At 4:45 P.M., Haig, Scowcroft, Ziegler, and I met with Nixon. I outlined the problem. Diplomatically, we were not badly off. We were the only country in touch with most of the parties, including the Soviet Union. Once diplomacy took over, we would put our central position to good use. But the theoretical advantage would mean nothing if Israel appeared to be losing: “If the Arabs sense that the Israelis have lost more than they have admitted, they might rush in.”
Nixon was preoccupied with his domestic scandals. He had spent much of the day tidying up Agnew’s resignation, to be announced within twenty-four hours. But while this might have deflected him from details, it had not dimmed his eye for essentials. “The Israelis must not be allowed to lose,” he said, and acted accordingly. His decision was to speed the delivery of consumables and aircraft. Heavy equipment would not reach Israel before the end of the fighting. We would guarantee to replace Israel’s losses; thus Israel would be freed of the need to maintain exorbitant reserve stocks during the battle. At 6:10 P.M. that Tuesday, I conveyed Nixon’s crucial decision to Dinitz:
On your special requests, the President has approved the entire list of consumables, that is, ordnance, electronic equipment — everything on the list except laser bombs. The President has agreed — and let me repeat this formally — that all your aircraft and tank losses will be replaced. Of the tanks you will be getting, a substantial number will be M-6os, our newest. As for the planes, for immediate delivery, you will be getting 5 F-4S, 2 plus 3. For the rest, you will work out a schedule. . . . On the anti-tank ammunition and anti-tank weapons, Schlesinger is all set. You know whom to get in touch with at Defense. If there is any trouble, contact Scowcroft. This is everything else on the list, except the laser bombs and aircraft. On tanks, you will have to work out a schedule. . . . The problem of tanks isn’t what you need in this battle, but the situation after this battle. You have assurances that you will have replacements. You have the additional assurance that if it should go very badly and there is an emergency, we will get the tanks in even if we have to do it with American planes.
I had told Schlesinger that he would have discretion to determine the degree of Israel’s need while the war was still going on. If he judged that Israel needed tanks during the battle, he should ship them immediately. Dinitz volunteered that Israel would pick up everything possible in unmarked El Al planes. There was no talk of an American airlift — except if tanks were urgently needed in an emergency.
So much for the canard that the Nixon Administration deliberately withheld supplies from Israel to make it more tractable in negotiations. After the prospects of a quick Israeli victory vanished, we faced two dangers: a prolonged military stalemate or a sudden proposal for a ceasefire in place while Israel still had not regained the prewar lines on either front. We sought to give Israel the confidence and the means to face the next few crucial days when the outcome hung as much on Israel’s self-assurance as on its arms. But we also strove for a low profile in the method of resupply; we were conscious of the need to preserve Arab self-respect.
To maintain the dialogue with Egypt, I replied late that day to Hafiz Ismail’s newest message, which we had received that morning and which had expressed appreciation for our government’s “good intentions.” I told Ismail ambiguously that our actions were the minimum that public opinion would tolerate — giving Egypt a face-saving formula for acquiescing in them. I stressed that the United States “now understands clearly the Egyptian position with respect to a peace settlement.” But I avoided any comment on it. In diplomatic usage, that was tantamount to indicating it was a nonstarter.
Instead, I moved the exchange one notch closer to concreteness by asking Ismail another question that was more operational and permitted a specific response. It had the additional advantage of presenting our strategy of procrastination in the Security Council as a sign of concern for Egypt’s point of view:
The U.S. side is less clear, however, as to the views of the Egyptian side on how the present fighting can be brought to an end. These views would be very useful to the U.S. side in formulating its position in the current debate in the Security Council. In the hope of hearing the views of the Egyptian side, the U.S. side will hold off as long as possible in presenting a definitive U.S. position in the Security Council.
The U.S. side wishes to reiterate its willingness to consult urgently with the parties concerned in order to achieve a just peace settlement in the Middle East. In these difficulties, it is important to keep this long-term perspective in mind and to avoid confrontations and bitter debate as we seek to resolve the present crisis. . . .
On Wednesday morning, October 10, we awoke to the ominous news of a Soviet airlift to Syria. Some twenty transport aircraft were on the way via Hungary and Yugoslavia. An airlift of such magnitude could not have been improvised; it must have been organized for several days. At this stage it seemed confined to consumables, paralleling our decision made the previous Sunday for Israel, though the Soviet effort was on a much larger scale and more overt. Was the purpose to stoke the fire of conflict, or to support a client and keep a Soviet hand in the postwar negotiations? Was it to encourage Arab intransigence, or to establish Soviet bona fides for a peace effort? Were they helping their most hard-pressed associate to keep it from collapsing, or were they encouraging a new onslaught?
Even now the answer is not clear. Probably the Soviet leadership tried to keep several options open and managed to combine all disadvantages. It did enough to ensure the continuation of the war but failed to affect the outcome. It may have sought a cease-fire, as all Arab leaders told us disdainfully after the war. But it did so tentatively — and, according to Sadat’s published version, so duplicitously — that it magnified Egypt’s doubts about its ally’s good faith.
Sadat wrote that almost from the opening of hostilities — by 8:30 P.M. Cairo time on October 6, or six and a half hours after the war started — Moscow was urging him to accept a cease-fire. The Soviet Ambassador said to him then that President Asad of Syria had told the Kremlin before the war broke out to seek a cease-fire within forty-eight hours. It sounds sufficiently heavy-handed to be plausible. Although Asad denied having made such a request (not, in the context of Arab politics, definitive proof), the Soviets repeated their request daily for several days until Sadat finally ended it by insisting on continuing the war until he had shattered Israel’s “theory of security.”13
Sadat’s account — unlikely to be colored by sympathy for the Soviet leadership — coincides with what the Soviets were telling us over the same period. Shortly after 8:00 A.M. on Wednesday, October 10, Dobrynin called me with a message he declared important: The Soviet consultations with Egypt and Syria had been “protracted” and “not easy.” Nevertheless, Moscow could now tell Nixon that the USSR “is ready not to block adoption of a cease-fire resolution in the Security Council.” In other words, the Soviet Union would abstain from a resolution favoring a simple cease-fire in place; it would not support — that is, it would veto — a call for a return to the prewar lines. In addition, the Soviet note expressed willingness to work for a negotiated settlement “on the basis of liberation of all Arab lands occupied by Israel.”
The Soviet initiative for a cease-fire in place was now on the table in the worst possible circumstances for our strategy: If the Soviets pushed their proposal at that juncture, it would have had nearly unanimous backing, including by our European allies. On the other hand, Israel, with the prewar situation not yet restored, would have refused. Had we gone along with the Soviet plan and pressured Israel to agree, the war would have ended in a clear-cut victory for the Soviet-supplied Arab forces. The United States’s position in the postwar diplomacy would have been severely impaired. The proposition that we alone among the superpowers could produce progress would have been exploded. Soviet arms would have achieved success; Soviet diplomacy would have protected it. The probability of another war would have been high, since Israel would want to regain its previous supremacy; the
Arabs would become convinced that they could break every negotiating deadlock with a new assault.
Had the Soviets conducted a decisive policy or had the Arab nations not been carried away by euphoria, they might have clinched their gains by pressing for that cease-fire in place on October 10. We would have been hard put to resist. But Egypt and Syria either underestimated Israel’s recuperative power or did not know how to end their mutual suspicions — probably a combination of both. What the Soviets hoped to achieve is hard to fathom. Their ambivalence gave us a chance to play for time and recoup. If they hoped to slow down our resupply of Israel, it was a false hope. The Soviet airlift to Damascus settled that once and for all. So I decided to accept the Soviet proposal “in principle” to inhibit a Soviet diplomatic offensive at the UN, but to delay its implementation long enough to test the latest Israeli prediction of victory within forty-eight hours on the Syrian front.
I therefore told Dobrynin that he could tell Moscow the cease-fire proposal was “constructive” but we needed time to consider it. A little while later I called him back to say that the President would not be able to make a formal reply until after another visitor from Africa, President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, had left around 11:30 A.M. But my real purpose was to let Dobrynin know that we were aware of the “very substantial” Soviet airlift, which I told him was “not helpful.” Dobrynin professed surprise. I said sarcastically: “I am sure [Soviet Defense Minister] Grechko knows it. . . . They are coming through Budapest just in case they are looking for the last airport.” Dobrynin, who given the pedantry of Soviet bureaucratic procedures could not have been totally uninformed, said he would ask Moscow. Whatever happened now, I replied, the Soviet airlift would “force us to do at least the same.”
Watergate provided a pretext for another delay. Agnew’s resignation as Vice President was due to be announced at 2:00 P.M. that day. At 11:45 A.M. I called Dobrynin again on the pretext of alerting him, claiming that this would prevent the President from turning his attention to the Soviet proposal for hours. I asked Dobrynin to make sure that we would not be forced into premature decisions. He gave a flat assurance that the Soviets would introduce no resolution in the Security Council.
In between the conversations that morning with Dobrynin, I reviewed the situation with Dinitz. He read me a message of gratitude from Golda Meir to Nixon for the “vital” resupply decision communicated the day before, which would, she said, “have a great beneficial influence. . . . We are fighting against very heavy odds, but we are fully confident that we shall come out victorious. When we do we will have you in mind.” I told Dinitz that with resupply assured, Israel did not need to hoard reserves. There was no time for complicated moves. Everything depended on the Israelis’ pushing back to the prewar lines as quickly as possible, or beyond them on at least one front. We could not stall a cease-fire proposal forever.
Our dialogue with Egypt told us that there still was some time before there would be movement at the Security Council. At 1:00 P.M. that Wednesday we received Ismail’s reply to my query of the day before about cease-fire terms. He made it clear that Cairo was not yet ready to clinch its gains; it continued to insist on a comprehensive peace plan, though in a much modulated manner:
Mr. Ismail would also like to express that while the Egyptian side has taken note of the motivations of the position taken by the U.S. government, it would appreciate Dr. Kissinger’s understanding of the political and other factors related to the Egyptian position, which makes it essential to consider a general program for the establishment of peace in the Middle East.
This delicate formulation — which implied that Egypt’s terms went beyond the dictates of national interest, strictly speaking — indicated that in the right circumstances Egypt’s insistence on a comprehensive program might be negotiable. In the rest of the message Ismail modified his position on the cease-fire, in five points, the most important of which were: Egypt no longer insisted on the prior withdrawal of Israeli troops to the pre-1967 boundary but would accept an Israeli pledge to that effect provided it had a specified time limit; the state of belligerency would end as soon as the withdrawal was completed; a peace conference would follow.
Ismail must have known very well that there was still no possibility of obtaining Israeli agreement to these terms short of total military defeat. But in delicate negotiations it is not the substance of the modification that matters; it is the fact that it is offered at all, especially as Ismail did not put it forward on a take-it-or-leave-it basis but “for the consideration of Dr. Kissinger” — in effect inviting a counterproposal.
With all my newfound admiration for Egyptian subtlety, I was convinced that serious talks would not take place until there was a change in the military situation. But first it was essential to keep the war from spreading. During the day we learned that Sadat was now pressing King Hussein to join the battle. Dean Brown reported that the King was thinking of sending an armored brigade into Syria in order to escape a more dangerous decision, such as opening up a new front by attacking along the Jordan River. But any Jordanian move might well encourage other Arab states to enter the war and encourage persistence in pursuing the military option. I urgently appealed to the King to delay any decision for at least forty-eight hours: I told him I was making a major effort through quiet diplomatic channels to bring about an end to the fighting. I needed time and his help. Hussein did not reply, which was prudent, but accepted the recommendation, which was statesmanlike.
Our own government remained divided on the urgency of resupplying Israel (though there was no dispute over making good its losses eventually). Everyone was convinced that the decision would be reached on the battlefield before heavy equipment could arrive and affect the outcome. There was a legitimate concern lest we ruin our relations with Arab moderates without really helping Israel — especially when we learned early on the tenth that King Faisal, having been rebuffed by King Hussein about moving the Saudi brigade stationed in Jordan to Syria, had now decided to send a brigade direct from Saudi Arabia. Schlesinger had called me with that news about 8:30 A.M., urging a rapid move to a “straight cease-fire.” He was worried enough to canvass the idea of involving American troops in an “occupation.” This I rejected. I told Schlesinger:
On the Saudi thing, I think everybody’s just got to stay calm now. One Saudi brigade on the move means it will be two days before it can be anywhere near action and probably the Jordanians may move a brigade in there too, which is fine; that’s the least they can do. We are going to hold our course another day or so, because we think we are going to get this thing taken care of on the course on which we are. I don’t think there is any need to consider occupation of anything at this time.
During a lunch I gave at State for Belgian Foreign Minister Renaat van Elslande, I was called by prearrangement to the White House to receive Agnew’s resignation. For some obscure legal reason, the resignation of the President or the Vice President must be made to the Secretary of State. The rule had never before been implemented. I trust that no other Secretary of State will find himself accepting the resignation of both our highest elected officials in the space of ten months.
While I was thus engaged with the Agnew resignation, Scowcroft met with Dinitz to brief him on the Soviet proposal for a joint abstention (on a simple cease-fire) and to discuss speeding up the resupply. Dinitz was no more eager for a cease-fire along existing lines than we. As instructed, Scowcroft urged that Israel make the maximum military effort in the next forty-eight hours. We would not be able to stall forever and we could not find ourselves trying to insist that Arab states return Arab territory that Israel had failed to recapture. But Dinitz could not provide Scowcroft with any sense of Israel’s timetable or its operational plan, either because it did not exist or because his government chose not to share its intentions with us (or him).
This same conversation made clear that Israel could not pick up all the promised equipment in the seven jets of the El Al airfleet. After c
onsultation among the WSAG principals, it was therefore decided that Israel should be given US government permission and support to employ private air charter companies to carry the additional equipment.
The resort to air charters turned out to be a fiasco; after forty-eight hours, as a result, an American military airlift was organized. Subsequently, it was alleged that the airlift was deliberately delayed as a maneuver to pressure Israel to accept a cease-fire.14 The present description of our strategy can leave little doubt that this was not the case. On the morning of October 13, when we finally realized the extent to which bureaucratic foot-dragging and logistical problems had delayed the charter plan, I restated our strategy to the WSAG, asking on the President’s behalf for the resignation of any official unwilling to support it: “[W]e needed to get the stuff in when we needed an offensive. Now it is going in afterwards, when we want the diplomacy to work. . . . If Israel feels we have let them down and the Arabs think they have done it themselves, we are sunk.”
The reasons for the delay were manifold. No charter company was eager to court an Arab boycott or to risk its planes in a war zone. The Defense Department could have brought pressure on the charter companies, which rely on Pentagon business, but it felt no urgency because it estimated that Israel still had stocks for two weeks — or longer than any projection of military operations. The Department of Transportation (which was the other option) wanted to stay out of a military confrontation. The two departments adeptly pushed the ball back and forth into each other’s court. Brent Scowcroft and Joe Sisco, who tirelessly worked to organize the charters, were in effect given the runaround. But fundamentally the problem was that we explored all alternatives before being brought face to face with the reality that since no private company would assume charters to Israel, the United States government would have to run the risk either by undertaking the airlift itself or by chartering the planes in its own name. I am not sure the delay made a substantial difference. Even had the military airlift started immediately, it could not have influenced Israeli military operations prior to the launching of the first cease-fire initiative of October 12–13, which aborted.
Years of Upheaval Page 74