“And I hope you make a thorough job of it,” agreed Begin, his face showing his contempt for Rogers, whom he did not like one bit.
Prime Minister Golda Meir also had a huge bone to pick with Bill Rogers, as did the whole of the Israeli cabinet. Without a by-your-leave the man had announced a comprehensive peace initiative of his own which, at rock bottom, required Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 boundaries, with no binding Arab peace and security commitments in return. Instead, the Four Powers – the United States, Russia, Britain, and France – were to guarantee what Rogers called the establishment of a ‘state of peace.’ Note: not ‘peace’ plain and simple, but a nebulous something called a ‘state of peace.’
“Preposterous!” Golda had fumed upon learning of the idea. “A disaster for Israel,” she bristled. “Any Israeli government that would adopt such a plan would be betraying its country.” And Yitzhak Rabin in Washington and Menachem Begin in Jerusalem had, at Golda’s request, helped craft the cabinet statement of sharp protest, making plain Israel’s utter rejection of the Rogers Plan. It smacked of an imposed settlement – an American-Soviet connivance to be forced on Israel. In those days Jerusalem lived in constant fear of precisely that – that Israel would be the victim of a Big Power policy that would lead to an imposed settlement favorable to the Arabs.
Sitting now with Ambassador Rabin mulling over this matter, Begin said, “Did not Mrs. Meir send a sharp personal letter to President Nixon for you to deliver?”
“She certainly did.”
“And were you not authorized to launch an intensive public relations campaign against the Rogers Plan here in America?”
Leaning back in his chair, thumbs hitched in his belt, Yitzhak Rabin drew his lips into a tight smile, and said foxily. “Yes, I was. That’s what I’m talking about. And Yehuda here” – he meant me – “can show you the kind of material we’re distributing to a very select list of newsmen, congressmen, Jewish leaders, and other major opinion makers. We call it the Pink Sheet.”
I handed a pack of pink stenciled pages to Mr. Begin.
“Why pink?” asked Begin, flipping through the sheets.
“Because when we hit on the idea it was very late at night – no secretaries,” I explained. “And since I had to get it out very quickly, hand delivered, and since the only paper I could find in the stenciling room was pink, I used that.”
“And we’ve used it ever since,” added Rabin. “It gives it a distinctive look. A Pink Sheet is, in essence” – he was pointing to the pack in Begin’s hands – “an expanded version of my talking papers with senior administration officials. We’ve made sure the media and the other people who get it know that. They know these are my actual arguments, often my actual words – from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”
Begin loved to read memos and reports, loved getting briefed, speed-reading voluminous paper work, so he glanced at the Pink Sheets with the air of a man who requires only to look at a paper to grasp its contents, and said, “Forthright language indeed!” He was particularly struck by a paragraph which, by coincidence, had been quoted word for word the day before in a New York Times editorial:
U.S. policy as it is now unfolding comes close to the advocacy and development of an imposed settlement. While this may not be deliberate, the mechanics and dynamics are moving in that direction. Israel will resist this. By addressing itself in detail to matters of substance, the U.S. proposals do more than undermine the principle of negotiation; they preempt its very prospect. If the United States has already determined what the “secure and recognized boundaries” are there is no point in Israel taking part in any negotiations with anybody at all. Why should the Arabs consent to give Israel more than what America is recommending publicly?
“That’s saying it exactly as it is,” commented Begin with approval. “But how is the State Department taking it, attacking them on their own turf?”
Rabin answered sardonically, “Oh, it’s touched off a firestorm of controversy all right. Rogers is raging. He says such public attacks in the host capital are unacceptable. Abba Eban has complained to Golda about my embassy issuing such high-powered stuff without his approval. And Joe Sisco, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, has whispered in my ear that Yehuda here might have to be declared persona non grata for writing such stuff.”
While there was more tease than truth in Rabin’s tone, I hardly found it amusing.
“And yet, with it all, you seem to be so relaxed about the furor,” said Begin. “Why so?”
The ambassador’s reply was preempted by a gentle knock on the door, and a secretary quietly entered with a tray of two steaming cups of coffee and a glass of lemon tea. The tea she handed to Begin, who took it with a grateful “Thank you.” He placed a cube of sugar under his tongue, and repeated his question, “Why so?”
Rabin lit a cigarette and said, “Because Rogers presides over a State Department which Nixon and Kissinger have come to thoroughly distrust. You are a member of the cabinet, Mr. Begin, and you have a reputation of trustworthiness and discretion.”
“I try. I try,” said Begin demurely.
“Then I shall share with you in confidence how thorough the breakdown is.” He unlocked a desk drawer and, rifling through some papers, extracted a brown envelope from which he took out a single sheet.
“This is a snippet of an exchange between Kissinger and Rogers a few days ago,” he said. “It took place the day after a meeting I had with Kissinger. It speaks for itself. Please don’t ask me how I got hold of it.”
Peering over Begin’s shoulder I read what he was reading:
Rogers: The meeting you had last night with Rabin screwed it up badly.
Kissinger: Don’t be ridiculous.
Rogers: I’m not being ridiculous.
Kissinger (shouting): You are being absurd. If you have any complaint, talk to the president. I’m sick and tired of this.
Rogers: You and I don’t see eye-to-eye on these things. The Israelis have the impression that they have two channels to the president, and they exploit them differently.
Kissinger: There is no separate channel.
Rogers: Why do you think they go to you?
Kissinger: To try to end-run you and to get the president to overrule you.
Rogers: That’s right!
Kissinger: But that has never happened.
Rogers: But why give them the impression that it might? I don’t think you should see those people.19
Begin handed back the page, and with a twinkle in the eye, said, “How enlightening! I take it that Dr. Kissinger is here telling a – how did Churchill define a lie in Parliament? – a ‘terminological inexactitude.’ Tell me, how big a terminological inexactitude is Kissinger’s assertion that there is no separate channel to the president?”
“This big,” answered Rabin with a smile as wide as his outstretched arms. And then, “If I seem relaxed about our public relations campaign against Rogers it’s because I have the blessings of the highest echelons.”
“And how high are the highest echelons?”
“Nixon and Kissinger in person!”
Begin seemed dumbfounded.
Uncharacteristically animated, unable to resist his own extraordinary account of what was going on in the back channels of his diplomatic life, Yitzhak Rabin told how when he had gone to Kissinger with Golda Meir’s letter to be transmitted to the president he decided to put his cards firmly on the table. “I said to Kissinger outright,” he told Begin, “that we were embarking on a full-scale public relations campaign against the Rogers Plan and that I, personally, would do everything in my power, within the bounds of the American law, to arouse American public opinion against the Administration because of it.”
“Strong words!” said Begin.
“Strong enough to crack Kissinger’s sangfroid.”
Rabin reopened the locked drawer and took out a yellow legal pad whose top page was filled with his own scribble. “This,” he explained
, waving the pad, “is a verbatim record of how Kissinger answered me. I wrote it down straight after the meeting. He said ‘What is done is done, but under no circumstances, I beg you, under no circumstances, should you attack the president. It would mean a confrontation with the United States, and that’s the last thing Israel can afford. The president has not spoken about the Rogers Plan, so his name is not associated with it. He has given Rogers a free hand. But as long as he, himself, is not publicly committed to it, you have a chance to take action. How you act is your affair. What you say to Rogers or against him are for you to decide. But I advise you again, don’t attack the president!’”20
Rabin, more spirited than ever, added pepper to his tale by saying, “And then Kissinger sprang a huge surprise on me. As I was about to leave, he said, ‘The president would like to shake your hand.’ ‘You’re joking,’ said I. ‘No I’m not,’ said he. ‘Shall we go in and see him now?’ I was totally bowled over. For an ambassador of a tiny country to see the president of the United States at a moment’s notice – unheard of!”
“And then what?”
“We crossed the street to the Executive Office Building to a room where Nixon closets himself when he wants peace and quiet. When we entered he was on his feet talking to Melvin Laird, the Defense Secretary. The president welcomed me, and said” – again he referred to the scribbled page – “ ‘I understand this is a difficult time for us all. I believe that the Israeli Government is perfectly entitled to express its feelings and views, and I regard that with complete understanding.’ Then, to Kissinger, he said, ‘Where do matters stand on Israel’s requests for arms and equipment?’ Kissinger replied in his usual evasive manner, ‘We are in the midst of examining Israel’s needs now.’ The president, who was in a most genial mood, said, ‘I promised that we would not only provide for Israel’s defense needs, but for her economic needs as well.’ To which Kissinger responded, ‘The examination covers both.’ Then Nixon turned back to me and said, ‘I can well understand your concern. I know the difficulties you face in your campaign against terrorist operations, and I am particularly aware of your defense needs. In all matters connected with arms supplies, don’t hesitate to approach Laird or Kissinger. Actually it would be better if you approached Kissinger.’ Those were his exact words.”
“How long did this go on for?”
“Seven or eight minutes. Back in the car I scribbled everything down, and could only wonder at the meaning of it all. Were Nixon and Kissinger trying to prove to me – and through me to our Government – that the president’s attitude toward Israel differed from that of his State Department? Was he inviting me to drive a public wedge between them, or merely trying to ensure that we keep our fire far away from the White House? Whatever it was, it was as good a go-ahead as I could possibly get. Check those Pink Sheets. You won’t find a single word against Nixon or against Kissinger, or against the Administration as such, only against Rogers and his State Department. And I can tell you, the man is already in retreat. A columnist quoted Kissinger the other day as saying to Nixon, ‘Rogers is like a gambler on a losing streak. He wants to increase his stakes all the time. The whole thing is doomed to futility.’”
And, indeed, it was. The Rogers Plan died a slow but certain death, and Ambassador Rabin could pat himself on the back for having helped make it wither. As a result people in Washington began to take a closer look at this fellow – the envoy who consorted constantly with Kissinger and who occasionally met with the president himself.
Given his vast experience in military affairs, Rabin was a frequent guest at the Pentagon, too. Senior officials and generals sought his strategic assessments. On one occasion, in March 1972, Kissinger invited him for a private chat to solicit his views on the possible direction of an anticipated North Vietnamese offensive. Mulling over maps, Rabin pointed to a spot where the United States forces appeared particularly vulnerable, and said, “Your forces are not strong enough on this side, and my guess is the North Vietnamese will go for a flanking movement and try to encircle you through there.”
“You’re the only general who seems to think that way,” said Kissinger skeptically. And then, when the offensive Rabin had predicted began, he confronted his top brass and snidely ribbed, “The only general who forecasted precisely the direction of the enemy’s thrust was the Israeli ambassador to Washington.”
In truth, no other envoy succeeded in cultivating so much trust and respect in so short a time among the highest levels of the Administration, the all-powerful media, the dominant string-pullers on Capitol Hill, and the influential Jewish organizations. In the course of Rabin’s five-year tenure he succeeded in turning a modest embassy into a prestigious address, so much so that in December 1972, as he wound down his tour of duty, Newsweek magazine crowned him “Ambassador of the Year.”
I, by now back in Jerusalem, sent him a short congratulatory note, to which he replied on 19 December 1972 in his typical candid and blunt fashion:
I confess it is a nice feeling to wind up one’s tour of duty with ‘flying colors,’ particularly in view of the vilification campaign which was, and still is, being conducted against me by the foreign minister [Abba Eban] and his associates in the Foreign Ministry. Over the last two years the Foreign Ministry has done things unheard of in any self-respecting, enlightened society, and this for the sole purpose of damaging me personally.
I don’t need a write-up in Newsweek to know I’ve done a good job here. The problem is that our world is something of a dumbbell. Jews are still stricken with an excessive exile complex [a euphemism for a hang-up], and that goes for much of our Israeli public, too. They are forever in need of outside recognition to acknowledge that an Israeli, and even Israel itself, can actually succeed in accomplishing something worthwhile. And it is from that standpoint alone that the Newsweek write-up – which I did nothing to initiate – can be considered significant.
Meanwhile, the situation here is unchanged. There has been a deterioration in the U.S. prospect of achieving an early settlement in Vietnam…. At the same time, I have no doubt that the fate of the American involvement in Vietnam is a foregone conclusion and will be sealed in the course of 1973. Be that as it may, we have meanwhile gained precious time, which will bring us to the summer without any particular [imposed] initiative.
The next time I saw Yitzhak Rabin was over coffee in Jerusalem’s Atara Café. It was shortly after his return from Washington, in March 1973, and he was grumpy. “Three times three different party big shots have promised me a cabinet position,” he told me, “but nothing has come of any of them. It seems that if I want to go into politics I’ll have to do it the hard way – doing my own campaigning – and not rely on Golda Meir’s promises.”
“Golda herself actually promised you something?” I asked.
“Once she did, but now she tells me there’s nothing available. I’ll have to wait until after the elections in October 1973. Then she hopes to find me a slot. That’s as far as Golda was ready to go.”
Opening page of letter from Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin to author quoted in the text pp. 195–196, bitterly complaining of the attitude of the foreign ministry under Abba Eban while serving as ambassador to Washington, 9 December 1972
Prime Minister Golda Meir
1969–1974
1898 – Born in Kiev, Ukraine.
1906 – Migrates with family to Milwaukee, U.S.A.
1917 – Graduates teachers training college and marries Morris Myerson.
1921 – Emigrates to Palestine; joins Kibbutz Merhavya.
1924 – Leaves kibbutz and becomes leading figure in the Israel Labor Movement.
1938 – Separates from husband.
1948 – Israel’s ambassador to the Soviet Union.
1949 – Appointed minister of labor.
1956 – Appointed minister of foreign affairs.
1966 – Appointed secretary-general of the Labor Party.
1969 – Appointed prime minister.
Key Eve
nts of Prime Ministership
April 1969 – War of Attrition along the Suez Canal.
1970 – American initiative for ceasefire; Menachem Begin resigns from her national unity government.
October 1973 – Confronts Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky over Soviet Jewish emigration to Israel.
October 1973 – The Yom Kippur War.
1974 – Resigns the premiership; is succeeded by Yitzhak Rabin.
1978 – Dies at the age of 80.
Photograph credit: Moshe Milner & Israel Government Press Office
Prime Minister Golda Meir addressing the Knesset, 10 March 1974
Chapter 17
Changing of the Guard
When, on 7 March 1969, the Labor Party Central Committee elected Golda Meir as Levi Eshkol’s successor – and Israel’s first woman prime minister – she sobbed uncontrollably, and she made a point of saying so in her memoirs written six years later:
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership Page 22