Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  So I thought things were moving in the right direction. But I asked the Israelis to take another look because I was meeting Gromyko the next day in Cyprus and wanted to be able to tell him that no formal Israeli position existed. I did not believe that the plan as it stood was acceptable, but in diplomacy the first advance is crucial. Once de Gaulle had granted independence to France’s black African colonies, independence for Algeria was only a question of time. Once the Israeli cabinet had moved its defense line west of Quneitra, it was clear that the negotiations would not break down over a lesser issue, such as Israel’s right to settle the outskirts of a city to which settlers had never moved when it was permitted — and from which, under Israel’s own scheme, the Israeli army would be barred. The Israeli cabinet was in no hurry to proceed; it was only too happy to send me off to see Gromyko uninstructed.

  My meeting with Gromyko in Nicosia on Tuesday, May 7, had its bizarre aspects. It took place under the avuncular aegis of the President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, who was clearly having the time of his life. For once, issues were being discussed on his island of a scope equal to his view of his talents. He received Gromyko and me separately and he joined the two delegations for a formal welcome; his aplomb and knowing countenance suggested that fate had done him a dirty trick in saddling him with the provincial problems of an obscure island. He seemed fascinated by our complexities; one had the impression that it would not have required much persuasion to induce him to join the Mideast shuttle. As Gromyko and I withdrew for our private meeting in the Presidential Palace, it was with regret that His Eminence tore himself loose from the contemplation of problems to which he could have brought a wiliness and indirection inaccessible to those without the traditions of a millennium of Byzantine statecraft behind them.

  It was a suitable opening for the encounter that followed. To establish the appearance of Soviet participation, Gromyko had invited himself to the Middle East for a time that he judged — on the basis of what I had told him in Geneva — would see the climax of the negotiation. The many delays in the negotiation now deprived his journey of any purpose except perhaps to prove that a sober analysis of national interest is not the sole motivation of the actions of statesmen.

  Wounded pride at being at the periphery where Soviet policy had been dominant no doubt played a role. Perhaps Gromyko’s clumsy persistence reflected Soviet internal strains. Some of our Sovietologists believed that within the Politburo Gromyko was being blamed for Soviet setbacks in the Middle East and that he sought to recoup Moscow’s position by frenetic, if pointless, activity. Whatever the reason, he had miscalculated the speed of our progress just as we had; we could do little more than rehearse the arguments of the previous week in Geneva.

  Gromyko, telling us what we already knew, affirmed that Quneitra was the key as far as Damascus was then concerned. He repeated the Soviet objection to partial agreements in principle, but then conceded that some good might come out of them if they were linked in some undefined way to a general settlement and if they involved a large enough return of territory to bespeak good faith. These propositions were general enough to enable me to indicate vague agreement. Gromyko, much too experienced and intelligent to misunderstand what was going on, contented himself with what he was in no position to change. As I reported to Nixon:

  His presentation confirmed our own judgment that the principal issue for the Syrians is Quneitra and that if they get it, the negotiation with Syria has a chance of succeeding. I made the point firmly to him several times that the U.S. and USSR would inflame the situation if we tried to compete with each other in backing the maximum demands of the two sides. He assured me the Soviet Union did not want the area in a state of tension.

  In short, while I believe we probably cannot expect the Soviets to be particularly helpful on the Syrian negotiations, I do not see serious signs that they are determined — or able — to disrupt the negotiations at this point.

  Makarios interrupted our meeting to serve a luncheon of Wiener schnitzel (in my honor, I gathered) and then Gromyko and I went our separate ways. The meeting had in fact been briefer than we had anticipated because Gromyko had to return to Moscow to greet some foreign dignitary. One casualty of our early departure was a distinguished journalist in our entourage, Marilyn Berger of the Washington Post, who was left behind sunning herself on a beach. My aircraft was about to take off — the ramp of stairs had already been removed — when someone remembered her passport and threw it out the door to an Embassy staffer so Marilyn could catch up with us on her own. Luckily, Cyprus was then a convenient transfer point between the Arab world and Israel with frequent flights in both directions. Marilyn rejoined us in Jerusalem the next day.

  When I returned to Israel Tuesday night, I learned of a welcome show of Congressional support. Senator Mike Mansfield, the Majority Leader and a Democrat, had that morning made the following statement:

  I take this occasion to rise only to indicate that the Senate is taking note of Dr. Kissinger’s travels, that we support him fully and completely in his efforts to find a road to peace in the Middle East, a road which now seems to lead to Damascus.

  It could not have come at a better time. The Israeli cabinet had approved a number of further modifications on which I was briefed by the new Chief of Staff, General Mordechai Gur. The first few times I met him I resented his gruff manner, which I took to be arrogant and condescending, until I understood that it was his way of dissociating from what he considered political pettifogging. As with many native-born Israelis, the rough edges were the cover by which he protected an innate gentleness against a hostile world. In his spare time, Gur was the author of books of fables for children. He was gregarious, self-assured, and honest.II Having been commander in the north, Gur was familiar with the Syrian front. He obviously would not give his country the worst of any argument. But neither would he deceive me. He now presented a modified Israeli line. He confirmed the retreat of the defense line to the west of Quneitra. In addition, Israel was willing to pull back farther on Mount Hermon in the north, to withdraw in the south from a small town called Rafid and from three strongpoints near the prewar line, and to extend the proposed buffer zone around some villages so that more Syrian civilians could return. There was no change with respect to the civil administration of Quneitra.

  I cabled Sadat, Boumedienne, and Faisal that we were making progress. The next morning I told Golda that in Damascus I would present only the Quneitra part of the plan. Since Asad was almost certain to reject it, I did not want the other Israeli concessions to fall by the wayside with it; I would use them later either to overcome a deadlock or as sweeteners should there be an unexpected breakthrough. There is no record of an Israeli leader’s ever objecting to concessions being doled out in the smallest possible segments. Golda did not break with tradition this time; she was, not to put too fine a point on it, delighted. After all, if Asad blew up the negotiations over the civil administration of Quneitra, it would put a stop to these endless night sessions with the insistent American ally who argued that safety consisted of maneuver rather than defiance, followed by even more maddening sessions with a cabinet that shifted to the Prime Minister the burden for the flexibility required to keep their country from being engulfed by hostile or uncomprehending forces all around it.

  By Wednesday, May 8, the eleventh day of the shuttle, its difference from the Egyptian model was searingly self-evident. In Aswan we dealt with one Arab leader with a gift for the essential. In Syria we could make progress only by involving most of the Arab world. This gave us a safety net if we failed; it also made for extraordinary rigidity because it provided a checklist against which to measure progress. In the Sinai, Israel had started with close to its best offer; on the Golan, the best offer had to be extracted almost street by street in a series of long, anguishing all-night sessions.

  On that day, May 8, I paid my second visit to Damascus. (My equanimity might have been shaken had I known I was, in all, to make no fewer than thir
teen of these journeys to Damascus on this shuttle alone.) I knew that the problem of the line of separation could no longer be evaded. I was greeted as usual by Khaddam, who used the ride in from the airport to convey continuing Syrian goodwill — a hopeful sign, since by now the Syrians had undoubtedly heard about our ideas from every Arab leader we had visited: “Any time whether there be disengagement talks or not, you are always welcome,” said the man considered by many a scourge of the West. I said a word about the psychological travail in Israel. Khaddam’s reply summed up what made the problem so intractable: “If they find it difficult to withdraw from other people’s territory, how do they expect it to be easy for the other people to give it up?”

  Nothing ever seemed able to deflect Asad from beginning with small talk. This time it concerned the characteristics of the American F-111 bomber, which fascinated him as a former air force commander. By a route the record leaves mercifully vague, this led us to some banter about decision-making at Arab summits. Only after we had then tried our latest one-liners on each other did we turn to the subject at hand, which did not, regrettably, lend itself to humor. Since I knew that my message would be unpalatable, I began by explaining the context. Whereas in Israel I sketched the international environment to convince the cabinet that it had to offer more than it wanted, in Syria I presented an analysis of why Asad had to settle for less than he sought:

  My assessment is as follows: First, the Syrian negotiation is much more difficult than the Egyptian negotiation for many reasons. For one thing, the territory involved is much smaller. Also, there is a civilian population. The territory is much closer to the security centers of each country. It raises an emotional and psychological response in Israel.

  And the military situation is different: The “pocket” that Israel had across the Canal had a narrow supply route in a corridor 15–20 kilometers wide. It was pinched by two Egyptian armies. It was in flat country at the end of a very long supply line. They had a great sense of vulnerability. In the Syrian pocket, they don’t feel as vulnerable. I am just assessing the situation, not defending it. They have a line of hills behind it and Mount Hermon beside it. They are not eager to give it up.

  If you study the Egyptian agreement, they [the Israelis] didn’t withdraw from any place where there were not Egyptian troops. There were five Egyptian divisions across the Canal. In Egypt, we established a line on the existing line of control and the withdrawal of the pocket. There was a UN zone in a flat place with no population.

  In Syria, we are doing separate things: One, to restore Syrian civilian administration. And secondly, we are talking about Israeli withdrawal from newly-acquired territories. In Egypt, they withdraw from no new territories.

  I added that the ultimate issue was not military but political and psychological.

  Asad responded with what in the Syrian context was extraordinary moderation, showing that he had understood the intangibles involved very well:

  ASAD: The Syrian difficulty is that people here who have been nurtured over 26 years on hatred, can’t be swayed overnight by our changing our courses. We would never take one step except in the interests of our own people. We are all human — we all have our impulsive reaction to things. But in leadership, we have to restrain ourselves and analyze and take steps in our own interest. A just peace is in the interest of our people.

  KISSINGER: And of Israel and of all people in this area.

  But philosophical musing could not delay forever the moment when I had to present the Israeli proposal and with it take the risk of a Syrian explosion. I proceeded as I had told Golda I would, placing emphasis on Israel’s movement of its defense line west of Quneitra, mentioning a few of Gur’s rectifications to show the general direction but holding back the concessions on Mount Hermon in the north and at Rafid in the south.

  Asad did not explode, nor did he harangue. Coolly and analytically, he dissected what I had presented:

  So I make these observations: Observation #1: There is no return behind the October 6 line. Observation #2: There is no straight parallel line. This complicates the situation. Observation #3: They keep points they occupied after October 22. For example, on Mount Hermon, where they had no positions. The only observer post they had was on the October 6 line. Observation #4: There is no significant area of land from which they are withdrawing. There is no withdrawal of any substance.

  I pointed out that Israel was, after all, giving up the salient captured in 1973 as well as Quneitra. Asad did not miss a trick. He must have been reading the Israeli press, which sometimes was more rapidly informed of the cabinet’s deliberations than the American delegation. “They are not giving back Quneitra,” said Asad. “They have just split Quneitra.”

  In a complicated negotiation, nuances are decisive. Asad had certainly not been hospitable to what I had brought. But he had not flatly rejected it, either. He seemed to imply that what bothered him at Quneitra was less the depth of Israeli withdrawal than the administrative division of the city. Even more important, he did not insist any longer on the extensive withdrawals of the “Shihabi plan.” He now asked for a line “near” the one he had indicated. “Near” in the constricted area of the Golan is a relative term. Weirdly, across a militant oratory, indeed by means of it, the two sides were almost imperceptibly moving toward each other. And it came to expression, too, in the fact that Asad encouraged me to tell the press that there had been no rupture. The implication was that progress was being made.

  After I had talked to the media at the airport and while our own press contingent was boarding the plane, Shihabi drew me aside into a small reception room. He said that he was an old friend of Asad’s. He could assure me that Asad and his closest associates wanted an agreement but it had to be one they could defend domestically against bitter radical opposition. The meaning of regaining Quneitra would be lost if its people could not be resettled there. Current Israeli proposals made that totally impossible both because of the partition of the city and because the Israeli lines were too close to it. If we could bring some adjustments, such as further Israeli retreat from the hills around Quneitra, Asad would make a major effort to come to an agreement.

  So we were back on the treadmill. Israel thought it had made major concessions — which was true in terms of its starting position. Syria believed that it was gaining little — which was equally true in terms of its ultimate aspirations. Israel’s leaders were outraged that what had caused them so much pain was not considered sufficient. In Damascus, Israeli haggling over streets in a Syrian city was considered an affront. There was no escape from these irreconcilable perspectives, goals, emotions, fears, histories. My task was to hold patiently before both parties the dire consequences if they failed over the issues that now so inflamed them, and the hopeful opportunities before them if they managed to overcome their powerful inhibitions.

  Back in Jerusalem the night of May 8, I told Golda that a review of the Israeli position should wait until I had visited King Faisal and Sadat. Decisions should not be made in a vacuum. I learned for the first time that one of the obstacles to further Israeli withdrawal from the edge of Quneitra was the existence of three cultivated fields belonging to an Israeli settlement a few kilometers distant. Israel, never having given up cultivated land, could not bring itself to do so as part of a disengagement of forces. It was agonizing to see the peace process in the Middle East hinge on such a narrow issue. I reported to Nixon:

  I will, of course, make a major effort with Asad. If the above Israeli position proves insufficient, the Israelis will then face a critical choice: to permit the negotiations to reach an impasse and thereby face the probability of an escalated attritional resumption of hostilities on the Golan Heights, or to face up to giving up another kilometer or so of territory which would not affect their security adversely but would require giving up some of the cultivated fields attached to settlements they established near Quneitra in 1968. . . . At the same time, Asad, who seems to want a disengagement agreement, also has
internal pressures which concern him. He stressed repeatedly that he must have the kind of disengagement agreement which he can explain to his people after 26 years of struggle and not provide the opponents of his regime an opportunity to upset him.

  King Faisal on May 9 was ambiguously helpful. He repeated his hopes for the success of our diplomacy. He told me that, from his knowledge, the Syrians would be reasonable provided the Israelis were reasonable. It was clear that he had been in close touch with Damascus. The King supported Asad’s position: Syria wanted the hills around Quneitra as well as the town and some further withdrawal all along the front. But no more than with Asad the day before was there any discussion of Asad’s earlier maps — the Shihabi plan. At the airport before the media, Saqqaf repeated the King’s wishes for my success. The cautious Saudis would never have done this had they not agreed with our approach and, more significant, had not their information convinced them that it had a good chance to succeed.

  I arrived in Cairo late the same night. After I met briefly with Sadat at 10:00 P.M., Ismail Fahmy conceived the idea that Nancy’s knowledge of the Middle East would be incomplete without exposure to Nagwa Fuad, the renowned belly dancer whom I had seen perform on the last shuttle. So he and my entire party repaired once again to the Sheraton Hotel — the only hitch being that Nagwa Fuad was at that moment in Alexandria, about three hours away. Fahmy was nonplussed. Some telephone calls were made; Nagwa Fuad drove all the way back herself, changed into more appropriate costume, and treated us all to another show at two o’clock in the morning. Miss Fuad proved her professionalism by sublimating her resentment in spectacular gyrations. Fahmy beamed proudly, puffing on his Cuban cigar. He must have calculated that for us to get to bed one night before 3:00 A.M. would have had the same risk as decompression for a deep-sea diver. But if he thought it unwise to break the nocturnal routine that diplomacy had imposed, at least he made it more tolerable. We owe Fahmy (and the talented Nagwa Fuad) the most relaxed evening of our thirty-four-day odyssey.