Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  I was gratified by the birthday cake but contemplated my impending departure with some sense of letdown. It was therefore a mellow and melancholy occasion when shortly before 10:00 A.M. I met Asad with only one aide each (mine was Peter Rodman) and Isa Sabbagh as interpreter, to say our farewells. We chatted in a desultory manner about various turning points in the negotiation, as if we had been spectators at a natural event that we had been unable to influence. Conscious of White House pressures, I raised again Nixon’s desire to visit the area. Asad thought that it would not be consistent with the dignity of the President of the United States to come to the Middle East after a failure of American diplomacy. Should Nixon come to a different conclusion, perhaps on the advice of other Arab leaders (he said tactfully), Asad would be delighted to receive him in Damascus. We drafted yet another statement announcing a breakup; there was some dispute about a phrase suggested by me that Asad would send someone to Washington to continue the talks. Asad said resignedly: “We could say we could send someone to Washington for any other purpose. If we here couldn’t do it, one person in Washington couldn’t do it.” We settled on announcing a Syrian emissary to develop Syrian-American relations, not to promote disengagement on the Golan.

  Through a month of negotiation I had grown to like Asad. He was proud, tough, shrewd, cordial. He had given us many a difficult moment. But I had witnessed how he had gone through the searing process of coming to grips with the problem of Arab-Israeli coexistence. He rebelled against the idea and yet had come close to accepting it. Like Golda from the other end of the telescope, he had caught a glimpse of the reality of peace. And all the concessions and bartering had been in part tactical, in part a spiritual odyssey. I rose with some sadness to say goodbye. He too stood up, and as we began to move toward the door Asad suddenly said:

  After having established this nice human personal contact, then out of loyalty, out of fondness, when we look at the imperative of Syrian-American relations, I’m particularly looking at the need not to harm you. In your view, how far could the red line [the Syrian forward line] be moved? When it can be moved. Let’s speak openly.

  It was a stunning performance. Asad had played out the string to absolutely the last possible millimeter, and now opened the way to another, conclusive, effort to get an agreement. I had told him in December that he reminded me of someone who negotiated at the edge of a precipice and who in order to increase his bargaining position jumped into the abyss hoping that on the way down something would break his fall. That “something” was now I. Clearly, no Syrian leader would conclude an agreement with Israel out of fondness for an American Secretary of State; but it was best to fall in with the pretense, which could have plausibility only in the Arab world. There personal relations are never trivial; they are the solvent for the passions of peoples:

  I don’t want to do anything that would hurt President Asad. If the President accepted something that was extremely difficult for him and caused complications later for him, we would have defeated an important American purpose. So I don’t want to be responsible for having made the President — through persuasiveness — do something that will later on hurt him. Because that would be a tactical success but a strategic defeat.

  Asad was now over the hump. If he wanted to commit suicide out of uncontrollable passion for me, as he seemed to imply, it was his business. The truth must have been that the Syrian leadership had decided to settle the night before but wanted to be absolutely sure it had squeezed the last drop of blood out of the stone. I presented — as my personal idea — another one-kilometer move forward of the red line, which the Israeli negotiating team had allowed me to offer but which I had held back the night before because it would simply have been swallowed up in the general controversy. I also added as my suggestion a solution to the problem of Syrian villages that were in limbo outside the new Syrian line: that the red line loop around them in a sausage-shaped bulge and that the Syrians accept the same restrictions there as the Israelis on the hills west of Quneitra — that is, no weapons able to shoot directly into the Israeli area.

  We sparred for a few minutes about the fedayeen. Asad said that he could not agree to any legal obligation to prohibit Palestinian actions; it was an unmanageable political problem and an issue of principle. I proposed an American statement asserting that in our view the cease-fire in the Golan Heights covered guerrilla actions; if any took place, the United States would support Israel politically if it retaliated. Asad allowed that American statements were our problem; he would see no reason for Syria to object publicly. A solution seemed once more in sight.

  But we had been burned too often. I told Asad that I would be prepared to make one more effort provided he assure me that he would stop haggling; we should complete a document, requiring only Israeli approval, that I could take back to Jerusalem. There could be no further negotiating; we were meeting for a drafting session. Asad should consult with his colleagues; I would review matters with mine. He and I should meet in an hour and agree whether it was feasible. I would not resume otherwise. We parted at 11:30 A.M.

  At 12:35 P.M. we met again and pledged to each other that we would undertake a drafting effort, not a bargaining session. We allocated a maximum of three hours. I informed the Israeli cabinet to expect me back at 6:00 P.M.

  Asad and I met with our advisers starting at 2:20 P.M. But to tell a Syrian not to haggle is like ordering a fish not to swim. Within minutes we found ourselves again in one of those nightmarish tests of will mitigated only slightly by Asad’s sardonic humor and the exquisite forms of Arab hospitality (which in the excitement of the concluding phase of a negotiation did not on this occasion extend to feeding us). By 10:00 P.M., seven and a half hours later, we had ended up roughly where Asad and I had been at the end of the morning’s conversation — except that Asad had proved to himself and to his colleagues once again that no more could be accomplished by intensive bargaining. We fixed the red line — subject to Israeli approval — where Asad and I had agreed (see the map on page 1100). We settled on the number of UN personnel at 1,250 and finalized the name of the organization as the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). Asad won his point that he could not limit his tanks and personnel in front of Damascus beyond the ten-kilometer zone by agreement, but he assured me that he would deploy there no more than nine brigades, of which no more than three would be armored. I would convey these limitations in a letter to the Israelis. He accepted a ceiling on artillery of 162 guns of a range not exceeding twenty kilometers in the ten-to-twenty-kilometer zone; artillery with a longer range would be kept beyond twenty kilometers; surface-to-air missiles would be no closer than twenty-five kilometers to the Syrian forward line. All force limitations — as in the Sinai disengagement — would be part of a Syrian and Israeli response to a “United States proposal.” We left it that Sisco would bring back the Israeli answer by noon the next day. This was to imply that there would be no further negotiation; Sisco would be empowered only to transmit completed documents.

  Gromyko remained to be dealt with. His plane had arrived over Damascus around 9:00 P.M., while Asad and I were still in deep negotiation. I commented that to speed Israeli acceptance it was important to avoid any implication that Gromyko had had a decisive role. This was no problem, allowed the Chief of Staff of the Air Force; Gromyko’s airplane could circle for a while. By 9:45 P.M., Gromyko’s plane was running out of fuel. I graciously agreed that it might land, provided it was not parked next to mine — I did not want press photographs implying joint action. So Gromyko’s plane was moved to a dark corner of the airfield where the Soviet Foreign Minister was greeted by Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister — all senior leaders being involved in negotiations with me. Asad, for good measure, promised not to meet with Gromyko until he had received Sisco with Israel’s answer.

  Syrian-Israeli Disengagement Agreement, May 31, 1974 (see text of the Agreement, pages 1253–1254)

  I was accompanied to the airport by Shihabi and Khaddam. Gromy
ko’s motorcade passed us in the opposite direction. It was a pregnant moment more symbolic of the recent revolution in Middle East diplomacy than all the arcane points that we had been debating all that month.

  I had received the best birthday present of my life: if not peace in the Middle East, then at least the absence of war for long enough to give diplomacy a chance.

  I knew that I did not yet have Israel’s final approval, but every instinct told me that it was impossible to come this close and fail.

  The Final Phase: Israel

  ON the way to the airport I had warned Khaddam that every solution we had found in Damascus would be a problem in Jerusalem. There might be a long all-night session with the negotiating team; it could go into the day with the cabinet. I would send back Sisco with the answer the next day; there could not be another negotiation. Syria would have to be ready to say yes or no.

  Though we had just finished drafting documents incorporating almost all of Israel’s ideas, I had a painful recollection of the occasion in November 1973 when I naively assumed that we had an agreement because Sadat had agreed to almost all the points raised by Golda. Then I had sent Sisco to obtain final Israeli approval — and for my pains was accused of proceeding by ultimatum. It was important for Israel’s self-respect not to have the final phase of the negotiation appear as if dictated from Damascus. Therefore I spoke with extraordinary restraint to the press at Damascus airport:

  We have narrowed the differences to a very few and I am now returning to Israel to meet with the Israeli negotiating team tonight to see what their view is about how these differences might be bridged. Tomorrow Mr. Sisco of my group is going to return to Damascus to bring these considerations to President Asad and to the Foreign Minister.

  I added that I would not return to Syria on this trip.

  For once the subtle, tough, and experienced journalists on my plane missed a nuance. Exhaustion no doubt played its role. But they misunderstood the significance of Sisco’s returning. It could, in fact, have only one of two meanings: that an agreement was all but wrapped up or that it was out of reach. Nearly five weeks of near-misses made the second interpretation the more plausible. As a result, on the very day that success seemed inescapable, many thoughtful journalists speculated on the causes and consequences of failure. It was done in sorrow and with goodwill. It did no damage except to the equanimity of the White House.

  Golda, assembling her team at 1:00 A.M. early Tuesday, May 28, suffered no such doubts. She knew immediately that a breakthrough had been achieved. I went over the discussions of the previous twenty-four hours in great detail. We reviewed once again the location of the Syrian line, Mount Hermon, the Palestinians, the composition of UNDOF. I said that I nearly set the number of UNDOF at the nonsensical figure of 1,286 to drive the Israeli cabinet into a frenzy to determine the reasoning behind it!

  We talked for two hours. I was hoarse, barely able to speak, tired. It was nearly 3:00 A.M. Finally, Golda had heard enough. She was going to call a cabinet meeting for 8:00 A.M., five hours away. The time for decision was nearly at hand. “You young people go to bed,” said Golda with a smile, and adjourned the meeting.

  And I knew that she would fight for the agreement with the same intensity with which she had heretofore insisted on Israel’s requirements. After all the weeks of sometimes stormy and frequently abstruse debate, we were now reduced to fundamentals; there was no sense in pressure. So I summed up:

  You’ve gone a long way. If you decide against it, no one on the American side will feel you were unreasonable, so that shouldn’t enter into it. What should enter into it is the basic merits of the consequences of an agreement against the consequences of no agreement, with a country whose basic reliability is uncertain but whose reliability is no more certain without the agreement.

  The American team retired around 3:30 A.M. and slept until about 9:00 A.M. By then Golda had assembled her cabinet. I had expected the decision to be made quickly and had told Asad that Sisco would be bringing him Israel’s last word by noon. His promise not to receive Gromyko before seeing Sisco demonstrated Syria’s priorities.

  After weeks of frantic nonstop effort, my colleagues and I had nothing left to do. We sat in my suite at the King David Hotel overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem. The golden Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s holiest mosques, gleamed in the mellow sunlight of spring. What passion had other, less beautiful hills evoked these past weeks! Dinitz called periodically to inform us that the cabinet was still meeting. My nervousness was shown by the fact that I called him three times. At last, at 1:15 P.M. Dinitz told me the news: The cabinet was well disposed, but another meeting with me was needed. At 2:00 P.M., I met with Golda, Dayan, Eban, Dinitz, Gur, and the Director of the Prime Minister’s office, Mordechai Gazit. I was accompanied by Sisco and Rodman.

  Golda wasted no time in getting to the point. “Look, from 8:30 to fifteen minutes ago — it is a tragic meeting, because everybody agrees we must have an agreement — but everybody agrees that without something tangible as far as the terrorists are concerned —”

  We were back to the most intractable issue. It was impossible to tell Israel after Ma’alot that terrorism could be left out of the agreement. It was equally impossible to ask the passionate nationalists in Damascus to dissociate themselves publicly from the Palestinians. At the same time, it was a fact that the Golan Heights had been virtually free of terrorist incidents all these years; anyone familiar with the Syrian style of government knew that Damascus was unlikely to let a paramilitary organization it did not control operate from its territory. It was the last thing Asad wanted, I said:

  The real problem is, as I see the situation, your domestic situation requires you to call attention to it [terrorism] and his domestic situation requires him to deny it. While the practical matter is as I said. . . . The more formal you want it, the less likely you’ll get it.

  But the Israelis wanted something — what, they did not quite know. What they were insisting on was that I should go back to Damascus yet again and come back with some reassurance. A tall order. They were well aware that the collapse of an agreement over this issue would not ease the terrorist danger; it would almost surely make it worse. They sought legal protection for what was a political and psychological problem. They needed above all something to tell the Knesset, to which they had rashly promised to submit any agreement before signing it.

  To ease my task, the Israeli team accepted the existing texts, after making some halfhearted attempts to modify the language here and there. They agreed to advance the Syrian forward line as I had proposed, except at one location. Around 3:15 P.M., Golda took me to her small office. She would be stepping down from her post in three days, she said; this agreement was her way of drawing a line under the last war. She could then say that she had finished her task. She wanted me, rather than Sisco, to go to Damascus so that if it failed at the last moment she could live with herself. I could get more out of Asad than anyone else, and if not she would at least know that nothing more could have been done. I reluctantly agreed. I did warn her that in Damascus I would have to pay a brief courtesy call on Gromyko; it was too insulting to be with him in the same city and to refuse.

  So we notified Damascus that I would leave Israel at 5:30 P.M. and that I hoped to see Asad as soon thereafter as possible — a symptom of how our relations had changed. Four months earlier it would have been inconceivable that the prickly Syrians would have let an American set a time for the meeting with their President.

  Thus, less than twenty-four hours after I had announced my final departure from Damascus, I was back in the Syrian capital. Khaddam was at the airport that Tuesday evening to resume our friendly conversation. “Welcome,” he said warmly. “I think not even the Foreign Minister can ruin this agreement,” I replied. On the way to the guest house, Khaddam told me that when Sisco’s mission kept being postponed, Asad had seen no way of keeping his promise not to receive Gromyko. It had been a courtesy call lasting half an hou
r; the Syrians had given very little information about the state of the negotiations. I had seen enough of my secretive and proud interlocutors to believe him.

  At 8:15 P.M., I met Asad alone, accompanied only by Isa Sabbagh. It had finally come down to a human problem and my role was to explain motivations, not to find formulas. I explained with some emotion the Israeli sense of insecurity especially in the week of Ma’alot. Asad, I believe, understood, though he had his own imperatives. He spoke softly but passionately of the travail of a people that had no home, no identity, and above all no hope. He had no right to diminish what little faith in the future the Palestinians had left by seeming to side with their enemies. At the same time, the absence of guerrilla activity in the past had been no accident; nor was that state of affairs likely to change in the future. The Golan would not be guerrilla country because of Syria’s chosen policy, not because of Israeli threats or nonbinding Syrian promises. I gained some increased understanding of the reasons why guerrilla actions on the Golan would be unlikely. After we had spent five weeks tying down every little detail, I would have to take responsibility for conveying to the Israeli cabinet my judgment that guerrilla action was highly improbable. Israel, I felt, should settle for an American assurance that if my judgment proved wrong and Israel responded to guerrilla attacks on the Golan it would have our support as not being in violation of the cease-fire.

  It was now 10:45 P.M. I was prepared — nay eager — to leave. I knew that Golda and indeed the entire negotiating team were waiting for me. Asad would hear none of it. I could not depart without having dinner with him and his closest collaborators, Defense Minister General Tlas, who wrote poetry; Army Chief of Intelligence General Shihabi; Air Force Chief Jamil; and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Khaddam. They had been invited to a dinner with Gromyko; they were getting hungry. I protested that Gromyko was waiting for me. “It is all right,” said Asad coolly; “you are eating his dinner.”