Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  Infuriated by a sense of abandonment in a crisis, our nerves taut from several all-night vigils, we reacted in a manner bound to escalate tensions even further. On October 25 we sent a sharp note to Bonn:

  The US Government] believes that for the West to display weakness and disunity in the face of a Soviet-supported military action against Israel could have disastrous consequences.

  Similar complaints were made to the British and others. The accumulated irritation and nervous tension burst forth in a galaxy of public statements on October 26 that confirmed the public impression of Western disarray. I instructed State Department spokesman Robert McClos-key to inform reporters that “we were struck by a number of our allies going to some lengths to in effect separate publicly from us.” McClos-key said pointedly: “We would have appreciated a little more unified support.” Joining the fray, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger told a Pentagon press conference that American actions in Europe had the purpose of enhancing our readiness. However,

  the reactions of the foreign ministry of Germany raised some questions about whether they view readiness in the same way that we view readiness and consequently we will have to reflect on that matter.

  As luck would have it, Nixon also held a press conference that same evening, less than forty-eight hours after the alert.II Nixon associated himself with these criticisms, specifically mentioning McCloskey’s briefing with approval. He added his own twist: “Europe, which gets 80 percent of its oil from the Mideast, would have frozen to death this winter if there hadn’t been a settlement.” Nixon thus implied that our actions, including the alert, had contributed more to assuring European oil supplies than did Europe’s distancing itself from the United States. I had made the same argument to German Ambassador Berndt von Staden earlier in the day:

  We recognize that the Europeans are more dependent upon Arab oil than we, but we disagree that your vulnerability is decreased by disassociating yourselves from us on a matter of this importance. Such disassociation will not help the Europeans in the Arab world. The Arabs know that only the US can provide the help to get a political settlement. Not only will European capitulation to the Arabs not result in their insuring their oil supply, but it can have disastrous consequences vis-à-vis the Soviet Union who, if allowed to succeed in the Near East, can be expected to mount ever more aggressive policies elsewhere. To the degree Soviet influence can be reduced, we will gain a long-term advantage even if we pay a short-term price.

  Our allies were by no means prepared to pay even a short-term price to reduce Soviet influence. A letter from Willy Brandt to Nixon of October 28 was immediately leaked to the press by the Germans — suggesting that its line of argument was thought to have a certain popular appeal in Germany. What minimum support Brandt expressed for American actions he gave not on their merit but primarily because no other country was strong enough to deal with the crisis. He thought it necessary to add the wounding point that he made this judgment without knowing details of the actions or reasons that had caused us to act as we did; at this point, more than seventy-two hours after the alert, after days of public and private briefings, he had been given a very full account; the implication was therefore that he had not been convinced by our briefings and that we had either acted unwisely or were holding back information. The major purpose of his letter was to explain the German ban on our resupply of Israel from German depots. Germany acted because common Alliance responsibilities did not extend to the Middle East — as if NATO allies were prohibited by their alliance from supporting each other outside of Europe.

  But if our analysis was correct, all allies had an interest in preventing the Soviets or Arab radicals from dominating the Middle East. This point was sharply made in Nixon’s reply to Brandt on October 30:

  You note that this crisis was not a case of common responsibility for the Alliance, and that military supplies for Israel were for purposes which are not part of the Alliance responsibility. I do not believe we can draw such a fine line when the USSR was and is so deeply involved, and when the crisis threatened to spread to the whole gamut of East-West relations. It seems to me that the Alliance cannot operate on a double standard in which US relations with the USSR are separated from the policies that our Allies conduct toward the Soviet Union. By disassociating themselves from the US in the Middle East, our Allies may think they protect their immediate economic interests, but only at great long term cost. A differentiated détente in which the Allies hope to insulate their relations with the USSR can only divide the Alliance and ultimately produce disastrous consequences for Europe.

  That was the essence of the American dispute with Europe. Six months before the Middle East war, we had proposed an effort to define common global purposes. Our allies had evaded the initiative on a variety of substantive and procedural pretexts. They had gone so far as to refuse to include such terms as “partnership” and “interdependence” in the various declarations designed to symbolize Western unity. The crisis in the Middle East suddenly brought home to us that the European objections were not simply formalistic or institutional as had been professed. Nor were they provoked by tactless American statements — though our phraseology was not always at its most felicitous. Europe, it emerged increasingly, wanted the option to conduct a policy separate from the United States and in the case of the Middle East objectively in conflict with us. Suddenly, the same countries that had complained of my phrase that they had primarily regional interests now claimed that their obligations were solely regional.

  To be sure, from the European point of view serious criticisms could be made against American policy. But this is another way of saying that the Atlantic Alliance, to remain vital, must do its utmost to prevent conflicting perceptions of fundamental interests from festering by being left unattended. This was the purpose of our Year of Europe. And if a crisis arises, each side of the Atlantic should weigh carefully the risks of dissociation as against the risks of closing ranks. In fact, it is an interesting question whether allies can afford to prevail against whichever partner is placed by circumstances in the position best able to shape events. An alliance for whose vitality partners are not prepared to curtail their freedom of action is on the way to disintegration. In the Middle East in 1973, failure for America spelled disaster for the West — even if Europe’s assessment was superior to ours, which I still seriously doubt. The beneficiary of the collapse of American policy would not have been Western Europe but forces unlikely to make fine distinctions among the various industrial democracies.

  In reviewing the history of the period, I find it striking that while our European allies left little doubt of their distaste for our policies, they never articulated a coherent alternative. Nor did they address themselves to the consequences for them if our strategy failed — though they seemed to base their policies on this expectation. With the exception of a thoughtful letter from Heath to Nixon on October 31, one looks in vain for any attempt to present a strategy different from our own or for a serious effort at consultation. Our allies were content to saddle us with the responsibility for the diplomacy, but they were not prepared to share its risks.

  Major substantive differences existed over two aspects of Middle East policy: the objectives of postwar diplomacy; and the response to the oil embargo and production cuts.

  With the possible exception of the Netherlands, our European allies were clear about what should follow the cease-fire: American pressure to induce Israel to return immediately to the 1967 borders. They assumed that we had the power to force Israel to do our bidding; if we hesitated, it must be because we were willing to subordinate European interests to our domestic pressures, which they now urged Nixon to face down regardless of his Watergate plight. None of them had any clear-cut idea of how to accomplish this. Nor did it occur to them that the Middle East faced a more immediate problem, with the Egyptian and Israeli armies perilously athwart each other’s lines of communications and an Israeli army perched twenty miles from Damascus. Disengagement of
these forces was seen as a priority by most Arab leaders, even those of Algeria and Syria — as I was told repeatedly on my second trip through the Middle East in December (see Chapter XVII). And our allies showed little awareness that their rhetoric tended to strengthen the radical Arabs over the moderate ones and enhance the Soviet influence over both; they betrayed no perception of the obstacles and risks involved in attempting to settle all issues comprehensively at this stage — when we had not yet had any high-level contact with Syria, we were not yet sure of Egypt’s orientation, and the military dispositions at war’s end created their own necessities. All such arguments, if they found a hearing at all, were dismissed as rationalizations for a misconceived policy or subterfuges for maintaining American control of the negotiating process. As in the Atlantic dialogue, our allies clothed substance in procedure; they argued that they should, in some undefined way, participate in the postwar diplomacy. But their pro-Arab tilt and support for what amounted to an unworkable all-or-nothing approach ruled them out as mediators. They chafed at the fact that they were on the sidelines — though this wallflower role was brought about largely by their own actions, accentuated by their reluctance to adopt joint policies on oil.

  The European Community’s policy placed great stock in gaining the goodwill of the oil producers. Our allies adamantly refused any measure remotely appearing “confrontational,” such as forging a common position among the oil consumers. Oil combined with conviction to drive Europe into ever-sharper opposition to our Middle East strategy.

  In this situation, the insistent statements by European leaders that Europe’s unity was essential to make its weight felt were not simply theoretical avowals of new institutional arrangements, with which we in fact agreed. Their context gave them a more ominous cast. On October 31, Pompidou called for a common European policy on the Middle East. Europe, he argued, must be given a larger role in world affairs, for US–Soviet efforts to settle world crises could be dangerous, leading to generalized clashes. This, if it meant anything, implied that Europe should have the option to oppose both sides in the Middle East and to stay out of some East-West conflicts; it was the only way to keep them from becoming generalized. To achieve this capability, he proposed regular summit meetings of France’s European partners, starting immediately. Pompidou’s colleagues accepted in short order.

  What an independent European policy on the Middle East might look like became apparent less than a week later. On November 6, 1973, the foreign ministers of the Community met in Brussels. Even though I was on the way to Cairo and they had been briefed on our strategy of giving priority to disengagement rather than haggling over the October 22 ceasefire line, they thought it appropriate to put forward a program that was a direct challenge to our policy. Without notice to us and without waiting for the outcome of my mission to Cairo, our European allies called for an immediate Israeli withdrawal to the October 22 line to solidify the cease-fire and to the 1967 borders to achieve peace. Whoever was right, the European statement would either undercut our diplomacy or demonstrate Europe’s irrelevance, neither of which was desirable. The only rational explanation for the Europeans’ haste was that they wanted to stake out a position in advance of ours even if we succeeded — before, as it were, the ground was cut from underneath them — and to have a platform from which to oppose us if we failed.

  On November 9 a European “diplomatic source” in Brussels was quoted by the New York Times to the effect that the Middle East crisis had reinforced opposition to our efforts to include such words as “partnership” and “interdependence” in the proposed US–European Community declaration.5 Independence as the precondition of opposition seemed to be the watchword.

  On November 12, as noted, Jobert roiled the waters with one of his acid presentations to the French National Assembly. He denounced the United States for not consulting its allies during the Middle East war. He attacked the superpowers for their attempt to monopolize the Mideast settlement while Europe, he said, was left

  a forgotten victim of the conflict, but a victim nevertheless, even though it perpetually denounced the perils. Its distress and its bitterness are obvious. But it also noted that it was more of a pawn than an instrument or an asset in the arbitration of the great powers. It can and should learn a basic lesson from this.

  Many people expect Europe not merely to react but to actually be born at last. . . .

  Jobert’s speech amounted to a suggestion that Europe articulate its identity as a permanent challenge to the United States. European and American interests were assumed to be divergent. Europe could vindicate its views only by a readiness for confrontation with its ally across the Atlantic — even while Jobert proclaimed that that ally remained indispensable to the common defense.6 How long it would be possible to maintain a credible American security guarantee for a Europe that dissociated over vital interests we considered common was the subject of little private and no public discussion.

  In mid-November, Brandt picked up the theme in a speech to the European Parliament: “In a world whose destiny cannot and should not be determined by two superpowers alone, the influence of a united Europe has become indispensable.” On November 20 the foreign ministers of the European Community met in Copenhagen to prepare for a European summit to deal with the Mideast crisis. We were given no hint of their preliminary conclusions even though we were then engaged in delicate negotiations designed to move the Mideast toward peace and to assemble the Geneva Conference.

  Normally, such an assault by our allies would have produced a closing of ranks in America. The bipartisan leadership group that had sustained America’s involvement in world affairs with NATO as its cornerstone would have rallied to defend its achievement — much as it had done in 1971 against the Mansfield amendment to withdraw troops from Europe.

  But 1973 was not a normal year. In the Watergate atmosphere, the European accusation of high-handed American diplomacy found a receptive audience; many traditional supporters of Alliance ties could not bring themselves to believe that there was any issue on which Nixon might be right. A New York Times editorial on October 31 echoed other leading journals:

  Washington’s failure to consult, despite countless promises to do so, and its decision not to give its allies advance warning of a military alert that inevitably affected their interests, fits a dismally familiar pattern for this Administration. Mr. Nixon and Secretary Kissinger can speak eloquently about the indispensable American-European connection; but their actions, particularly in crisis, do not match their words.

  In early November, Senator Edward M. Kennedy published a five-page paper accusing the Nixon Administration of “heedlessly creating a crisis in the Atlantic alliance” and urging a reaffirmation of “the principle of allied consultation.”7 On November 21, Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski repeated in a newspaper article what was beginning to turn into a partisan refrain: “It is difficult to imagine a course more calculated to damage alliance relationships, and especially the notion of alliance consultations, than the one the U.S. unilaterally followed in recent days.”8

  The problem went much deeper, of course, than the inadequacy of consultation. This was shown in the British reaction to a press conference I held on November 21. I had made three points: First, the Atlantic Alliance remained the core of American foreign policy. At the same time,

  one cannot avoid the perhaps melancholy conclusions that some of our European allies saw their interests so different from those of the United States that they were prepared to break ranks with the United States on a matter of very grave international consequence and that we happen to believe was of very profound consequence to them as well.

  Finally, the lack of consultation was not the principal problem:

  It is a root fact of the situation that the countries that were most consulted proved among the most difficult in their cooperation and those countries that were most cooperative were least consulted.

  My last comment in an otherwise conciliatory presentation brou
ght Heath into the fray, for he assumed — correctly — that Britain had been one of the countries I had in mind as having been most consulted. He unburdened himself at a dinner with American correspondents on November 28 that started out “off the record” but whose ground rules were relaxed as he warmed to the subject. In the process Heath unintentionally underlined my basic point. The difference between Europe and us was caused only superficially by inadequate consultation; the real trouble was a clash in political perspectives that no amount of consultation would be able to remove. Our Embassy reported Heath’s views as follows:

  There has never been a joint understanding between the U.S. and Europe on the Mideast. “I don’t want to raise the issue of Suez but it’s there for many people.” The Mideast is outside NATO. During the past six years — since the 1967 war — the US had ample opportunity to bring pressure on Israel to negotiate and has done nothing. When we have had Four Power meetings, we have been warned off by the Americans. We all knew what would happen and it did. Another war was inevitable. (The tenor of Heath’s comments made it clear that, in his view, Britain has disagreed with US policy since 1967 and British views have been given no consideration on the part of the US in formulating Mideast policy.)

  In this situation, each side’s unilateralism fed on the other’s and turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was grating, even humiliating, for countries like Britain and France to be excluded from a peace conference on the Middle East. But their conduct guaranteed that Israel would not accept them as impartial, and even to us the Europeans seemed closer to the Soviet position and therefore objectively served to frustrate the only strategy that, in our view, had a chance of working. We were under the impression that the overriding concern of some of our principal allies was not to elaborate a long-range strategy but to end Arab oil cutbacks aimed at them — if necessary at our expense. The line between building a safety net for the contingency of our failure and engineering it was eroding.