Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  Ismail’s message inaugurated a strange dialogue with a country that had attacked our ally and whose aims were being thwarted by American arms. Throughout the war, hardly a day went by without a communication from or to Cairo. And even as our later airlift to Israel turned the battle gradually against Eygpt, Sadat kept his promise not to whip up anti-American hatred in Egypt. This was not a favor to us, but a means to avoid pushing us irrevocably to Israel’s side in the diplomacy to follow. His plan was to establish a relationship with us in which we would be not only formally but also psychologically the mediator, that is to say, in which we would treat Egypt’s claims on a par with Israel’s — a stunning conception for Nasser’s successor after two decades of hostility.

  Until this message, I had not taken Sadat seriously. Because of the many threats to go to war that had not been implemented I had dismissed him as more actor than statesman. Now I was beginning to understand that the grandiloquent gestures were part of a conscious strategy. They had guaranteed surprise: Dramatic pronouncements not followed by action create the premise that no action will ever be taken. The expulsion of the Soviet advisers from Egypt in 1972 suddenly took on a new significance. Then I had had trouble understanding why Sadat had not sought to negotiate their departure with us instead of giving it to us for nothing. But Sadat was right. If the Soviet advisers were to depart, it had to be done all at once. Negotiating about it might have left him in the paradoxical position of having to maintain a Soviet presence if we could not offer satisfactory terms. Sadat wanted to be rid of the Soviets to remove an encumbrance both to the war he was planning and to his projected move toward the United States. Acts of historic magnitude must not be mortgaged by petty maneuvers that risk their ultimate purpose for marginal and temporary benefits.

  Sadat’s ability from the very first hours of the war never to lose sight of the heart of his problem convinced me that we were dealing with a statesman of the first order. Hafiz Ismail’s message, while avowing sweeping terms, stated a modest and largely psychological objective: “to show,” so the message said, “that we were not afraid or helpless.” That objective Sadat achieved brilliantly. It was the precondition of his subsequent peace diplomacy.

  With the Soviet and Egyptian messages now in hand, our course settled itself. For reasons that were hard to grasp in the light of our preconceptions, the Soviets as well as Sadat were maneuvering to allow the fighting to determine the outcome of the war. Since we were convinced that Israel would soon gain the upper hand, this suited our own purpose as well. We therefore implemented our warning to Dobrynin of the previous day. We would make a virtue of necessity; we would let nature take its course and we would conduct the forthcoming UN debate so as to soften the disappointment we were sure was awaiting the Arabs. Late that Sunday afternoon, October 7, we issued the call for a formal Security Council meeting. I summed up our strategy at the WSAG meeting at 6:00 P.M.:

  Egypt doesn’t want a confrontation with us at the UN and the Soviets don’t want a confrontation with us period. Our general position will be a restoration of the cease-fire lines. The Arabs will scream that they are being deprived of their birthright, but by Thursday [October 11] they will be on their knees begging us for a cease-fire. . . . We’re trying to get this over with a limited amount of damage to our relations with the Arabs and the Soviets. If we can also put some money in the bank with the Israelis to draw on in later negotiations, well and good.VI

  That evening Ambassador Dinitz arrived from Israel. His presence guaranteed a certain drama. Dinitz had replaced the taciturn Yitzhak Rabin in March in what is one of the three or four most important positions the government of Israel can entrust to one of its citizens. For Israel is dependent on the United States as no other country is on a friendly power. Increasingly, Washington is the sole capital to stand by Israel in international forums. We are its exclusive military supplier, its only military ally (though no formal obligation exists). The Arab nations blame us for Israel’s dogged persistence. Israel sees in intransigence the sole hope for preserving its dignity in a one-sided relationship. It feels instinctively that one admission of weakness, one concession granted without a struggle, will lead to an endless catalogue of demands as every country seeks to escape its problems at Israel’s expense. It takes a special brand of heroism to turn total dependence into defiance; to insist on support as a matter of right rather than as a favor; to turn every American deviation from an Israeli cabinet consensus into a betrayal to be punished rather than a disagreement to be negotiated.

  And yet Israel’s obstinacy, maddening as it can be, serves the purposes of both our countries best. A subservient client would soon face an accumulation of ever-growing pressures. It would tempt Israel’s neighbors to escalate their demands. It would saddle us with the opprobrium for every deadlock. That at any rate has been our relationship with Israel — it is exhilarating and frustrating, ennobled by the devotion and faith that contain a lesson for an age of cynicism; exasperating because the interests of a superpower and of a regional ministate are not always easy to reconcile and are on occasion unbridgeable. Israel affects our decisions through inspiration, persistence, and a judicious, not always subtle or discreet, influence on our domestic policy.

  Through this thicket the Israeli Ambassador must move, wielding an influence he cannot admit in America but that his cabinet for its own electoral reasons may overstate in Israel. He must extract assistance unparalleled in America’s relationship with any other country. And yet he has to anchor Israel not just in the acquiescence but also in the moral conviction of Americans.

  Dinitz was equal to the challenge. Witty and belligerent, insistent and defiant, intelligent and challenging, he had many great qualities; like his predecessor, Rabin, he was never ingratiating. Heroes do not wheedle; they take their stand. We read about them with admiration. But I suspect that heroes have always been hard to live with. Without self-assurance they would never dare what they undertake; it is the price that convention must pay to faith.

  Dinitz had earned his spurs as Golda Meir’s personal assistant in the office of the Prime Minister, which meant that he had to navigate in a cabinet whose members, while appointed by the Prime Minister, could not in practice be dismissed by her. Each government in Israel’s history has been a coalition. To remove a colleague, the Prime Minister runs the risk of losing the support of an indispensable party or faction and thus hazards the survival of the government. No wonder that Israeli politics tends to belie what professors have written about the cohesive-ness of cabinet government. There is no discipline. Each faction has an incentive to seek to place the onus of difficult decisions on its colleagues. Leaking secrets becomes a method of administration because it enables cabinet members to demonstrate their importance or vigilance.

  Dinitz was well prepared for his Washington role. Tough, warmhearted, with a superb sense of humor, he would come on like a slightly distressed hornet inquiring what harm a little creature like him could possibly do to a powerful figure like me. He would buzz about the many grave injustices that had been done to Israel by shortsighted American bureaucrats and politicians. Those few at the very top of our system capable of understanding him were given the privilege of undoing the wrongs. But there was always the implied threat that if they failed to do their moral duty, the whole swarm of hornets would descend on them.

  Dinitz and I became fast friends — and that friendship, I am proud to say, has survived now that we are both out of office. Later on, the myth developed that we had been too friendly, that Dinitz was excessively influenced by me; not to put too fine a point on it, that I had taken him in. Israel is probably the only country allied with us whose ambassador can be criticized at home for having too much contact with the American Secretary of State. (Most countries complain that their ambassadors cannot get to see the Secretary of State.) I have repeatedly pointed out that trickery is not the path of wisdom but of disaster for a diplomat. Since one has to deal with the same person over and over again, one
can get away with it only once at best, and then only at the cost of permanent stifling of the relationship. At any event, nobody could trick even once somebody as resourceful and tough as Dinitz. Simcha and I worked together in war and peace. Yet neither of us ever forgot that our first duty was to serve our respective countries, which at a very minimum brought different perspectives to our common problems.

  Like all experienced diplomats, we took great pains to keep our disagreements from becoming personal. One device is to blame — usually transparently — someone else for painful decisions. Dinitz was brilliant at mobilizing media and Congressional pressures but much too wise to make his prowess explicit. Listening to him, one could only be astonished how it had happened that so many normally individualistic Americans had come spontaneously to the conclusion that we were not doing enough for Israel. In turn, when I had bad news for Dinitz, I was not above ascribing it to bureaucratic stalemates or unfortunate decisions by superiors. Neither of us fooled the other. I knew Dinitz was orchestrating most pressures, and he understood that I had not reached eminence by losing too many bureaucratic battles.

  At 7:40 P.M. that Sunday, October 7, our first meeting during the war, Dinitz brought optimistic news from Jerusalem. “We are on the move in terms of optimum power on both fronts,” he said. He repeated what we had been told the day before, that nine out of eleven Egyptian bridges across the Suez Canal had been destroyed. Israel would need forty-eight hours from the next day, Monday noon (when mobilization would be completed), to finish the military operations under way. I was confident of being able to delay any UN–sponsored cease-fire at least through Tuesday. We spent some time on military resupply. In light of the military prognosis, Israel’s needs did not appear desperate. I told Dinitz that an El Al plane — with markings painted out — could pick up eighty Sidewinders and bombracks at the Virginia naval base during the night. The middle levels of Defense were now taking advantage of our injunction for secrecy to drag their feet, interpreting it so literally as to preclude any Israeli plane (even without identifying markings) from landing. But Scowcroft, on my behalf, put an end to the little game. The delay was less than twenty-four hours. It did not seem to matter because all were still convinced that the war would soon be over. The Sidewinders were conceived as a morale booster. In Israel’s own projection, they could not arrive in time to affect the battle.

  October 8: True to Scenario

  BY midday Monday, October 8, the strategy seemed to be in train. The Security Council had been called into session but was proceeding at the stately pace we had encouraged. It had not yet gone beyond consultations; a formal session would take place late in the afternoon at the earliest. No resolutions would be tabled, much less voted on, for quite some time. The morning intelligence report seemed to confirm our interpretations. A joint estimate by CIA and DIA held that the Israelis should turn the tide on the Golan Heights by Tuesday night; “pressing the offensive against the Syrians might take another day or two” — presumably to complete the destruction of the Syrian army. On the Egyptian front it was predicted that the outcome would be clear by Wednesday at the latest. This relatively neutral statement was amplified in a manner indicating little doubt about the prospect: “Several more days of heavy fighting might follow as the Israelis work to destroy as much as possible of Egypt’s army.”

  In these circumstances, diplomatic delay seemed to fit our needs perfectly. With every passing hour, the difference that divided us from the rest of the Security Council — whether there should be a cease-fire in place or a return to the status quo ante, as we sought — would be overtaken by events. Once the Israeli army reached the lines at which the war had started, we could accept a simple cease-fire. If Israel advanced beyond these lines, a Security Council majority could be counted on to adopt our original position of restoring the status quo ante and we would go along with it, thus saving the Arab armies from a debacle. It was in our interest, or so it seemed, to keep everything as calm as possible lest the impending Israeli victory inflame friendly Arab nations against us or tempt the Soviets into a grandstand play.

  A message was received from Brezhnev early Monday, October 8:

  We have contacted the leaders of the Arab states on the question of ceasefire. We hope to get a reply shortly. We feel that we should act in cooperation with you, being guided by the broad interests of maintaining peace and developing the Soviet-American relations. We hope that President Nixon will act likewise.

  When Dobrynin read me Brezhnev’s message on the phone, I thought it served our immediate purpose very well. Since we did not intend to introduce a resolution and the Soviet Union was offering to coordinate with us, we were certain to get through the day without confrontation or embarrassing proposals. By the next day, we were convinced, the Israeli offensive would prevail; the Security Council would then call for a cease-fire in place. Our ally would have repulsed an attack by Soviet weapons. We could begin our peace process with the Arabs on the proposition that we had stopped the Israeli advance and with the Israelis on the basis that we had been steadfastly at their side in the crisis. I therefore did not hesitate to tell Dobrynin that we would act in the spirit of Brezhnev’s message. We would put forward no resolution that day, nor without giving the Soviet Union several hours’ advance warning. We would instruct Ambassador Scali to speak philosophically in the Security Council; we would avoid inflammatory statements. We expected the Soviet Union to follow a similar course. Dobrynin agreed.

  The parties with which we were in touch — the Soviets, Egypt, Israel — were tacitly with us on a scenario in which no country would push a resolution and each would keep the rhetoric to a low decibel level. I told Eban to sacrifice eloquence to length if possible — a painful sacrifice for the Israeli Foreign Minister. I urged Zayyat to keep matters calm. It was becoming apparent even at this early stage that we were the only government in contact with both sides. If we could preserve this position, we were likely to emerge in a central role in the peace process.

  To further these prospects I returned, at 11:40 A.M., a reply to Hafiz Ismail’s message of the previous day. Clearly, the terms that Sadat had outlined through Ismail did not offer a basis for negotiations. But they were not likely to be Egypt’s last word. I therefore thought it best to maintain communication without discussing terms that would depend to a large degree on a battle even then taking place. Instead, I put two questions and offered an assurance. My first query was whether Egypt’s terms meant that Israel would actually have to withdraw from all occupied territories before there could be a peace conference, or whether it was enough for it to accept the principle of withdrawal. It was the sort of esoteric question that was the stuff of Middle East negotiations; it could use up time without a conclusion. The second request was for Ismail to clear up some ambiguity in a message we had received through the Shah of Iran telling us that Egypt was willing to permit a UN presence in territories evacuated by Israel.

  The purpose of both questions was to hint that we envisaged some Israeli withdrawal and thus to whet Egyptian appetites without committing ourselves to Ismail’s precise terms, the assumption still being that Egypt’s army would not be able to advance much farther. I concluded the message with the assurance of our intention to help in negotiations. Egypt had made its point; no more could be gained militarily; no more was required to get us involved diplomatically:

  I would like to reiterate that the United States will do everything possible to assist the contending parties to bring the fighting to a halt. The United States, and I personally, will also actively participate in assisting the parties to reach a just resolution of the problems which have for so long plagued the Middle East.

  I next turned to our domestic base. Senators Mike Mansfield and Hugh Scott, the majority and minority leaders, offered to put the Senate on record in support of our approach. I urged that any resolution not assess blame for the outbreak of hostilities; that the Senate express its approval for the manner in which the crisis was being han
dled; and that it state as a “desirable objective” the restoration of the cease-fire on the basis of the status quo ante. Such a resolution passed unanimously in the Senate the same day, to the enormous benefit of our diplomacy. (There was some grumbling that I had argued against condemnation of the Arab nations. That was overstated but reflected my dominant concern: Convinced that an Arab defeat was imminent, I saw no sense in making us the target of the expected wave of frustration.)

  Fresh intelligence reports during the day reinforced the mood of complacency. At noon, the CIA reported heavy Israeli attacks on both the Syrian and Egyptian fronts. It mentioned unconfirmed Israeli claims that its forces had crossed the Suez Canal at both its northern and southern ends. The CIA prematurely added its own judgment that heavy Israeli air activity near Port Said suggested that the Israelis had crossed the Canal in the north. It was another case of the preconception fathering the prediction. There was not the slightest evidence that Israeli ground forces were anywhere near crossing the Canal. But such a move had been so widely anticipated that all operations — even some that in retrospect appear to have been defensive acts of desperation, like the bombing of Port Said — were interpreted to be consistent with it.

  Dinitz called at 1:14 P.M. to confirm the optimistic assessment:

  The situation on the front . . . looks considerably better. We have gone over from the containment to attack both on the Sinai and Golan Heights. Our military people think that [there is] a good possibility we will push the Syrians all the way across the cease-fire line and we are also moving out the Egyptian forces in the Sinai.