Hussein, too, was getting nervous. He saw the West Bank (to him the most tempting prize) denuded of Israeli troops. Speculation on a peace settlement had consistently played down Jordanian claims. Would the most restrained of Israel’s neighbors, the King inquired in a letter to me, have to pay the price of being excluded? He could not avoid some melancholy reflections that previously we had refused to complete deliveries of some new tanks to Jordan because of alleged shortages and yet scores were now being sent to Israel.
In the meantime we pressed on with the airlift, kept in contact with the parties, and urged a cease-fire linked to Resolution 242. We had to appear implacable. But we also needed to show an honorable way out. We had to walk this narrow path, moreover, while Watergate once again approached one of its climaxes.
Much of Nixon’s attention during the week of the airlift was absorbed with the Court of Appeals decision on the Watergate tapes. On October 16 Melvin Laird became the first White House official publicly to discuss possible impeachment proceedings. The next day Attorney General Elliot Richardson transmitted a White House proposal to Special Prosecutor Cox that Nixon would allow John Stennis, a prestigious Senator, to verify the accuracy of proposed White House summaries of the disputed tapes. Haig had given me a brief sketch of the compromise, adding ominously that the President was prepared for a showdown with Cox. By coincidence I had had on my schedule for several weeks a lunch Wednesday, October 17, with Richardson. He was not happy as Attorney General. The most important legal case of the century, Watergate, had been taken away from him and assigned to a special prosecutor. He told me he had the uneasy feeling that the White House was trying to jockey Cox into a position where it could fire him. That Richardson would not accept. I do not recall making any comment.
That afternoon I told Dinitz that Israel should base its military operations on the assumption that we would not be able to stall a cease-fire more than forty-eight hours after we were approached. We knew that a tank battle was raging on the central part of the Sinai front along the Suez Canal, but we received only a few reports from Israel, none of them very illuminating. But clearly the war could not go on much longer.
October 18–19: An Invitation to Moscow
ON Thursday morning, October 18, Israel announced that it was reinforcing its bridgehead across the Suez Canal, which now extended about eight miles wide to the north and about four miles wide to the south. In getting Ron Ziegler ready for the morning press briefing, I told him that I expected a cease-fire by Sunday or Monday (October 21 or 22).
King Faisal finally replied to Nixon that day, along the lines of his communication to me of two days earlier. Prolongation of the war would help the Soviets, he averred. The war could be ended only if Israel returned to the borders of 1967. The letter closed with the same ambiguous warning as the earlier message: “If the United States continues to stand by the side of Israel, then this [US–Saudi] friendship will risk being diminished.” But the gesture of restraint was more than offset by — it may indeed have been designed to obfuscate — Saudi Arabia’s announcement that very day, October 18, that it had doubled, to 10 percent, the production cutback agreed by the Arab oil ministers the day before. The Saudis promised to make further monthly cutbacks and even threatened a possible total suspension of oil to the United States if these steps did not achieve “quick, tangible results.”
Shortly afterward, around 6:25 P.M. on October 18, Dinitz brought Golda’s reaction to our query about a cease-fire linked only to Resolution 242. It was a classic illustration of Israeli negotiating tactics — produced by a combination of an extraordinary sense of vulnerability and a complex domestic political system. All Israeli leaders I have known have agreed almost instinctively on one proposition: never to accept the first proposal put forward by the United States, whatever its merit. If Israel submits without a struggle — never mind the substance — the United States may come to think of it as a docile client and God knows what we then might take it into our heads to impose.
What the international environment encourages, Israeli domestic politics makes inevitable. Israel’s domestic political procedures explain its maddening negotiating method, which is to haggle over even the slightest concession, never to make an unexpected compromise, and to settle only when everyone has reached a state of exhaustion that deprives the conclusion of exaltation or even goodwill. For only by demonstrating either duress or ultimate tenacity can those responsible for Israel’s national security prove to skeptical or ambitious colleagues that there was no alternative. They can afford no grand gesture because they might not hold their government together if they attempted it. Negotiation for Israel is a process of self-education. A Prime Minister runs the risk of being accused of softness if he (or she) simply accepts an American proposal without at least testing what else may be obtainable.
So it was that Golda now demurred at a cease-fire that she had asked for a week earlier, rejecting especially the linkage with Resolution 242 that had been Israel’s holy writ in six years of negotiation. That resolution, Golda now argued, grew out of the war of 1967 and was irrelevant to the current war; it was not “a panacea”; there was “no reason for undue haste.”
The message was not intransigently phrased. Nor did I have any intention of going along with it. We had seen Israel through two weeks of mortal peril. We had stalled at the UN when it served our common strategy; we had proposed a cease-fire when Israel was ready; we had poured in supplies during Israel’s extremity. We could not now jeopardize relations with Europe and Japan, tempt an oil embargo, confront the Soviets, and challenge our remaining Arab friends either by forever delaying a cease-fire proposal or by jettisoning Resolution 242, in the name of which we had fought off Soviet and radical Arab pressures for six years. Nor would it have been in Israel’s interest that we do so. Without Resolution 242, there would be no legal basis for any future negotiations. Given the voting lineup in the United Nations, any substitute was certain to be worse. But as yet we were still talking only about theories. So I told Dinitz once again that I felt a cease-fire proposal would soon emerge and I urged a speedup in military operations so that they could be terminated in forty-eight hours.
My premonitions were realized at 8:45 P.M. that Thursday night, October 18, when Dobrynin called me with an urgent message from Brezhnev. All of a sudden the Soviets were ready to deal seriously. Dobrynin read me a three-part Soviet draft proposal for submission to the Security Council: (1) a call for a cease-fire in place; (2) an appeal for immediate phased Israeli withdrawal “from the occupied Arab territories to the line in accordance with Resolution 242 of the Security Council, with completion of this withdrawal in the shortest period of time”; and (3) an appeal for “appropriate consultations” aimed at establishing a just peace.
Point 1 was clearly acceptable; it was what we had proposed with Israel’s agreement five days earlier; it would leave Israeli forces twenty miles from Damascus and on the other side of the Suez Canal. Point 2 was obviously preposterous; one could not as the condition of a ceasefire ask Israel to begin a withdrawal to an undefined line “immediately” and to complete it in the “shortest period of time.” Point 3 was just as obviously a come-on. “Appropriate consultations” could mean anything; if it was the usual negotiation under UN auspices with an intermediary moving between the parties, it meant little. If, however, it could be made to lead to direct negotiations between the Arabs and Israel it would mark a significant new turn in Middle East affairs. For the first time since Israel came into being, Arab states would be engaging in public face-to-face negotiations with it.
I immediately called Nixon. “They are moving in our direction,” I said, “but are not quite there yet.” I estimated that it would take us “another forty-eight to seventy-two hours” to wrap it up.
Next I notified Dinitz, certain of his reaction. I omitted the offer of Point 3 because I knew Israel would never agree to Point 2 and I hoped to shape Point 3, before presenting it, into the direct negotiations bet
ween the parties that Israel had claimed it was seeking.
As for Dobrynin, I procrastinated. I told him the Soviet proposal had constructive elements. However, Point 2 was not acceptable and Point 3 required precision. To gain time by maintaining a civil atmosphere and to give the Soviet system something to analyze, we sent, around 10:30 P.M., a reply from Nixon to Brezhnev’s general message of the day before, which had not dealt with the cease-fire at all. It was long on rhetoric, waxed eloquent about the need to cement relations between our two countries, and pledged major joint efforts to promote peace in the Middle East after the end of hostilities. But we studiously avoided any comment on the Soviet draft cease-fire proposal. Dobrynin was much too subtle not to grasp that we were stalling — the usual tactic of the putative winner whose position is likely to improve with every passing hour.
With a cease-fire approaching, it was vital to maintain close contact with key Arab leaders. I wired King Hussein:
I want you to know specifically what I am doing. We are talking to the Soviets with a view to agreeing to a Security Council resolution which calls for a cease-fire in place to be followed promptly by negotiations between the parties on a fundamental settlement. In such a settlement, Your Majesty, it is inconceivable that the interests of Jordan, which you so eloquently explained to me, would not be fully protected. . . . Your views will, I can assure you, be given the full weight they deserve.
The party most in need of contact with us was our semi-adversary in Cairo, undergoing — we thought — deep travail. The Egyptian army was now in serious difficulties. But it was not in our interest that the war end with Egypt’s humiliation. We had wanted to prevent a victory of Soviet arms. We did not want to see Sadat overthrown or Egypt radicalized by total defeat. At 10:45 P.M. on October 18, when I discussed the Soviet proposal with Scowcroft, I said:
The fact of the matter is when all is said and done it is a Soviet defeat. The same reasons why we could not accept an Israeli defeat will operate against them and even if they [the Arabs] say the supplies did it, that should make them realize they better get on our side.
Thus, at midnight, I sent a conciliatory message to Ismail for Sadat. Its basic point was to reaffirm the offer made two days earlier of a cease-fire linked to a reaffirmation of Resolution 242. To make clear that we respected Egypt’s dignity, I paid special attention to the fact “that Egypt and its Arab allies have brought about important changes in the situation as a result of the strength and the valor demonstrated on the battlefield. None of this should be jeopardized by further prolongation of the fighting.” I concluded by reiterating our appeal for a ceasefire even in the changed military conditions (though I did not refer to the latter). So near to our goal, I hoped that passing frustration would not destroy the complex design on which Sadat and we had been working in parallel:
Mr. Ismail knows the importance we attach to a prompt end to the hostilities in conditions that make possible a serious effort toward a fundamental settlement. This remains our view. To this end, it is important that both sides maintain a restrained attitude, keeping in mind the imperative need for a long-term relationship. With warm regards.
We were close to ending the war on terms we had sought. But we could not be reckless. At any moment the Soviet Union might rush its cease-fire resolution into the Security Council or get someone else to do so. It would almost certainly pass with the aid of European and nonaligned votes; even China might support it. In the name of what could we veto? And if we vetoed, we would be alone in the crisis that followed, tempting Soviet threats, European dissociation, and Arab radicalism. At the end we would have achieved nothing. For if we acquiesced in the Israeli desire to delete Resolution 242, there would be no agreed legal framework left in which to negotiate. Our only realistic option was to take charge of the process of negotiation, to gain a little more time for Israel’s offensive, and then to settle so that we could start the postwar diplomacy in the best setting.
I was pondering the appropriate tactics when Brezhnev’s impatience showed us a way out.
I had just completed the daily WSAG meeting that Friday morning, October 19. Our information on Israeli intentions was sketchy. We knew their offensive was proceeding, with 300 tanks now on the west bank of the Canal; they were trying to cut Egyptian communications in all directions. Later in the day we learned they were moving north toward Ismailia and south to surround Great Bitter Lake and to cut the Cairo-Suez road. But the Israelis did not define for us either their immediate objectives or their strategic plan. Nor were we ever given any optimum time frame for whatever strategy they were pursuing. The morning WSAG decided to keep the airlift going until a cease-fire was well established. We also speeded up the sealift so that we would not be caught short by a sudden cease-fire and the Soviets would not encourage their Arab friends to try a war of attrition.
Minutes after 11:00 A.M., Dobrynin called with an urgent message from Brezhnev to Nixon. It spoke of the increasing danger in the Middle East which might even do “harm” to relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. Prompt and effective decisions were needed:
Since time is essential and now not only every day but every hour counts, my colleagues and I suggest that the US Secretary of State and your closest associate Dr. Kissinger comes in an urgent manner to Moscow to conduct appropriate negotiations with him as with your authorized personal representative. It would be good if he could come tomorrow, October 20. I will appreciate your speedy reply.
When I read the invitation, I felt it solved most of our problems. It would keep the issue out of the United Nations until we had shaped an acceptable outcome. It would discourage Soviet bluster while I was in transit and negotiating. It would gain at least another seventy-two hours for military pressures to build. Nixon and I talked in this vein together with Haig and Scowcroft. We concluded that a trip to Moscow would advance our strategy.
There was one technical embarrassment. Ambassador Huang Zhen, Chief of the Chinese Liaison Office, had invited me to a large dinner in my honor that evening at the Mayflower Hotel. I could not possibly cancel it for a trip to Moscow, of all places. But we could put it to good use. It gave a pretext for postponing my departure at least until the early hours of Saturday, delaying my arrival in Moscow so that negotiations could not start until Sunday, or forty-eight hours away.
I promptly called Dobrynin back from my White House office to tell him that we were giving Brezhnev’s proposal serious consideration. But why could not Gromyko come to Washington? Dobrynin argued that Soviet decisions would require the participation of Brezhnev and Kosygin (who had just returned from Cairo). I promised an answer during the course of the afternoon.
In the meantime, I briefed Dinitz and reviewed the situation once again with Nixon and Haig. At 1:35 P.M. from my State Department office, I called Dobrynin to give him the final word. I would leave early Saturday morning, arriving in Moscow in the evening. I would not be prepared to start negotiations before Sunday morning; there could be no discussion of any final settlement or any subject except the cease-fire. I was “assuming that no unilateral actions will be taken while I am in transit,” which I defined either as threats or initiatives at the UN or elsewhere. The announcement had to state that I was going at the “invitation” of the Soviet government so that I did not appear as a supplicant.
Dobrynin accepted these terms on behalf of Brezhnev at 4:30 P.M. I reiterated that I would not be prepared to discuss any aspect of a political settlement. Dobrynin thought that this had been made sufficiently clear. I then had a meeting with Dinitz to compare notes on where we stood.
In the meantime, Watergate had intervened in its most explicit form. Nixon was even more driven than had become usual; October 19 was the day the Stennis compromise was to go into effect (and the next day he was to fire a defiant Cox). At 3:30 P.M. that Friday, Haig informed me that Nixon was planning a statement about the Stennis compromise and intended to couple it with an announcement of my trip. I objected violently, callin
g the linking of foreign policy with Watergate a “cheap stunt” that Nixon would regret: “It will forever after be said he did this to cover Watergate. I really would plead with you. If he wants to, make it as an announcement separate from the other.”
Haig was being a good soldier. He had delivered Nixon’s message; he was equally meticulous in transmitting my reaction. Within a few minutes he reported back to me that Nixon accepted the primacy of foreign policy considerations. The two announcements would be separated. He just wanted to make sure that the Moscow trip would be announced by the White House, not the State Department, at whatever time had been agreed with the Soviets.
At 6:30 P.M. I briefed the Chinese, at 6:50 P.M. the British Ambassador. At 7:10 P.M. I reviewed everything once again by phone with Dinitz. I told him that I would begin negotiations with their preference, linking the cease-fire only to peace negotiations among the parties. Above all, I would not accept the Soviet thesis that Resolution 242 meant immediate and total Israeli withdrawal. But I stressed to Dinitz that I would probably not be able to exclude all references to 242; indeed, I thought it undesirable to destroy the only existing legal framework for negotiations. I asked Dinitz to supply me with detailed military reports during my Moscow sojourn. I expected no results before Sunday afternoon, Moscow time, and they would then be transmitted immediately to Israel. Israel should keep this schedule in mind. As it turned out, that schedule was not far off the mark.
At 7:15 P.M. I had a brief session with my colleagues of two weeks of WSAG meetings: Jim Schlesinger, Tom Moorer, Bill Colby, Brent Scowcroft. We had conferred daily, sometimes tensely. We had not always agreed; but we had managed a difficult crisis to a tolerable outcome. We could all see the end of the road now; the worst dangers had been overcome. A great opportunity for a new approach to Middle East problems lay before us. We felt an immense sense of relief. I sketched the strategy of the trip to Moscow:
Years of Upheaval Page 80