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The Masada Plan
THE ULTIMATE TERROR PLAN HAS BEEN SET IN MOTION
-in a fevered conference in the embattled capital of Israel, where desperate leaders face total disaster at Arab hands
-in a beautiful woman's luxurious Manhattan apartment, where a passionate love affair becomes a pulse-racing plunge into peril
-in the highest circles of Washington, Moscow, Paris and London, where men of supreme power find themselves suddenly helpless
-throughout the entire world, as the plan nobody wanted to use gathers its own horrifying momentum
THE MASADA PLAN
-in a fevered conference in the embattled capital of Israel, where desperate leaders face total disaster at Arab hands
-in a beautiful woman's luxurious Manhattan apartment, where a passionate love affair becomes a pulse-racing plunge into peril
-in the highest circles of Washington, Moscow, Paris and London, where men of supreme power find themselves suddenly helpless
-throughout the entire world, as the plan nobody wanted to use gathers its own horrifying momentum
THE MASADA PLAN
448 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1976
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Leonard Jerome Harris
6 booksLeonard Jerome Harris was born in the Bronx on Sept. 27, 1929. He graduated from City College and served in the Army at Fort Dix during the Korean War.
Mr. Harris began his career writing obituaries and book reviews for The Hartford Courant in 1958. In 1966 he became a culture critic at WCBS-TV, a position he held until 1974.
Martin Scorsese cast Leonard Harris as Senator Charles Palantine in “Taxi Driver” (1976) because he knew him through the New York drama scene. When the film’s disturbed antihero, Travis Bickle, meets the senator, he delivers a tirade about flushing the “scum and filth” out of New York. The senator cautiously sympathizes with Travis, perhaps unknowingly leading to his later violent deeds.
Mr. Harris also played the mayor in a 1980 romantic comedy, “Hero at Large,” and wrote three novels: The Masada Plan,Don't Be No Hero, and The Hamptons.
Mr. Harris began his career writing obituaries and book reviews for The Hartford Courant in 1958. In 1966 he became a culture critic at WCBS-TV, a position he held until 1974.
Martin Scorsese cast Leonard Harris as Senator Charles Palantine in “Taxi Driver” (1976) because he knew him through the New York drama scene. When the film’s disturbed antihero, Travis Bickle, meets the senator, he delivers a tirade about flushing the “scum and filth” out of New York. The senator cautiously sympathizes with Travis, perhaps unknowingly leading to his later violent deeds.
Mr. Harris also played the mayor in a 1980 romantic comedy, “Hero at Large,” and wrote three novels: The Masada Plan,Don't Be No Hero, and The Hamptons.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 11, 2013
An odd novel. Think Sidney Sheldon meets Fail Safe with a little bit of Leon Uris pro-Israeli propaganda thrown in for good measure. Written in the mid-seventies (published in 1977) it takes place in 1979. Israel is no longer supported by the United States. The U.S.A. has cut Israel loose because of oil. Israel is invaded by the Arab world and is facing certain defeat, but Israel has planted nuclear bombs in various cities in Europe and the United States.The Masada Plan is to set off the nukes if the U.S. and other powers refuse to intervene and stop the Arabs from destroying Israel.
Overlooking the fact that the suthor obviously overestimated the political clout of the Arabs and underestimated the political power of the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States it's a promising premise for a novel. Especially for the time period. A novel about nuclear brinkmanship written during the Cold War. Terrific.
Sadly the author was not up to the challenge. Instead of a tight, suspenseful, thriller we get a very talky novel about the Beautiful People trying to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. When I say Beautiful People I mean it. Harris spends pages describing the physical characteristics of the characters, their love-lives, their careers, their financial situations, their living arrangements even their wardrobes for crying out loud!. There is very little action and I for one quickly grew tired of the fact that the only competent people were wealthy and beautiful and thin. The author seems to have been obsessed with the weight of his characters. The overweight and out of shape folks don't do well in this book.
But I would be willing to overlook such a shallow approach if the story was suspenseful. It isn't. It never moves along. It drags and I found myself thumbing through pages and not missing much in the process. That's a vey bad thing to say about a suspense novel. I actually found myself losing interest within the first fifty pages, but I (usually) stick with a novel to the end. I got through it, but I took some shortcuts.
This is one older novel that could have benefited from a little Tom Clancy techno-babble and some super-charged heroics ala James Bond. This one goes back to the secondhand store.
Overlooking the fact that the suthor obviously overestimated the political clout of the Arabs and underestimated the political power of the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States it's a promising premise for a novel. Especially for the time period. A novel about nuclear brinkmanship written during the Cold War. Terrific.
Sadly the author was not up to the challenge. Instead of a tight, suspenseful, thriller we get a very talky novel about the Beautiful People trying to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. When I say Beautiful People I mean it. Harris spends pages describing the physical characteristics of the characters, their love-lives, their careers, their financial situations, their living arrangements even their wardrobes for crying out loud!. There is very little action and I for one quickly grew tired of the fact that the only competent people were wealthy and beautiful and thin. The author seems to have been obsessed with the weight of his characters. The overweight and out of shape folks don't do well in this book.
But I would be willing to overlook such a shallow approach if the story was suspenseful. It isn't. It never moves along. It drags and I found myself thumbing through pages and not missing much in the process. That's a vey bad thing to say about a suspense novel. I actually found myself losing interest within the first fifty pages, but I (usually) stick with a novel to the end. I got through it, but I took some shortcuts.
This is one older novel that could have benefited from a little Tom Clancy techno-babble and some super-charged heroics ala James Bond. This one goes back to the secondhand store.
January 28, 2018
In the way it's told, this is a very odd story. The premise, and especially the resolution, are worth considering, but I think they should have been rendered by a different author.
Here's the plot: The U.S. President and indeed the rest of the world has lost interest in showing support for Israel. The Arab countries are getting it all, because they have oil, and with help from the West they have been building up their military might. Now they've launched an all-out war that is certain to destroy Israel in a matter of days. Dov Shalzar, Israeli ambassador to the UN, uses a popular news anchor named Kate Colby (with whom he's been having an affair) to communicate via intermediaries (her well-connected ex-husband Bill and through him the Secretary of State) that the Israelis have one last-ditch secret strategy called the Masada Plan (named in remembrance of the ancient fortification where Jewish defenders all killed themselves rather than surrendering). The plan involves nuclear weapons but details are withheld. Unless something is done to halt the invasion—by 9:00 tomorrow morning, in fact—something very, very bad is going to happen.
So the clock is ticking. And the characters make continual references to the dwindling hours remaining. But somehow much of the narrative lacks any sense of urgency. The characters speak to one another as if in a Jane Austin novel. They make literary allusions, smile and joke the way people do at high-brow dinner parties, and then from time to time say, "Let's put the stand-up routines aside" and talk about whether we can avert nuclear holocaust in about seven hours. The repartee is also interspersed with lengthy interior monologues as one character or another parses the significance of what someone has said. Dov perceives anti-Semitic slights where none are intended. Kate has a similar reaction when the men imply her chief role, as the sole female, is to pour the coffee. Their personal sensitivities are aired more than once. (In that respect the book is almost ahead of its time, in that it was written 40 years ago and related sensitivities remain hot topics today.)
I wanted more of a sense of urgency, and in the latter part of the book it finally emerges. The Secretary of State, who up till that point had been totally implausible and uninteresting, suddenly turns out to be capable of great passion, oratory, and daring. The thing that really saved the story, for me, was the moral question of what a people are entitled to do to save themselves. There were moments when I felt the Israelis depicted here were no better than terrorists (and also, I couldn't imagine them doing such a thing in real life). On the other hand, Dov is rather eloquent and persuasive in stating that the entire situation is the consequence of past decisions made in Washington. The dilemma actually brings to mind some of Shakespeare's so-called problem plays (such as, oh, The Merchant of Venice).
Here's the plot: The U.S. President and indeed the rest of the world has lost interest in showing support for Israel. The Arab countries are getting it all, because they have oil, and with help from the West they have been building up their military might. Now they've launched an all-out war that is certain to destroy Israel in a matter of days. Dov Shalzar, Israeli ambassador to the UN, uses a popular news anchor named Kate Colby (with whom he's been having an affair) to communicate via intermediaries (her well-connected ex-husband Bill and through him the Secretary of State) that the Israelis have one last-ditch secret strategy called the Masada Plan (named in remembrance of the ancient fortification where Jewish defenders all killed themselves rather than surrendering). The plan involves nuclear weapons but details are withheld. Unless something is done to halt the invasion—by 9:00 tomorrow morning, in fact—something very, very bad is going to happen.
So the clock is ticking. And the characters make continual references to the dwindling hours remaining. But somehow much of the narrative lacks any sense of urgency. The characters speak to one another as if in a Jane Austin novel. They make literary allusions, smile and joke the way people do at high-brow dinner parties, and then from time to time say, "Let's put the stand-up routines aside" and talk about whether we can avert nuclear holocaust in about seven hours. The repartee is also interspersed with lengthy interior monologues as one character or another parses the significance of what someone has said. Dov perceives anti-Semitic slights where none are intended. Kate has a similar reaction when the men imply her chief role, as the sole female, is to pour the coffee. Their personal sensitivities are aired more than once. (In that respect the book is almost ahead of its time, in that it was written 40 years ago and related sensitivities remain hot topics today.)
I wanted more of a sense of urgency, and in the latter part of the book it finally emerges. The Secretary of State, who up till that point had been totally implausible and uninteresting, suddenly turns out to be capable of great passion, oratory, and daring. The thing that really saved the story, for me, was the moral question of what a people are entitled to do to save themselves. There were moments when I felt the Israelis depicted here were no better than terrorists (and also, I couldn't imagine them doing such a thing in real life). On the other hand, Dov is rather eloquent and persuasive in stating that the entire situation is the consequence of past decisions made in Washington. The dilemma actually brings to mind some of Shakespeare's so-called problem plays (such as, oh, The Merchant of Venice).
June 20, 2020
This is a pretty good thriller. Written and set in the 70's the state of Israel has been abandoned by its allies and is being attacked by the Arab nations who have funding and weapons from the Soviet Union. The world has chosen oil. Now Israel is being over powered and faces being annihilated, the end of the state.
Israel implements the Masada Plan. Masada was a fortress that sheltered Jews. It was surrounded by their enemies and rather than be taken the occupants, men, women and children killed each other and themselves. The Masada Plan is designed to prevent a second fall of Masada.
The plan involves using any means necessary to preserve the state of Israel if their demands, some of which would halt the advancement of the Arab nations into Israel, are not met. The problem is the nations who need to meet the demands do not know the consequences of not meeting those demands. And oh yeah they only have 24 hours to figure out what exactly the Israelis intentions are and to meet their demands.
The main characters are U.S Secretary of state Pete Maloney, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Dov Shalzar, Bill Brewster president of a large financing house, and Kate Colby a prominent television journalist. To further complicate things there is a love triangle.
When reading remember this is the 1970's.
Israel implements the Masada Plan. Masada was a fortress that sheltered Jews. It was surrounded by their enemies and rather than be taken the occupants, men, women and children killed each other and themselves. The Masada Plan is designed to prevent a second fall of Masada.
The plan involves using any means necessary to preserve the state of Israel if their demands, some of which would halt the advancement of the Arab nations into Israel, are not met. The problem is the nations who need to meet the demands do not know the consequences of not meeting those demands. And oh yeah they only have 24 hours to figure out what exactly the Israelis intentions are and to meet their demands.
The main characters are U.S Secretary of state Pete Maloney, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Dov Shalzar, Bill Brewster president of a large financing house, and Kate Colby a prominent television journalist. To further complicate things there is a love triangle.
When reading remember this is the 1970's.
July 22, 2024
This is one of those thrillers that is so far fetched that you need to take disbelief and lock it in the basement. Having said that, it is an entertaining read. Leonard Harris knows how to tell a good story.
What if Israel was attacked by a combined force of Arab armies and faced a catastrophic defeat? The US President is pro Arab, and refuses to give Israel the assistance to defend herself. The novel is set in 1979. Of course, in reality that was the year that Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty.
The Israeli government hatches a plan to force the President's hand. I do remember that there was an attractive female reporter who discovers the truth, and an American Secretary of State who disagrees with the President. I do remember a sex scene that was quite graphic that involved the reporter.
This book could only have been written in the 1970s when the Arabs were more united and posed an existential threat to Israel and oil was used as a weapon against the West.
If you liked political thrillers, then you will like this. The big reveal is quite shocking.
What if Israel was attacked by a combined force of Arab armies and faced a catastrophic defeat? The US President is pro Arab, and refuses to give Israel the assistance to defend herself. The novel is set in 1979. Of course, in reality that was the year that Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty.
The Israeli government hatches a plan to force the President's hand. I do remember that there was an attractive female reporter who discovers the truth, and an American Secretary of State who disagrees with the President. I do remember a sex scene that was quite graphic that involved the reporter.
This book could only have been written in the 1970s when the Arabs were more united and posed an existential threat to Israel and oil was used as a weapon against the West.
If you liked political thrillers, then you will like this. The big reveal is quite shocking.
June 21, 2024
Not as good as the the title suggested. Very predictable plot and overly detailed desciptive prose that detracted from the pace of the story. Not recommended
July 8, 2009
The premise for this novel, that the Arab nations have finally mounted a successful attack on Israel and the world turns its back on the situation, seems more and more credible and prescient every day. The conclusion, which I will not spoil here, is very satisfying. This is a good, solid effort at storytelling.
July 20, 2012
This book was written over 25 years ago before the time of 9/11. It remains a fascinating and scary book!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews