It was pathetic but accurate. He had taken the responsibility and faced its implications with panache and determination. And yet we could preserve the strength and coherence of our foreign policy only if we ensured beyond peradventure that we would not let Watergate affect our actions. If a link were established in the public mind, the hopes for our diplomacy and therefore of peace would be destroyed. So I urged Haig to drop these schemes. They were bound to backfire. Haig agreed and nothing was heard of them again.
Only one loose end was left. The Soviet naval force of twelve ships was still approaching what some of our governmental reports were pleased to call the “landmass” of Egypt. They continued on their course even after Security Council Resolution 340 — perhaps because they had been forgotten in Moscow, more probably as insurance against another hitch in the implementation of the cease-fire. Finally, the CIA reported late on October 25 that the flotilla had stopped 100 nautical miles north of Mersa Matruh; it dispersed the following day and no such threatening Soviet naval activity took place again.
Thus ended the day of the alert.
Aftermath
AMERICAN newspapers on Friday morning, October 26, were awash with commentary on our military alert, most of it relieved that a serious confrontation with the Soviets had been avoided and unusually supportive of our decision to reject the Soviet-Egyptian proposal for superpower troop intervention.
The Washington Post on that day ran two editorials. One, on “the Watergate connection,” bridled at any implication in my press conference that it was the press that was undermining public confidence: “Our crisis at home was created by the President.” The other editorial suggested that the crisis demonstrated both the limits and the utility of détente. Nixon “responded, in our view, with admirable firmness and restraint:”
Whether in this crisis we were in fact that close [to danger] is something we may know more about when the administration produces, as Dr. Kissinger said it would, the appropriate texts and facts. A judgment on that can wait. What is important now is to note, with sober thankfulness, that the relationship created by Mr. Nixon and Mr. Brezhnev in recent years served both of them well in their contest this week.
The New York Times in two editorials on October 26 also suggested that the crisis demonstrated “how tenuous the Soviet-American détente still is.” The Times favored early negotiations: “Mr. Kissinger indicated yesterday it might take several weeks to organize them. This, in our view, is not good enough.”
The Wall Street Journal strongly backed the Administration: “It is incredible that some reporters at the press conference suggested that the President had stagemanaged an international crisis to divert attention from the domestic one.” The Los Angeles Times editorialized that “the partial American mobilization . . . was the right thing to do,” and endorsed the handling of the crisis from the outset of the war. It strongly opposed any superpower troop intervention and praised the Administration for rejecting the idea. The Chicago Tribune opined that “the Mideast policy that Mr. Kissinger defined is admirable” and “this is a time for Americans to have confidence in the foreign policies of our government.”
We sought to defuse the crisis now by avoiding any attack on Soviet self-respect. It was not a time to crow, lest Moscow seize on the inevitable next pretext to reverse the outcome of the previous night.
Brezhnev did his part by giving a conciliatory speech on October 26 to the World Peace Congress meeting in Moscow. He extolled the importance of détente; he did not mention the American alert, but he castigated Israel for violating the cease-fire “perfidiously.” He repeated the standard Soviet line on a Mideast settlement, which amounted to blanket support of the hard-line Arabs. But he was no more specific now on how to achieve his program than he had been during the previous four years — a void that represented our strategic opportunity.
My associate Helmut Sonnenfeldt well summed up the ambivalence of our public debate:
In this crazy town this conciliatory speech [by Brezhnev], in part induced by the firmness of our reaction to Soviet threats the other night, in part by Brezhnev’s own stake in his détente policy, will further stimulate allegations that we manufactured a crisis for domestic reasons. And any efforts we make to show that we were justified in doing what we did will either have the effect of emphasizing the tenuousness of détente or of arousing the Russians to show that they were not faced down by us in a confrontation.
Clearly, détente had not prevented a crisis, as some of our critics with varying degrees of disingenuousness were claiming it should have — forgetting that détente defined not friendship but a strategy for a relationship between adversaries. After all, a principal purpose of our own Mideast policy was to reduce the role and influence of the Soviet Union, just as the Soviets sought to reduce ours. But I believe détente mitigated the succession of crises that differences in ideology and geopolitical interest had made nearly inevitable; and I believe we enhanced the national interest in the process.
We still sought, for instance, to limit the role and the number of the observers whom Brezhnev had sent to Egypt as he stood down from the crisis. They were in any event an anachronism now that the United Nations force had been approved. Nixon replied to Brezhnev’s October 25 message nearly twenty-four hours later, at 1:00 P.M. on October 26, leaving no doubt that we intended to reduce the superpower observers to minimal proportions:
Now that the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization has been augmented and a United Nations emergency force created, a separate US–USSR supervisory force would be inappropriate. I propose that at this time we leave the composition of the U.N. Observer Force to the discretion of the Secretary General. Our own preference is for the limitations on its composition to be the same as those agreed upon for the U.N. emergency force. We would, however, be prepared to consider a request by the Secretary General to supply a few U.S. observers should he desire to do so. The Soviet observers should be integrated in the same manner. We do not believe it necessary to have separate observer forces from individual countries operating in the area.
For the rest of the day, Dobrynin and I sparred about the size of the US–Soviet observer contingent; I opened the bidding by insisting on no more than twenty from each side. Finally, there was an agreement on thirty-six each. It was a needless effort, for Egypt promptly changed its mind about the desirability of the observers. Egypt’s new Acting Foreign Minister, Ismail Fahmy, said in Cairo that Egypt neither wanted nor needed the observers. The Soviet ploy for a special US–Soviet contingent never got off the ground, and the issue was buried in the diplomacy that followed.
We had dealt with the threat of Soviet intervention. But the problem that had given rise to it remained. The Egyptian Third Army was still trapped; it was not under assault but was slowly being starved into submission. The medical convoy we had been attempting to arrange for twenty-four hours had been stalled by the Israelis under one pretext or another at the outskirts of the city of Suez. Israel claimed that it was transferring medical supplies directly. We had no means of checking. At any rate, this too was designed to humiliate the Egyptians by emphasizing their dependence on the Israeli armed forces. It was not something that Sadat could accept indefinitely.
And he did not. Shortly after 9:30 A.M. Friday, October 26, Sadat sent an urgent message direct to Nixon charging that the Israelis were exploiting the situation “to establish themselves astride the lines of communication of the Third Egyptian Army in an attempt to isolate and oblige it to surrender” and that the Israelis continued to prevent UN observers from reaching the area. Sadat threatened unilateral action to reopen the supply lines. He was also informing the Soviets, he told us.
He went on to suggest that prolongation of the impasse would jeopardize the atmosphere for “constructive” talks with me. “I would like to inform you,” he wrote, “that in preparation for this visit, we are working out comprehensive proposals which we hope will provide a turning point toward a final peace settlement.”
A trip sold so often by each side to the other would require something of a miracle to fulfill all the expectations raised for largely extraneous tactical reasons. Obviously, both we and Cairo were trying to use my trip to maneuver for position — we to drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and Egypt and to keep Sadat from invoking Soviet help; Sadat to induce us to prevent Israel from destroying the Egyptian Third Army. As it happened, these objectives merged.
We had supported Israel throughout the war for many historical, moral, and strategic reasons. And we had just run the risk of war with the Soviet Union, amidst the domestic crisis of Watergate. But our shared interests did not embrace the elimination of the Third Army.
The issue of the Third Army was quite simply that Israel had completed its entrapment well after a cease-fire (that we had negotiated) had gone into effect. But while Israel could do this much, it could not cause the Third Army to surrender. Late the preceding night (October 25), Israel had replied to my query that it would take three or four more days of fighting along the entire front and the assurance of large quantities of modern equipment to destroy the Third Army. There was no way this could take place without another major crisis with the Soviet Union, the permanent enmity of all of the Arab states, and the humiliation of Sadat.
Nor would the final destruction of an Egyptian army after the ceasefire have been in Israel’s long-term interest. Maddened by the fact that they had been surprised, beside themselves with grief over the high casualties, deeply distrustful of Sadat, who had engineered their discomfiture, Israel’s leaders wanted to end the war with his destruction. Their emotion was understandable. But one of our interests was to give Arab leaders an incentive for moderation. Our exchanges with Cairo had convinced us that Anwar Sadat represented the best chance for peace in the Middle East.
Now that we had prevented Soviet intervention, it was essential to begin the peace process. This required some immediate relief for the Third Army — a difficult tactical problem. There was unanimity in our government as to goals, disagreement as to methods. The Defense Department had come up with a plan for resupplying the Third Army with American C-130 airplanes. There was also much pressure to cut off our airlift to Israel. I was uneasy about both ideas. We could not in the space of two weeks run an airlift to the two opposing sides in a Middle East war. At the same time, an abrupt halt of the airlift to Israel would risk being interpreted as dissociation from our ally and thus would tempt Arab intransigence and perhaps renewed Soviet intervention.
So we spent Friday, October 26, attempting instead to persuade Israel to volunteer some type of relief for the Third Army and thus avoid forcing us into open opposition. It was not an easy assignment. A prickly, proud, and somewhat overwrought friendly nation had to be convinced not to persist in a course promising great domestic benefits in the run-up to an election,VII and we had to accomplish the goal while maintaining a public posture of close association. We had to preserve Egypt’s confidence in us through the agonizing hours required to convince Israel. It was a close race between our persuasiveness and the endurance of the Third Army and with it the prospect of a moderate government in Egypt. And, having just coaxed and pressured the Russian bear back into his cage, we had to be watchful lest he come charging out again. It turned out to be another long day.
Within minutes of receiving Sadat’s message, I contacted Dinitz. Meanwhile, the Third Army was trying to break out of Israeli encirclement north of Suez City. This indicated its desperation and would aggravate its plight by depleting its resources. It would also face us with another round of disputes over cease-fire violations. I urged that Israel take two steps: invite UN observers to proceed immediately to points between the two armies to monitor the cease-fire; and permit convoys of food, water, and medical supplies to the Third Army. The latter would remain surrounded, incapable of combat, useful as a bargaining counter but not subject to the humiliation of surrender. Dinitz promised an answer within a short time. I also told Dinitz of my plan to visit Egypt.
Nixon was at Camp David, where he had gone to prepare for a television news conference that evening. At 10:30 A.M. I sent a message in his name to Sadat, relating the proposals we had made to Israel:
It will of necessity require several hours to get a definitive response on these points. It is our earnest hope that in the interim you can avoid taking any irrevocable actions.
I am very encouraged by your substantive preparations for discussions during Secretary Kissinger’s upcoming visit. You can be sure he will adopt a constructive attitude. We hope that his visit may represent a milestone on the road toward a permament and just settlement.
Around noon I talked to Nixon at Camp David and briefed him on what we had been doing. When he heard of Sadat’s urgent message earlier that morning, he wanted it passed to the Israelis “strongly,” in his words. (I had already done so.) “Let’s keep our side of the bargain.”
Not having received a reply from the Israelis for nearly four hours, I finally called Dinitz. He was without instructions, but he had a “personal” idea: Any Egyptian wishing to leave the Third Army might be permitted to do so, but all equipment would have to be left behind. In other words, a public humiliation for Egypt — no wonder it was put foward as a “personal” idea. I repeated our proposal that emergency, nonmilitary supplies be allowed through — mostly food, water, and medicines. I added: “You will not be permitted to capture that army. I am certain.” After some desultory talk I warned again: “I frankly think you will make a mistake if you push into a total confrontation.” Once more I requested an urgent reply.
Around 2:30 P.M., still not having heard from Israel after five hours, we received another frantic message from Sadat for Nixon:
At that moment when I am receiving your encouraging message with respect to the future of peace, the Israelis are launching air and ground attacks against the Third Army under the false pretext that it has initiated the attack.
I wish to advise you that the moment is critical and that the future of peace is in danger. Your guarantee of the Security Council Resolution is being defied under false pretenses.
I hope that we can act swiftly to stop that deterioration of the situation immediately.
Shortly afterward, Kurt Waldheim informed me that Zayyat in New York, in a highly emotional state, had contacted him about the possibility of a special Security Council meeting to protest alleged new Israeli cease-fire violations. The Egyptian army would not surrender; Egypt would be forced to take unilateral action. It was, said Zayyat, at a turning point.
When I reported the Egyptian message to Dinitz at 4:15 P.M., he was still without instructions — seven hours after my urgent request. Clearly, the Israeli government was stalling, hoping to force the Third Army into surrender. The only suggestion Dinitz had was that the cabinet would send a general to explain the situation to me and present a “complete proposal.” But this would take time, which we did not have. I warned Dinitz that there was a limit beyond which we could not be pushed. Dinitz replied, revealing the Israeli calculation: “We cannot let them [the Third Army] out without getting something in return.” Of course, if I threw the issue into our own bureaucratic machinery, it would almost certainly result in American resupply of the Third Army, which the Defense Department was recommending. I suggested that Israel had a good bargaining position and could get something for it, though not the surrender of the Third Army. We would do our utmost to arrange for direct discussions between Egypt and Israel — a long-stated Israeli goal. But a continuation of the current tactics would be disastrous:
[Y]ou have to buy time for this discussion. We will be glad to propose that there will be immediate discussions between you and the Egyptians to solve this problem. We are willing to be cooperative but I tell you what will happen is another maximum Soviet demand and you cannot put the President in confrontation day after day.
I requested a reply before the start of the Security Council debate set for 9:00 P.M. that evening.
Still wishi
ng to avoid a clash with Israel and hopeful that eventually we would elicit a constructive reply, I sent a procrastinating message to Sadat in Nixon’s name. It told Sadat of the locations at which Israel had agreed to accept UN observers, as well as Israel’s agreement in principle to a medical convoy for Suez City. The message also pointed out that the Israeli and Egyptian versions of the cause of cease-fire violations were exactly opposite: “You must recognize that it is impossible for us to make proper judgments on who is keeping and who is violating the cease-fire.” It promised that as soon as impartial observers were in place, the United States would be prepared to identify and condemn violators of the cease-fire.
This was thin gruel for Sadat. Disaster was incipient — in the pressures of Egyptian honor, the dwindling supplies of the Third Army, and our struggle to work out a complicated diplomacy.
Finally, at 7:10 P.M., during Nixon’s press conference, a formal Israeli reply arrived. It was another stall. Prime Minister Meir now accepted my suggestion of direct talks with the Egyptians on “how to solve this problem.” In the meantime she offered no relief for the Third Army. What Golda had in mind seemed simple enough:
We believe we have something to offer to them — something which is neither surrender nor humiliation, but an honorable way out of the situation. All the Egyptians have to do is suggest the time, place, and rank of their representative.
But the reality was more complicated. The psychological difficulty for the Arabs in accepting direct talks was hardly likely to be eased by the deliberate humiliation of the Third Army. At a minimum it would take time to arrange a meeting, with each elapsed hour further weakening the Third Army. Golda recognized the problem and sought to soothe us: “They [the Third Army] are not in a desperate situation; Sadat is.” But that did not answer our concerns at all, for we were even more interested in preserving Sadat than the Third Army; the fact was, however, that they were symbiotic. One had become the surrogate for the other. At 7:55 P.M. I passed the essence of Golda’s message — proposing direct Egyptian-Israeli talks — to Hafiz Ismail in Cairo.
Years of Upheaval Page 89