I was convinced that we were in a strong position to conclude the negotiations on substantially the terms we sought: a cease-fire in place, a vague reference to Security Council Resolution 242, and the breakthrough to direct negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors for the first time since the creation of the Jewish state. When I returned to the guest house, however, there was another unnerving surprise. Waiting for me were the instructions to which Nixon had referred in his letter to Brezhnev together with a White House announcement of the fact that instructions had been sent. Nixon’s message to me came in two parts: his analysis of the current situation in the Middle East, and specific points I was to convey orally to Brezhnev. The message, dictated personally by Nixon, was, however much I disagreed with it, an acute discussion of the Middle East problem, a remarkable feat of concentration considering the Watergate storm raging around him. The analytical part — intended for me alone — expressed Nixon’s conviction that the Soviet Union and the United States should jointly use the end of the war to impose a comprehensive peace in the Middle East: “The current Israeli successes at Suez must not deflect us from going all out to achieve a just settlement now.” We would serve even Israel’s best interests if we now used “whatever pressures may be required in order to gain acceptance of a settlement which is reasonable and which we can ask the Soviets to press on the Arabs.” Nixon then listed the obstacles that had so far prevented a solution: Israel’s intransigence, the Arabs’ refusal to bargain realistically, and our own “preoccupation with other initiatives.” These could no longer stand in the way of a permanent settlement. “U.S. political considerations,” Nixon wrote to me in a euphemism for the Jewish vote, “will have absolutely no, repeat no, influence on our decisions in this regard. I want you to know that I am prepared to pressure the Israelis to the extent required, regardless of the domestic political consequences.”
The oral message to Brezhnev did not differ significantly. I was to point out that in contrast to the implementation of the US–Soviet trade agreement, Nixon could act in Middle East diplomacy without Congressional veto. Too late, Nixon wrote, he had realized the essential correctness of the views Brezhnev had put forth in San Clemente in June:
The Israelis and Arabs will never be able to approach this subject by themselves in a rational manner. That is why Nixon and Brezhnev, looking at the problem more dispassionately, must step in, determine the proper course of action to a just settlement, and then bring the necessary pressure on our respective friends for a settlement which will at last bring peace to this troubled area.
It was a blessing that I had been ignorant of this message during my just concluded “informal” session with Brezhnev. American strategy so far had been to separate the cease-fire from a postwar political settlement and to reduce the Soviet role in the negotiations that would follow the cease-fire. What Nixon seemed to envisage now would involve us in an extensive negotiation whose results we would then have to impose on Israel as the last act of a war fought on the Arab side with Soviet weapons. Moscow would receive credit with the Arabs for having forced us into a course we had heretofore avoided. Our leverage on the Arab states would disappear. Their tendency would be to rely on the Soviet Union — unless the Soviets were willing to separate themselves from the hard-line Arab program, for which we had never seen one shred of evidence. But even should Nixon now wish to reverse our settled strategy, Moscow was not the place to do it. It would complicate the ceasefire negotiations. We would emerge at best with an agreement in principle that would haunt us for years. This is why with Nixon’s approval I had made it a precondition of my trip to Moscow that the sole agenda item be a cease-fire. Expanding the agenda now to include a comprehensive settlement would land us in a morass.
The strain of two weeks of too great tension and too little sleep translated itself into my rather strident cable to Scowcroft:
The letter to Brezhnev has already been used against me; the General Secretary refused to accept it when I told him I would have to refer any scheme back to Washington for consideration, citing the fact that I already had full powers granted me by the President.
As a result, my position here is almost insoluble. If I carry out the letter of the President’s instructions it will totally wreck what little bargaining leverage I still have. Our first objective must be a cease-fire. That will be tough enough to get the Israelis to accept; it will be impossible as part of a global deal. If the war continues the consequences will be incalculable. We can pursue the course the President has in mind after a cease-fire made with Israeli acquiescence, but not before. In the meantime, a continuation of public comment can only ruin us all around.
When aggrieved, I would rarely rely on only one channel of communication. I therefore telephoned Al Haig and expressed on an open line to Washington my extreme displeasure at the orders I had received. “Will you get off my back? I have troubles of my own,” said Haig, uncharacteristically testy.
I insisted on my injury: “What troubles can you possibly have in Washington on a Saturday night?”
Haig replied wearily: “The President has just fired Cox. Richardson and Ruckelshaus have resigned and all hell has broken loose.”
That is how I learned what troubles one can have in Washington on a Saturday night.
Agreement on a Cease-Fire
IT was now even more imperative to end the war before the Soviets were tempted to take advantage of our domestic debacle. Therefore, I adhered rigidly to the earlier, more restricted plan approved by Nixon before my departure. Brezhnev in turn was in such a hurry for a ceasefire that he never inquired as to what instructions Nixon had referred to in his letter.
My meeting with Brezhnev the next day, Sunday, October 21, was delayed until noon, which suited us. Despite my entreaties via Dinitz, no special military briefings were being sent to me by the Israeli government. The CIA reported the declaration of a senior Israeli defense official on late Saturday that Israeli forces had cut all highways and railroads from Cairo to Ismailia and Suez, thus isolating Egyptian forces on the east bank. Like many other Israeli claims during the war, this turned out to be premature. But to us in Moscow it seemed further evidence that Israel’s major strategic goals on the Egyptian front were being achieved.
We continued to note that Moscow had alerted forces capable of intervening in the Middle East, including seven Soviet airborne divisions. Brezhnev obviously did not get so carried away by his protestations of peaceful intentions that he neglected to give himself an alternative should negotiations fail.
Our own information on Sunday morning, October 21, was more ambiguous. The CIA reported heavy fighting around the Suez Canal and suggested that both sides might have been encountering difficulties. The major focus of Israeli activity was described as being between Great Bitter Lake and Ismailia — implying a northern thrust, not the flanking movement south toward Suez that was actually developing. (In reality, Israeli forces were probing in both directions, north and south, but the southward thrust proved more productive.) Scowcroft wired me that he had told the President of steady but “fairly slow” Israeli progress. I heard nothing directly from Israel about its prognosis or intentions.
The clearest statement came instead from a radio broadcast by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. He declared that Israel’s position was bound to improve with every day the war continued; nevertheless, Israel was not in a position to oppose a cease-fire. He suggested a cease-fire based on one of two conditions: a return by both sides to the lines prior to the war, or the retention by both sides of positions occupied at the time of the cease-fire. We were well on the way to achieving the second condition by the time the report of Dayan’s speech reached us.
Early on October 21 a message from Cairo reached me, via Washington, before my meeting with Brezhnev. Hafiz Ismail for the first time indicated that Sadat might be willing to separate a cease-fire from an overall settlement. Cairo would content itself, he wrote, with the convening of a peace conference and a “guara
ntee” by the United States and the Soviet Union of the cease-fire and the speedy subsequent withdrawal of Israeli forces. We were in no position to give such a guarantee, much less in conjunction with the Soviets. On the other hand, I did not consider Ismail’s message Egypt’s last word on the subject either.
Duc to the time difference — it was very early morning in Washington — I heard nothing more about the “Saturday night massacre.” Nor did I receive any further instructions until the negotiations were already concluded and I was on my way back.
While our intelligence was skimpy and conveyed no particular sense of urgency, the Soviets seemed to be better informed. For when we met Sunday noon in Brezhnev’s Politburo office, we found the Soviet team so eager to settle that there was really no negotiation in the strict sense. Brezhnev began with some extended remarks suggesting that he was equally prepared to discuss principles of a general settlement or a ceasefire. When I told him that I was ready to deal only with a cease-fire, he accepted with alacrity.
Brezhnev opened with the normal Soviet ploy alleging I had accepted in principle the Soviet three-point plan presented by Dobrynin in Washington (see Chapter XI). This was news to me since I was under the impression that I had rejected two of the three Soviet terms. So I spelled out our position once again. The first Soviet point, I said, calling for a cease-fire, was acceptable. The second point, requiring “immediate” Israeli withdrawals to “the line in accordance with” Security Council Resolution 242, was meaningless because the parties had never yet agreed on such a line, because it was senseless to ask Israel to return to a nonexistent line, and because negotiation of a postwar settlement should be separated from the cease-fire. The third Soviet point, the appeal for “appropriate consultations” for negotiation, had to be elaborated into a clear obligation of direct talks between Israel and the Arab states.
Usually, the Soviets stick to their formal positions for extended periods and then sell their abandonment of an outrageous proposition as a concession. On this occasion Brezhnev conceded my points before I had even raised them: “I am not claiming the proposals are ideal or can be accepted as they stand right now.”
To avoid talking from a Soviet draft, I then submitted a counterproposal that Joe Sisco and I had worked out during the night. Our first point called for a cease-fire in place. Our second point eliminated the Soviet demand for an immediate Israeli withdrawal to new lines; indeed, it made no reference to withdrawal at all, calling on the parties simply to begin implementation of Security Council Resolution 242 “in all of its parts” — a mandate sufficiently vague to have occupied diplomats for years without arriving at agreement. Our third point required immediate negotiations “between the parties concerned” under “appropriate auspices”; in other words, the cease-fire would lead to the direct negotiations with Israel that the Arab states had consistently refused and that a succession of Israeli cabinets had claimed would unlock the door to their concessions. We said nothing about guarantees.
To our amazement, Brezhnev and Gromyko accepted our text, with only the most minor editorial changes.I They then took a run at turning the “appropriate auspices” for the direct negotiations into a US–Soviet guarantee of the outcome — a euphemism for an imposed peace. I rejected the proposition. I defined “auspices” as meaning the presence of Soviet and American diplomats at the opening of the negotiations and thereafter only when key issues were dealt with. That too was accepted by Brezhnev and Gromyko with a minimum of haggling.
After only four hours of negotiation the text of the cease-fire resolution was agreed, together with a US–Soviet understanding on the meaning of “auspices.” This was phenomenal considering the need for translating everything, checking the texts, and frequent interruptions as each side huddled together for consultation.
The agreement indeed improved what we had been proposing for two weeks. The original American proposal had been a cease-fire linked to a general reference to Security Council Resolution 242. Four months earlier in the summit communiqué, Brezhnev had refused any such reference. Then and during the war the Soviets had insisted that we jointly spell out the meaning of Resolution 242 and impose terms that in the Soviet formulations were indistinguishable from the hard-line Arab program. We prevailed with our approach, which left the elaboration of Resolution 242 to direct negotiations between the parties. The vaguely defined US–Soviet “auspices” had the advantage, as I cabled Scowcroft, of preventing the intrusion into the negotiating process of other parties liable to bring pressure on us — I fear I meant some of our European allies.
The only subject left for discussion in Moscow was the timing of introducing our joint cease-fire resolution in New York. Brezhnev and Gromyko wanted it put to the Security Council immediately, with the cease-fire to take effect the moment the resolution was passed. This underlined the extremity in which Arab armies found themselves (but of which I had not yet received any formal word either from our sources or Israel’s). It was, however, totally impractical. It was now 4:00 P.M. in Moscow and 9:00 A.M. in Washington. It would take us an hour to draft a report and instructions and at least another hour for cable transmission to Washington. There would have to be discussions with key members of the UN Security Council and above all with Israel. Assuming our estimate held, these could start at 12:00 noon Washington time. I therefore proposed that the American and Soviet representatives issue a call at 6:00 P.M. New York time for a Security Council meeting to convene at 9:00 P.M. (leaving nine hours for consultation). The ceasefire should not go into effect until twelve hours after the resolution had been adopted, which in turn would require several hours of debate. Brezhnev reluctantly accepted this timetable, which put the cease-fire at best some twenty-eight hours away. Brezhnev also pledged to exert maximum Soviet influence to bring about an early exchange of prisoners of war, which I had pressed on Israel’s behalf.
The American team returned to the state guest house to begin its labors. My staff and I urgently drafted a report to the President and a letter for him to send to Prime Minister Meir, which Scowcroft in Washington would hand to Dinitz as soon as it arrived. We estimated that this would be no later than 12:00 noon Washington time, or nine hours before the Security Council was to convene and some twelve hours before it would vote. Nixon’s letter to Mrs. Meir spelled out what we had accomplished:
Madame Prime Minister, we believe that this is a major achievement for you and for us and supportive of the brave fighting of your forces. [First:] It would leave your forces right where they are. [Second:] There is absolutely no mention whatsoever of the word “withdrawal” in the resolution; third, for the first time, we have achieved the agreement of the Soviet Union to a resolution that calls for direct negotiation without conditions or qualifications between the parties under appropriate auspices. At the same time we and the Soviets have agreed privately to make our joint auspices available to you and to the Arabs to facilitate this process, if this is agreeable to the parties.
The letter pointed out the vast difference between the cease-fire resolution now being proposed and Sadat’s program publicly put forward five days earlier. A prompt reply was requested.
Messages were also drafted for Hafiz Ismail, the Shah, King Hussein, and our UN Ambassador John Scali. This process was completed by about 5:30 P.M. Moscow, or 10:30 A.M. Washington, time.
At 6:30 P.M. I met with the British, French, and Australian ambassadors to Moscow, the first two in their capacity as permanent members of the Security Council, the Australian because his country’s representative in New York was president of the Security Council for October as the consequence of rotation. Diplomats are congenitally careful in expressing their opinions on issues with respect to which their governments have not yet taken a stand. In this case they were sufficiently confident of their governments’ views to offer warm congratulations before rushing off to inform their capitals. Because of a horrendous communication mix-up, it is likely that their reports arrived before ours.
I then l
ay down to rest for an hour. When I awoke around 8:00 P.M. (1:00 P.M. Washington time) I found out to my horror that none of my messages had been received in Washington. My staff had first sought to send the messages through our Embassy in downtown Moscow, forty-five minutes away. The Embassy had great difficulty, however, because its procedures for sensitive messages were cumbersome and time-consuming. We then resorted to transmitting via our Presidential aircraft, parked at Moscow’s Vnukovo II Airport, for a satellite hookup to the White House Situation Room. But the messages sent from the plane were arriving in practically unreadable form in Washington. My associate Larry Eagleburger was in touch with our Embassy and then with Brent Scowcroft in Washington on an open phone line. Scowcroft could make out that we had agreed to a cease-fire, but the letter to Golda Meir had come in too garbled to pass to Dinitz. We thereupon had no choice but to switch back to sending the messages through the Embassy.
My reaction to this was later described by Larry Eagleburger in a reminiscence he sent to me:
As if it were yesterday, I recall sitting at a desk in a fairly large room in the villa, yelling over the phone at the communications people in the Embassy. (I was yelling because of the bad telephone connection, not because I thought it would help move the cables faster. Unlike certain Secretaries of State, I never believed that a loud voice had much impact on inanimate objects, no matter how badly they functioned.) There were some twenty to thirty people in the room, all talking, with Joe Sisco (never a quiet fellow) taking the lead. In short, the room was crowded and noisy, but I was more-or-less hidden from view (and hearing) by the crowd.
Years of Upheaval Page 82