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1983 Letter from U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on Israeli Prisoners

(International Coalition for Missing Israeli Soldiers) TIME magazine correspondent Dean Brelis, who was in Damascus at the time, wrote the following confidential memo: "I did see the tank. It bore battle scars, Hebrew markings, and if it was a fake, it was a masterly job. The three Israelis were wearing the right uniform and the right boots. The Israeli crew looked exhausted, downcast, typically combat fatigued, and again, if they were actors, they were superior. When the crowd surged around them, taunting, they looked frightened." "The Syrians were driving the tank....It was a public parade, as it were, right through the center of Damascus, and once it passed, I never saw the tank or the Israelis again." Brelis said he talked to a source at the British Embassy who said he had heard that the tank had suffered a breakdown, was surrounded by a Syrian force, and the crew surrendered.
2010-12-20 08:26:27
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