Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  I was again lodged in the spacious state guest house whose vast size was not yet matched by elegance and comfort (though these shortcomings were more than overcome during later visits). After a quick meal, Saqqaf picked me up to take me to the King. I was received in the Royal Diwan, or private study, set up as during my previous audience with two chairs in the center, mine on the King’s right and the interpreter facing us. Advisers sat in two rows on opposite sides of the room barely close enough for them to hear, too far away to inject themselves into the conversation. The King looked somber while pictures were being taken. I knew that Boumedienne would already have sent a messenger; at the airport I had seen an Egyptian VIP plane that I suspected had brought Ashraf Marwan, Sadat’s confidant, to give Faisal Cairo’s version of our encounter.

  His Majesty began by expressing his high regard for Nixon. He had known the President for twenty years; it was a friendship independent of office. In his elliptical way he was saying that no conceivable Watergate revelation could affect his esteem. When we turned to substance, Faisal modified what he had said a month earlier. Then, his proposed solution had touched the extreme PLO position: he had urged a secular state in Palestine comprising both Jews and Moslems — a euphemism for the abolition of Israel. Now, he pressed only for the return of Israel to its 1967 borders, including yielding the Old City of Jerusalem. On my previous visit Faisal had insisted that all Palestinians should have the right to return to their homes (in effect destroying Israel by flooding it with new Arabs) or else receive compensation. This time Faisal was less insistent, focusing only on the compensation, and showing that he, too, was trying to be flexible. Characteristically, he advanced the modifications of his previous positions as if they were received truth, indicating by no flicker of expression that, however hesitantly and grudgingly, the Kingdom was for the first time relating itself to the peace process. That was the significance of Faisal’s remarks, which remained far from a basis for compromise. It was an attitude, not a program, and it meant that Saudi Arabia would not be an obstacle to the peace efforts of others.

  In this atmosphere, I reviewed our plans for assembling the Geneva Conference, the proposed subgroups, and the agenda: disengagement first on the Egyptian, next on the Syrian front. Faisal endorsed our approach in his guardedly elliptical manner. This too was an encouraging sign that Syria was well disposed. Faisal would never have risked Syrian displeasure by going so far out on a limb — especially as one of his closest advisers was Rashad Pharaon, a Syrian.

  Then, returning to the guest house, I found a message that threatened to blow up everything: The Israeli cabinet had deferred a decision on attending the Geneva Conference; the draft letter of invitation as it then stood, even as revised, was unsatisfactory. No reference to Palestinians, no matter how conditional, would be accepted. Since I would not visit Israel until Sunday, December 16, the opening date for Geneva of December 18 was now too close. I had no choice but to postpone it three days, to December 21, and as a last resort to proceed if necessary on the basis of the short letter discussed with Sadat. I sent messages to Sadat and Gromyko proposing that course. (It was a measure of their eagerness to get the conference started that this second postponement elicited no objection.) At the same time, another stern Presidential message — drafted by me — went to Golda Meir telling her of the proposed postponement but warning that the United States would attend the opening conference whatever Israel decided. Israel would have to make up its mind when I visited there forty-eight hours hence.

  Saturday morning, wise old Omar Saqqaf called on me at the state guest house. I say “old” because though he was in his early fifties, he had the weatherbeaten, somewhat ravaged look of a man much older; he had clearly been living a full life. He came, as he had four weeks earlier, for an exegesis of his King’s complicated meanings:

  The King personally can’t do something he doesn’t believe. He has lived this personally since 1936. He believes in this Arab cause. He is a King. The King of Thailand he feels closer to than to President Pompidou. He has this way of thinking of things. That is why he is for the cause and cannot change without seeing something. Of course you saw that he was positive in a real sense. I am convinced he has said more than any time before.

  I had not, I regretted to admit, understood him quite so clearly. In fact, if pressed against the wall I would not have been sure exactly what Faisal had said — which was, of course, precisely what the wily King wanted. His intentions were clearly benign; their execution would depend on circumstance, including pressures from the other Arab states and progress in the negotiations. And therefore the theme of Saqqaf’s optimistic presentation was that America’s position in the rest of the Arab world had been improving; hence Saudi Arabia’s freedom of action was increasing. He explained to me the evolving views of the various Arab countries in a fashion only slightly less elliptical than his master’s, producing a dialogue that sounded like a desperate imitation of the early Hemingway. “He is very intelligent,” said Saqqaf of Boumedienne:

  He has changed. Before he was like Iraq or Libya. He offered us his planes and weapons if we needed them. So to that extent his policy hasn’t changed. But he’s not the same. He’s offering you a choice.

  KISSINGER: Exactly.

  SAQQAF: To fight or have a settlement. There came a time when everyone was not fighting so much for the cause as for the dignity of the Arab man. . . . Is he a man who can use sophisticated weapons? Or does he just go out to die?

  KISSINGER: I never believed the theory that the Arabs couldn’t fight, because I know history.

  SAQQAF: Yes, yes, you know history.

  KISSINGER: Some in Israel thought that. But there were hundreds of years when people were afraid the Arabs would never forget to fight.

  SAQQAF: Hafez al-Asad said to me he wasn’t sure himself. But we had a bad 30 years. And a terrible ten years.

  He assured me: “The meeting with the King went well, I think.” Saqqaf then asked to speak to me and our Ambassador, James E. Akins, alone. He formally promised that Saudi Arabia would not only lift the embargo and increase its production but would urge the other Arab oil producers to follow suit. Since he gave no precise date, the statement had more dramatic than operational content. But when Saqqaf bade me farewell at the airport, he said the same thing publicly: “We think we are able to remove every stumbling block in our relations.”

  Saqqaf added another touch: “I appreciated this meeting with my friend Dr. Kissinger, whom I call Henry.” This made him the first Arab leader to call me by my first name. It started a trend. It was pleasing not only for its human warmth; it was bound to be helpful in Syria, which was my next stop.

  First Visit to Damascus

  SYRIA’S image was so forbidding that reality could not possibly match what I had been told before our arrival. Syria had distinguished itself as one of the most intransigent of Arab regimes. It was surely the most militant of the so-called confrontation states — those nations bordering Israel that had until now adamantly rejected negotiations with it. Since independence in 1946, Syria’s history had been one of violence, radical changes, and a succession of coups d’état reflecting the tensions within Syrian society and the pressures of Arab politics and ideologies. The current (and at this writing still incumbent) President, Hafez al-Asad, had forced his more radical predecessor out of office in November 1970 after Syria’s disastrous gamble in the Jordan crisis. Asad, Defense Minister then, had seen the penalties of recklessness and learned his lesson well. Now in office for more than eleven years, he has set the modern record for longevity of a Syrian leader.

  Until 1973 Syria had refused any talk of peace. Syria considered the State of Israel an illegal creation and, dedicated to its destruction, had not much cared where the borders of that state were located. After 1967, Damascus had broken diplomatic relations with Washington, not even permitting a small Interests Section such as we had maintained in Cairo as a channel of communication. In international forums, like the U
nited Nations, Syria was known to us as a friend of the Soviet Union and one of the leaders of the radical group. I was paying the first visit by an American Secretary of State to Syria in twenty years.

  Arriving on Saturday, December 15, 1973, I was greeted at the airport by the man technically my host, Abd al-Halim Khaddam, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. The drive into the capital from the airport took about a half hour, the first twenty minutes or so speeding along a straight road, then making a jarring half-circuit of a traffic circle and plunging into the boulevards of modern Damascus. The speed of the ride may have had something to do with the fact that Palestinian refugee camps were in the area near the airport. I was surrounded by the most conspicuous display of security forces I had yet seen anywhere — truckloads of armed men before and behind; innumerable plainclothesmen in the many other cars; and armed soldiers spaced every twenty feet along the airport road. It was less reassuring than it might have been, for I remembered uneasily that a Mideast expert had warned me: “If anything happens to you in Syria, it will come from the security forces.”

  Khaddam was the distillation of Syria’s ambivalences. Compact, dynamic, with a slightly ferocious air that went incongruously with his mirthful laugh and remarkable blue eyes (a legacy of the Crusader period?), he embodied Syria’s proud nationalism and its aspirations for an international role. He could not quite make up his mind which was worse: to be left out of the negotiating process or to participate in it. Khaddam told me that, on the one hand, he would not become the first Syrian to sign a document with Israel; on the other hand, I was in Damascus at the explicit request of Syria. Since my visit could have no other purpose than to help Syria participate in the negotiations in some manner, the extraordinary effort being made revealed — whatever Khaddam’s protestation to the contrary — that Syria wanted something. Syrian rhetoric might be intransigent but Syrian actions encouraged and to some extent relied on the peace process. I did not attempt to mislead Syria as to the approach that American diplomacy was about to pursue. During a brief courtesy call at the Syrian Foreign Office, I told Khaddam in front of several of his colleagues:

  For 25 years we have debated proclamations, declarations, and propositions, and I must tell you frankly that you’ll get better declarations from the Europeans than from me. But on the other hand you will get more results from the United States. I tell you candidly that the only way for us to proceed, given our domestic situation, is not to speak of a final settlement but to go step-by-step. We are not children. No solution is possible without your consent. No one who has dealt with you has the illusion you will give up your principles. But we must take this first step or we will never take the final step. Every effort which started with ringing declarations only started explosions.

  Before there was time for the inevitable bellicose rejoinder, I was summoned to the Presidency.

  What Syrians called, with typical bravado, the Presidential Palace was in fact a small, modern building, formerly a private residence, standing on a narrow tree-lined street amid other undistinguished villas of medium size. It must have belonged once to a merchant of modest means. Only the two candy-striped guard posts outside the entrance revealed its official character. One proceeded through the glass front doors to a staircase leading upstairs to a narrow landing facing the door of the room where the President was always to receive me. The room was small by the usual standards of heads of state, furnished with easy chairs and sofas thrown randomly against the walls. Heavy velvet curtains were always drawn, probably for security reasons; otherwise those in the house across the street could probably keep a diary of what was going on. As my meetings with Asad multiplied — especially during the Syrian shut-tie in May 1974 — this generated a somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere.

  Asad was of medium height. Flashing dark eyes and a mustache dominated an expressive face. The rear of his head seemed to rise straight from his neck, creating the impression that the Syrian President was always slightly leaning forward ready to pounce on an unwary interlocutor. We invariably sat side by side on a brown sofa so that we both looked left on a painting depicting the conquest of the last Crusader strongholds by Arab armies. The symbolism was plain enough; Asad frequently pointed out that Israel, sooner or later, would suffer the same fate. He spoke in a quiet but firm voice, with a kind of rough shyness; he was as intense as Sadat was remote, as literal-minded as Sadat was reflective — the two men were similar only in their passions.

  Asad was the President of a country with a long tradition and a short history. Damascus is at one and the same time the fount of modern Arab nationalism and the exhibit of its frustrations. Ruled for centuries by a succession of conquerors, the most recent being Turkish and French, the Syrian state has never lived up to the dreams of its founders. In its present borders Syria does not have the long history of self-government that gives Egypt historical perspective; nor the size or continuity that enables Egyptian Presidents to operate with the self-assurance deriving from the conviction that, whatever happens, their country will be the focal point of Middle East events. Syrian history alternates achievement with catastrophe, with the accent on the latter. The injustice of foreigners is burned deep into the Syrian soul. Asad said to me that Syria had been betrayed before World War I by Turkey, after it by Britain and France, and more recently by the United States, which had created the State of Israel.

  When a people is convinced that all its troubles come from abroad, morbid suspicion becomes a national style. Syria has neither Egypt’s faith in its own civilizing tendencies nor Saudi Arabia’s wealth and haughty aloofness. Its leaders live by confrontation without the self-confidence to sustain it. They aspire to leadership of the Arab world without the strength to claim it. So they cling defiantly to the purity of their cause, while sullenly recognizing the practicalities of implementing it.

  For they sense — even when they do not fully admit it to themselves — that Syria’s capacity is no match for its aspirations and that its aspirations are controversial even within Syria. Syria is not a homogeneous nation; it is divided between Sunni Moslems, who represent some 63 percent of the population, and other Moslem sects, including the Alawites (12 percent of the population); and a not insignificant Christian population (13 percent). There are close to 200,000 Palestinians to complete the mosaic. The dominant political party, the Baath, holds itself up as the quintessence of Arab nationalism, a claim contested by its Iraqi branch. Since the Baath stands for the uncompromising defense of Arabism, the mere acceptance of the legitimacy of Israel was a traumatic event for Syrian leaders even before one reached the issue of the precise terms of a peace settlement. Conviction was reinforced by domestic politics; Syrian leaders had to be careful lest the hated Iraqi party outflank it on the side of intransigence. Only the military seemed to understand the consequences of confrontation.

  The government was dominated by Alawites — of which Asad was one — who through most of history had been a despised rural-based minority relegated to menial employment. But like many such less privileged groups, they came to be disproportionately represented in the armed forces, which, as elsewhere, offered careers to the talented. Drawn to the Syrian Baath Party and especially to its military wing, the Alawites became preeminent once the Baath seized power in Damascus in 1963. Like other dominant minorities they have since based their rule domestically on their own cohesion and control of key positions, out of proportion to their numbers, and internationally on the uncompromising assertion of Syrian nationalism. And well they might. Syria’s military leaders are obliged constantly to look over their shoulders as the radical civilian politicians are tempted to use rabid nationalism as the vehicle to return to power. Syria is one of the few countries where the civilian leaders are more bellicose than the military.

  When rhetoric is too greatly at variance with reality, schizophrenia is inevitable. In 1973, the ineluctable reality was that the “rejectionist” course produced only a deadlock; it deposited the Israeli army tw
enty miles from Damascus and left Syria isolated in its defiance. Asad would have liked to destroy the Jewish state, but he recognized that neither Egypt nor in the final analysis Saudi Arabia would join him in that enterprise and that the cost of attempting it alone would hazard Syria’s domestic structure, perhaps even its existence. He had managed to stay in office far longer than any of his predecessors because unlike them he was as prudent as he was passionate, as realistic as he was ideological.

  When I met him, Asad had concluded that Syria was not sufficiently strong to unite the Arab nation, and needed to regain its own territory before it could pursue larger ambitions. So Asad had come grudgingly to the same conclusion that Sadat had embraced spontaneously. He would let the peace process proceed. He would strive for a disengagement agreement on the Golan Heights as a first step. How he would act afterward, I doubt that even he knew.

  But to achieve even his first goal presented Asad with a complicated tactical problem. From the beginning, it was clear that he did not possess the personal authority exercised by Sadat. I do not recall that Sadat ever mentioned domestic obstacles to his policies. Even if they existed, he absorbed them in his own position; he acted in his own name, which is another way of saying that he assumed the responsibility for Egypt. (And in the end he paid for this bravura with his life.)