Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  As was inevitable — because Sadat wanted to await the outcome of Ismail’s talks with me — Egypt rejected the approach. On January 27 Ismail told Greene that Egypt was not interested in an interim settlement, though it might be prepared to talk about an “opening phase” of a “comprehensive” process. This had been a nonstarter in 1971, for if Israel had been ready to agree to the 1967 borders, it did not need an interim settlement. While he was at it, Ismail enumerated Egypt’s complaints about one-sided American support for Israel. On the one hand, Egypt would settle on the basis of what it considered just to the Arab people and would let no other nation veto it; on the other hand, it would make no separate peace. Ismail did not explain to Greene how he proposed to reconcile these propositions. It would be interesting to know what went on in his mind because our weird governmental procedures had put him into the position of dealing with two American representatives, neither of whom knew of the approach of the other.

  Ismail played both channels for what they were worth. In the secret channel, he sought to bring subtle pressure by reminding us that he was about to embark on a long-scheduled round of talks with the Soviet Union in early February — implying that Egypt might take irrevocable steps if we did not set a date for a meeting. I replied that a secret meeting between us was impossible before the Vietnam negotiations were completed, but I invited “any preliminary views from the Egyptian side through this channel.” Ismail did not take the bait. Instead, he informed me that he would be visiting London at the end of February; a meeting there would be highly convenient. Unfortunately, I was planning to leave for Hanoi and Peking; I had no pretext for going to London at the proposed time. Taking up an Egyptian suggestion for prior staff-level talks to arrange our meeting, I sent an emissary to Cairo to explain to Ismail the facts of our bureaucratic life. There was a limit to the secret trips I could take, especially after my role in various negotiations had become known and the press started following my movements.II And if I went publicly, the British government would have to be involved and a cover story would have to be invented to keep our bureaucracy out of the act.

  Egyptians have undoubtedly witnessed many cultural peculiarities of foreigners in their history stretching over thousands of years, and little surprises them. In fact, when something is highly complicated and slightly devious, it immediately gains validity in Egyptian eyes. Ismail went to work with a will and after several exchanges we finally settled on a procedure acceptable to all and miraculously involving all interested bureaucratic parties: Ismail would be invited by the State Department for an official visit to Washington on February 23, 1973; he would be received by Nixon and would meet with officials at State. Then, his official program completed, he would betake himself on February 25 to New York. From there he would proceed to a secret meeting site in the suburbs — a private home hired for the purpose — where he and I would confer for two days for a full, private review of Egyptian-American relations.

  So it happened that an astonished Jerry Greene in Cairo was suddenly instructed in normal channels to extend a formal invitation to Hafiz Ismail to visit Washington. The State Department could only ascribe to the inexplicable vacillations of the White House the fact that contacts conducted at arm’s length for five years should suddenly turn into such an ostentatious embrace. As for Ismail, he would be exposed to our dual-track system right at the source, for neither I nor any member of my staff was included in the State Department sessions, while the State Department did not even know of my secret meeting with Ismail. It was not the best way to project unity of purpose. But it demonstrated to the Egyptians at least that we too could be Levantine without even half trying.

  Cairo maneuvered not only within our bureaucracy but among the superpower rivals for Mideast preeminence. To strengthen Egypt’s hand for the forthcoming talks in Washington, Hafiz Ismail and then War Minister Marshal Ali visited Moscow in February 1973. The Kremlin found itself in an uncomfortable position. The Soviet leaders realized that they had paid a heavy price for the insouciance with which they had treated Egypt’s concerns at the Moscow summit in 1972. But they also knew that if they pressed for solutions unacceptable to Israel they would demonstrate their impotence (thus playing into our strategy), while if they forced the issue militarily they would bring about an Arab defeat. (Their estimate of Arab fighting capabilities was, judging by their cynical comments to us, extremely low.)

  Subtlety is not a Soviet forte. They dealt with their dilemmas by mixing — perhaps unintentionally — an explosive brew. The Soviets seem to have repeated to Ismail their opposition to an interim settlement; their reasoning was undoubtedly that any agreement under our aegis would weaken Soviet influence. But while objectively heightening tension, they also appear to have warned against a conflict that might involve the risk of a Soviet war with the United States. This seemed to imply that short of that threshold, Egypt was free to consult its own interests — which left open the possibility of a limited war against Israel. The Soviet leaders soon afterward agreed to the largest arms package ever negotiated for the Middle East. The Soviet Union may have seen in this strange half-policy — of acquiescing in a limited but not an all-out attack — the safest means of procrastination; in fact, it tempted an explosion that it did not have the ability to contain. It encouraged a crisis that it thought it could exploit by appearing as the spokesman for Arab interests. But it lacked the capacity to shape what it had wrought. In the end, the Soviet effort caused it to lose everything in Egypt, proving that futile half-measures are not a monopoly of the bourgeois West.

  A backchannel message came from Brezhnev to Nixon on February 18 informing us of what had transpired during Ismail’s visit to Moscow. According to the Soviet message there could be a phased settlement, but it must be “within a framework of a single plan (in package), so that all elements of the settlement are coordinated and balanced among themselves. . . .” Further, “there can be no separate Israeli-Egyptian settlement independent from the settlement between Israel and other Arab countries involved in the conflict.” Finally, Brezhnev wrote, “we have got an impression from our talks with Mr. Ismail that, if at this time also no progress is reached towards political solution of this vital . . . problem, the Arabs can turn to the use of other possible means of its solution. . . .” Having thrown the switches toward confrontation, the Soviets demonstrated characteristic insolence in warning us of what they themselves had encouraged.

  In short, the Soviets were putting forward, under the threat of war, an intransigent Arab program certain to lead to deadlock or confrontation. By opposing both an interim agreement and a separate Israeli-Egyptian settlement, Moscow was objectively encouraging a blowup. The Kremlin may have calculated that a crisis would force the United States to engage itself. But excessive cleverness rarely pays in diplomacy. Moscow’s dilemma was that it could contribute to a settlement only by urging its Arab clients to compromise. Unwilling to do this, it both encouraged a blowup and recoiled from its consequences, condemning itself eventually to a seat on the sidelines.

  Ismail in Washington

  WHEN Hafiz Ismail arrived in Washington for his visit on February 23, 1973, we knew astonishingly little of Egypt’s real thinking. We considered the secret contacts a hopeful sign. But this had to be balanced against the frequent Egyptian consultations with Moscow and the continuing bellicosity of Egyptian propaganda. The expulsion of the Soviet forces was important. But we could not exclude that part of the reason might be Sadat’s desire to gain a free hand for military initiatives. For all we knew, Sadat was pursuing a slightly more benign version of the Nasser strategy: to get us to deliver the maximum Arab program for concessions that could later be vetoed by the Palestinians, who were in turn heavily influenced by the Soviets. It was hard to be clear about exactly what Sadat wanted; perhaps he had not yet fully made up his mind.

  For Sadat, too, was in the same box as other parties — perhaps, being more visionary, even more frustratingly so. He knew that the boilerplate program of
Arab irredentism was doomed, but that deviation from it might bring him isolation in the Arab world without any assurance of Israeli acceptance. Indeed, judging by Israeli public statements, a settlement would require ceding some Egyptian territory, which Sadat would never accept. He was wise enough to know that peace would require Arab concessions; but these would be nearly impossible in the climate of frustration and humiliation growing out of the 1967 defeat. This is why he cooled on the idea of an interim settlement at that point, for he feared it would be ascribed to weakness and not statesmanship. It was to discuss a way out of these dilemmas that Ismail had come to Washington.

  Nixon was prepared to engage the United States diplomatically, in an exploratory way now and fully after the Israeli election scheduled in October. But we would not be able to make any progress if we left illusions that we would be able to deliver any neat package, or that the whole process could simply be dumped into our lap. We could not agree to impose a peace. In suggested “talking points” (which Nixon marked “OK”) I urged Nixon to define these limits to Ismail:

  My [Nixon’s] course in Vietnam also showed, however, that we do not betray our friends. A great power does not enhance its power by behaving in such a way. There are severe limits to what we can compel Israel to do. . . .

  Egypt must have no illusions. It cannot achieve its maximum demands in any settlement that is conceivable. In the absence of a settlement, on the other hand, Egypt has little prospect of ever recovering anything. This is not our doing; this is the reality as we perceive it. Both Egypt and Israel will have difficult decisions to make.

  In other words, we were prepared to urge Israel to make concessions but this required flexibility on the Egyptian side as well. My memorandum, in any event, triggered all of Nixon’s ambivalences. In it I had described three options: first, to “stand back and let the two sides reflect further on their position”; second, to seek an interim agreement; or third, to work privately toward an agreement on the general principles of an overall settlement.

  Nixon would hear nothing of the first option — to stand back — prophetically noting in the margin next to it that inactivity would lead to war:

  K — Absolutely not. [Ambassador Yitzhak] Rabin must be told this categorically before I see her [Golda Meir]. I have delayed through two elections and this year I am determined to move off dead center — I totally disagree. This thing is getting ready to blow.

  Nixon made no comment on the second option (an interim agreement). He favored the third option: secret talks aiming at an overall settlement. He wrote: “The preferred track for action. At the same time keep the public track going for external appearances — but keep it from interfering with the private track.” In other words, the classic pattern of the first term: a public negotiation as a cover for a private one. It did not, however, fit the volatile Middle East. Nixon did not favor me with a hint as to how I might accomplish the feat of a “public track” consisting of State’s scheme for an interim partial settlement which was an alternative to and in a sense incompatible with negotiation of an overall settlement.

  The vehemence of Nixon’s marginal comments revealed how strongly he felt about the need to move forward. At the end of my memorandum he appended another note:

  K — you know my position of standing firmly with Israel has been based on broader issues than just Israel’s survival — Those issues now strongly argue for movement toward a settlement. We are now Israel’s only major friend in the world. I have yet to see one iota of give on their part — conceding that Jordan and Egypt have not given enough on their side. This is the time to get moving — and they must be told that firmly. . . .

  [T]he time has come to quit pandering to Israel’s intransigent position. Our actions over the past have led them to think we will stand with them regardless of how unreasonable they are.

  In this atmosphere, Mohammed Hafiz Ismail had his first exposure to the many layers of the American government. Within the space of forty-eight hours he would encounter the American President uttering generalities, the State Department pushing an interim agreement without White House backing, and Nixon’s national security adviser discussing principles of an overall settlement at a secret meeting without State Department participation. Ismail moved through this thicket with extraordinary aplomb. Tall, erect, and with thinning gray hair, he had the bearing of the military officer he once was and the natural dignity of the educated Egyptian. For four millennia the peoples of Egypt have witnessed the foibles of eager foreigners and achieved a margin of maneuver by being conciliatory, impermeable, supple, and infinitely resilient. Through all the changes of racial composition brought by successive waves of conquerors, an archetypical Egyptian has survived, his face etched on the statues and temples that are the closest any nation has come to achieving eternity — an expression at once gentle and transcendent; a posture at once humble and enduring; a look both human and yet gazing into an infinity beyond the limitations of the human scale.

  Hafiz Ismail was of this mold. I met with him twice in 1973; after the October war he stepped aside in one of Sadat’s periodic personnel reshuffles. He did not show much flexibility, but then Egypt’s position before the war did not allow it. He presented Egypt’s maximum program in a manner so conciliatory that he appeared more pliable than he really was. He was so courteous that he obscured Sadat’s basic strategy, which was to elaborate the conditions for a showdown. He did not achieve a breakthrough, which we had thought was his purpose, but he skillfully served Sadat’s aim of maintaining a deadlock without creating the warning of a crisis.

  Ismail’s first appointment was with Nixon at 11:20 A.M. on Friday, February 23. As was his custom, Nixon expressed himself face to face with Ismail much more elliptically than in his marginal comments to me. Ismail handed the President a message from Sadat, the polite phrasing of which contained a threat backing up a request for an overall settlement: “Circumstances lend themselves now to exerting further efforts to achieve a full and just settlement”; otherwise, “the situation in our region has deteriorated almost to the point of explosion.” Nixon regretted that progress had not been made in the past but said that the “important thing” was to “see where we stand to explore the possibilities that there might be some movement which could take place.”

  Ismail’s presentation followed the same theme as his President’s letter. The thirty-month-old cease-fire was not an end in itself, he avowed, for its practical consequence was to confirm Israel’s conquests. Indeed, the cease-fire had to be ended by going either forward toward peace or back toward war. Two issues required resolution: Israel’s occupation of Egyptian territory and the Palestinian problem, which was the “core” issue. If Israel agreed to withdraw from Egyptian territory, Cairo was prepared to discuss security guarantees and an end of belligerency; final peace between Egypt and Israel would require a solution acceptable to the Palestinians. Nothing was said of Syria.

  Nixon, always uncomfortable with detailed negotiation, used my scheduled secret talks with Ismail as a device to avoid a clear-cut reply. Indeed, he pushed a program somewhat at variance from his marginal note to me. To my astonishment, he seemed to favor an interim Suez Canal settlement after all. He understood Egypt’s fear that an interim solution might become frozen, he said. Still, it had the advantage of feasibility; hence Ismail should explore it with me as a bridge to further steps. We favored a permanent settlement, Nixon averred, and he pledged his best efforts in that direction. But he did not think it possible to solve the entire Middle East problem in all its aspects all at once. That, too, should be explored by Ismail and me, though in strictest privacy.

  Having thus been given the task of achieving simultaneously an interim and a comprehensive settlement, an exploratory conversation and a final one, Ismail and I repaired to the outskirts of New York City for two days of talks on February 25 and 26. We had acquired for the occasion an elegant house in the sylvan setting of a middle-class suburban area. We held formal meetings across the din
ing room table and chatted informally in the living room, sharing a lunch on the second day.III

  Coherence in our government had by now disintegrated to the point where only Ismail knew what all of its elements were thinking. State was not even aware that I was meeting with the Egyptians. I was not immediately informed about Ismail’s conversations with Rogers; only much later did a report reach the White House.

  The opening of a complicated negotiation is like the beginning of an arranged marriage. The partners know that the formalities will soon be stripped away as they discover each other’s real attributes. Neither party can yet foretell at what point necessity will transform itself into acceptance; when the abstract desire for progress will leave at least residues of understanding; which disagreement will, by the act of being overcome, illuminate the as-yet undiscovered sense of community and which will lead to an impasse destined to rend the relationship forever. The future being mercifully veiled, the parties attempt what they might not dare did they know what was ahead.

  Almost invariably I spent the first session of a new negotiation in educating myself. I almost never put forward a proposal. Rather, I sought to understand the intangibles in the position of my interlocutor and to gauge the scope as well as the limits of probable concessions. And I made a considerable effort to leave no doubt about our fundamental approach. Only romantics think they can prevail in negotiations by trickery; only pedants believe in the advantage of obfuscation. In a society of sovereign states, an agreement will be maintained only if all partners consider it in their interest. They must have a sense of participation in the result. The art of diplomacy is not to outsmart the other side but to convince it either of common interests or of penalties if an impasse continues.