Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  On February 16 a Syrian official told our chargé d’affaires in Damascus, the extremely able and energetic Thomas Scotes — a junior edition of Joe Sisco — that the decision was to lift the embargo in stages: a partial lifting at the next oil ministers’ meeting; a complete lifting when disengagement on the Golan was completed. He blamed the grudging procedure on Golda Meir’s recent statement. Asad was said to be facing major opposition within the Syrian government even for discussing disengagement; he would have to prove his manhood if he was to continue the process. In other words, a show of ferocity was needed to make possible a conciliatory position. Such is the Middle East.

  What this confusion of partly conflicting, partly overlapping messages amounted to was that there had been a decision involving some sort of linkage. The embargo would be lifted in step with our progress on the Golan. But while the Algiers decision might be a face-saving device to end the embargo, it was bound to lead us into the trap of escalating conditions that we had no choice except to resist. Syria’s plan to release the prisoner list (not yet officially communicated to us) was a hopeful sign. Yet it could also prove to be a tactic enabling Syria to continue insisting on the embargo if the Israeli disengagement proposal it elicited was unacceptable or outrageous — a likely prospect, given the Israeli negotiating style and Golda’s domestic difficulties. A trip by me to the Middle East might help mitigate the sharp reaction that was inevitable if Syria’s leaders had before them only a paper plan with no explanation. On the other hand, a blowup while I was in the Middle East would leave us no further recourse. My presence could become the excuse either for lifting the embargo or for continuing it.

  My inclination was to go for broke and to refuse all further activity until the embargo was irrevocably abandoned. Nixon for once, however, was reluctant to force a showdown. In the tenth month of his torment he was still in thrall to the idea that a dramatic lifting of the embargo under his personal leadership was the cure-all for his Watergate agonies. On this his usually sure political judgment deserted him. He knew that the lines at gasoline stations spelled political disaster; what he could not bring himself to face was that ending them would not ensure political salvation. Not even the most spectacular success could arrest the ponderous doomsday machinery now so inexorably grinding him down. Nevertheless, every few weeks there was some new Presidential plan to send some special emissary to King Faisal with an appeal based on personal friendship. I was always opposed to this as demeaning and more likely to generate pressures than to end them. But since I invariably learned of it only from others to whom Nixon broached the idea, I had — as Nixon intended — no opportunity to make a direct objection.

  On February 7, at the very height of our pressure to force an unconditional end of the embargo, Nixon launched another such initiative. He used the opportunity of my absence on a one-day trip to Panama to make a personal appeal via the Saudi Ambassador. Nixon received him in the Map Room to emphasize the special nature of the meeting — and called in photographers. The President then gave in effect his personal guarantee that the end of the embargo would lead not only to a settlement on the Golan but to a permanent peace. He was careful not to draw any final borders, but he left little doubt about his leanings: “We will work out a permanent settlement as quickly as possible. The full prestige of my office is dedicated to that. You should know that that means I will catch it from some groups in this country.” Nixon expressed an interest in visiting the Middle East himself, as early as the spring.

  I was not informed in advance, and having for three weeks insisted on an unconditional end of the embargo, I was not amused when I learned about the sudden meeting. Brent Scowcroft and I therefore went through our usual minuet. Once informed, I wired him from the Panama-bound plane that I considered the meeting “dangerous” and “counterproductive.” Scowcroft responded that the visit of the Ambassador was better than other alternatives (such as sending a special Presidential emissary to Saudi Arabia) — Scowcroft’s standard bromide certain both to calm and to disquiet me. In the end, the ambassadorial visit passed without visible impact one way or another.

  Now after Algiers I urged the President to use the visit of Fahmy and Saqqaf to force a showdown. My recommendation was to tell the two foreign ministers that Nixon would not receive them unless they were prepared to promise an unconditional end of the oil embargo. I would go to the Middle East in any event in fulfillment of the procedure proposed to Asad on February 5; that is, to obtain an Israeli disengagement plan in return for the list of POWs held in Syria. But we should make clear that further progress would depend on Arab oil policy. We would not act under pressure. Nixon was dubious:

  You see, my only interest is the embargo. That’s the only thing the country is interested in. They don’t give a damn what happens to Syria. That is our problem. I think we should see them but I don’t know that we want to build up the fact that you are going out there if it cannot be in any way linked to the embargo — you see the problem we’ve got there.

  My reply was: “Well, it can’t be linked to the embargo, Mr. President, and I think the more we build up the embargo the less we are going to get it [removed].”

  Nixon, as nearly always when choosing between politics and substance in foreign policy, ultimately accepted the strategic necessities. He agreed that we would refuse to discuss the embargo any further; we would reject linkage, or, more precisely, we would turn it against the oil producers. He would not receive the two emissaries unless there was a promise to end the embargo unconditionally. Thus on February 16 I sent new instructions to our diplomats in Cairo, Jiddah, Kuwait, Algiers, and Damascus:

  As part of our overall position in the coming days we intend to refrain from saying anything about the embargo. Our position on this matter has been made clear time and again and we intend to make no further pleas either privately or formally on this point. There, therefore, should be no comments either publicly or privately by posts and anything that will be said on this matter will be said in Washington.

  Ismail Fahmy and Omar Saqqaf arrived late on February 16, having terminated what would have been the first restful weekend in two months for me. They were a bit bedraggled because during their flight a coffee-making machine had exploded on the airplane, convincing Saqqaf that they were the targets of a Zionist plot. Everybody calmed down soon enough and, their equilibrium restored, they treated me to a classic display of the tension between unity and individualism in the Arab world.

  Saqqaf and Fahmy were Arab brothers; they were also rivals for preeminence. This expressed itself in a dozen little ways. I called for them at the airport and took them to the Shoreham Hotel, where each of them had a suite. We met at Saqqaf’s suite — he was the senior of the two emissaries in terms of service. This raised a prickly issue with Fahmy, who had the title of Foreign Minister while his Saudi colleague, performing the same functions, had only the title of Minister of State. Once they were settled, I told them that I was prepared to go to the Middle East to carry the Syrian list of prisoners to Israel in return for a concrete Israeli proposal on Golan disengagement. I gave them my estimate that this first Israeli proposal was bound to be unacceptable to Syria; its primary value was the symbolic opening of negotiations. But the United States would accept no linkage between how the Israelis responded and continuation of the oil embargo. If they wanted to see President Nixon, they would have to promise first that the embargo would be lifted whatever happened on my trip.

  Fahmy and Saqqaf were experienced diplomats. They knew that it would be a loss of face for them to leave Washington without being received by the President; it would cast doubt on the policy of both their countries. They understood immediately that the party was over, that a decision was now unavoidable. And being professionals, they did not argue or recriminate but sought a solution. They would immediately ask for instructions; they would have an answer within forty-eight hours.

  That left the problem of what to do in the interval. When I escorted Fahmy to his su
ite, he proposed that he meet the President alone before the two emissaries delivered their joint message; he would be able to give him the “real story” of Algiers. The meeting should, of course, be kept secret. When I bade him goodbye, he insisted on seeing me not only to the door of his suite but to the front door of the hotel. It was partly the legendary Egyptian politeness. At the same time the unworthy thought struck me that it was a neat way to keep me from having a separate meeting with Saqqaf.

  I chose not to risk the Saudi’s jealousy. So I entered my limousine and had it drive around the block and deposit me at a different entrance from the one I had just left. (Luckily, the Shoreham Hotel was large enough for such maneuvers.) Reentering the hotel, I called on Saqqaf, who immediately proved to me that as far as one-upmanship is concerned, Arab minds run along parallel courses. He too would value a separate secret meeting with Nixon before delivering the joint démarche. He thought he could make an important contribution to the President’s understanding of the real meaning of their message.

  I knew my two friends too well to hope that any such meeting could take place in secret. Half the fun in having it would be to demonstrate to the world a special relationship to America. I compromised by seeing Saqqaf and Fahmy separately on Sunday, February 17, to review the situation for the umpteenth time. I also breakfasted with Simcha Dinitz to explain our strategy. The Israeli cabinet had meanwhile done its bit to complicate matters by informing us that it would refuse to discuss Syrian disengagement in the Egyptian-Israeli military commission in Geneva, one of the steps in the five-point plan of February 5. (Luckily, if we followed the procedure of my shuttling, this would be irrelevant.)

  I had yet to hear the formal Arab message from Algiers. All that had been presented were vague allusions to a linkage between lifting the embargo and Syrian disengagement.

  By 11:35 A.M. on Monday, February 18, over thirty-six hours after their arrival, the two emissaries had at last received new instructions and they came to see me at the State Department. They said that they could unlink lifting the embargo from Syrian disengagement; our tactics had paid off. The list of Israeli prisoners in Syria was on its way to Washington and it would be handed to me just before I left for the Middle East, for delivery in Jerusalem. This being settled, Saqqaf said reasonably enough: “Henry, I do not know what we are going to discuss now. You saw me; you saw my friend. I do not know what more there is.” But I wanted to be sure I understood the state of play:

  KISSINGER: I understand you to say that a decision has been made in principle to lift the embargo.

  SAQQAF: At the 1st of March.

  KISSINGER: At the next meeting of the oil ministers.

  SAQQAF: In two weeks or ten days.

  KISSINGER: That is essentially unconditional. The decision is made. Second, you are urging us to do our utmost to bring about disengagement on the Syrian side. Third, the four heads of government would consider it useful if I came to the Middle East. You proposed that I go before the Islamic Conference [in Lahore, February 22–24].

  SAQQAF: Before the Mexico trip.

  KISSINGER [laughing]: Yes. I cannot, but I will come immediately afterward. This is your understanding? . . .

  SAQQAF: Yes.

  KISSINGER: I will report this now fully to the President.

  The next issue was what to do with the prisoner list coming to Washington. If it remained in the Syrian mission in Washington until just before I left for the Middle East more than a week hence, it would look like blackmail; moreover, the Syrian leadership might change its mind. If we transmitted it to Jerusalem immediately, the Israeli cabinet under the pressure of coalition-making might invent new conditions by the time I got there. More important, if Israel’s Golan proposal turned out to be as uncompromising as I suspected, the fact that it had been prepared over a period of ten days was likely to add insult to injury for Damascus.

  We finally settled on a compromise of sufficient deviousness to appeal to the complex Arab mind (not to mention mine). Fahmy and Saqqaf would urge the Syrian representative in Washington to turn the list of prisoners over to me in a sealed envelope. I would keep it in a safe until my departure. My first stop in the Middle East would be Damascus. Having carried the envelope with me from America, I would take it from Syria to Israel, which in return would hand over a plan for disengagement on the Golan Heights. Thus, face would be saved on both sides. Syria would not have paid too early; Israel would have achieved its goal; we would be able to say that there had not been enough time to elicit a negotiable proposal. The two emissaries deserve the credit for a scheme of classic Middle Eastern intricacy.

  The POW list was handed over to me in Washington in a sealed envelope on February 20. I kept it in my safe. I altered the plan in one detail. In order to ease Golda’s anguish, I told her through Dinitz in strictest confidence that the list was in my hands and that I would hand it to her on February 27 when I came to Israel from Damascus. Golda proved to me that the Israeli government could keep a secret when it chose (or maybe she did not tell anyone). No word of the advance information ever leaked.I

  At last on February 19, three days after arriving in Washington, the emissaries met the President in the Oval Office. Nixon, rested after four days in Florida, was in fine form. Saqqaf and Fahmy and I had honed our presentations over the last three days of repeating the same point: how to avoid a linkage that reality imposed and diplomacy rejected. Nixon began by asking me to sum up. I repeated the main points of the previous meeting, stressing that the lifting of the oil embargo was unconditional and that all the Arab ministers were asking from us was our “best influence” for a Syrian-Israeli disengagement. Fahmy, who throughout had been extremely helpful, affirmed that my summary was correct. Saqqaf, aware of the fine balance that his kingdom had to strike, demurred mildly by giving a new meaning to the term “unconditional”: “It is true there was no condition to the lifting of the embargo but you must bear in mind it will not be lifted for nothing. . . . The embargo is not going to be lifted without something else happening.”

  I objected strongly. Nixon gave his own ingenious version of our resistance to linkage in the Middle East — much as we favored it in East-West relations. We wanted the lifting of the oil embargo to stand on its own, so that we could be more helpful to the Arabs:

  We will work for peace and assist to the extent that you want us, including the provision of aid. If the embargo is lifted, you will be playing a decisive role towards hastening an agreement; if not, you will make it more difficult for us to play a useful role. The key question is: do you want us to play a major role, to get Israel to be reasonable, to work toward a reasonable peace? That is what is on the line — our help, economically, industrially, culturally. What is important is not the embargo or related conditions but the opportunity to build in the Middle East.

  Fahmy professed that what he had just heard was of “historic importance.” On the basis of it, “the embargo will be lifted, there will be no linkage.” Nixon in return promised to move the disengagement talks to a successful resolution. Though I had been saying the same thing for four weeks, Saqqaf chose to treat it as an important new concession: “This is what we had in mind. We do not want to commit you, Mr. President, but this is what I wanted to hear.”

  Afterward, we all met the press. Nixon announced that he was sending me to the Middle East again, to promote a Syrian-Israeli disengagement. He vowed to work for a “permanent” peace. Saqqaf, calling Nixon “my friend,” allowed that he was extremely relaxed and hopeful that something would happen, and soon, “for the benefit of the United States, of the Middle East, for the world as a whole.” Fahmy, making clear that the two emissaries had conveyed important decisions from the four heads of state at Algiers, welcomed both Nixon’s commitment to permanent peace and my imminent visit to the region.

  Uncharacteristically, I said nothing. My mind reeling from unconditional conditions and unlinked linkages, I was reflecting about my forthcoming journey to the Middle East. It would
be a strange trip. I was being sent to extract from Syria a list of prisoners already in my possession and from Israel a negotiating proposal certain to be unacceptable. All the key actors knew this. But in the Middle East, poetry and reality merge; all agreed that only by acting out the script could the embargo be lifted and the war on the Golan Heights be ended. And as in many Middle East fairy tales, the charade became reality when during the course of my journey it transpired that the trip had been essential after all; the script suddenly changed. My task became less to make progress on negotiations than to make stalemate psychologically supportable.

  An Eventful Visit to Damascus

  THERE was a fretful overture to my fourth visit to the Middle East. I had told Gromyko on February 19 what he could read in the newspaper: that I was leaving in a few days for another trip at the request of Saudi Arabia and Egypt “to produce an appropriate framework for the negotiations acceptable to the parties.” There was no response. But on February 24, Syrian Foreign Minister Abd al-Halim Khaddam wired me from Lahore, where he was attending the Islamic summit with Asad: Out of the blue, Gromyko had announced himself on a trip to Damascus, supposedly in order to participate with me in the negotiations on disengagement. Khaddam asked me urgently whether the United States had a prior agreement with the Soviet Union that Gromyko would meet with me in the Syrian capital.

  Moscow’s attempt to inject itself into the diplomacy was both clumsy and a confession of weakness. And the Syrian reaction implied, stunningly, that Asad would go along with Gromyko’s presence only if America insisted on it. I decided to test this assumption by expressing no view as to the desirability of Gromyko’s presence in Damascus, simply putting the facts before Khaddam: “The US has no prior agreement with the USSR, and we have no knowledge of such an approach.”

  Gromyko, it turned out, was not yet in Damascus when I arrived there from London at 9:35 P.M. on Tuesday, February 26, to a warm greeting by Khaddam and the usual hair-raising motorcade past sullen Palestinian refugee camps into the center of town. Damascus lies on a plain stretching toward the east as far as the eye can see, bounded on the west by the Mount Hermon range, which on my many visits was always capped by snow. I must have visited Damascus at least thirty times but I never saw anything of the city except the road from the airport to the state guest house and then from there to the President’s office just around the corner. My one attempt to visit the old city was aborted by security considerations, as I shall describe. The part of the city my motorcade traversed showed the French influence — wide, tree-lined avenues bordered by buildings that had clearly seen happier days. Indifference would be the best description for the demeanor of the average Syrian. There was none of the ebullient applause of Cairo, or the mixture of hope for peace and fear of betrayal that one met in Jerusalem. The Syrian was too proud to show interest in an American emissary but too much in the Arab tradition of hospitality to take his lead from the anti-American propaganda that usually filled the Syrian press.