Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  The second Soviet message was pure insolence. The Soviet Union had been running an airlift into Syria and Egypt amounting to some eighty-four planes over three days; I had protested this from October 10 onward. This did not keep them from responding by accusing us of resupplying Israel. They were referring, if to anything at all, to the seven El Al planes that had been shuttling back and forth picking up equipment. Our massive American resupply effort had not yet started.

  I curtly dismissed this protest. As to the bombing, I told Dobrynin what I had already communicated to Hafiz Ismail, that we would do our best to discourage attacks on purely civilian targets. I warned that any Soviet military intervention — regardless of pretext — would be met by American force. (It would have been a more convincing threat had I made it on any other day. For that very day the Congress passed the so-called War Powers Act, whose purpose was to reduce Presidential discretion in committing American military forces.) Dobrynin pointed out that Moscow’s message reaffirmed its willingness to “direct the events toward a cease-fire in the Middle East,” first communicated to us two days before. I told him that I had asked Britain to explore the idea of submitting a cease-fire resolution the next day.

  Dobrynin had barely left when Cromer called to tell me that London was willing in principle to put forward such a resolution, but only if convinced that it would succeed. Whitehall frankly doubted that what I proposed was realistic; it felt that Egypt would not accept a cease-fire unless Israel agreed to return to the 1967 borders. (This was, of course, what Ismail had also told us.) London even had some doubts that Israel would go along. On that last point I knew better; Israel was, if anything, too eager to proceed. Still overestimating the closeness of Cairo and Moscow, I assured Cromer that Dobrynin would not be proceeding without Cairo’s approval. But I would shortly double-check with Dobrynin at the White House ceremony where the new Vice President would be announced.

  There was just enough time to give Dinitz a brief summary of the Soviet messages. I told him that we would move an additional aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean and, as my personal view — not yet checked with the President — that we would intervene if “any Soviet personnel, planes or ground personnel appear in the area.” Dinitz and I agreed to meet around 11:00 P.M.

  The ceremony in the East Room of the White House turned into an eerie interlude in the Watergate bitterness. Assembled were the leaders of the Congress, the Cabinet, senior White House staff, and the senior members in terms of service of the diplomatic corps (which included Dobrynin as second in longevity in Washington). There was an air of expectancy as if noisy goodwill could drown out the uneasiness that the constitutional crisis would not end this evening, that the worst in fact was yet to come. The selection of the popular Gerald Ford evoked a wave of enthusiasm that for a moment stilled the worry about the future of a country with a visibly disintegrating executive authority. For fifteen minutes everyone submerged his private fears and doubts in warm feelings toward this quintessential American who all subconsciously felt would soon take over leadership of our country. Unhappily, the euphoria ended with the ceremony.

  On the way out I had a word with Dobrynin. The British, I told him, were under the impression that Sadat did not favor a cease-fire in place. Dobrynin was equal to the occasion. With the air of a man much put upon by the incurable obtuseness of Americans, he said that of course he had no right to promise that Egypt would accept a cease-fire resolution. He could assure me, however, that we would be taking a “good gamble” if it were put forward on the assumption that Egypt would accept. I took this to mean that the Soviets knew Egypt would not give advance approval, but that it would acquiesce in a cease-fire achieved without its cooperation.

  This was the line I took with Cromer in reporting my conversation with Dobrynin. Cromer said that Home would be in touch with me early the next morning — with the time difference, this would give him eight hours of consultation in various capitals. I urged that he trigger the cease-fire appeal “before any of these maniacal parties change their minds.”

  That the parties might change their minds — if indeed they had ever made them up — was evident not only from the ambiguity of their responses but also from their military dispositions. It was beginning to appear that Egypt, instead of aiming for a cease-fire, was heading for a new offensive in the Sinai to break out of its bridgehead along the east bank of the Suez Canal. Artillery was being moved across; there were reports that two armored divisions would follow. I still did not believe that Egypt would permit its tanks to advance beyond the protective umbrella of its surface-to-air antiaircraft missiles. But if I were wrong, the cease-fire initiative was certain to prove stillborn. Then, too, the Soviet airlift was growing in magnitude. On Saturday, October 13, we were to detect sixty-seven new flights, the bulk to Egypt — was it a sweetener for a cease-fire or a way to stiffen resolution? We also learned that the Soviet Union had sought permission to fly military planes over Iran into Iraq or Syria; the Shah had refused, permitting only one plane allegedly carrying spare parts for Aeroflot civilian jets stationed in Syria. Even if one disbelieved the story about the cargo — as I did — the Shah stood by us in our hour of need, a service we did not reciprocate.

  As I waited for the result of Home’s consultations, Dinitz showed up at my White House office at 11:20 P.M. that Friday evening and launched us into one of the decisive encounters of the week. For it led the United States to undertake an all-out military airlift.

  The security adviser’s office had been moved three years previously from the basement to a high-ceilinged room on the ground floor whose huge windows stretched from floor to ceiling. As a result, the office appeared larger than its dimensions would suggest; it seemed almost at one with the White House Lawn stretching toward Pennsylvania Avenue, where one could see the distant lights of the passing traffic but barely hear its sounds. In this peaceful atmosphere Dinitz somberly began with a military briefing. He reviewed the military dispositions and reiterated Israel’s willingness to begin moving toward a cease-fire in place. It took a few minutes to find the various locations on a map. Suddenly I realized that Israel’s armed forces had not advanced significantly during the day. I had been stalling the diplomacy for nothing. This led to the following exchange:

  KISSINGER: Do you want us to start it [the diplomacy] tonight? Did you make the offensive today? I have the impression no.

  DINITZ: No.

  KISSINGER: If we could synchronize your moves better — I think the urgency will disappear if there are no military moves tomorrow. If I knew there was no offensive today, I would have started earlier.

  DINITZ: I must tell you: Our decision whether to start a new offensive or not depends on our power. We thought we would have by now in Israel the implements to do it — the bombs, the missiles, etc.

  KISSINGER: So did I. What exactly is the obstacle?

  Dinitz said that he had had a difficult meeting with Schlesinger at 6:00 P.M. and could not get a clear-cut decision on arms aid from the Defense Secretary. This was puzzling. At 5:40 P.M. Schlesinger had briefed me in advance that he would be offering Dinitz a large replacement package worth $500 million that included sixteen F-4 Phantoms, thirty A-4 Skyhawks, 125 tanks (including 65 M-6os), three Hawk missile battalions, and “a whole range of other things.” I had even half-facetiously pleaded that he make sure to give the White House some of the credit. Now Dinitz complained to me that those replacements of heavy equipment would come too late and that the charters carrying consumables — needed for the current counteroffensive — had been delayed three days. Dinitz in particular stressed that Israel was running out of ammunition; if it was not replenished immediately, Israel would exhaust its supplies in two or three days. The Syrian offensive would have to be slowed and the Sinai front would be in severe jeopardy.

  There were a number of aspects that did not make sense. Dinitz had been urging a cease-fire since early that day without alluding to specific shortages or informing us of the need for am
munition. (In fact, a DIA estimate we received early the next day said Israel could continue military operations at the existing rate of expenditure for another ten days.) On the other hand, previous estimates had proved most unreliable and average figures might still leave Israel short of critical items. We could not take another chance.

  I immediately called Schlesinger, who expressed astonishment; he simply did not believe that an army could run out of ammunition without warning. (And he told Haig a few hours later that it seemed to him more a maneuver to lock us in than a military necessity.) By then it made no difference. Only a show of determination could now arrest the creeping Soviet escalation and persuade the Arabs to settle before the conflict drew in other states.

  At 12:50 A.M., after checking with Haig, Schlesinger and I decided on three interim steps: We would load with ammunition and dispatch ten C-130 transport aircraft that had already been promised to Israel; we would haul supplies to the Azores to be picked up by the Israelis, shortening the distance their planes had to fly and greatly increasing the volume of cargo that could be carried (since less fuel was needed); and we would continue to press for charters. I stressed to Schlesinger that those who were afraid of Arab reaction should remember that the gravest threat to our Arab interests came from a prolongation of the war and the concomitant radicalization of the area. Schlesinger agreed. Shortly after 1:00 A.M., I informed Dinitz of the steps we had decided upon.

  As for the charters, the next issue to be decided was whether the aircraft were to be chartered by Israel or by the United States government; perhaps we should use American military planes, such as the long-range jumbo C-5A. After a few hours’ sleep, on Saturday morning, October 13, I had a brief meeting with Abba Eban. Jerusalem had not informed him in detail about the discussions of the previous evening (though Dinitz was with him now). So we went again through the airlift discussion. Eban saw no difference in the impact on the Arab world between chartered or government-owned American aircraft. That would be the heart of the discussion of the special WSAG that was assembling in the White House Situation Room at 10:30 A.M.

  I spoke to Nixon before the WSAG met. He was in good form, still exuberant over achieving surprise in naming Ford, who (he reasoned) would be a short-term asset with the Congress. His selection would dampen desires to impeach him because the Congress would not want to run the risk of placing a supposedly inexperienced man in charge of foreign affairs — a symptom of how profoundly Nixon was still misjudging the determination of the forces arrayed against him and the extent to which he had shredded the tissue of confidence on which a Presidency ultimately depends. And Ford, he thought, would not stand in the way of Nixon’s ultimate aim: designating John Connally as his successor in 1976.

  As always after a successful public performance, Nixon was exhilarated. He still reveled in the applause that had greeted his brief, graceful speech the night before. He failed to recognize that it was a tribute above all to Ford. Nor did he yet understand that his fate could no longer be changed by tactical maneuvers. Indeed, Nixon’s travail had reached the point where even if Ford was as inconsequential as Nixon thought — which he emphatically was not — his designation as Vice President would accelerate Nixon’s collapse rather than delay it. It was more tempting for Democrats to remove Nixon if his successor seemed to be someone they thought they could beat in the Presidential election of 1976.

  When we turned to the airlift, Nixon showed his old courage once again. By now the Pentagon had located three giant C-5A jet transports that were available to fly sixty to eighty tons of supplies each directly to Israel. Nixon immediately agreed to the proposal. “Do it now!” he urged.

  With this guideline, the Saturday morning WSAG meeting moved to a crisp conclusion. It was attended by Schlesinger, his deputy Bill Clements, Admiral Moorer, Ken Rush, Bill Colby, and me. I opened it by warning in Nixon’s name that any further foot-dragging would result in the dismissal of the offender. The rest of the meeting was devoted to the mechanics of the airlift. There was still unanimity that planes chartered by Israel would be the safest course for us. But it was becoming clear that we would, in fact, have to charter the planes in the name of the United States government. The difference between that mode and a direct American military airlift was so esoteric as to seem academic. It was also decided that F-4 Phantom deliveries would be vastly accelerated; Israel would get ten planes by Sunday and another four by Monday at a minimum. Schlesinger reported to the WSAG that the first of these planes were already moving.

  By 12:30 P.M. I was able to report to Dinitz that we would fly the C-5As direct to Israel until we had the charter issue sorted out, that supplies already in the Azores and beyond El Al’s capacity would be moved to Israel in American C-141S, and that Israel would shortly be receiving fourteen F-4 Phantoms.

  By Sunday morning — twenty-four hours after the airlift had started — we were to recommend to Nixon that it be a straightforward American military operation. Nixon was buoyed by crisis, as always. “We are going to get blamed just as much for three planes as for 300,” he told me with respect to the C-5AS. He was right.

  The history of the resupply effort has become entangled in American domestic politics and the strategy underlying it has been obscured in a fog of conflicting charges and rebuttals. A summary of the sequence of events after Golda’s dramatic appeal on the morning of Tuesday, October 9 is therefore in order. By the evening of October 9, Israel had been assured that its war losses would be made up. Relying on this assurance, it stepped up its consumption of war matériel, as we had intended. Israeli predictions led us to believe that the main battle would be over first by Wednesday, then, after an Israeli reassessment, by Saturday. At that point a cease-fire would have been triggered as proposed by Dobrynin on Wednesday morning and accepted by Israel on Friday. Hence no one believed that military urgency prevented us from exploring the method of resupplying Israel that would least jeopardize our interests in the Arab world and the dependence of the industrial world on imported oil. The duty of those of us responsible for our nation’s security was to relate all vital considerations to an overall design.

  I consistently pressed for more urgent deliveries than my colleagues not because I thought supplies would affect the immediate battles but because I wanted a demonstrative counter to the Soviet airlift. Fundamentally, however, Israel’s problem lay not in the pace of our resupply but in the complacency induced by the memory of great victories. Israel’s strategy had been based on repeating the lightning thrusts of 1967. In the meantime the Arab countries had learned that if they kept from losing, their position would steadily improve by a war of attrition. Their lines bent but did not break. They inflicted casualties that a small country of fewer than three million people, however heroic, found difficult to bear. It was not until Israel adjusted its tactics in the second week of the war, aided by a grievous Egyptian strategic blunder and the psychological impact on both Israel and the Arabs of a massive American resupply, that the tide of battle turned decisively.

  As it turned out, the concatenation of circumstances did ensure that the massive American airlift took place in a diplomatic context least likely to inflame Arab passions. After Saturday, October 13, we could present our massive resupply of Israel as a reaction to the Soviet airlift as well as to Moscow’s failure to deliver on its own cease-fire initiative. For when we began to implement the proposal Dobrynin had earlier advanced on Wednesday, October 10, it quickly emerged as empty.

  October 13–14: The Failed Cease-Fire

  AFTER our Friday night discussion with the British, I had expected to have early on Saturday morning, October 13, their considered response to the cease-fire initiative proposed by the Soviets; the plan was for Britain to introduce in the Security Council late that afternoon a resolution calling for a cease-fire in place. I was perturbed when we heard nothing by 9:30 A.M. that day, since by then it was late afternoon in the Middle East and Sir Alec’s consultations should have been completed.

  Ther
efore, I called Dobrynin to say that if we did not have a British decision by noon, we would ask Australia to introduce the cease-fire resolution. Dobrynin said he would have to check with Moscow but “I don’t really see that there is any difference.” I said that we had ominous indications that an Egyptian offensive into the Sinai was imminent and warned that trickery would seriously harm our relations. Dobrynin thought that we should stick to the agreed course regardless of the unpredictable actions of the parties. He saw no insurmountable obstacles to a joint abstention from a Security Council appeal for a cease-fire.

  No sooner was I finished with Dobrynin than Sir Alec telephoned. To understand his impact, a word must be said about our estimate of him. While he was not truly analytical, he was one of the wisest men I have known. He was that rarest of statesmen, one whose integrity disarms even his critics. He exuded a rectitude so matter-of-fact that he never needed to appeal to it. Because he was totally trustworthy, his word counted, even if it was painful. Because his judgment was prudent, his insights were central to any consultation. For a statesman, values lived are more reliable than postulates articulated. Home inspired confidence in full measure. He was deceptively underemphatic; he would lead his interlocutor to the desired conclusion by a Socratic dialogue that was as penetrating and relentless as the manner in which it was put forward was diffident. He was an unconditional friend of the United States. He stood for the common values of freedom. There was quite literally no one whom we trusted more.