Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72

[John Farson]

About Reagan, knowing how things have developed here, it might involve something unpleasant with him and Squeaky Fromme or Sara Jane Moore...

 

[Drew]

Not even Scoop Jackson? He's probably the most conservative Democrat available in '76.

I personally think that for Reagan to maximize his '76 chances, he's going to have to differentiate himself as sharply from the Nixon-Agnew era as possible. Then again, every Republican who has any hopes of having a future national political career will be shoving away the whole Nixon/Agnew (well, more Agnew than Nixon) mess as far as possible from themselves. Rumsfeld and Cheney are so done that calling them "toast" ain't even in it. Haig's through as well.

No question that the names Nixon and Agnew will be curses in any GOP gathering. Even if Nixon is seen as the lesser bad memory of the two, he will forever bear the blame for having chosen Agnew as his running mate in the first place, and so having put him in a position where he could become President.

I see the coming 1976 election as being more like 1932, with a touch of 1912. People will be pissed off at the GOP, no question, but as unemployment rises, and people freeze in the dark because they can't afford oil or to pay the electricity and grocery bills, they may be looking for a second New Deal, if not a second coming of FDR. Trickle down isn't going to appeal to the person with no job and slim prospect of finding one.

About Reagan, knowing how things have developed here, it might involve something unpleasant with him and Squeaky Fromme or Sara Jane Moore..

Or the wrong airline reservations...

 

[Drew]

Cap Weinberger and James Gavin's list of ten choices for Vice President

The Ten top choices (in no particular order)

1. Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN)
2. Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA); would be the first African American VP
3. Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA)
4. Senator Charles Percy (R-IL)
5. Former Governor William Scranton (R-PA)
6. Former Governor Carl Sanders (D-GA)
7. Former Governor Terry Sanford (D-NC)
8. Governor Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY)
9. Rep. Gerald R. Ford (R-MI)
10. Senator Howard Cannon (D-NV); would be the first Mormon VP

Note to the President: Gov. Volpe was also considered as you suggested, but we decided than no one currently connected with this administration should be placed on the list, as we are seeking to broaden our political support with this nomination. We should now scrutinize each file in detail. Cap.

 

[RogueBeaver]

The Ten top choices (in no particular order)

1. Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN)- I doubt it. Too involved in the impeachment process.
2. Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA); would be the first African American VP
3. Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA): might not take it, Scoop is the Dems' best shot in '76.
4. Senator Charles Percy (R-IL): Possible. Industrial-state Rocky Republican, not a presidentiable.
5. Former Governor William Scranton (R-PA): good choice, will not seek further office.
6. Former Governor Carl Sanders (D-GA): excellent choice. Pioneer of the "New Southern" governors without being considered a traitor.
7. Former Governor Terry Sanford (D-NC): traitor to his region. Forget it.
8. Governor Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY): might not accept.
9. Rep. Gerald R. Ford (R-MI): probable.
10. Senator Howard Cannon (D-NV); would be the first Mormon VP: Mormon, forget it.

Note to the President: Gov. Volpe was also considered as you suggested, but we decided than no one currently connected with this administration should be placed on the list, as we are seeking to broaden our political support with this nomination. We should now scrutinize each file in detail. Cap.

 

[joea64]

I do wonder about something: did Gavin actually preside over any House sessions? If so, how did he do as Speaker?

 

[Drew]

I do wonder about something: did Gavin actually preside over any House sessions? If so, how did he do as Speaker?

He was Speaker of the House between Oct 12 and Nov 7; mostly ceremonial like the Speaker of the British and Canadian Houses of Commons. He presided over a few votes and debates as an arbiter/rule keeper. The day-to-day political function of the House Speaker's job was handled by Deputy Speaker Albert (in other words, no change other than the symbolic).

 

[joea64]

He was Speaker of the House between Oct 12 and Nov 7; mostly ceremonial like the Speaker of the British and Canadian Houses of Commons. He presided over a few votes and debates as an arbiter/rule keeper. The day-to-day political function of the House Speaker's job was handled by Deputy Speaker Albert (in other words, no change other than the symbolic).

I see! I infer, then, that Albert resumed his formal position as Speaker soon after Gavin assumed the Presidency. (I asked about this because I wondered if the Gavin example might set a precedent in this TL, if not necessarily for emergency changes of President, more like inviting well-respected, nonpartisan figures to serve as ceremonial Speakers of the House.)

 

[Drew]

I see! I infer, then, that Albert resumed his formal position as Speaker soon after Gavin assumed the Presidency. (I asked about this because I wondered if the Gavin example might set a precedent in this TL, if not necessarily for emergency changes of President, more like inviting well-respected, nonpartisan figures to serve as ceremonial Speakers of the House.)

I suppose it could lead to re-thinking of the role of Speaker versus Deputy Speaker. However, this was also a purpose specific exercise, and it only happened because Carl Albert didn't want to be next in line for the Presidency if it fell vacant. Absent some other change, I think old habits will re-assert themselves.

 

[Lord Grattan]

I suppose it could lead to re-thinking of the role of Speaker versus Deputy Speaker. However, this was also a purpose specific exercise, and it only happened because Carl Albert didn't want to be next in line for the Presidency if it fell vacant. Absent some other change, I think old habits will re-assert themselves.

I agree Drew. Such a maneuver will not be repeated again unless a similarly urgent situation / dire crisis arises.

 

[Drew]

From: The President
To: Caspar Weinberger

Nov. 14, 1973

RE: Thoughts on the Vice Presidential nominee


Cap,

I’ve reviewed the list and have the following comments:

I would prefer not to choose a candidate from the House or Senate, as I do not wish to – even inadvertently – endorse the idea that I am promoting anyone who had a hand in the impeachment or removal of my predecessor. I think trust in the Administration would be better enhanced if we went with a Governor, or someone similarly qualified from outside the enchanted circle of Washington.

Of the list we discussed I like the following three:

Former Governor William Scranton (R-PA)
Former Governor Carl Sanders (D-GA)
Governor Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY)

I deleted Governor Sanford from the list because he was too closely associated with the Humphrey campaign in 1968 and that may give his nomination an excessively partisan edge. Reliable sources also inform me that a certain North Carolina Senator would raise all kinds of dust and trouble if we chose him.

You and I also discussed George Bush as a potential candidate. I agree with you that while he is qualified, he hasn’t had time yet to get clear of the shadow of the previous administration – and that could create problems in the confirmation process. Time will give him opportunities to prove himself.

We might also consider former Governor W. Haydon Burns of Florida, that state’s current Governor, Reubin Askew and former Illinois Governor Richard B. Ogilvie for a list of secondary candidates.

I suggest we ask Clark Clifford to do some outside leg work for us; ask him to sound out Scranton, Sanders and Rockefeller (only those three so far) to assess their level of personal interest in serving as VP.

I am mindful of your remark that Sen. Bayh - as “the last man standing from 1972” - does have a certain claim to be considered – in as much he received a plurality of popular votes for the job in 1972. However, with no slight to Sen. Bayh, I think we want to move forward and not back. I also think Sen. Bayh will be looking toward the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1976, and that will make serving as my VP unattractive to him.

The case of Sen. Brooke is intriguing, and he is qualified. However, we need to resist the tendency to take historic actions for the simple reason that they may be historic. 1973 has already seen enough of that. Besides, I have other ideas about how Senator Brooke may serve in the future.

On another matter, I have determined that Alexander Haig will remain in place for the short term. He is quite capable when properly guided, and some of his more extreme proclivities can be restrained. As I have said publicly, I do not wish to purge the top ranks so soon after coming to office. I believe Secretary Haig will decide to step down of his own accord soon enough.

Further to that, would you ask Clark to sound out Stu Symington about replacing Haig when the time is right? Let’s see if he’s ready to jump back into the bullring.

JMG

 

[RogueBeaver]

Hmm... I predicted correctly.

 

[Drew]

After the Fall: The unbowed right

"Not even the President is above the law. The rule of law is fundamental to our form of government. In the current situation I understand why the Senate voted for this outcome; the question of personal wrong-doing by one man could not be ignored. Still, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The last administration represented a belief in the individual American, in the right of the citizen to prosper unfettered by big government and bloated bureaucracy, and that's the message we need to hold on to amidst all the noise about pardons and criminal behavior. An individual may stray, as happened in this case, but the message remains, and that's what we need to build on. Never forget that an America that allows her citizens to prosper and which is strong in the face of the challenge to freedom from abroad is an America that will always be free."

-Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA), November 8, 1973




"This situation represents the great challenge of our freedom. Americans are free to prosper, and with that freedom comes the freedom to make mistakes. Spiro Agnew made mistakes, and he has paid a high price for them. But that doesn't diminish the greater policies of a Presidency whose vision was a strong America, one where the rights of the individual citizen to be free of government interference in their lives is paramount. Remove the pardon question, remove the Vietnam controversy, and at its heart the Agnew presidency was about furthering those goals. Sadly, the man was not equal to the vision, but, even though I voted to remove him, I still stand behind the vision and I hope President Gavin will take it up for his own."

- Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), November 9, 1973
1964 Republican Presidential Candidate




"Agnew was a crook. Okay, he's gone. The system worked, you can't cheat the people forever and hope to get away with it. That's the lesson. So, instead of looking back to the past, let's look ahead to creating a freer, stronger America."

-Senator Bob Dole (R-KS), November 9, 1973
Past Chairman, Republican National Committee



"Bloody are the thirty-nine hands who plunged the daggers into Spiro Agnew's chest. Cry coward about them, because they let slip the dogs of unreason and liberalism, and in so doing sunk an American Presidency with unprecedented abandon to emotion over reason, of expedience over principle.

"President Agnew stood-up for a vision of limited government, one that did not cave into the special interests of the bleeding heart left. That's the real reason he was toppled; not some clouded excuse about pardons which the President had every Constitutional right to issue, and which no court can question. This issue was smoke and mirrors dressed-up as legal sophistry. At least the Democrats were consistent in their vote, they followed their left-wing principles - if you can call them that - to administer the blow.

"But thirty-nine Republican Senators joined the frenzy to destroy President Agnew, and in their hands the vote to remove was nothing more than an act of treachery against one of their own. Rather than demonstrating the moral courage we have every right to expect of them, rather than say no and stand against the wind, they threw their President into it like so much refuse. This is the depth of their limited moral character, and the shallowness of their convictions. As far as I am concerned there are only nine United Senators worthy of the name, and they are the men who stood the ground of moral right against the tide to sacrifice Agnew on the altar of the special interests.

"Future Presidents beware; witness the cost of courage.

"Citizens beware; witness the price of rampant, out-of-control liberalism."

- Robert Novak, November 9, 1973
Noted commentator and journalist




"The question of the pardon was a canard, a pre-text to subvert Constitutional government for political ends. Only once before has a President stood trial for exercising his official powers, as clearly spelled out in Article II of our founding document. President Andrew Johnson, who was unpopular in his day as Spiro Agnew is today, withstood, and the Senate of his day refused to destroy the Constitution.

"Not so their descendants, who have taken upon themselves the awesome responsibility of rending our founding document into a thousand fragments, and with it the very hope of our form of government. No President can hope to exercise the Constitutional powers of our government again without reference to a vote of confidence in the Congress. In voting to remove President Agnew, the Senators have traded our Republican form of government for a Parliamentary one. How soon before there emerges an unelected Prime Minister who sits in the House or Senate, and from there directs the affairs of government by riding rough shod over the Executive and Legislative. Is our President now to be a figurehead as so many European Presidents are?

"The founders created a government where the separation of powers was the corner stone of preserving free, Constitutional government. Had they wished to copy Britain's Parliament they could have, but they saw in that model the iron fist of tyranny in the velvet glove of make-believe representative government. Our founders instead sought the real thing, representative, republican government, where the power of the branches was zealously restricted by the others, and where their separation was the guarantor of free government. The blow that was delivered on November 7 was not just to Spiro Agnew, but to the founder's vision of our nation. Now we are just another European parliamentary regime, subject to the whims and fates of that system, deprived of the unique attributes of our own. That is the true cost of Spiro Agnew's removal."

- Robert Bork, November 10, 1973
Former White House Counsel, Agnew Administration
Former Professor of Law, Yale University Law School



"We made tough decisions, and that makes people nervous. They did what they did because they couldn't stand to see us succeed in remaking America the way it was intended to be. Instead the Senate gave comfort to our enemies and to those who want to undermine our freedoms. That, in my book, is treason. I will not run from my time in President Agnew's service. On the contrary, I wear it as a badge of honor. I did my duty for my country, and I am proud of that."

- Dick Cheney, November 12, 1973
Former Deputy Chief of Staff, Agnew Administration




"I voted to acquit President Agnew, and I would do it again tomorrow or any day after that because as President, no matter his personal faults, Spiro Agnew was one hundred percent right on the issues that matter. Our challenge now is to move on beyond the Nixon-Agnew era. That will require some rebuilding, but we have a good base to begin with. Our party is right on the issues from the economy to the foreign policy of this country, and that is the legacy we can move ahead with. We will continue our fight for a country based on prosperity and the freedom of individual Americans to succeed and prosper. With this bedrock principle as our foundation, we will win back the confidence of American voters who are sick-and-tired of failed liberal social experiments and the failed, bloated and over-regulated economy bequeathed to them by the Great Society. Unfortunately, President Gavin is choosing to listen to some of the voices who contributed to that mess, and that is the wrong direction for him to be taking."

- Senator Paul Fannin (R-AZ), November 12, 1973
Chairman, Republican National Committee




"There's no question that Spiro Agnew was involved in criminal activity, and as such he deserves little sympathy from us. However, President Gavin has to keep in mind that he is a caretaker, and that he has a responsibility to carry forward the initiatives of those who came before him; those who were elected to the office he now holds. I can't help but notice that he has opened the White House to some liberal Democrats, people like Ted Sorensen and Nicholas Katzenbach, who represent a past that has largely been discredited. That is a very troubling sign, especially so early in this unprecedented Administration."

- Former Treasury Secretary John Connally (R-TX), November 13, 1973
Past Chairman - Democrats for Nixon




"The sine qua non of this debacle is the idea that in pardoning himself Spiro Agnew somehow crossed the line of guilt, and in so doing went from being a respectable man to some kind of back street gangster who had set-up shop at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The question though was not was he guilty of the things for which he pardoned himself - all of which came before he was President - but was the act of issuing the pardon a guilty - and therefore Constitutionally punishable - act? Not legally punishable, but Constitutionally punishable?

"The case law argues that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt. Many learned Justices of the Supreme Court, most now long dead, have said so in the unequivocal black and white letter of the law. But is guilt enough to justify removal of a President? Show me where in the Constitution it says this? I will show you where the President has the discretion to issue pardons (without restriction - save impeachment), it is to be found in Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, and the remit is unequivocal: "The President... shall have power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." On August 7, 1973, Spiro Agnew did no more and no less than act upon this Constitutional power, as was his prerogative.

"Article 2, Section 4 of the great document allows that a President might be impeached and removed from office for "high crimes" and "misdemeanors." Is pardoning oneself a high crime? Show me the law on the books that says this, for I can find none. Is pardoning oneself a "misdemeanor"? What is a misdemeanor? My dictionary defines it as "a crime usually punishable upon conviction by a small fine or by a short term of imprisonment". So again, show me the law on the books that says that issuing a pardon to oneself is a misdemeanor. You will find no such law on our books, for no one has ever conceived of the issuance of the pardon to the guilty, be they the meanest of offenders or the President himself, as a crime. Indeed, if the Constitution permitted only a pardon of the innocent, then the redemptive meaning of the pardon would be lost to us forever.

"Let me be clear in saying that I do not condone the conduct of Governor Spiro Agnew, or County Executive Spiro Agnew, or Vice President Spiro Agnew; there was indeed questionable conduct on the part of the man which crosses well into the sphere of the illegal. U.S. Attorney George Beall and Special Prosecutor J. Lee Rankin did their duties with diligence in documenting this. To deny Agnew's pre-Presidential illegality - or to decry it as just a political smear - flies emotion into the buzz-saw of fact. However, after August 7 the legal course of this was done for all time. But was the conduct of the President, upon which the House of Representatives and the Senate passed callow judgment - for that was all they were Constitutionally entitled to review - a crime of either Constitutional description? Not unless ipso facto the very act of discharging Presidential duties and prerogatives granted under the Constitution is a crime, in which case all Presidents should be removed immediately after their inauguration, and the Constitution itself be regarded as a charter for criminal conduct. No reasonable person would argue this, for it is an absurd interpretation.

"The more vitriolic of my colleagues have declared with great passion that President Agnew was removed by those vehemently oppose to conservative ideology, in order to preserve the crumbling edifice of the liberal welfare state from the President who was going to bring it down around them. I attribute to Spiro Agnew no such acumen. That he was a conservative in office is undoubted; that he was so all his public life is subject to question. That his presidency would have torn down the welfare state grants to him Olympian powers beyond the ken of mortal man. Spiro Agnew was a flawed, mortal man, who became caught-up in the consequences of his own actions. Would he have furthered the conservative cause? I believe he would have, but this alone is no reason to enter him into a pantheon of Gods-of-the-right where his presence might well be akin to asking the saloon piano player to play the church organ on Sunday.

"What emerges from this fiasco that urgently draws our attention is the fragility of our Constitution, and the quickness with which those on the left are willing to discard it when it does not suit them. The recent vote in the Senate was not a great moment of Constitutional government as the left's many apologist trumpet with such undisguised glee, as much as an expression of moral judgment on the failings of one man wrongly magnified into a great issue of Constitutional government. Rather, the great Constitutional question of this affair is not whether the Republic can survive a President of poor ethical judgment (there have been others and they did not bring the Republic down during their terms of office); it is whether this Republic can survive in an atmosphere where politics is turned into crime for the sake of the momentary, partisan gain, while the Constitution, rather than being made of bedrock stone, is instead re-cast in the rubber of malleability and the principle of an "almost-like-breaking the-law" approach to judgment. These are the questions we will long have to live with, and the uneasy legacy we have been handed. It will continue long after Spiro Agnew the man has crumbled back into the primeval dust. The question is, will the Constitution be there in the dust with him?"

- William F. Buckley, November 14, 1973
Host, Firing Line (PBS Television); Founder of The National Review Magazine

 

[Thande]

Interesting reactions, the affair will clearly polarise and poison American politics for years to come.

Will we also get international reactions?

 

[RogueBeaver]

To paraphrase John McKeithen in '68: "I never thought I'd see the day when Ronald Reagan represents the centrist wing of the Republican Party."
Thande: most intl opinion will be "Good riddance."

 

[Drew]

Interesting reactions, the affair will clearly polarise and poison American politics for years to come.

Will we also get international reactions?

Most foreign governments won't say a thing in public because it would be treading on thin ice diplomatically if they did. The more serious reactions will come in private, and you'll see some of that as the TL develops.

There would be all kinds of non-governmental punditry, from analysis showing how the American system failed and Communist propaganda about how this shows the historical failure of the capitalist system etc. etc. There would also be a lot of Spiro comedy out there too.

 

[Historico]

Aww shuck's I was really pushing for Eddie Brooke, but he did say that he wanted to use him...Maybe as the first Black AG? I think Age should be a factor as well as you need to balance out Gavin's own pushing 70 self. In that regard I like Robert Finch but he may be just a lttle to close to Nixon for comfort...Someone like Congressman Bob Mathias, at age 43 would be seen as a fairly strong moderate choice.

 

[RogueBeaver]

Historico: way too soon for a black VP. Remember, the highest ranking blacks in Congress at the time were Ed Brooke, a Rocky Republican, and Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, who made his successor Charlie Rangel look corruption-free in comparison. Hardly a good atmosphere.

 

[Drew]

Aww shuck's I was really pushing for Eddie Brooke, but he did say that he wanted to use him...Maybe as the first Black AG? I think Age should be a factor as well as you need to balance out Gavin's own pushing 70 self. In that regard I like Robert Finch but he may be just a lttle to close to Nixon for comfort...Someone like Congressman Bob Mathias, at age 43 would be seen as a fairly strong moderate choice.

IOTL Gen. James Gavin was a strong proponent of integrating the military well before Truman did it in 1948. As President he doesn't feel he has the mandate to make that kind of sweeping change, plus he doesn't want to promote to VP anybody who had a direct hand in impeachment in the House or the removal so soon after the Senate vote. He's not so much looking at building an electoral ticket as a governing coalition that's going to hold the country together for the next three years.

Edward Brooke - first black AG is a consideration, yes. Also a strong consideration for a second African American on the Supreme court who would have cross-party appeal.

Sanders is 48, Scranton is 56, Rockefeller is 65 (old man of the group), Haydon Burns is 61 (older but not so old), Ogilvie is 50 and Askew is 45.

 

[Lord Grattan]

IOTL Gen. James Gavin was a strong proponent of integrating the military well before Truman did it in 1948. As President he doesn't feel he has the mandate to make that kind of sweeping change, plus he doesn't want to promote to VP anybody who had a direct hand in impeachment in the House or the removal so soon after the Senate vote. He's not so much looking at building an electoral ticket as a governing coalition that's going to hold the country together for the next three years.

Edward Brooke - first black AG is a consideration, yes. Also a strong consideration for a second African American on the Supreme court who would have cross-party appeal.

Sanders is 48, Scranton is 56, Rockefeller is 65 (old man of the group), Haydon Burns is 61 (older but not so old), Ogilvie is 50 and Askew is 45.

You're right about the limits of Gavin's mandate. He, like Gerald Ford in OTL, was not elected either VP or President (and his election as speaker of the house was highly unusual as well), he was appointed to office. His job, his only mandate, is to reassure the American public that (to use Ford's OTL words) our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.


Drew: Thomas DeFrank in his book about Ford, "Write it when I'm Gone", has a good quote which you may wish to put into someone's mouth in TTL. Ford invited Robert McNamara, who was persona non grata at the White House during the Nixon presidency, to attend the 1st state dinner after becoming President (for the King of Jordan). Henry Kissenger said to McNamara, "My God, you know that things have changed when they let you in here."

 

[Drew]

Henry's Odyssey Oct 31 - Nov. 11, 1973

Note: Blue portions of Henry Kissinger’s memoirs are words actually written by Henry Kissinger in Years of Upheaval 1982, Little, Brown and Company pp. 545 – 613 (XXII: Moscow, the Cease-Fire and the Alert ). (Some passages edited for economy of space).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(from Henry Kissinger The October War and The Pursuit of Peace in the Middle East)

My first few days in Moscow as a civilian proved to be unproductive. I had left the States on October 31 and stopped in London, where I persuaded Lord Rab Butler to join me on my informal mission to deliver a back-channel message to the Soviet leadership. There was no question that we were noticed from the moment we landed at Sheremetyevo Airport; however being noticed didn't translate into access. The best we could get between November 2 and the 7th was a meeting with Georgy Korniyenko, the head of the American desk at the Soviet Foreign Ministry (he had been an attaché at their embassy in Washington during the Cuban Missile crisis). But it was clear he was humouring us - Rab's status as a former Foreign Secretary had opened his door, I was just the man accompanying him. It was not the time or place to hand over the sealed letter I had received from George Bush. [1]

Adolph "Spike" Dubs, the Charge at our Embassy in Moscow and then the acting Ambassador, was quite sympathetic but, with a portrait of President Agnew looking down over his left shoulder, he was limited in what he could do for us officially. In fact, he confided to me, he had received no instructions from Washington at all about the current situation. I found this to be an appalling oversight, given that tensions were increasing between ourselves and Soviets in the Middle East, and this was just the time when we should have been involved in direct consultations. I knew from my own conversations with Dobrynin in Washington that the White House wasn't consulting with them at that end. All-in-all the Agnew Administration's reckless attitude toward our bilateral relations with the Soviets seemed to have reached a nadir of neglect that we hadn't experienced since the height of the Cold War two decades earlier.

Rab and I could only watch with helpless frustration as we sat sipping tea in the lounge of the Metropol Hotel, under the watchful eye of several remarkably idle businessmen who appeared to conduct no business that we could see, and were no doubt KGB watchers, as the world seemed to come apart.

Dubs did invite us to a reception he put together for the evening of the 5th at Spaso House, the 19th century, yellow mansion which serves as the U.S. Ambassador's residence. Dubs persuaded Korniyenko to bring his boss, Deputy Foreign Minister Leonid Hyickov. However, Hyichkov was extremely reluctant to discuss the current problems in the Middle East with us, apart from the usual perfunctory remarks about America having contributed to the problem by arming the Zionists and encouraging them in aggressive polices that were bound to create conflict with their peace-loving Arab neighbors who had only recently been liberated from Western Colonialism etc., etc. Asked about Soviet support for the armies of Egypt, Syria and Iraq - who had initiated the war by attacking a month before - Hyichkov was dismissive, pointing out that Soviet intentions were only meant to help these countries out of their "post-colonial" dependency, and that the Arab states were acting in defense of an "anticipated aggression by the Zionists".

I endured a similar speech from him about or situation in Vietnam. Hyichkov did say that we had advanced the possibility of peace by removing President Thieu, and he hoped we would soon form a government of national reconciliation with the Viet Cong and work toward "unification." I bit my tongue at the irony. I doubted very much that the coup in South Vietnam had been part of a deliberate policy shift; rather Thieu's tragic death and the disintegration of South Vietnam were the end result of an ill-thought out policy, the fruits of the poisoned tree as a lawyer might call it.

One topic that did interest Korniyenko and Hyichkov was the whole question of the Senate trial of the President. Korniyenko seemed to have some understanding of the Constitutional process, and as such asked pointed questions about how I thought specific Senators (some of whom he had met in Washington) would vote. I tried my best to be insightful, though I could not predict the outcome. Korniyenko seemed to be keeping private score card, acting like a bookie trying to figure the odds before a big horse race. He predicted Agnew would survive the vote because he didn't believe the required sixteen Republican Senators would turn on a President of their own party.

Hyichkov, less sophisticated in the ways of American politics, pronounced it all a sham, and proclaimed for all to hear that Spiro Agnew was simply being punished for not pursuing the capitalists' agenda with sufficient vigor, and he predicted that once he survived this Agnew would spend the rest of his term as President bowing to big capital. The Deputy Foreign Minister, whose volubility rose with the increasing amounts of Embassy Scotch that he consumed, even expressed he astounding opinion that Richard Nixon was behind this, and that Nixon was using the Senate trial to punish the Vice President who had usurped him. Hyichkov went on to predict that Nixon would return to power soon and jail Archibald Cox, and for that reason everyone should be nice to me, as I was Nixon's "favorite Commissar". The fact that I could not get an appointment with someone higher-up in the Soviet leadership indicated that Hyichkov was speaking from his cups and not parroting official government opinion, at least where his prediction of my future was concerned.

On the night of the 7th Rab and I followed the Senate vote with Dubs at the Embassy. The proceeding began at 8:30 pm Moscow time, and it was well after 10:00 before the Chief Justice read the declaration that Spiro Agnew had been removed as President. I thought at the time it had been folly for him not to resign before this point, and I could only assume that his arrogance had gotten the better of him, something which could describe his entire Presidency.

Immediately after the removal of the President, we were in limbo. I noted that an Embassy staffer came in to remove the portrait of Agnew hanging in the Ambassador's office while we waited for news. No photos of James Gavin were immediately available, although someone dug-up a World War II vintage photo of the General in full dress uniform standing next to Soviet Marshall Zukhov. That did not seem appropriate to be hanging in the Ambassador's office though.

Copies of the Chief Justice's and President Gavin's hotline cables to Brezhnev came through the Embassy communications room about an hour after the removal. This was my first indication that Hyichkov had been right about my fate after all, though not in the way he had predicted. The message also confirmed for me that before the removal of Agnew, Gavin and Secretary of State Bush had been working closely together. At the time while Agnew was still in office Bush's actions might have been deemed highly inappropriate, but I chose not to dwell too much on that point; with the impending removal what had seemed inappropriate that morning had suddenly become an act of foresight and prudence by that evening.

Dubs gave me copies of the hotline messages, which included my first indication that I had been appointment as the President’s Special Executive Assistant for Global Strategic Relations, an exotic title I had never heard for, in the service of a President I barely knew.

As the senior American official present, Dubs arranged for the Embassy’s legal counsel to administer the necessary oath of office to me and to officially notarize my appointment and acceptance of the same. I quickly wrote a letter of resignation to Harvard, which the Embassy transmitted back to the States along with the certification of my appointment.

While Dubs took care of these legal details, I sat down to go over the terse cables, and immediately the wording of my remit in Moscow jumped out at me:

“Dr. Kissinger speaks in my name and with my authority. I do at this time appoint Dr. Kissinger as my Special Executive Assistant for Strategic Global Relations and do afford to him the rank of full Ambassador. Please receive Ambassador Kissinger as my personal emissary and listen to what he proposes.” (My emphasis).

I was horrified. The letter meant that I would be deprived of any capacity to stall. “Full authority” made it impossible for me from Moscow to refer any tentative agreement to the President for his approval – if only to buy time to consult Israel. Moreover, the letter implied that the Soviets and we could impose an overall Mideast settlement on the parties and that I was empowered to discuss the subject as well – a concession contrary to the strategy I had developed with Secretary Bush, which sought to separate the cease-fire from the political settlement.

I was well aware of the tensions the new President faced, and that the hotline letter had been meant to prevent escalation of a situation which was but a short step from all-out war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Still, I felt myself compromised in carrying so much authority from a President whom I barely knew, indeed whom I had not even spoken with since he became President and I acquired an exotic sounding title (which I did not full understand at the time either) at his behest.

Time was of the essence, so I could not dwell too much on the wording. I did call President Gavin and spent some time going over what our negotiating position would be, and I was relieved to note that he had been briefed by Bush about our earlier plans and that he fundamentally agreed. In line with his former career as an Army General and Corporate Chief Executive, I found Gavin to be direct and economic in his communication. He had the rare gift of conveying his point without having to dress it in verbal embellishment and justification. That suited us both as we covered a lot of ground, including what Secretary Bush was communicating to Israel and the Arab governments in the Middle East.

Once business hours began in Moscow on November 8, Dubs tired to set-up an appointment for me at the Soviet Foreign Ministry with Gromyko, but he met with a bureaucratic stonewall, suggesting that the President’s message hadn’t gotten through. Dubs, in his capacity as acting Ambassador, did get an appointment with Deputy Foreign Minister Hyichkov, and it was decided I would go along with him. (Rab Butler discreetly excused himself from what was now an official American government delegation, and left Moscow the next day.)

The meeting with Hyichkov proved maddeningly inconclusive; he had clearly been instructed to find out what I wanted, but had nothing to offer. I concluded that he hadn't been briefed on the hotline message, and as the hour of aimless chitchat dragged out into two I began to wonder if the Soviet leaders had even seen the hotline messages. This was made clear when he made reference to Dubs as the official representative, and myself as a consultant. I could stand it no longer and I presented Hyichkov with my copies of the hotline messages. This caught the Deputy Foreign Minister unawares, and after a few minutes he excused himself.

As we waited, I ruminated over a comment Hyichkov had made about our Supreme Court ruling that the transcripts of Richard Nixon's Oval Office tapes, made in 1971 and 1972, were to be made available to the Grand Jury reviewing criminal charges against him. I had already seen the headline in a copy of the Herald-Tribune that morning at the Metropol. I couldn't help but think about all the conversations I had had with the President in the Oval Office over that period. I tried to recall all that I had said, and realized that my candor with Nixon then could get me into trouble now if my words became public knowledge, a problem which would continue to haunt me over the next few years.

It was not long after Hyichkov left that a functionary came to the office and escorted Dubs and I upstairs to meet with Andrei Gromyko himself. Things now changed as I, and not Dubs, was greeted as the senior representative. Clearly the message had gotten through now. Anatoly Dobrynin joined us (he had recently returned to Moscow from Washington for "consultations") and we were able to finally get down to business.

Over the next five hours Dobrynin, Gromyko, Dubs and I discussed the framework for a settlement of the current crisis. Our strategy was to separate the cease-fire from a postwar political settlement and to reduce the Soviet role in the negotiations that would follow the cease-fire. I present our version of the plan to Gromyko and Anatol (it was largely the same as what Anatol and I had discussed in Washington at the end of October), namely that the United States and the Soviet Union jointly promulgate a joint cease-fire proposal which would lock the parties in place along the Suez, and allow a peaceful Israeli withdrawal to the Golan. (President Gavin had broadly hinted at this in his cable to Brezhnev as well). Once we had ended hostilities, then we could facilitate a wider political discussion among the parties, but this would be a separate process from actually ending the war. By putting our imprimatur behind the cease-fire, we could allow the respective sides to save-face by using us as the reason they ended the fighting, and we would each prove our good faith to our allies by supporting their territorial security once the cease-fire lines were hardened.

Gromyko then launched into a rant about the historic injustices of the colonial powers and Israel in the Middle East and went at great length to wring his hands, like some sort of latter day Hamlet, about how he could present this to his allies if the Soviet Union were not allowed a greater role in protecting the interests of its demonstrably militarily weaker allies (forgetting for the moment that they had failed despite receiving the latest in Soviet military hardware) against the stronger Israelis. The only way the Arabs would accept peace talks on any terms, he argued, would be if the Soviet Union was involved, at to act as their guarantor as much as the United States did the same for Israel.

I was at some pains to point out to him that the United States did not dictate policy to Israel. The Israeli Cabinet was more than capable of setting their own course. The most we could hope for was to get the parties talking, and let them hammer-out a deal they could all live with. Our responsibility was to de-escalate the crisis so that the United States and the Soviet Union could avoid a direct conflict, and especially any more close calls between our respective navies.

Gromyko blamed us for that, but I had to point out that the people most responsible for the trouble on our side were gone, and that a new view held forth in Washington, and my presence there was proof of both that, and the direction that the new Administration wanted to go into.

This consumed about two hours, and we spent three more going over varying details of how we might bring about a cease-fire resolution in the U.N., how our forces might pull back from the brink without jeopardizing our support to our respective allies, and Gromyko once again returned to the possible avenues of joint action in wider peace talks after the cease fire.

I noticed that after the initial objection, he and Anatol had launched into the ways of carrying out our proposal, almost as if they had registered no objection to it to begin with. Apart from sounding us out on details (it is often possible to discern a false offer by the fact that the one who proposes it has developed a good sounding initiative in the abstract but, if the plan is a ruse or a cover, has not given thought to the details) to test our commitment, I suspect that Gromyko was also stalling for time while the broad framework of what I had proposed at the outset was passed on to others in the leadership to review. To that end this meeting was the sounding out for the bigger meeting to come, and I treated it as such.

We must have established our bona fides on the question, because as the sunset outside and evening closed in, the mood on the Soviet side became more relaxed. After several hours’ discussion lasting from one pm until nearly six, we were served the obligatory heavy meal which cut down our mobility. This lasted for over two hours, during which we exchanged toast and lingered over black bread, varying kinds of meats and potato salad all served in seemingly endless rounds.

Then news arrived that Brezhnev invited my party and me to a private dinner in the Politburo office in the Kremlin – never mind that I had just eaten.

A social invitation by the General Secretary could not be refused, whatever our assessment of his motivation. We set off at breakneck speed to the Kremlin. Just after nine o’clock Brezhnev received us in what looked like a Churchill jumpsuit in sky blue and ushered us into his inner sanctum. It contained a conference table that could easily seat forty people, opposite the end of which stood a huge desk with a telephone console the shape and dimensions of medium sized organ.

Soviet psychological warfare was so effective that we were almost relieved that Brezhnev suggested an “informal” discussion before feeding us. He kept pretty much to the understanding that there would be no negotiation during the first evening – (No doubt he wished to analyze what had been discussed with Gromyko that afternoon) -though idle conversation with the ruler of a Communist state is a contradiction in terms. He did not neglect to remind me that I had “full powers” and therefore would have no need to refer matters to Washington. To procrastinate, I fell in with the spirit of the occasion, discoursing on the principles of foreswearing unilateral advantage and avoiding exacerbation of tensions.

The conversation seemed a small price to pay to gain time for our forces to stand down from the alert, though its bizarre quality was not lost on us. The relationship of two superpowers was being extolled, after all, at the very moment when both sides were introducing thousands of tons of war materiel daily to opposite sides in a desperate war, each seeking to reduce if not eliminate the influence of the other, a situation which had brought us to the edge of war between us. Brezhnev’s contribution to the pleasant mood was the claim that the Soviets were doing nothing unusual in their air- and sealifts to the Middle East; they were simply four-year-old agreements “according to which we must send so many guns.” The idea that Moscow, in fuelling the Middle East war, was motivated simply by its well-known adherence to legal obligations was a bit much to take, even in the interest of maintaining a non-contentious atmosphere for an evening of stalling. “To us,” I replied sarcastically “it looks like you are fulfilling the four-year agreement in two weeks. It is an impressive performance.”

Brezhnev was very interested in picking my brain about the political upheavals in the United States so that evening I, the son of immigrant parents, myself a naturalized citizen of the United States, delivered what amounted to a lecture on the fine points of U.S. Constitutional procedure to the leader of the most powerful Communist state on Earth. I could only imagine what Goldwater or Reagan might have made of that. I could assure him with absolute certainty that Spiro Agnew would never again attain the Presidency - the terms of his removal barred him from holding federal elective office again. I also assured Brezhnev that the new President would clean out Agnew's political staff, and that Gavin had a certain experience with the Soviets, having dealt with Soviet military leaders during the early days of the occupation of Germany. He was also, I assured Brezhnev, a man of sophistication, schooled and experienced in international affairs in a way that Agnew had not been. Brezhnev seemed to accept my assessment, although he remained mystified that Agnew had not been thrown in jail for "everyone's security." To ease his mind I told him Agnew would be guarded by the Secret Service (he in fact was at this point because he had direct knowledge of critical National Security secrets and could not be left unguarded).

Next the General Secretary turned to the question of Richard Nixon and what was happening to him. I tried my best (not being a lawyer) to convey the complexities of the legal proceedings against the former President and that because of this, it was extremely unlikely that Nixon would return to office. Brezhnev could not understand why Nixon had handed over his tapes instead of destroying them (the fact that he didn't make some derisive comment about Nixon taping himself in the first place made me wonder if he was taping us right then). He had only a vague grasp of why the whole thing had become such a scandal to begin with. It made little sense in his view that a President should be brought down by a burglary of all things. For all my power, I was ill-equipped to go into the matter to that depth. I could only re-assure him that with Agnew gone we could expect better relations, and that one of the reasons President Gavin had insisted on my appointment - and had made such a big thing of it in his first message to Brezhnev - was because he wanted to restore our bilateral relationship to where it had been before Richard Nixon left office.

"Agnew was a mistake," he said to me. "I understand these things," he added with the knowing smile of a leader who has had to tolerate inadequate subordinates for political reasons. "But you must assure me that no such person will ever again control your fortunes. You must protect against this," Brezhnev added emphatically, waving his pudgy index finger in the air at me. For some reason Ronald Reagan popped into my mind at that point. The best I could do was assure him that President Gavin had learned an important lesson from this debacle, and that it would serve as an example to future American leaders. Brezhnev for his part took it with a smile and a nod, but asked that I make sure Agnew had no hidden supporters in the White House. I assured him he didn't (I had confidence in Cap Weinberger to lay down the law quickly enough to the staff they inherited, many of whom had been Nixon people to begin with).

Then we had our second gigantic meal of the evening, after which I was ready to explode. I exchanged the compulsory toasts of vodka with the Soviet leader as well, so by the time I returned with Dubs to the Embassy - well past midnight - I was not only bloated but a slight bit drunk as well.

No evening with the Soviet leadership could be complete without some bluster. Once again more in sorrow than in anger, Brezhnev invoked the threat of war that was inherent in the Middle East crisis. He used to this to press his favorite theme from President Nixon’s 1972 visit to Moscow that the superpowers should impose a comprehensive peace of their own in the Middle East. I turned him down. I had come to discuss a cease-fire, not a settlement, I said. There was some minor sparring, but it was agreed that we would get down to business the next morning.

As we had been dining with Brezhnev a plane from the Presidential fleet arrived in Moscow for my use. With it came reinforcements in the form of Kenneth Rush, a former Deputy Secretary of State and Ambassador to West Germany whom I knew well from his services to the National Security Council in 1972. Rush was experienced with the Soviets; he had negotiated the 1971 Treaty ending the four-power control of Berlin. With Ken Rush was Duane “Dewey” Clarridge of the CIA, and some other staff support from various U.S. government agencies. The three of us and Dubs huddled at Spaso House to iron out our negotiating position with the Soviets.


Our formal negotiations at the Kremlin on November 9th with Brezhnev, Gromyko and Kosygin, along with his deputy Nikolai Tikhonov, followed much the same course as my talks with Gromyko the previous day.

Following disagreements over wording, and some bluster on Brezhnev’s part, we worked out an agreement for how to raise the joint cease-fire motion in the UN. Instructions would immediately be sent to Ambassadors Malik and Habib to being the process. Since I had “full authority” I could hardly stall by saying I needed Secretary Bush’s approval to do this. I asked Rush to send the appropriate cable to Brent Scowcroft (that way the President would see it first) for furtherance to Phillip Habib at the UN.

Next we touched on the presence of our militaries in the region. I conceded that the Soviets had the right to re-supply their allies, as we did Israel, and that we could provide advisers to each. But I stuck to the point that the Soviets could not introduce combat troops into the region, as this would seriously destabilize it.

Brezhnev blustered a little about how we were trying to limit Soviet freedom of action, and he pointed to the instability in Syria after the overthrow of Asad as proof that Soviet military forces might be needed to help their “fraternal brothers” re-impose order. (I was not yet aware how serious the situation in Syria had become). Kosygin added that the Soviet Union would want a presence along the Suez front, to police any cease-fire in the interests of their Egyptian ally.

I allowed that both sides could have observers (meaning we could have them in Syria, Egypt and Iraq as well), but that the policy of the United States government was that neither side was to introduce combat troops. We would not do it for Israel, and they should not do it for the Egyptians, Syrians or Iraqis. I stipulated that this was cornerstone of the cease-fire agreement, along with an overall commitment by both sides to encourage their respective allies to draw down and not to encourage any more attempts at territorial conquest.

Tikhonov raised the question of restoring Israel’s pre-1967 borders (i.e. returning the Golan to Syria, the Sinai to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan). I said flatly that that was beyond the scope of these negotiations, and entirely unproductive. Our agreement was to bring about a cease-fire and an end to the current war; we were not negotiating a comprehensive agreement for the Middle East at this time. That the parties affected would have to do directly. The United States would not enter into any binding agreements on behalf of Israel without Israeli input.

I could tell that the Soviets didn’t like that, but they accepted my interpretation for the moment. Brezhnev re-took control of his side by pointing out that once the cease-fire was in place we would have the luxury of arguing over the terms of the wider peace at our leisure. Therefore, let us begin with this cease-fire agreement.

The active passage in our agreement read:

“The negotiations between the parties will take place with the active participation of the United States and the Soviet Union at the beginning thereafter in the course of negotiations when key issues of a settlement are dealt with.”

This was sufficiently vague as to leave the meaning open to future interpretation by the parties. It papered over the fact that the Soviets were obviously eager to show their Arab clients that they had maneuvered us into a guarantee of achieving their program: our purpose was plainly the opposite. That was why we wanted to leave specific guarantees past the actual cease-fire out of it.

After the formal session, there was an informal reception at which there was much maudlin talk about the importance of close US-Soviet relations, especially in light of the Agnew episode, and some heavy jostling, reflecting the relief that the need for irrevocable decisions seemed to have passed. Gromyko’s contribution consisted of calling his ally, Sadat, a “paper camel.” Everyone drank toasts of brandy, though we all knew that at best we had shifted our rivalry to the diplomatic plane. The passions of the Middle East combatants, the difficulty of implementation, and the inherent competitiveness of American and Soviet interests would dominate our relations soon enough again.

After the meeting, I met at our Embassy with the British, French and Australian ambassadors to Moscow, the first two in their capacity as permanent members of the Security Council, the Australian because his country’s representative in New York was the rotating president of the Security Council. Diplomats are congenitally careful in expressing their opinions on issues with respect to which their governments have not yet taken a stand. In this case they were sufficiently confident of their governments’ views to offer warm congratulations before rushing off to inform their capitals.

My departure from Moscow unleashed a comedy of errors that would have been fit for Laurel and Hardy film. I had arrived in Moscow from London, and I had obtained my Soviet entry visa from their Embassy in London (with some behind the scenes help from the British Foreign Office). That visa, stamped into my ordinary, civilian passport, specified that I had to come and go from the Soviet Union via a commercial flight from and to London, and specifically via Sheremetyevo airport.

Now, as I attempted to board a U.S. government jet at Vnukovo airport, I was called aside by an iron faced Soviet customs control officer. He wanted to know what I, a civilian, was doing boarding a diplomatic flight at the wrong airport, which would leave the Soviet Union bound to a place which was not specified on my visa. Rush, who had the appropriate diplomatic passport and supporting papers (and who spoke excellent Russian) tried to explain it to the fellow. I kept hearing what sounded like "C-I-A" from the Russian, which did not sound good. Rush grew increasingly frustrated as the officer proved immovably stubborn.

"You don't have the right passport and your name isn't on our arrival manifest," Rush explained to me, "So they think we're smuggling you out of the country."

This was rich. Someone on the plane called the Embassy for help while Rush continued to argue with the obdurate Soviet bureaucrat. By this point uniformed KGB officers had shown-up, and at one point it looked as if they might drag me away. This lead Rush to lock arms with me - he was not going to let them take me anywhere.

No less a luminary than Aleksi Kosygin himself came out to the airport to rescue me. Even he had to argue with this overly officious fellow. Translating the torrent of words between them, Rush explained that the overly punctilious customs officer thought that Kosygin was an imposter meant to help Rush smuggle me out of the country. This accusation lead the Soviet Premier to explode with a lengthy and very sharp sounding tirade, which Rush diplomatically referred to as "corrective language."

Eventually, the fellow appreciated his position and gave-up trying to stop me. Worried about his fate, despite the unpleasantness he had subjected me to, I asked Rush to ask Kosygin not send the fellow to Siberia. After Rush said that, the Premier turned to me with a stone faced stare and said, according to Rush, "get him out of here." I'm not sure whether he was referring to the customs inspector or me. Rush and I boarded the plane before anything else could go wrong.

Late on the evening of the 9th we flew out of Moscow heading for Tel Aviv, where we arrived early on the morning of the 10th. On the flight, instead of sleeping, I received my first full briefing from the State Department, the Defense Department and the CIA on the deteriorating situation in Syria. The defeat of the Syrian counter-offensive against the Israelis at Duma, just north of Damascus, on November 2 had been very costly to the Syrian Army in terms of personnel, equipment and the crumbling morale of their armed forces at the troop level. In fact, with the government having been evacuated from Damascus to Aleppo in the north, and the overthrow of the Asad regime, governance away from the coast and south of Aleppo province had collapsed almost entirely. In Aleppo the military government, with the nominal figurehead of Luai al-Atassi in charge, was barely holding on amidst the centrifugal forces of national disintegration. What was left of their military was employed in holding onto the North of Syria, and putting down spontaneous revolts within that region. With the Israelis holding Damascus and most of Syria south of the Homs region (apart from border areas occupied by the Iraqi and Jordanian Armies, which was still fighting the Israelis), the current Syrian regime was rapidly losing legitimacy in the eyes of its own people.

In the broad center, in the Hama and Homs regions, Syrian government control had collapsed, and this had lead to a rising by the Muslim Brotherhood, a shadowy Islamist revolutionary group, lead in Syria by Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, a dissident lawyer and cleric. Bayanouni and his followers had declared themselves to be the guardians of a new Islamic caliphate which - they claimed - replaced the corrupted military regime of Syria. Bayanouni's Jihadists - as they styled themselves - battled Israelis, but also attacked the Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian troops they encountered with equal vigor. Israel was the only military power capable of going after them, but had little desire to chase down a regime of bandits which, unlike the Iraqis, offered no immediate threat to it. Israel had little interest in occupying more of Syria, which meant that the country as a whole was descending into the chaos of a balkanized, warlord state.

What made matters worse was that the Turks had begun mobilizing their armed forces along their southern border with Syria, and were threatening intervention if the situation deteriorated, or the Aleppo government collapsed entirely. (It should be noted that there was no love lost between the Aleppo Syrians and the Turks either; the two regimes had been at odds over a border dispute for over a decade.) The perspective from the Turkish side was understandable. This sort of instability could easily spread into their southern provinces, especially if Bayanouni's Jihadists toppled the Aleppo government in the North and were able to directly spread their fanatical nonsense into Turkey. The secular regime in Turkey was particularly worried about this sort of radical Islamist influence which could undermine their state, and would spare no measure to keep it out, including a preemptive invasion of Syria. As Turkey was our NATO ally - and a dependable one at that - the United States had to take their concerns seriously.

The Soviet Union remained the Aleppo government's nominal patron and ally. With Soviet advisers there, and the possibility that Moscow might send in more troops to prop-up its faltering client, there loomed the possibility of a direct clash between Soviet and Turkish forces, and that would be a direct Warsaw Pact - NATO military confrontation at least as serious as the Agnew crisis we had just defused. We were very much running out of time on that problem.

On the Suez front matters were much calmer, with the Israelis and Egyptians observing a tacit cease-fire, while President Sadat sought international arbitration. While this was a more pleasant picture that the situation in Syria, we were less than optimistic that it would hold long enough for us to put something more permanent in place. One major violation (real or perceived as such) by either side could set the war off on that front once more.

I have often been asked to describe the most moving moment of my government service. It is difficult to compare memorable events in such a variety of cultural and political settings. Yet surely my arrival in Israel on Saturday, November 10, 1973 ranks high on the list.

We reached Lod (now Ben-Gurion) Airport in Tel Aviv at 7:00 am local time. It was the Jewish Sabbath, ordinarily observed in Israel but, as with every Saturday since October 6, the level of activity obscured that fact. Much was written afterward about how eager Israel was to continue the war and how painful it found the ceasefire. A lot of this nonsense revolves around the fanciful argument that with Syria now in an advanced state of disintegration, Israel wanted to annex all of the Southern quarter of the country at least as far the conflux of the Syria-Jordan-Iraq borders, and that it wanted to prevent a unified Syrian state from ever re-merging. Although there may have been some in Israel - and indeed in the United States - pushing for this course, none of this martial ambition was evident in what I saw among the Israelis I met. Soldiers and civilians greeted the approaching peace as the highest blessing. Israel was heroic but it endurance was close to the breaking point. Those who had come to welcome us seemed to feel viscerally how close to the abyss they had come and how five weeks of war had drained them. Small groups of servicemen and civilians were applauding with tears in their eyes. Their expression showed a weariness that almost tangibly conveyed the limits of human endurance. Israel was exhausted no matter what the military maps showed. Its people were yearning for peace as can only those who have never known it.

After the preliminary greetings at Lod Airport, Rush, Clarridge and I proceeded to the U.S. Embassy where we met with Secretary of State Bush, James Baker and the rest of their party, which had already been negotiating with the Israelis and, through intermediaries, with the Egyptians as well. I briefed Bush and Baker on our meetings in Moscow, and Bush was relieved that we had managed to finagle Soviet agreement to the joint cease-fire resolution at the U.N. We also went over the situation in Syria, which was deteriorating by the hour.

Bush for his part was now pushing a separate cease-fire between Israel and the Jordanians and Iraqis, allowing each to remain in place in the parts of Syria under their respective control, until the situation there stabilized. He proposed that Israel withdraw to the Golan, from where it could establish a secure zone on its northern border. Jordan and Iraq could then move into Southern Syria as a stabilizing force, keeping the Muslim Brotherhood from moving into the vacuum. Iraq and Jordan would then pledge not to attack Israel (militarily they were no position to do so). Jordan, an ally of the U.S. and as such susceptible to pressure from us, would act as the buffer between the Israelis and the more hostile Iraqi forces.

No less a figure than President Sadat of Egypt had communicated this as a possible temporary step for ending the war on Israel’s northern border. We knew this because the message had gone to Baghdad and Amman through Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal, and Faisal had communicated it to us (no doubt with the hope that we could get the Israelis to sign on). This measure would go a long way to allowing the Arabs to save face as it would allow them to take care of the Syrian problem in house with as little outside meddling as possible, and it would remove the suggestion that somehow only the Israeli Army could secure Southern Syria from a Muslim Brotherhood take-over.

As we discussed this development over a light breakfast Bush handed me my diplomatic passport, and we broke the tension by a laugh over my travails with the Soviet border controls.

After I briefed the Secretary and we completed our discussion of the “Faisal proposal” – as we called it – we proceeded to Herzliyya, near Tel Aviv, the mysterious modernistic building called the Guest House, on top of a hill, where Prime Minister Golda Meir and her cabinet received us. Noting the barbed wire that surrounded it and the tight security, I observed that it was a safe house for secret meetings with foreign visitors.

We were greeted by Golda; Defense Minister Moshe Dayan; David Elazar, the Chief of Staff; and other officers and ministers, including former Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin, who, without an official position at the time, sat in on the conversations saying nothing and looking enigmatic. Weariness, physical and moral, was stamped on each face. The characteristic Israeli show of bravado was not absent, but it required so much effort that it seemed to exhaust the participants rather than armor them. They spoke of imminent victories, but without conviction, more as if to prop up the image of invulnerability.

After the initial pleasantries, we got down to our business. We discussed the strategic situation on the Egyptian front at first. The Israelis discussed how they had all but defeated the Egyptian Army, and that they were more than happy to abide by Sadat’s call for a cease-fire in place (in fact they had agreed to that during the visit of the French Foreign Minister, Michel Jobert, five days before. He had passed this on to Sadat on his return to Cairo from Tel Aviv). Dayan and Elazar spoke of adjustments to secure the line which were going on as we spoke. I should have picked-up on the critical nature of this point, but I blamed three nights of with less than five hours sleep combined for letting it go over my head. Bush and Baker, and even Rush (who was as sleep deprived as I) missed the importance of that remark at the moment. Instead, we satisfied ourselves that the war in the Suez was over for all practical purposes.

We turned to discussion of Syria, and the “Faisal Proposal.” The Israelis were understandably sckeptical of pulling back and allowing two Arab armies they were still technically at war with to fill the space they left behind. They feared Bayanouni and what they termed his “Rif Bandits” less because they felt his forces were not as great a military threat as the Jordanian and Iraqi Armies. Baker and Rush observed that the Jordanian and Iraqi armies had been pulverized by the Israelis, so they weren’t exactly as great a threat as they had been just a couple of weeks before. Bush and I pressed the point that the further disintegration of Syria was in no one’s interest, and that if we didn’t develop a solution – even an interim one – which allowed the Arabs to save face, another crisis would return.

There was nostalgia for the glories of 1967 on the Israeli side of the table, so Bush, Rush and I had to remind the Israeli leadership of the reality. The Arab armies were reduced as a threat but they were not destroyed. The Arab nations had not won but no longer need they quail before Israeli might. Israel, after barely escaping disaster, had prevailed militarily; it ended up with more Arab territory captured than lost. But it was entering an uncertain and lonely future, depending on a shrinking circle of friends. What made the prospect more tormenting was the consciousness that complacency had contributed to the outcome.

I added that the Soviets had been checked for now, that their co-operation on a cease-fire was predicated on the weak had they held: Syria was in ruins and President Sadat was even less enamored of Russian help than he had been when he kicked all of the Soviet military advisers out of his country the year before. Only Iraq, of the three significant Soviet clients, could claim to have come out of this in anything approaching a whole condition, and it was not in a position to continue the war on its own. I emphasized now was the time to press ahead with negotiations with Sadat, and to limit any further damage on the Arab side. Our goal was to win over Egypt (to at least neutral status), retain Jordan’s government from collapsing into instability and to seek a way to resolve the problems in Syria before Bayanouni’s influence spread. All of these aims would serve Israel’s security interests as well. We could not allow Israeli intransigence, or the appearance of it, to give the Soviets an excuse to become obstructionist and induce their proxies to cause more problems.

Golda asked me point blank: Was there a secret US-Soviet deal to impose the 1967 borders? When I denied this forcefully she asked whether there was a deal to impose any other frontiers. I denied this as well. As she explored all possible permutations of American duplicity, she exemplified the enormous insecurity inherent in Israel’s geographic and demographic position and its total dependence on the United States. All Bush and I could do was give her our assurances that the United States had not made a deal with the Soviet Union at Israel’s expense, and that the way things were shaping-up we might be able to extract a solution which might secure Israel’s borders for the near future at any rate. Our hope was to reduce Soviet meddling, or at least to make the ground on the other side less fertile for Soviet intrigue, which we argued would also assist Israel. I don’t know that we sold her or her colleagues. The intellect may have grasped what we were saying, but instinct and thirty-five years of history were not going to let go quite that easily.

For the time being, we extracted a firm commitment from Israel to observe the cease-fire and to give our negations with the various Arab states, especially Egypt, a chance to proceed. Golda and Dayan also committed to withdrawing from Southern Syria to a defensive position around the Golan as soon as a hand-off to the Jordanians could be arranged.

Interestingly, unlike my meetings in Moscow, we never once touched on the Agnew debacle or President Gavin’s intentions. Even Bush, in his meetings before my arrival, had not been sounded out on this point. It only showed that when it came to American domestic politics, the Israelis had all the sources of information they needed.

Secretary Bush and Baker left immediately for Washington, via London. While in Tel Aviv they had received word that the Iraqi Vice President had arrived in Paris, where he had asked the French to facilitate a meeting between him and a high level U.S. government official. Bush asked that I take the meeting.

No sooner had Bush’s plane left Lod Airport than a new crisis, or two new crises (depending on your perspective) broke out. On the Suez front, Egypt was accusing the Israelis of violating the cease-fire by moving more troops into forward positions. I got on the phone with Golda and Dayan, and they explained that these were the adjustments they had spoken of at our earlier meetings. What is more, I was told, Washington had been informed on November 5 [2] that these would take place if the front stabilized, with the intent that we could reassure Sadat in this instance. I knew nothing of this, and a call to Brent Scowcroft in Washington confirmed that he too was in the dark about all this, but he intended. Sadat meanwhile was complaining that he had been double-crossed by the Israelis, and all our efforts quickly appeared to be unraveling.

I spent several hours on the phone at our Embassy with Golda and various Israeli leaders, most of whom had gone home to enjoy what was left of the Jewish Sabbath, reinforcing that they had to stop these maneuvers and placate Sadat forthwith.

Before we could fully deal with this matter though, we received word that the Soviets were intending to introduce an airborne brigade into Aleppo, to support the rump Syrian government in the North. This violated the understanding we had hammered out only the day before in Moscow, and it agitated the Turks, who were beginning to talk of a preemptive invasion of northern Syria.

Boarding my plane, I felt dejected about the whole matter. My mood was not helped by my lack of sleep over the past few days. I fired off a cable to Gromyko asking for an explanation. What came back was a “commitment to our overall framework,” but Moscow was exercising its right under our agreement to support its ally. I seemed to remember in my discussions with Brezhnev - with Gromyko right there beside him – that this pledge had referred to material and advisers, but had specifically excluded combat troops from each side. From my perspective (and President Gavin’s) this was a direct betrayal of the Soviet commitment to us, which didn’t augur well for their integrity at the negotiation table. What is more, it would directly undermine the assurances Bush and I had just given to Meir, which in turn would only make the Israelis even more intransigent.

Frustrated and angry I was sharp with Anatol Dobrynin (who called me [from the American Embassy in Moscow which was equipped to reach me on my plane] to explain) and I reiterated that our Moscow agreement had been for no troops, and an eventual superpower stand-down in the region.

“This is not a stand down,” I barked at Anatol. “This is a stand-up – no Anatol, it is a stick-up, and I know you know what that means. How can we possibly remove our presence if you insert combat troops and their supporting infrastructure? How do we know what the limitations – if any – there are on this?”

Dobrynin had no satisfactory answers for me, and I in turn could provide little to the President, which stirred my blood even further.

Despite my agitation, I caught a few hours sleep on the flight to Paris.

We arrived in Paris on Armistice Day, November 11 - the fifty-fifth anniversary of the end of World War I. This is a major civic occasion in Europe, so we were faced with inevitable challenges of getting around on a holiday. We were to meet with the Iraqi Vice President at the Hotel de Crillon located on the Place de la Concorde, which was also the marshaling point of the official parades of veterans and current French military who began from here down the Champs-Élysées to the Place Charles de Gaulle dominated by the world famous Arc de Triomphe. In fact we had to park at our Embassy, also off the Place de la Concorde, and crossed the street by foot in drizzly weather to the Hotel. Our party was made-up of myself, our Ambassador to France John Irwin, the CIA Station Chief operating under his Embassy cover title, Rush (Clarridge opted out of the meeting in deference to the Station Chief) and a State Department Arabic translator named Michael Tareq.

At our first meeting Saddam Hussein, who at the time was not famous or even well known outside the Middle East, did strike me as a particularly trustworthy individual. Our party met with him and our nominal host and intermediary, French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert, in the wood-paneled Salon Citronnier. Hussein was of medium height, with a black moustache dominating a pock marked face. He looked us over with a cool, liquid pair of hazel eyes. We exchanged customary greetings and spent a few minutes over a light lunch served on the long dinning table that dominated the center of the room.

Once we got past lunch, we settled down to the real business. Speaking through his interpreter, Hussein made of us a series of demands. His voice was force-full, and not understanding Arabic I gave him the benefit of the doubt in that he was only trying to make his points forcefully; otherwise I might have thought it a rant which his interpreter valiantly tried to tone down. Tareq later confirmed the latter interpretation for me; Hussein’s interpreter had cut about half the Iraqi leader’s invectives from the translation.

Hussein said: "You have caused this disaster by supporting the Zionists in their warlike policies. It is the Zionist enclave's invasion of Syria that has destroyed the Syrian government and allowed these dogs to stick their noses up in the air. You must give us the means to stop this before, like a disease, it spreads throughout the region. You allowed the Zionists to destroy our armies and air forces - you gave them the tools to do this as a gift. You must now give us the same gift - you must help us to destroy this son-of-a-dog (Bayanouni) before his poison spreads."

On-and-on it went, always returning to the point that we owed them all the free military equipment they demanded. I wanted to ask him why he couldn't get it from the Soviets - his country's nominal ally - but guessed that the Russians were driving a hard bargain, or that the Arabs had lost faith in their equipment. (A combination was, I thought, the most likely explanation.) I did tell Hussein that his request (I twice used that word – and asked Mike Tareq to translate the exact meaning - to make clear that we weren't letting him dictate terms to us) would be given serious consideration at the highest level of our government.

I left the Paris meeting unimpressed with this Iraqi Vice President, but mindful of the opportunity this presented to us to gain an opening in relations with a heretofore hostile Iraqi regime. Certainly we could not allow Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni and his fanatics to pour more gasoline on what was an already blazing crisis, yet emissaries like Hussein (who our CIA briefers had pinpointed as head of the Iraqi secret police network) from blood soaked regimes such as Iraq's hardly inspired confidence. It was the tendency toward thuggish behaviour against their own citizens by these regimes which made the people of Iraq and Syria so easily susceptible to the sort of violent revolution-anarchic pogrom being spread by Bayanouni and his ilk.

A stopover in London and a meeting with Sir Alec Douglas-Home (who had just spoken with Secretary Bush a few hours earlier) did little to lift my mood.

It was in London that I learned that the Third Battle of Dong Hoi had begun in North Vietnam, which was distracting attention back in Washington. I could well picture my old negotiating adversary Le Douc Tho calculating the precise moment to strike at our troops in Vietnam while the mess in the Middle East and our own domestic political troubles distracted us. The Machiavellian leadership in Hanoi had not disappointed me in the depths of their plotting, not on this occasion.

On top of that bleak news was added the gloomy fact that the Soviet to threat to introduce their troops to prop-up the Aleppo government came with an added demand from Moscow that their troops be involved in policing the cease-fire (by which they presumably were referring to the Suez, as nothing even vaguely resembling a cease fire could be said to exist in Syria). This tore to pieces our understanding in Moscow, and had been greeted with dismay back in Washington. President Gavin had felt compelled to raise the alert back to DEFCON-3, close to where we had been just four days earlier before Agnew’s removal.

By the evening of November 11th I was winging my way back across the Atlantic Ocean, morose in my feeling that all we had been able to achieve in the last week was sinking fast into the sinkhole that was Syria.

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Footnotes:

1. I never did use that letter from Bush to Brezhnev. It disappeared into my personal files, where it rested unopened for the next seventeen years, until I discovered it while going through my old records in preparation for writing this book. I decided not to open it, but instead chose to donate it to the James M. Gavin Presidential library at the University of Boston, where it still remains in their archives, unopened. The Bush family, as I understand it, still fears the adverse publicity from the senior George Bush’s actions in the fall of 1973 and they have made every legal effort to block the letter’s opening and publication until well into the next century.

2. Sometime later we discovered that the Israelis had in fact sent notification of these adjustments to Washington on November 5th. They had gone to Agnew’s National Security Adviser Bill Casey, who passed them on to Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld either that evening, or early on the morning of November 6. Sometime between then and November 7th, when Rumsfeld left the White House for the last time (at roughly the same time that President Agnew was removed from office) the notifications disappeared.

The leading theory has become that Rumsfeld destroyed them before leaving his office, so as to blind the incoming Gavin Administration to what the Israelis planned to do during the first days of the new Administration. In all my years of academic and public life this was, by far, the most single-minded, narrow and spiteful act I have ever been a party too. Through his petty act of pique, Donald Rumsfeld nearly succeeded in re-starting the war on the Suez front and destroying all of our efforts at diplomacy. It was unforgivable.

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(from Anonymous Behind the Fortress Walls)

The removal of the Agnew by the American Senate had given General Secretary Brezhnev cause for much relief. Especially with the choice of Henry Kissinger as the new American President’s emissary, it proved to him that his dealings with President Nixon over the policy of détente had been on right track all along. This allowed him to put-off the detractors like Suslov and Andropov who had interpreted Nixon’s loss of power as a sign that he had been repudiated by the American establishment, and that Spiro Agnew represented the true face of American elite opinion.

Very soon after Agnew’s fall was confirmed, and even while Kissinger was having his first meeting with Gromyko, Brezhnev called together Kosygin, Suslov, Andropov, Pelse and Grechko to trumpet loudly that détente was still alive, and that we could expect a restoration of the Nixon approach, or something very much like it. Agnew it turned out, had been a complete fool, and the elites had used their Congress to dispose of him. Now the United States and the Soviet Union could continue along the path of peaceful coexistence, which would afford the USSR new international opportunities.

The Suslov-Andropov group conceded that point to the General Secretary, but after the November 9th negotiations with Kissinger, they found new cause to dig in their heels. While they agreed that some effort had to be made to defuse the tensions in the Middle East, they – speaking through Suslov (with at least the tacit approval of Kosygin) – accused the General Secretary of giving away our bargaining leverage in the Middle East. Israel and the United States had gained the initiative, they argued, while we were reduced to mere spectators.

It was ineffective to argue that we still had Iraq as a client. The Iraqis were currently at the margins of the conflict and their government, reliant on military strength to rule their own fractious nation, was too busy trying to retain the strength to do that to seriously threaten Israel by themselves. More centrally, Syria was in tatters, and Sadat of Egypt was moving away from us at every turn. Our own resources in Egypt were limited. In Syria we had only the allegiance of a rump government that was quickly dissolving.

When Turkey, a NATO nation, threatened unilateral action against Syria, and our Syrian ally called upon us for help, our prestige as a world power was placed on the line. We could not acquiesce to the Turks, Suslov argued; else Soviet prestige everywhere would be threatened. We could not allow a NATO country, a puppet of the United States, to obliterate what was left of our ally and impose their will on a sovereign country, as this would invite similar intrigues everywhere. Soon after Kissinger left Moscow, the question was put to the General Secretary, at what point does the Soviet Union draw a line and reinforce the fact that it is in the first league of nations and not the second? If today we allow the Turks to do their monkey business for the United States and Israel in Syria, might we not see them tomorrow doing the same in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan? What lesson would Iran draw from this? Or even the rice eaters?

Though none dared say it to Brezhnev’s face, some in the Suslov-Andropov group thought he had allowed himself to become so soft-eyed with nostalgia for the Nixon interlude that he had allowed Kissinger to get the better of them. (Leonid Brezhnev had no such soft feelings, as his inquisitors well knew, he simply viewed détente as most viable solution for long-term Soviet interests.) This they speculated was the real reason why the new American President had sent Kissinger to him.

To shore-up his position (once more visions of Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev haunted his mind) Brezhnev had no choice but to give in to some points of the Suslov-Andropov group. That is why he allowed that our combat troops could be sent to support the Aleppo government in northern Syria. It would reinforce the Syrian military regime’s wavering confidence, and give the Turks second thoughts about invasion. The General Secretary thought the Americans might see this as provocative, but it was something they could live with, as it did not directly threaten Israel, and it left them free to make their arrangements with Sadat.

The added demand that our troops be allowed to patrol the Suez did not come from Brezhnev; they originated out of Deputy Premier Nikolai Tikhonov’s office (he used the Deputy Foreign Minister Leonid Hyickov to announce it, bypassing Gromyko altogether) but had the endorsement of Suslov and Andropov and most likely Kosygin himself. This effectively overturned the agreement of November 9th, and set in motion a series of military alerts which were drawing us back into the crisis.

Brezhnev now understood that his own position was in jeopardy, and that the Middle East was becoming a front for a more insidious struggle within our own leadership. He would have to move carefully, lest any concession to the Americans be denounced as backsliding or weakness on his part. Suslov and Andropov had witnessed the weakness of détente in the form of Agnew’s contempt for Soviet power during his brief presidency. Now, as the General Secretary flirted once more with détente, they were more suspicious of the message and the messenger.

One could not help wonder if they had not drawn another lesson from the fall of Agnew; or that at the very least that the removal from power of the American President (hitherto without historical precedent) had not inspired their ambition and so their plotting.