handed’. 40
The journalist F. Peeters, who has written a book on the Dutch-Israeli
military alliance, believes that the two aircraft actually left loaded. 41 Under-secretary
for Defence Stemerdink confirmed that the two aircraft had
indeed been loaded with American communication and detection equipment
sent from West Germany. In all probability there were no Dutch
materials sent; there had been at that stage inadequate preparation on the
part of the Dutch. 42 In Vredeling’s view, there had been no political permission
for this procedure, and in any case he himself was not fully in-
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