Kissinger And The Yom Kippur War 1st Edition

David R Morse download

https://ebookbell.com/product/kissinger-and-the-yom-kippur-
war-1st-edition-david-r-morse-53077710

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Henry Kissinger And The American Century Jeremi Suri

https://ebookbell.com/product/henry-kissinger-and-the-american-
century-jeremi-suri-57161522

Henry Kissinger And The American Century Kindle Jeremi Suri

https://ebookbell.com/product/henry-kissinger-and-the-american-
century-kindle-jeremi-suri-50603822

Reckless Henry Kissinger And The Tragedy Of Vietnam Robert K Brigham

https://ebookbell.com/product/reckless-henry-kissinger-and-the-
tragedy-of-vietnam-robert-k-brigham-46172532

Master Of The Game Henry Kissinger And The Art Of Middle East
Diplomacy Martin Indyk

https://ebookbell.com/product/master-of-the-game-henry-kissinger-and-
the-art-of-middle-east-diplomacy-martin-indyk-51239422
Reckless Henry Kissinger And The Tragedy Of Vietnam Robert K Brigham

https://ebookbell.com/product/reckless-henry-kissinger-and-the-
tragedy-of-vietnam-robert-k-brigham-34501708

Conservatism And The Kissingermao Axis Development Of The Twin Global

Orders Sing

https://ebookbell.com/product/conservatism-and-the-kissingermao-axis-
development-of-the-twin-global-orders-sing-36859402

World Order Reflections On The Character Of Nations And The Course Of

History Henry Kissinger

https://ebookbell.com/product/world-order-reflections-on-the-
character-of-nations-and-the-course-of-history-henry-
kissinger-48508490

The Flawed Architect Henry Kissinger And American Foreign Policy 1st
Edition Jussi M Hanhimaki

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-flawed-architect-henry-kissinger-
and-american-foreign-policy-1st-edition-jussi-m-hanhimaki-1865866

World Order Reflections On The Character Of Nations And The Course Of

History Henry Kissinger

https://ebookbell.com/product/world-order-reflections-on-the-
character-of-nations-and-the-course-of-history-henry-
kissinger-10980438
Kissinger and the
Yom Kippur War
This page intentionally left blank
Kissinger and the
Yom Kippur War
David R. Morse

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Jefferson, North Carolina
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Morse, David R., 1961–
Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War / David R. Morse.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-9864-2 (softcover : acid free paper)
ISBN 978-1-4766-2077-0 (ebook)
♾
1. United States—Foreign relations—Israel. 2. Israel—Foreign
relations—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations—
1969–1974. 4. Israel-Arab War, 1973—Influence. 5. Kissinger,
Henry, 1923– I. Title.
E183.8.I7M67 2015
327.7305694—dc23 2015017145

— BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

© 2015 David R. Morse. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

On the cover: Secretary of State Henry Kissinger speaking at a press

conference (Thomas J. O’Halloran/Library of Congress)

Printed in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
In loving memory of my father,
Myron “Mike” Morse
This page intentionally left blank
 Table of Contents

Preface 1

1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 5

2. The Prelude to War 23
3. The Inadequacies of Diplomacy and Bureaucracy 64
4. The Tide Turns 101
5. Negotiating a Ceasefire 120
6. The Failure to Avoid a Superpower Confrontation 137
7. Aftermath 165

Chapter Notes 173

Bibliography 193
Index 199

vii
This page intentionally left blank
 Preface

The Yom Kippur War of 1973 brought the United States and Soviet
Union within arm’s reach of a nuclear confrontation. Because of the war’s
centrality to Cold War politics, most existing accounts focus on strategic
concerns and diplomatic maneuvers by the superpowers. However, recently
declassified sources reveal the frequently ignored role of domestic politics
on U.S. policy during the war and the impact that Watergate and a weak-
ened Nixon presidency played in the decision making process. This book
puts due focus on strategic and diplomatic influences, but it also gives
proper attention to the influence of domestic factors, offering an improved,
comprehensive narrative that weaves a new argument into the body of exist-
ing scholarship.
While Henry Kissinger did achieve his ultimate objective in the war,
namely the securing of the United States—and himself—as the Middle East’s
chief peace broker, domestic challenges and strategically conflicting objec-
tives vis-à-vis the Soviet Union provoked Kissinger, at times, into making
costly mistakes. Kissinger was plagued by his own biases, misconceptions
and errors of judgment. He missed opportunities to prevent the war, and,
once it began, to reduce its duration. His first mistake, though Kissinger
hardly stands alone, was to misinterpret and shrug off myriad signals of an
impending attack. Secondly, Kissinger, in tandem with the Soviet Union,
was unsuccessful in brokering a ceasefire in the early days of the crisis. It
was a failure because war inevitably led to conflict between the superpow-
ers, something that was not in the best interest of either side; rather, both
sides had high stakes in the success of détente. Thirdly, for reasons still

1
2 Preface

being debated, the United States delayed the rearming of Israel for four
days, while the Soviet Union rapaciously pumped arms into Egypt and Syria
via plane and ship. Fourthly, once a U.N. sponsored ceasefire was brokered,
Kissinger unwittingly gave Israel a “green light” to carry the war forward,
which nearly resulted in the destruction of the Egyptian Third Army. Lastly,
Kissinger overreacted to a Soviet threat to intervene unilaterally in Egypt
by moving the U.S. military to a state of nuclear alert, a move that unnec-
essarily brought the two superpowers within dangerous reach of a nuclear
confrontation.
In Kissinger’s own view, his handling of what he boastfully called “the
best run crisis” during the Nixon presidency achieved his final objective.
The Israelis, battered by the combined armies of Egypt and Syria, would
within five years be willing to make concessions on land occupied in the
1967 War, the ultimate source of tension in the region. The Egyptians,
humiliated in 1967, emerged from the Yom Kippur War confident and ready
to negotiate. However, Kissinger’s confrontational approach with the
Soviet Union, exemplified by his overreaction to a Soviet warning that it
might intervene in the crisis, led to a superpower confrontation that might
have been avoided. As a result, relations with Washington’s European allies
were strained. Despite his efforts to lure the Arabs into the U.S. camp, the
Arab oil embargo, which Kissinger had largely discounted, but which
resulted following Washington’s airlift to Israel, damaged the American
economy and created a lasting negative impression in the collective Amer-
ican psyche of Arabs.
Chapter 1 evaluates the existing scholarship on the “special relation-
ship” between the United States and Israel, with a focus on the Nixon
Administration. The scholarship on the special relationship can be divided
into three schools: the “strategic” school, the “domestic policy” school and
the “special connection” school. While different scholars have focused on
different schools, and each president has exemplified one philosophy or
the other, under the Nixon Administration, geopolitical strategy has been
unquestionably the focus of most prior scholarship
Chapter 2 examines the background of the war. The first section looks
at the emergence of Kissinger as the de facto powerbroker for peace nego-
tiations in the Middle East at the dawn of the 1970s, eclipsing Secretary
of State William Rogers, who had worked diligently but unsuccessfully to
create a Mideast settlement. Kissinger’s “step-by-step” approach to Middle
East negotiations offered Egyptian president Anwar Sadat no glimpse of
hope that the crisis between Egypt and Israel would be resolved. The sec-
ond section explores how Kissinger, convinced that Sadat lacked the mil-
 Preface 3

itary means to launch a successful invasion of Israel, opted for a strategy

of diplomatic delay, which ultimately precipitated the war.
Chapter 3 focuses on the first week of the war, the diplomatic stale-
mate that resulted between the U.S. and the Soviets, and the bureaucratic
impasse within the Nixon Administration, which resulted in no effective
American military response. The first section examines how Kissinger
sought to lessen, if not eradicate, the Soviet presence in the Middle East,
while the Soviets, surprised by early Arab success on the battlefield, hoped
to demonstrate the efficacy of Soviet military support and reassert itself
into the Middle East peace process. The second section focuses on how
infighting between the State Department and the Department of Defense
prevented the Administration from countering a major Soviet airlift in
support of Syria and Egypt. Nixon, distracted by the resignation of Vice
President Spiro Agnew and Watergate, put Kissinger in the position of
taking on an increasingly recalcitrant bureaucracy.
Chapter 4 analyzes the second week of the war with a focus on domes-
tic politics. Though the airlift began to proceed at breakneck speed, the
Administration was beset by allegations, led by Senator Henry Jackson
and other conservatives, that Nixon, anxious to not alienate the Soviets
in the interests of preserving a budding spirit of détente, was not doing
enough to help the Israelis. In parallel, the American public was growing
increasingly antagonistic toward the Arabs, a reaction that was as much
fueled by media images of a besieged Israel as it was by incessant reports
of an impending oil embargo. Ironically, such attitudes persisted despite
vocal opposition from the Europeans over American involvement in the
war.
Chapter 5 reveals the extent that Watergate had incapacitated Nixon
and, as a result, emboldened Kissinger to take the substance of negotia-
tions into his own hands. During talks in Moscow, Kissinger subordinated
the wishes of Nixon, who wanted an overall settlement in the Middle East,
by negotiating a simple ceasefire, which served to minimize, as Kissinger
wanted, Soviet involvement after the war. In Jerusalem, Kissinger, unbe-
knownst to Nixon, gave the Israelis a “green light” to continue to encircle
the Egyptian Third Army after a United Nations ceasefire resolution had
gone into effect. The results of this green light ultimately led to a near cri-
sis with the Soviets.
Chapter 6 contends that Kissinger’s decision, in response to a Soviet
threat to unilaterally send troops into Egypt, to place U.S. forces on DEF-
CON III, an alert which entails nuclear readiness, was a drastic and dan-
gerous overreaction. It was fueled by Kissinger’s concerns that the Soviets
4 Preface

sought to take advantage of a weakened presidency that unnecessarily

raised the stakes and brought the world within arms’ reach of a global
catastrophe. That Kissinger made the decision at all speaks to the impact
of Watergate—a conversation between Nixon and Kissinger earlier that
evening reveals a paranoid and virtually incoherent president obsessing
that those that would have him impeached were trying to “kill the presi-
dent.” Yet having made the DEFCON III decision, the evidence suggests
that Kissinger’s motives were more to bolster the Nixon presidency in the
eyes of the Soviets by showing that the Administration was still in charge,
rather than to distract attention from Watergate, as much of the press
clamored at the time.
The concluding chapter evaluates the Yom Kippur War’s legacy.
American relations with its Arab and European allies had been severely
damaged and the energy crisis wreaked havoc on the American economy.
Importantly, as a consequence of the DEFCON III alert, détente took a
severe beating. Despite his mistakes, however, Kissinger had effectively
ensured the exclusion of the Soviets from future negotiations in the Middle
East peace process, as well as Israel’s dependence on the United States for
arms and financial support. In the eight months that followed the war,
Kissinger made the Middle East his top priority, and his efforts arguably
laid the foundation for the Camp David Accords, brokered by President
Jimmy Carter and signed between Sadat and Israeli prime minister Men-
achem Begin.
 Chapter 1

Nixon, Kissinger and

the “Special Relationship”

The term “special relationship” has been used since the Johnson
Administration to describe the close connection between the United States
and Israel. This relationship reached new levels under the presidency of
Richard Nixon, and many scholars have seen the Yom Kippur War of 1973
as a tipping point. Since that war, despite pretensions to evenhandedness,
the United States has demonstrated unrelenting support for Israel.
In the words of Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, the special relationship thesis
maintains that the United States and Israel have “a unique and unparalleled
partnership, with high levels of friendship, amity, trust, and political and
military cooperation, with each side occupying a special position in the
other’s domestic and foreign policy.”1 That this relationship is beneficial
to Israel is clear. From 1948 to 1975, the United States transferred more
than $6.5 billion in assistance to Israel, making it the highest per capita
recipient of U.S. aid in the world during that time period.2 Since 1976,
Israel has been the number one beneficiary of American foreign aid, total-
ing an average of $3 billion a year (over $100 billion over the past forty
years), an amount that is three times the annual foreign aid designated to
all of Africa, Asia and Latin America. James Petras asserts that this number
is misleadingly low as Israel receives numerous other benefits such as low
or zero interest loans, loan guarantees and access to American intelligence
and technology.3 Additionally, from a diplomatic perspective, Israel has
benefited immeasurably from American support in the United Nations.

5
6 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

Between 1972 and 2006, the U.S. vetoed forty-two Security Council res-
olutions that were critical of Israel, a number that is greater than the com-
bined vetoes of all other Security Council members for the same period.4
Despite obvious benefits to Israel, many have argued that the special
relationship is a one-way street, and that Israel brings little to the table
when compared with American largess. As Bar-Siman-Tov has noted, the
idea of a special relationship should only be considered from a U.S. per-
spective due to the asymmetrical nature of the relationship—namely that
the benefits received by the United States are of a less tangible nature than
those obtained by Israel.5 Although much of the literature on the special
relationship has focused on the consequences of the U.S.-Israeli alliance
in global and Middle Eastern politics, much of the scholarly debate centers
on offering explanations of American support and answering the question
“What’s in it for the U.S.?”
The scholarship on the special relationship can be divided into three
schools. The first school, the so-called “strategic” or “national interest”
perspective, focuses on “hard factors,” such as the strategic value that Israel
delivers to the United States in terms of geopolitics, first during the Cold
War, and subsequently, as an ally in the fight against terrorism. The second
school, the “domestic policy” point of view, emphasizes the role of domes-
tic politics, particularly the influence wielded by the American Jewish
community, and more recently, Christian Zionists. Included in this cate-
gory is the body of scholarship focusing on the influence wielded by the
pro–Israeli lobby and special interest groups such as the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The third school, or “special connec-
tion” thesis, stresses the moral sympathy and sense of brotherhood or pater-
nalism felt by Americans toward Israel.
Each of the three schools has its champions. Typifying the strategic
school, historian Douglas Little writes in his book American Orientalism,
“Cultivating Israel as America’s geopolitical asset seemed more and more
essential for U.S. policymakers as they struggled to prevent the Soviet Union
from filling the vacuum created by Britain’s slow-motion withdrawal from
its empire east of Suez after 1945.”6 The strategic argument is perhaps
best reflected in Henry Kissinger’s articulation of the Nixon Administra-
tion’s Middle Eastern strategy. “At the end of the day,” Kissinger writes,
“when confronted with the realities of power in the Middle East—after
much anguish and circuitous maneuvers—he would pursue, in the national
interest, the same strategy: to reduce Soviet influence, weaken the position
of the Arab radicals, encourage Arab moderates, and assure Israel’s secu-
rity.”7 While many historians have acknowledged the impact of “softer”
 1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 7

factors in America’s Middle Eastern policy, volumes of analysis have focused

on these “harder” concerns.8
Among the most vocal and popular advocates of the domestic policy
perspective have been political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen
Walt, who argue that Israel and the pro–Israeli lobby in the United States
have consistently orchestrated an aggressive and well-funded campaign,
directed at members of Congress and the American public, in order to
promote Israeli interests. They write in The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy that in recent years “the lobby’s political clout and public relations
acumen have discouraged U.S. leaders from pursuing Middle East policies
that would protect American interests and protect Israel from its worst
mistakes.”9 That the archives of Israel “bulge with information” about Israeli
efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy is confirmed by research conducted
by historian Peter L. Hahn. He writes, for example, that during the Truman
era, Israeli envoys relied on David Niles, Eddie Jacobson, and other
“friends” to provide indirect access to Truman and to relay insider infor-
mation about U.S. policy making.10 Advocates of the domestic policy posi-
tion argue that although the Executive branch has been less directly
targeted than the Legislature, it has been anything but immune to the
lobby’s pressures.
According to political scientist Bernard Reich, AIPAC, undoubtedly
the most influential of the pro–Israel lobbies, uses a number of direct and
indirect methods to influence U.S. policy. AIPAC establishes contacts with
politicians, congressional aides, administrative assistants, advisers, and
bureaucratic officials. AIPAC personnel testify before Congress. It organ-
izes letter writing and other public relations campaigns. Importantly,
AIPAC has successfully formed coalitions with numerous domestic figures
and organizations including prominent African American, Asian, and His-
panic leaders, scholars, and celebrities, which has been an important factor
in strengthening the special relationship.11
Describing the strength of the Jewish lobby, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, George Brown, in October 1974, said during a lecture at
Duke University:

[The Jewish influence in this country is] so strong you wouldn’t believe it
now. We have the Israelis coming to us for equipment. We say we can’t pos-
sibly get the Congress to support a program like that. They say, “Don’t worry
about Congress. We’ll take care of the Congress.” Now this is somebody
from another country, but they can do it. They own, you know, the banks in
this country, the newspapers … you just look at where the Jewish money is
in this country.12
8 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

Brown’s statement was not politically acceptable, even in 1974, and

it was retracted the following day.13 Yet as political scientist Steven L.
Spiegel observes, “that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could make
such a statement demonstrates that the pro–Israel forces were weaker
than they had been before the [Yom Kippur] war.” The war had changed
assumptions of Israel as being invulnerable and boosted perceptions of
Arab strength and effectiveness. Yet, as Spiegel notes, “along with
enhanced Arab respectability and clout came resentment at the oil embargo
and the increase in oil prices, acts widely seen as economic belligerence
toward the United States.”14 While the special connection felt by many
Americans toward Israel was fortified by the war, it was matched by a cor-
responding antipathy toward Arabs, particularly after the oil embargo.
Adherents of the third school of thought, the special connection
school, have attributed American support for Israel to a sense of broth-
erhood and empathy felt by the American public. As political scientist
Nadav Safron writes in Israel: The Embattled Ally, “Americans have felt a
strong sympathy for Israel as a democratic nation and a society imbued
with the libertarian values and humanistic culture of the West.” Safron
adds that Israel has evoked this sympathy because “it has been one of the
rare working democracies among the scores of new nations that came into
being since the end of World War II, and because its experience evoked
echoes of America’s own experience.”15
The special connection stance was perhaps best expressed by Wash-
ington senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, one of Israel’s staunchest supporters
during his six terms in the House and six terms in the Senate. When asked
if the “Jewish lobby” was taking over Congress, Jackson retorted, “These
people just don’t understand. They refuse to realize that the American peo-
ple support Israel. Americans, whether Gentile or Jew, respect competence.
They like the idea that we are on the side which seems to know what it’s
doing.”16
Historian Michelle Mart argues in Eye on Israel: How America Came
to View Israel as an Ally that American perceptions of Israel underwent
a drastic change in the years following World War II. In the aftermath of
the war, the salient ideology of Americans was one of universalism; the
United States had triumphed over the Nazis and the brutal totalitarian
regime that Hitler’s brand of fascism represented. She writes, “In the polit-
ical narrative used by American policymakers as well as in contemporary
popular culture, the proposed Jewish state came to embody universalism
… [and] the humanitarian imperative of caring for Jewish displaced per-
sons.”17
 1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 9

Another key work in the special connection camp is Elizabeth

Stephens’ book U.S. Policy Towards Israel: The Role of Political Culture
in Defining the “Special Relationship,” which analyzes the role of culture
in maintaining the “relative continuity” in U.S. policy towards Israel. She
writes, “For many Americans, the history and culture of the United States
is perceived to resonate with that of the Jewish state, which reinforces the
feeling of moral responsibility for the preservation of Israel because of
the role Washington had played in its creation.”18 Similarly, Abraham Ben-
Zvi, a political scientist whose book The United States and Israel: The Lim-
its of the Special Relationship is cut from the cloth of the strategic school,
acknowledges
[there is] a widespread fund of goodwill towards Israel that is not restricted
to the Jewish community, and an equally strong and persistent commitment
to Israel’s continued national existence, integrity and security. Comprising a
cluster of broadly based attitudes that underscore the affinity and similarity
between the two states in terms of their pioneering nature and commitment
to democracy, this paradigm emerged as a legitimate and pervasive precept.19

The special connection attitude is reflected in a speech delivered by

President Bill Clinton in an address to the Israeli Knesset in October 1994:
For decades, as Israel has struggled to survive, we have rejoiced in your tri-
umphs and shared in your agonies. In the years since Israel was founded,
Americans of every faith have admired and supported you…. In times of war
and times of peace, every president of the United States, since Harry Tru-
man, and every Congress, has understood the importance of Israel. The sur-
vival of Israel is important not only to our interests, but to every single value
we hold dear as a people.20

While the strength of the U.S. commitment to Israel has vacillated

with presidential administrations, one constant has been support from
Congress. As Marvin C. Feuerwerger noted in 1979, “few ongoing foreign
policy issues have sustained congressional interest as long as American
policy toward Palestine.” In 1922—twenty-six years before the creation of
the Israeli state—Congress passed a joint resolution stating “the United
States favors the establishment in Palestine of a home for the Jewish peo-
ple.” Congress initiated the first aid programs to Israel in the early 1950s,
and throughout the 1948 to 1976 period, it frequently expressed its sup-
port for Israel by drafting letters and resolutions urging the president to
support the Jewish state. When presidents asked for congressional backing
for pro–Israeli programs, Congress overwhelmingly approved them.21
Even today, censure of Israel by members of Congress is the exception
rather than the rule.
10 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

Presidential support of Israel, by contrast, has varied with the exi-

gencies and proclivities of each administration. Truman, for instance, who
officially granted U.S. recognition to Israel in 1948, felt strong ideological
sympathy for Israel in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, and was strongly
influenced by Jewish concerns. Michael J. Cohen explains Truman’s moti-
vation as being described by two essential narratives. The first, what he
calls the White House School, reflects Truman’s goal of “dedication to the
twin ideals of [honoring] international obligations and relieving human
misery,” as Truman wrote in his Memoirs.22 The second, the State Depart-
ment School, sees Truman as acting out of political interest in order to
gain ground with the Jewish vote. This view is best articulated by James
Forrestal, Truman’s secretary of state for the navy and later secretary of
defense, who repeatedly warned of the dangers of allowing electoral con-
cerns to influence the course of foreign policy; he once opined that the
Palestine lobby “bordered closely on scandal.”23
As a point of contrast, in 1952, Eisenhower lost two-thirds of the Jew-
ish vote to the Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower placed
no Jews in senior cabinet positions, and his administration boasted of main-
taining a stance of total impartiality toward the Arabs and Israel. After his
first election, articles in the press proliferated about a “new approach” to
the Middle East. Henry Byroade, Assistant Secretary of State of Near East-
ern, South Asian and African Affairs, declared, “If we are to be accused of
‘pro’ anything, let us make it amply clear that that prefix can only apply to
one thing, and that is that our policy is first and foremost ‘pro–American.’”
In a 1954 speech, Byroade warned that the Israelis should look upon them-
selves “as a Middle Eastern state … rather than … a worldwide grouping
… [with] special rights.”24
When Kennedy entered the White House, he signaled his intention
to handle the Middle East situation in a “fair-minded and even-handed
manner,” which resulted in relations with Tel Aviv being smooth during
his first year in office. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961 coincided with pro-
found concerns, based on CIA estimations, that Israel might utilize a
nuclear reactor it was secretly constructing with French help at Dimona
in the Negev desert to develop atomic weapons. That January, Eisenhower
had demanded that Israel “declare unreservedly” that it had no such plans,
yet Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion refused. Other areas of tension fol-
lowed. In the summer of 1961, Kennedy began a rapprochement with
Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, and he supported a U.N. spon-
sored proposal by Joseph Johnson, the head of the Carnegie Endowment
for Peace, calling for Israel to accept up to 100,000 Palestinian refugees.
 1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 11

In March 1962, after a deadly Israeli reprisal against Syria, Kennedy

instructed U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson to condemn Israel’s action
in the Security Council. Yet Kennedy was troubled by Soviet bomber ship-
ments to Cairo, and during a visit by Israeli foreign minister Golda Meir
just after Christmas in 1962, he likened Washington’s “special relationship”
with Tel Aviv to that with London, and he asserted, “in case of an invasion
the United States would come to the support of Israel.”25
Under Johnson, the special relationship took on new meaning. “The
United States will continue its warm friendship with Israel,” the new pres-
ident declared to Golda Meir at the reception following Kennedy’s funeral,
adding, “Israel can count on this.” Throughout his presidency he made
good on this promise, placing friends of Israel in key positions in his cab-
inet, including the Rostow brothers, Walt and Eugene, whom he named
respectively as his national security adviser and undersecretary of state.26
Yet it was the Six-Day War of 1967—a war that transformed the Middle
East in terms of its geography, politics and relationship with the rest of
the world—that led to a fundamental change in the nature of the special
relationship.
The crisis began on May 13, 1967, when Egypt received information
from the Soviets that the Israelis were massing ten to thirteen brigades along
the Syrian border for an attack that allegedly was to take place on May 17.
The following day, Egypt began to move troops into the Sinai Peninsula,
and on May 16, Egypt demanded withdrawal of the 3,400 men stationed
there under the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF). On May 22,
Egyptian president Nasser stated that he would close the Straits of Tiran
(Gulf of Aqaba) to Israeli ships, an announcement that was followed by
official closure on May 23. On May 30, Jordan signed a mutual defense
treaty with Egypt, joining the alliance already in place between Egypt and
Syria. War broke out on June 5 when Israel launched a surprise attack on
the Egyptian air force, destroying most of it within hours. Though there
are different theories as to which country’s actions most precipitated the
war—Egypt, Israel, the United States or the Soviet Union—it was likely
the subtle change in the communications of Johnson regarding Israeli pre-
emption, from a red light to a yellow light, that resulted in Israel initiating
a first strike against Egypt. According to William B. Quandt, the light
“never turned green, but yellow was enough for the Israelis to know that
they could take action without worrying about Washington’s reaction.”27
When the possibility of an Israeli first-strike initially became appar-
ent, clearly the light was red. According to his memoirs, Johnson cabled
Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol on May 17 to urge restraint: “I am sure
12 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

you will understand that I cannot accept any responsibilities on behalf of

the United States for situations which arise as the result of actions on
which we are not consulted.”28 A week later, on May 26, Johnson met with
Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban, who was sent by the Israeli cabinet to
ascertain the intentions of the United States. Eban conveyed the message
to Washington that Egypt was preparing an all-out attack on Israel, and he
wanted to ascertain the intentions of the United States. “All of our intel-
ligence people are unanimous,” Johnson said, “that if the U.A.R. attacks,
you will whip hell out of them.” He was referring to a CIA memorandum
that stated “Israel could almost certainly attain air superiority over the
Sinai Peninsula in 24 hours after taking the initiative or in two or three
days if the U.A.R. struck first.”29 When Eban asked what the United States
would do, Johnson said, “You can assure the Israeli cabinet we will pursue
vigorously any and all possible measures to keep the Strait open.” However,
Johnson wanted to make his position absolutely clear. “The central point,
Mr. Minister,” he said, “is that your nation not be the one to bear the respon-
sibility for any outbreak of war. Israel will not be alone unless it decides to
go it alone.”30 Eban, who was returning to an Israeli Cabinet meeting the
following day, needed a more definitive answer. He pressed the president,
“Can I tell my Cabinet that you are going to use all measures in your power
to get the Gulf and Straits open to all shipping, including that of Israel?”
According to Eban, “the president stated with great emphasis: ‘Yes.’”31 When
Eban left the room, Johnson turned to his advisers and said, “I’ve failed.
They’ll go.”32
Johnson did have one card up his sleeve to prevent hostilities, a plan
called “Operation Red Sea Regatta,” which called for a declaration of mar-
itime nations asserting the right of free passage through the Straits of Tiran.
If Egypt rejected the declaration, an international convoy of freighters
would sail through the Straits, escorted by American and British warships,
rebuffing any Egyptian attempts to detain it. By the first week in June, how-
ever, plans for Regatta fell apart. A United Nations resolution calling on
all countries to avoid violence also failed. During that week, Supreme Court
Justice Abe Fortas, a close personal friend of Johnson who was considered
to speak for the president, summoned Israel’s minister in Washington,
Eppie Evron, to a meeting. Fortas showed his cards: “If Israel had acted
alone without exhausting political efforts, it would have made a cata-
strophic error. It would then have been almost impossible for the United
States to help Israel and the ensuing relationship would have been tense….
The Israelis should realize that their restraint and well-considered proce-
dures would now have a decisive influence when the United States comes
 1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 13

to consider the measure of its involvement.” Fortas added that time was
running out and that it was now “a matter of days or even hours.”33
When the Fortas message was communicated to the Israeli cabinet,
several ministers who had been opting for restraint decided that Wash-
ington’s red light had turned yellow. In Washington, Israeli ambassador
to the United States Abe Harmon contacted Secretary of State Dean Rusk
on June 2, just prior to returning to Israel for the cabinet meeting that
would ultimately decide to go to war. Rusk reiterated that the issue of who
fired first would be of the utmost importance. Harmon made one last visit
prior to leaving for the airport, to Justice Fortas, who had spoken to the
president earlier in the day. According to Fortas’ law clerk, who overheard
the conversation, Fortas told him: “Rusk will fiddle while Israel burns. If
you’re going to save yourself, do it yourself.”34 Three days later, the Israelis
took him up on his advice. Fortas’ comments to Harmon left no doubt
that the shackles placed on Israel were being removed.
Despite Johnson’s stated commitment of evenhandedness, his tacit
support of Israel during the Six-Day War is unquestionable. His motiva-
tions, however, remain unclear. Political Scientist George Lenczowski offers
four tentative explanations, each of which undoubtedly must have played
a role:
1. Johnson was motivated by domestic calculations, namely pro–Israeli votes,
dollars, and his desire to neutralize the protests of many Jews about his Viet-
nam policy.
2. It was during his presidency that the concept of Israel as a strategic asset
vis-à-vis the Soviet took hold.
3. He was annoyed by Nasser’s antics and wanted to see him punished.
4. He was influenced by the pro–Israeli sentiments of many on his staff.35

The Six-Day War marked a decisive shift toward a special relation-

ship, and under Richard Nixon’s presidency, it would be a relationship
thoroughly dominated by Cold War concerns. Nixon, for all his notorious
paranoia, was a pragmatist with a profound interest in foreign affairs, and
the Middle East was no exception, though his top priorities remained the
War in Vietnam, the Soviet Union, the threat of nuclear war, and restoring
relations with China. He frequently referred to the Middle East as a pow-
der keg, and he was worried about the global ramifications of the Arab-
Israeli conflict, particularly as a potential catalyst of open hostilities
between the superpowers.36 Though largely supportive of Israel, Nixon
generally pursued what he perceived to be the national interest, which he
viewed to often be in stark contrast to the unnecessary distractions of
domestic politics.
14 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

Nixon complained frequently about the pro–Israeli lobby, which he

regarded as being shortsighted in its unrelenting advocacy of Israel. Writ-
ing in his memoirs, Nixon complains:
One of the main problems I faced … was the unyielding and shortsighted
pro–Israeli attitude prevalent in large and influential segments of the Ameri-
can Jewish community, Congress, the media, and in intellectual and cultural
circles. In the quarter century since the end of World War II, this attitude
has become so deeply ingrained that many saw the corollary of not being
pro–Israeli as being anti–Israeli, or even anti–Semitic. I tried unsuccessfully
to convince them that this was not the case.37

Liberals and the “intellectual and cultural circles” were an obsession

of Nixon. It bothered him that that many of the same people “who were
urging that we send more military aid to save Israel were opposing our
efforts to save South Vietnam from Communist domination.”38 In a March
1970 memorandum to Kissinger he wrote:
What they must realize is that these people are very weak reeds. They will
give Israel a lot of lip service, but they are peace at any price people. When
the chips are down they will cut and run, not only as they are presently cut-
ting and running in Vietnam, but also when any conflict in the Mideast
stares them straight in the face.
On the other hand, their real friends (to their great surprise) are people
like [Barry] Goldwater, [William F.] Buckley, RN [Richard Nixon] et al., who
are considered to be hawks on Vietnam but who, in the broader aspects, are
basically not cut-and-run people whether it is in Vietnam, the Mideast,
Korea, or any place in the world.
They must recognize that our interests are basically pro-freedom and not
just pro–Israel because of the Jewish vote. We are for Israel because Israel in
our view is the only state in the Mideast which is pro-freedom and an effec-
tive opponent to Soviet expansion…. This is the kind of friend that Israel
needs and will continue to need, particularly when the going gets very tough
in the next five years….39

Kissinger, in his memoirs, supports Nixon’s contention that strategic

concerns, rather than domestic politics, dominated his motives. He con-
tends:
For on almost all practical issues his unsentimental geopolitical analysis
finally led him to positions not so distant from ones others might take on
the basis of ethnic politics…. He would make gestures to demonstrate—in
part to himself—that he was free of the traditional influences that had con-
strained other Presidents. But at the end of the day, when confronted with
the realities of power in the Middle East—after much anguish and circuitous
maneuvers—he would pursue, in the national interest, the same strategy: to
 1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 15

reduce Soviet influence, weaken the position of the Arab radicals, encourage
Arab moderates, and assure Israel’s security.40
Nixon saw the Middle East in starkly Cold War terms. As Lenczowski
observes, Nixon seemed to “accept as an axiom that confrontation with
the U.S.S.R. was virtually inevitable in case of an Arab-Israeli war.” As a
result, he had a “tendency to oversimplify, if not actually to distort” com-
plexities in the region by accepting the idea that “the Soviets are the main
cause of Middle East tensions.”41 Nixon was encouraged in this view by
Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, who, for example, told him on Septem-
ber 18, 1970, that “Israel’s problems were not caused primarily by the
Arabs. They were the direct result of the Soviet presence and Soviet mil-
itary equipment.”42
Despite Nixon’s focus on foreign affairs, he drew firm and unyielding
distinctions between his friends and his enemies, and he continuously
brooded over ways to exact revenge on the latter. Historian Noam Kochavi,
in his book Nixon and Israel: Forging a Conservative Partnership, astutely
argues that traditional geostrategic interpretations of the special relation-
ship ignore the role of “ideational and psychological factors” and the emo-
tional impact that certain decisions made by Israel had on Nixon and
Kissinger outside the context of the Middle East. Kochavi argues that in
the beginning of the 1970s, Meir and her ambassador to the United States,
Yitzhak Rabin, led a “conservative turn” in Israeli policy that ingratiated
Israel to the White House. “Coupled with a purposeful courtship of the
evangelical movement,” he writes, “Israel’s public support for the Admin-
istration’s approach in Vietnam and for Nixon’s reelection campaign won
appreciation and sympathy in the White House, and fostered a sense of
common purpose that went well beyond a strict strategic calculus.”43 How-
ever, Kochavi contends that Israel’s discreet backing for the Jackson-Vanik
amendment, which linked U.S.-Soviet relations to the issue of Jewish emi-
gration and thereby threatened the Administration’s efforts to achieve
détente, “undermined Nixon’s and Kissinger’s perception of Israel as a
trusted, like-minded ally, since they both strongly opposed the amendment
and placed great stock in the unswerving loyalty of friends.” Though Nixon
squarely put Israel in the category of “friend,” the basic “DNA” of the U.S.-
Israeli relationship under Nixon’s tenure could best be characterized as
cooperation with bouts of friction.44
Despite the friction, however, the special relationship reached new
heights during Nixon’s first term as president. According to journalist Sey-
mour Hersh, Rabin “had a special entrée into the White House because
he had been among the few foreign leaders who paid attention to Richard
16 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

Nixon on his 1966 world tour as a private citizen. At a time when others
were shunning Nixon, Rabin invited him to Israeli army headquarters and
provided … red carpet treatment.” In June 1972, Rabin was criticized for
excessively praising Nixon’s address to Congress following the president’s
summit in Moscow. Additionally, Rabin was accused of supporting Nixon
for president and interfering in U.S. politics. Rabin responded that he was
only stating “a fact.” Kissinger, who was finely attuned to the bents of the
president, quickly established a special relationship with Rabin, who soon
had a direct telephone line to Kissinger’s desk.45 Kissinger once quipped,
“I’ll tell you one thing about Yitzhak Rabin. You always know what he
wants. He wants more.”46
In Nixon’s reelection bid in 1972, his staffers began to boast that his
close working relationship with Israeli leaders and his record of aid to Israel
had been higher than any other administration to date. During the general
election, McGovern’s dovishness frightened many Jews, particularly his
criticism of Israel’s reliance on military force. To counter perceptions that
the Democratic Congress had played a substantive in pushing for increased
aid to Israel, the Nixon reelection campaign warned that Nixon, unlike
McGovern, would strongly support Israel in another Arab-Israeli crisis.47
For all of Nixon’s avowals that he operated above the fray of domestic
politics, there is compelling evidence that domestic public opinion was a
constant concern of the president. “PR is terribly important,” Nixon told
Kissinger in the midst of the crisis that erupted following the execution
of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Nixon brooded
obsessively over public opinion—Kissinger referred to him as having a
“monomaniacal preoccupation with public relations”—especially criticism
from pro–Israeli hawks.4 8 Political scientists Lawrence R. Jacobs and
Robert Y. Shapiro write that public opinion was a “guiding concern” of the
Nixon Administration from the beginning; for example, just days after his
inauguration, the president told his staff to track “what moves and con-
cerns the average guy.”49
There has been much written in the press about Nixon’s anti–Semi-
tism. In White House tape recordings, Nixon lashed out repeatedly at the
Jews, whom he believed to be the source of many of his problems. “The
Jews are all over the government,” Nixon complained on one occasion to
his chief of staff, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, adding, “Generally speaking, you
can’t trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?” Halde-
man agreed: “Their whole orientation is against you…. And they are smart.
They have the ability to do what they want to do—which is to hurt us.”50
Nixon’s adversarial, paranoid relationship with the media is legendary,
 1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 17

and to him, the media and the Jews were nearly inseparable. A February
1, 1972, conversation with Reverend Billy Graham, following the National
Prayer Breakfast, an annual event hosted by members of Congress, makes
it clear that Nixon viewed the media as being dominated by Jews. Nixon
refers to a remark made my comedy writer and producer Paul Keyes that
“eleven out of the twelve writers [in Hollywood] are Jewish.” He continues:
“Now, Life is totally dominated by the Jews. Newsweek is totally, is owned
by Jews, and dominated by them, their editorials. The New York Times,
The Washington Post, are totally Jewish.” Nixon asks rhetorically:

Now, what does this mean? Does this mean that all the Jews are bad? No. It
does mean that most Jews are left-wing, particularly the younger ones like
that…. They’re way out. They’re radical. They’re for peace at any prices,
except where the support of Israel is concerned…. The best Jews, actually,
are the Israeli Jews…. Because Israel, the reason Mrs. Meir supports me,
which she does, is for a very fundamental reason. They know the Demo-
cratic candidates will be catering to the domestic Jewish vote, but she sup-
ports me. Because she knows the greatest danger to Israel is Russia. And she
knows that in the [1970] crisis involving Jordan that I faced the Russians
down for ’em. She knows that I am the only one that will do it. She knows
that any Democrat will cave to the Communists, to the Russians. See, that’s
the point. She’s tough.

Graham, responding to Nixon’s comments about Jewish control of the

media, exhorts, “But this stranglehold has got to be broken or this country
is going to go down the drain!” Asks Nixon, “Do you believe that?” “Yes,
sir,” responds Graham. Nixon exclaims, “Boy! I can never say it though, but
I believe …” Graham cuts Nixon off. “But if you’ve been elected a second
time, you might be able to do something.”51
Nixon biographer Conrad Black observed, “As was not uncommon to
people of his generation, Nixon had absurd ideas about the solidarity and
conspiratorial proclivities of people with any Jewish ancestry.”52 Kissinger,
himself a Jew, wrote, “The president was convinced that most leaders of
the Jewish community had opposed him throughout his political career.
The small percentage of Jews who voted for him, he would joke, had to
be so crazy that they would probably stick with him even if he turned on
Israel. He delighted in telling associates and visitors that the ‘Jewish lobby’
had no effect on him.”53
Yet this was hardly the case. As historian Salim Yaqub observes, “In
denying any interest in the Jewish vote, Nixon was, of course, protesting
too much. He cared deeply about what he saw as the ingratitude of Amer-
ican Jews and worked assiduously to reverse it.” According to Yaqub, Nixon
Kissinger speaking at a press conference in January 1974.
 1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 19

attempted to achieve this by “demanding recognition from Jewish groups

for every pro–Israel action he took” and currying favor with American Jews.
In September 1969, after shipping fifty F-4 Phantom jets to Israel, Nixon
wrote a memorandum to Kissinger pressing for an explanation of “the
absolute failure of the American Jewish community to express any appre-
ciation by letter, calls or otherwise.” Additionally, he sought to win over
American Jews by insisting that the evenhanded peace talks engaged in
by Secretary of State William Rogers did not have full presidential backing.
Yaqub writes, “While such assurances helped to reduce Jewish opposition
to Nixon, they also hampered his administration’s ability to promote a
settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”54
Nixon’s preoccupation with American Jews was starkly evident during
the 1972 Munich Olympics crisis; Jewish reaction weighed heavily on the
president. “The trouble with the Jews,” he told Kissinger, “is that they’ve
always played these things in terms of outrage. You’ve got the Jewish
Defense League raising hell and saying we ought to kill every Arab diplo-
mat.” He added, “We’ve got to show we care on this one because … you
don’t really know, Henry, what the Jewish community will do on this. It’s
going to be the goddamnedest thing you ever saw.”55 Kissinger pulled out
his Jewish credentials to argue for an approach that balanced both domes-
tic political concerns and America’s weakening position with Arab coun-
tries. “God, I am Jewish. I’ve had thirteen members of my family killed.
So I can’t be insensitive to this. But I think you have to think also of the
anti–Semitic woes in this country if we let our policy be run by the Jewish
Community….”56
Nixon, however, needed no reminder that Kissinger was a Jew, and
he referred to it constantly. When Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in October 1973 for his role in the Vietnam negotiations, Nixon,
jealous, offered advice on how to donate the award money. “I would not
put any in for Israel,” said Nixon. Kissinger responded, “Absolutely not.
That would be out of the question. I never give to Israel.” Nixon reiterated,
“You should not.” Kissinger insisted, “No. That is out of the question.”57
Though Nixon’s relationship with Israel was fraught with ambiguity,
during the Yom Kippur War, Cold War concerns assumed center stage,
and the Administration’s support of Israel, its client state, was unqualified.
By November 15, just five weeks after the war began, the United States
had flown nearly 700 sorties into Israel, equipping it with 11,000 tons of
military equipment.58 Congress had approved a request by Nixon to supply
Israel with $2.2 billion in emergency aid, which set an important prece-
dent. By 1974, Israel became the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance,
20 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

a tendency that continues to this day—Israel has only been recently super-
seded by Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of aid.59
Yet the war also coincided with a series of domestic crises that vir-
tually incapacitated the president and left his new secretary of state, Henry
Kissinger, the undisputed architect of U.S. foreign policy. On October 10,
Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned and pleaded no contest to charges
of tax evasion and bribery. On October 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals
ordered Nixon to release a series of tapes to Archibald Cox, the Watergate
special prosecutor. On October 20, Attorney General Elliot Richardson
and his deputy William Ruckelshaus resigned because of their refusal to
follow Nixon’s orders to fire Cox. Their resignations left Solicitor General
Robert Bork as the highest-ranking member of the Justice Department;
insisting that he had to obey the president’s orders, he dismissed Cox.
Termed the “Saturday Night Massacre,” the House of Representatives
immediately introduced 22 bills calling for the impeachment of the pres-
ident or an investigation into impeachment proceedings. More than a mil-
lion telegrams demanding impeachment poured into congressional offices.
In fact, Watergate exploded while Henry Kissinger was in Moscow nego-
tiating a ceasefire to the Yom Kippur War.
During the nearly three week duration of the war, Kissinger’s influ-
ence reached its zenith, while that of the president declined, as he moved
from a state of distraction to one of emotional paralysis. Kissinger’s status
within the administration had already risen with the resignation in April
1973 of Nixon’s two chief gatekeepers, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, White House
Chief of Staff, and John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domes-
tic Affairs, a result of their involvement in Watergate. In August, Secretary
of State William Rogers, tired of being marginalized and the incessant
squabbling with Kissinger for control of foreign policy, resigned. On Sep-
tember 22, only two weeks before the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War,
Kissinger became both secretary of state and national security adviser.
As political scientist Asaf Siniver notes, “Ironically, Kissinger’s ascen-
dancy had an adverse effect on the formal process of decision-making.
His dual position in the administration made formal NSC procedures even
more cumbersome, as he now reviewed and recommended policies to the
president as the national security advisor as well as the secretary of state.
This created an absurd situation of bureaucratic politics in which one per-
son argued at the same time for different policy preferences while repre-
senting the interests of his two respective institutions.” Siniver quotes
William Quandt, who served as a staff member in the National Security
Council at the time:
 1. Nixon, Kissinger and the “Special Relationship” 21

Nixon meeting with Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger in June 1974.

Kissinger faulted Schlesinger with delaying the shipment of arms to Israel in
the early stages of the war.

[Kissinger] would let his bureaucracy produce a draft, and he would some-
times then sign it as Secretary of State, come over to the White House, and
NSC staff would say “here is what the Secretary of State recommends, but in
your role as National Security Advisor here is what you wrote,” and put
another memo on top to Nixon. It is amazing.60

With Kissinger at the helm of foreign policy on October 6, 1973, when

the Yom Kippur War began, there was little doubt that gaining the upper
hand over the Soviets in the Cold War political game would be Henry
Kissinger’s greatest concern. As Jussi Hanhimäki incisively argues in his
2004 book The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign
Policy, Kissinger saw each event through the prism of the Cold War, and
his preoccupation with the Soviet Union frequently led to a distorted per-
spective. Notes Hanhimäki, “He operated, essentially, in the same bilateral
framework as his predecessors had, taking it as a given that containing
Soviet power—if not communist ideology—should be the central goal of
American foreign policy. Almost every initiative he pursued … was aimed
22 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

at serving this goal.”61 While other factors did come into play, it was this
unswerving mindset that determined Kissinger’s strategy, and in some
cases, caused him to err.
The centrality of the Cold War to Kissinger’s thinking during the Yom
Kippur War is made clear in Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein’s
We All Lost the Cold War and Raymond L. Garthoff ’s Détente and Con-
frontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan. Lebow and
Stein incisively argue that the war escalated because the United States and
the Soviet Union, despite having the same goal, namely détente, attempted
to achieve unilateral gain at the expense of the other. Similarly, Garthoff
argues that the superpowers shared responsibility for inflating the conflict
into a superpower confrontation by maneuvering for political advantage
while at the same time attempting to diffuse the crisis and end the war.62
However, on the whole, scholars have tended to underplay the role
of domestic factors, specifically Watergate, pro–Israeli factionalism and
bureaucratic battles within the Administration as determinants of policy
during the war. As Kissinger walked a diplomatic tightrope with the Soviet
Union during the crisis, he was besieged by conservative critiques, fronted
by Senator Henry Jackson, with charges that he was not doing enough to
help Israel. Jackson, bolstered by pro–Israel and anti–Arab public senti-
ment, argued that Kissinger’s desire for détente with the Soviets was lead-
ing to an excessively conciliatory posture. Additionally, the Department of
Defense stymied Kissinger’s attempts to facilitate a rapid rearming of Israel,
which could have led to a quick end to the war. Evidence shows that Sec-
retary of Defense James Schlesinger was preoccupied with the specter of
Arab reprisals; Assistant Secretary of Defense William Clement was a Texas
oilman with close ties to big oil and much to lose should the moderate
Arab oil producers turn hostile. The result—a delayed but massive airlift
of military supplies to Israel—led to a dangerous confrontation between
the U.S. and Soviet Union which would have lasting repercussions.
In the long term, the war had detrimental consequences. Following the
confrontation with the Soviet Union, domestic criticism of détente mounted
in the U.S. In December, the House of Representatives passed the Jackson-
Vanik amendment, which linked détente to Soviet Jewish emigration, thereby
defeating an attempt by the Administration to confer most-favored-nation
status to Moscow. Rapprochement between the superpowers would become
increasingly elusive in the coming years, beginning with the Carter Admin-
istration, and reaching an all-time low under Reagan. Israel did make peace
with Egypt, but the long-term result of the Yom Kippur War was an obdurate
and emboldened Israeli policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.
 Chapter 2

The Prelude to War

Although the October War caught the U.S. by surprise, there was
no lack of evidence that the combined forces of Egypt and Syria intended
to attack Israel in the fall of 1973. The war was a consequence of the Amer-
ican inability to resolve what had become a crisis in the Middle East, one
precipitated by the Israeli occupation of Arab land taken in the 1967 War,
and a failure by the Nixon Administration to acknowledge the myriad
warnings from Egyptian president Anwar Sadat that he regarded war as
the only solution. In both regards, no one’s actions were more consequen-
tial than those of Henry Kissinger, who emerged as the orchestrator of
Middle Eastern policy early in Nixon’s second term, supplanting a role
that had previously been occupied by Secretary of State William Rogers.
While Rogers had worked diligently but unsuccessfully to create a Mideast
settlement, Kissinger favored a gradual “step-by-step” approach to nego-
tiations, a process that ultimately pushed Sadat over the brink.
Despite Sadat’s vociferous threats to settle the matter promptly, by military
means, Kissinger, as well as senior intelligence officials in the U.S. and
Israel, mistakenly dismissed them as shows of bravado and political expe-
diency.
This chapter analyzes events that led to the breakout of war from an
American perspective. It traces the ascendency of Kissinger and his grad-
ualist approach to resolving the Mideast crisis, which prevailed over Rogers’
efforts to broker a ceasefire. Ultimately, the ensuing standstill and inactivity
due to these two divergent strategies provoked Sadat into launching the
war. Once Sadat began to prepare for battle, Kissinger continuously mis-

23
24 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

read the signs, a consequence of what he himself has deemed “a failure of

intellect as opposed to intelligence.”

The Internal War: Kissinger Battles Rogers

During his first term as president, Nixon’s handling of the Arab-Israeli
situation was schizophrenic. At times it was confrontational toward the
Arabs and the Soviets; at other times, it was even-handed, reflecting a belief
that the United States could best lessen Soviet influence by being perceived
as impartial in the Arab-Israeli conflict.1 This schizophrenia reflected the
foreign policy team that Nixon put together when he assumed office in
1969. The president was determined to wrest control of foreign policy
from the State Department bureaucracy, which he saw as a bastion of the
Democrats, and he created an invigorated National Security Council, plac-
ing Kissinger at its helm. Kissinger was a Harvard professor and foreign
policy expert with whom Nixon shared the view that the United States
needed to wed strength with diplomacy in order to minimize the dangers
of a nuclear war.2 As secretary of state, Nixon chose a close personal friend,
William Rogers, a lawyer who had served as attorney general under Eisen-
hower when Nixon was vice president. Nixon placed Rogers in charge of
the Middle East. Yet it was Kissinger to whom the president turned in order
to develop the broader workings of his overall foreign policy.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh writes that an NSC staff mem-
ber who had worked closely with Kissinger told him that Kissinger had “a
real hesitancy” about being involved in Middle East negotiations when Nixon
entered office in 1969. He was acutely aware of his own lack of knowledge
of the politics and the personalities in the region. As the staffer told Hersh,
“He just didn’t see how [the negotiations] were going to work, and his
attitude was: So why jump in and not be successful and make a lot of ene-
mies in the process?” However, by the end of 1969, Kissinger was working
behind the scenes to undercut Rogers, whom he saw as floundering.3
When it came to articulating Middle Eastern policy, Nixon at times
appeared to back Kissinger, who believed in supporting Israel and the mod-
erate Arab states; at other times, he supported Rogers, who felt that the
United States, together with other major powers, particularly the Soviet
Union, should adopt an active diplomatic role in promoting a political
settlement based on UN Resolution 242 which called for an Israeli with-
drawal from territory occupied during the 1967 Six-Day War in exchange
for an Arab commitment to peace.4
As might be expected, given the convolution of strategies, there was
 2. The Prelude to War 25

incessant conflict and suspicion between Kissinger and Rogers. Kissinger

remembers:
During his first term, Nixon never formally chose between the two strate-
gies: my recommendation of stonewalling radical [Arab] pressures or State’s
view of defusing them by offering compromise solutions. He leaned toward
my analysis, but he implemented it not by making a decision but by simply
letting State Department initiatives run their futile course. My relationship
with Nixon, never easy, was in any event more complex with respect to the
Middle East than with most other issues.5

Nixon’s own conflicted feelings toward Kissinger are clear from a

conversation he had with Chief of Staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman in February
1971, while the two were waiting for Kissinger to join them in a meeting.
Nixon complained:
[The trouble] with Henry’s personality, Bob, is it’s just too goddamn diffi-
cult for us to deal with. I mean, let me just put it out there for a minute, for
this reason. If we—you know, I have, I beat him over the head time and
again, you know, to get him to—you see, he’s trying to get involved in the
Mideast again. I said, “Don’t do it.”
You’ve got to remember that Henry is a terribly difficult individual to have
around, you know, in terms of our, just our whole general morale. I mean, he
just really is, Bob. It’s too damn bad. But he’s making himself so, and I think
it’s because of his, this psychotic hatred that he has for Bill [Rogers]. What
the Christ is the matter with him? What the hell is it? I mean, he—hardly
anybody believes that—is Rogers out to get him? Is that it? … Every day. It’s
something or other … the way State’s cutting him out, cutting us up, the
things they are doing, the horrible things they are doing.6

Kissinger’s focus on Rogers bordered on the obsessive, and accounts

of squabbles between the two are ubiquitous. The diary of Haldeman is
replete with examples7:
August 29, 1969: “E (Ehrlichman), K (Kissinger) and I had a long ses-
sion with Mitchell, primarily about Rogers problem.”8
March 10, 1970: “I learned from Haig this morning that K had really
battled with Rogers on phone yesterday about Laos, and the whole deal
is really building up. P [President]’s refusal to see K today won’t help, but
it is just because he doesn’t want to get into Middle East with K.” 9
June 23, 1970: “K in for long talk, about his worries about very adverse
stories about his dating [actress] Jill St. John. He thinks Roger is planting
them to destroy him. May be.”10
July 13, 1970: “K in to see me for his periodic depression about Rogers.
This time he’s found Rogers is meeting Dobrynin tomorrow, and K is
absolutely convinced he’s going to try to make his own Vietnam settlement,
26 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

plus get a Summit meeting, and take full credit for all. K’s temptation is
to confront Bill [Rogers] and insist they have it out with P, or else one will
have to leave. Thinks he can scare him out. I urged against it on grounds
he might not scare out and P can’t follow through, especially before elec-
tions. Actually it would be counterproductive for K, and hurt him badly
with P, and solve nothing.”11
July 15, 1970: “K is building up a new head of steam about Rogers….
K still feels this is all part of plan to do him in and to take over foreign
policy by State from White House. Talked to me several times and kept
repeating his charges and complaints but has no real alternative except to
fire Rogers, which isn’t very likely…. Then tonight Haig called, P had called
K at a party to say he’d called Rogers to congratulate him on his press con-
ference today. K really distressed by this…”12
September 10, 1970: “K got me at end of staff meeting to plead that
Rogers be kept out of meeting with Golda Meir next week, on grounds he’s
most hated man in Israel and would be a disaster.”13
An important factor behind Nixon’s decision to put Rogers at the helm
of negotiations in the Middle East was that he worried that Kissinger’s Jew-
ishness would create the perception that the United States favored Israel.
In an Oval Office discussion on March 9, 1971, with Haldeman and Ehrlich-
man, Nixon discussed Kissinger’s outrage over an article in Newsweek
which referenced his being Jewish. Said Nixon:
What apparently set him all off on this…. Anybody who is Jewish cannot han-
dle it. Even though Henry’s, I know, as fair as he can possibly be, he can’t help
but be affected by it. You know, put yourself in his position. Good God! You
know, his people were crucified over there. Jesus Christ! And five million of
them, popped into bake ovens! What the hell does he feel about all this?
Haldeman responded, “Well what he ought to recognize is even if he
had no problems at all on it, it’s wrong for the country, for American policy
in the Middle East, to be made by a Jew.” Nixon agreed as Haldeman con-
tinued, “And he ought to recognize that. Because, then if anything goes
wrong … they’re going to say it’s because a goddamn Jew did it rather than
blame Americans.”14
Rogers was confident, with some reason, that a Middle East settle-
ment might be achievable. There had been several diplomatic initiatives
put forth by the Soviet Union in the last months of 1968 for an Arab-
Israeli agreement. These proposals, though unworkable as they stood,
demonstrated a considerable distance from the former Soviet positioning
as one-sided defenders of the Arab cause. In December, the Soviets pro-
posed bilateral talks with the United States in order to attempt to find a
 2. The Prelude to War 27

diplomatic solution. Nixon was doubtful of the Soviets’ intentions, but will-
ing to give them a try as a test to see if they truly wanted peace.15
Likely fueling the president’s interest in new solutions was the failure
of the diplomatic mission of Dr. Gunnar Jarring, Swedish ambassador to
the Soviet Union, a mission that had been mandated by United Nations
Resolution 242. Despite Jarring’s efforts to broker a settlement, heavy
fighting, named the “War of Attrition,” continued along the Suez Canal,
and on the Syrian border with Israel.
In addition to the Soviet proposal, French president Charles de Gaulle,
whom both Nixon and Kissinger greatly admired, had pushed for talks on
the Middle East between France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet
Union. When de Gaulle first proposed the meeting between the “four great
powers” during the Johnson Administration, the former president is
reputed to have asked sarcastically, “Who are the other two?” and didn’t
give the matter much consideration.16 In February 1969, however, Nixon
approved Rogers’ recommendation for two sets of parallel talks, the first
between the four powers, which the president saw as being largely for
show, and the second between the Americans and Soviets, where the seri-
ous business could be done.
Despite Nixon’s apprehensions, Rogers remained at the center of nego-

Soviet ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin and Richard Nixon.
28 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

tiations. He appeared to be making some initial progress, and the Soviets,

particularly Anatoly Dobrynin, Ambassador to the U.S., seemed to be act-
ing in earnest. It was not long, however, until Kissinger, who felt that the
time was not ripe for substantive and detailed negotiations, began to under-
cut the negotiations in his discussions with Nixon and the Israeli ambas-
sador, Yitzhak Rabin, who was concerned that the talks excluded Israel.17
According to Rabin, during this time, “the erosion in the United States’
position [with Israel] reached such proportions that our minister in Wash-
ington, Shlomo Argov, asked … that Israel denounce the current American
moves—even at the risk of sparking a confrontation with the United
States.”18
On October 28, 1969, Rogers presented a policy statement to the
Soviets that would ultimately be known as the “Rogers Plan,” after the sec-
retary announced the details publicly in a December 9, 1969, speech. In
this plan, which was rejected by Israel, Egypt and the Soviet Union, Rogers
articulated an American policy of evenhandedness, one embracing “friendly
ties with both Arabs and Israelis.” In a well-publicized speech, Rogers
announced:
To call for Israeli withdrawal as envisaged in the U.N. resolution without
achieving agreement on peace would be partisan toward the Arabs. To call
on the Arabs to accept peace without Israeli withdrawal would be partisan
toward Israel. Therefore, our policy is to encourage the Arabs to accept a
permanent peace based on a binding agreement and to urge the Israelis to
withdraw from occupied territory when their territorial integrity is assured
as envisaged by the Security Council resolution.19

While the press raved about the Rogers Plan, within the Administra-
tion it was met with overwhelming opposition. The day after delivering his
speech, Rogers attempted to defend it during a meeting of the National Secu-
rity Council. Nearly everyone present objected to the strategy, including
Nixon, who believed that the State Department was losing ground in the
region. Nixon pointed out that in the eleven months since he had taken
office, the Soviets had strengthened their position in the Middle East, while
the American position with the moderate Arab states had worsened. The
president felt by calling on Israel to withdraw from the Arab territories
with only vague reassurances of peace, the Soviet Union would “come out
looking good.”20
Kissinger was the most vocal critic of the plan. He argued that Rogers
was headed down a “slippery slope” by pressuring Israel to withdraw from
the occupied territories. He predicted, “The longer Israel holds its con-
quered Arab territory, the longer the Soviets cannot deliver what the Arabs
 2. The Prelude to War 29

want.” In time, he argued, the Arabs would conclude that friendship with
the Soviet Union was “not very helpful,” and they would ultimately turn to
the U.S.21
In the end, Rogers’ plan appealed to neither the Israelis nor the Arabs.
His call for “Israeli withdrawal” alienated the Arabs since he did not insist
on total withdrawal. By contrast, the Israelis saw the speech as favoring
the Arabs, since Rogers allowed for only “insubstantial” changes to the
borders as they existed before the 1967 War—Israel saw the old borders
as not providing adequate security. Additionally, his call for a “just settle-
ment” of the refugee problem sparked Israeli fears of being flooded with
hostile Palestinians who would upset the demographic balance. Finally,
his stipulation that Jerusalem should be a “unified city for persons of all
faiths and nationalities” was unacceptable to both sides.22
When the plan was released, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir fumed.
“Nobody in the world can make us accept it. We didn’t survive three wars
in order to commit suicide.”23 According to Seymour Hersh, on December
17, Nixon ordered White House aide Leonard Garment, a Jew and frequent
intermediary with the Israelis, to give private assurances to Meir that the
Rogers initiative would not have his full backing. Garment also quietly
passed the word to leaders in the American Jewish community.24
Still, the Israelis protested. On December 20, Israeli Ambassador
Yitzhak Rabin flew to Washington with an angry letter from Meir and
approval to launch a public campaign against the plan. According to
Rabin’s memoirs, in a private meeting with Kissinger, Rabin warned, “Let
me tell you in complete frankness, you are making a bad mistake. In taking
discussion of a peace settlement out of the hands of the parties and trans-
ferring it to the powers, you are fostering an imposed solution that Israel
will resist with all her might. I personally shall do everything within the
bounds of American law to arouse public opinion against the administra-
tion’s moves!”25
Kissinger had a warning of his own:
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 … given Rogers
a free hand; but as long as he himself is not publicly committed, you have a
chance of taking action. How you act is your affair. What you say to Rogers,
or against him, is for you to decide. But I advise you again: Don’t attack the
president!26

Opposition to the plan was pervasive. Egyptian president Nasser said

that he would not negotiate with the Israelis. Ambassador Dobrynin
30 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

announced that the Soviet Union would not distance itself from Egypt.
The plan catalyzed the Israeli lobby, and in February 1970, 70 senators and
280 representatives demanded that the Nixon administration stop bullying
Israel at the peace table and start selling Israel arms for use in battle.27
The Rogers plan was effectively dead on arrival. William Quandt cites
three reasons. First, he argues, it was based on the mistaken assumption
that the United States and Soviet Union could “deliver” their respective
clients. Second was the marginal involvement of the White House. Lastly,
Quandt writes, was that Rogers underestimated Israel’s “will and ability
to resist American pressure.”28
Of the Rogers Plan, Nixon wrote in his memoirs:
I knew that the Rogers Plan could never be implemented, but I believed that
it was important to let the Arab world know that the United States did not
automatically dismiss its case regarding the occupied territories or rule out a
compromise settlement of the conflicting claims. With the Rogers Plan on
the record, I thought it would be easier for the Arab leaders to propose
reopening relations with the United States without coming under attack
from the hawks and pro–Soviet elements in their own countries.29

In the aftermath of the Rogers Plan, the situation moved from bad to
worse, and fighting between Israel and Egypt raged on. As a stopgap meas-
ure, in the summer of 1970, Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco con-
vinced Meir and Nasser to reopen discussions with U.N. Ambassador
Jarring. In late July, Israel, Egypt and Jordan agreed to accept a 90-day
ceasefire. Though not foreseen at the time, the ceasefire was to have dele-
terious consequences. It unleashed powerful forces among the Fedayeen,
who were appalled that King Hussein of Jordan and Nasser would sell
them out by reducing hostilities.
In late August 1970, an emergency session of the Palestinian National
Council was convened in Amman, and some of the more radical groups
called for the overthrow of King Hussein. Before any consensus could be
reached, on September 6, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), led by George Habash, hijacked three commercial jet liners. A
fourth plane was hijacked three days later. Altogether, the PFLP had nearly
five hundred hostages, many of whom were American.30
Nixon was determined to take a tough stance. On September 10, he
placed the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg on semi-alert and six C-
130 transport planes were flown to Turkey, where they would be available
for the possible evacuation of Americans from Jordan. On September 11,
units of the Sixth Fleet left port and four more C-130s, escorted by twenty-
five F-4 jets, were flown to Turkey. That same day, the Fedayeen blew up
 2. The Prelude to War 31

the jets and moved the remaining fifty-four hostages, over half of whom
were Americans, to an undisclosed location.
On September 15, King Hussein announced that he was forming a
martial government. The following day, in what came to be known as Black
September, civil war broke out in Jordan, which threatened to overthrow
Hussein and lead to a possible superpower confrontation. Nixon and Meir
met on September 18. Though they never discussed the possibility of
Israeli intervention, this prospect became less remote on September 19,
when the first reports of a Syrian armored incursion into Jordan arrived
in Washington.31 Nixon recalled:
One thing was clear. We could not allow Hussein to be overthrown by a
Soviet-inspired insurrection. If it succeeded, the entire Middle East might
erupt in war: the Israelis would almost certainly take pre-emptive measures
against a Syrian-dominated radical government in Jordan; the Egyptians
were tied to Syria by military alliances; and Soviet prestige was on the line
with both the Syrians and Egyptians. Since the United States could not stand
idly by and watch Israel being driven into the sea, the possibility of a direct
U.S.-Soviet confrontation was uncomfortably high. It was a ghastly game of
dominoes, with a nuclear war waiting at the end.32

On September 20, Hussein issued an urgent appeal for American help.

Later that evening, Hussein requested intervention from any quarter against
heavy attacks from Syrian tanks.33 With the United States in crisis mode,
Kissinger stepped to the forefront. He was Nixon’s go-to man, and unlike
Rogers, he held the trust of the Israelis. After meeting with Nixon, Kissinger
reached Ambassador Rabin who was at a fund raising dinner in New York
with Golda Meir, and announced that King Hussein had requested that the
Israeli air force attack the Syrians. “Are you recommending that we respond
to the Jordanian request?” Rabin asked. Kissinger replied that he needed
more time to answer. He returned an hour later to unequivocally state,
“The request is approved and supported by the United States government.”
“Do you advise Israel to do it?” Rabin asked. “Yes,” replied Kissinger, “sub-
ject to your own considerations.”34
At 11:30 p.m. Rabin called with Meir’s reply—Israel would fly recon-
naissance planes at dawn and then pass judgment. At 5:15 a.m., Alexander
Haig, Kissinger’s deputy, who had just received a call from Rabin warning
that ground action might be necessary, awoke Kissinger with news from
the president. Nixon had decided that morning to tell Israel that the
United States agreed to Israeli ground action “in principle,” subject to con-
sulting with King Hussein.35 As negotiations over specifics unfolded, the
situation on the battlefield changed. The Jordanians had halted the Syrian
32 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

advance and Israeli intervention was no longer required. A possible Arab-

Israeli and superpower confrontation had been avoided.
On September 25, Kissinger phoned Rabin, conveying a message from
Nixon to Meir: “The president will never forget Israel’s role in preventing
the deterioration in Jordan and in blocking the attempt to overturn the
regime there…. These events will be taken into account in all future devel-
opments.”36 Nixon would be true to his word. When war broke out in Octo-
ber 1973, Kissinger would be secretary of state, and the United States would
play a crucial role in supporting Israel.
The years between the Jordanian crisis and the October War were
uninspired ones in the Middle East, and the attentions of Nixon and
Kissinger were focused in other directions. In 1971, the Vietnam War
fumed, and in May, Kissinger began a series of secret talks with the North
Vietnamese. In July, Kissinger made a secret visit to China to prepare the
way for Nixon’s momentous trip the following year. Serious discussions
were underway with the Soviet Union regarding détente. And 1972 was
an election year. The Middle East was low on the list of the Administra-
tion’s priorities.
Not that it was completely out of mind. On September 28, Nasser died,
and Egypt had a new president, albeit one who was seen as relatively pow-
erless and temporary—Anwar Sadat. Elliot Richardson, then Nixon’s sec-
retary of health, education and welfare, was sent by the president to attend
Nasser’s funeral, and reported back to Washington that Sadat would not
be president for any more than four to six weeks before someone more
fitting was elected or selected.37 Facing Sadat were the social, economic,
political and military challenges awaiting anyone who succeeded the iconic
Nasser. Sadat wrote in his autobiography:
We [Nasser and I] both shared the same fears about what might happen in
Egypt after Nasser’s departure. Nasser concurred with me that great burdens
were waiting his successor, and I laughed and told him: “Allah will have to
help the poor fellow”…. It certainly never crossed our minds that Nasser
would die in the very same month, or that I would be taking over in a new
process of transferring power. But that was the will of Allah.38

As Sadat biographer Joseph Finklestone has noted, one factor that

played to Sadat’s favor was a remarkable gift for oratory, a unique ability
to win over audiences with rhetoric that often did not give away his true
intentions. Writes Finklestone:
Speaking of war and peace, Sadat used the complex language which led to so
much misunderstanding. It has to be remembered that hardly any of Sadat’s
speeches had the preciseness that people in the West expect from their lead-
 2. The Prelude to War 33

ers in addresses to Parliament. They were rambling and discursive. They

might last for four hours and might consist of stories and anecdotes. His
experiences as a soldier and earlier as a boy in a village provided him with a
fund of homilies. In Egypt, as in every Arab country, where the oratorical
and homiletic have a special attraction, giving them almost the significance
of real events. Sadat’s long discourses were widely appreciated by the
masses.39

While the Nixon Administration kept an eye on Sadat, its attention

was subsumed by other events. In November 1971, radical Palestinian fac-
tions assassinated Jordan’s prime minister Wasfi al–Tal in Cairo. In Sep-
tember 1972, Palestinian guerrillas massacred eleven Israeli Olympic
athletes in Munich. However, with Kissinger distracted with Vietnam, the
opening to China and détente with the Soviets, Rogers reemerged as the
chief negotiator in the Middle East. At least for the time being.
Rogers attempted to resurrect the suspended peace talks. Senator
Henry Jackson had succeeded in passing a bill that provided Israel with
unprecedented access to arms, all on credit; in fiscal years 1971, 1972, and
1973 Israel received nearly a tenfold increase in military aid above the
prior three-year period.40 To Rogers, the need could not have been greater
for renewed efforts toward negotiations, especially since the U.S. had
adopted a policy that so clearly benefitted Israel.
In May 1971, he made the first visit by a secretary of state to Egypt
since 1953. It was interesting timing, given that just forty-eight hours ear-
lier, Sadat had arrested his vice president, Ali Sabry, a Soviet favorite,
when he learned of a possible coup against his government. Rogers saw
this as a possible sign that Sadat intended to lessen his dependence on the
Soviets. He was reassured after meeting with Sadat, who seemed to desire
a closer relationship with the United States. Roger’s subsequent visit to
Israel, however, proved to be far less satisfactory, hampered by Israeli per-
ceptions that he was pro–Arab, and a deep Israeli skepticism about Sadat’s
intentions.41
Though Rogers continued to explore avenues for negotiations, his
differences with Kissinger were far from over. Kissinger wanted to delay
the settlement process until such time as the Arabs realized that peace
would be unattainable without the United States. In Kissinger’s words,
“the longer the stalemate continued, the more obvious would it become
that the Soviet Union had failed to deliver what the Arabs wanted. As time
went on, its Arab clients were bound to conclude that friendship with the
Soviet Union was not the key to realizing their aims.”42 Rather than pushing
for an overall agreement, which Kissinger felt would require applying
34 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

extraordinary pressure on Israel, Kissinger favored a limited agreement

that would not outline a final settlement.43 Unlike Rogers, Kissinger
believed that only a self-confident Israel would be willing to make the nec-
essary concessions for a peace agreement.
Yet by 1971, for Rogers, the beginning of the end was in sight. In March,
Missouri Democratic Senator Stuart Symington made headlines by declar-
ing in a Senate speech that Kissinger was “secretary of state in everything
but title” making Rogers an object of ridicule. “It is rather sad,” Symington
said, “that wherever one goes in the afternoon or evening around this town,
one hears our very able secretary of state laughed at, because they say he’s
only the secretary of state in name.” In a press conference, Nixon called
Symington’s comments a “cheap shot,” and referred to Rogers as “my oldest
and closest friend in the Cabinet.” Writes Seymour Hersh, “Salvaging
Rogers became an important crusade for the president, and that decision
reflected an astute judgment: Rogers would go along, and be content to be
secretary of state in title only, as long as he did not suffer too much humil-
iation in public. Nixon’s goal was not only to protect Rogers but to hold
on to the White House’s ability to make policy on its own.”44
In the end, the third Rogers initiative failed, and Kissinger assumed
the mantle of chief Middle East negotiator. Middle East policy would now
be directed by Nixon and Kissinger, and would follow the basic tenets of
what came to be known as the “Nixon Doctrine,” a term coined in July
1969. Its structure may be summed up in a February 18, 1970, address that
Nixon made to Congress:
Its central thesis is that the United States will participate in the defense and
development of allies and friends, but that America cannot—and will not—
conceive all the plans, design all the programs, execute all the decisions, and
undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world. We will help
where it makes a difference and is considered in our interest.45
In other words, the Administration would play an active role in sup-
porting its allies, but it was not willing to directly shoulder the responsi-
bility of their defense, as it had done in Vietnam. Rather, the United States
would support proxy allies, such as Israel and Iran, but it would draw the
line at American military intervention.
On November 23, 1971, in anticipation of a visit by Meir to Washing-
ton and in an effort to put pressure on the Nixon administration, the Sen-
ate, in a vote sponsored by Senator Henry Jackson, voted by 81 to 14 in
favor of providing $500 million in military credits for Israel, with half the
sum earmarked to cover the purchase of F-4 Phantom jet fighters. That
same day, a group of eight senators from both parties met with Rogers to
 2. The Prelude to War 35

urge acceptance of the measure. Roger argued that providing the Israelis
with the Phantoms would “only make them more stubborn” in negotia-
tions.46 One senator, incensed, threatened Rogers that he would take the
matter to the president. A confident Rogers responded, “That is your priv-
ilege, but I am sure that the president will back me up.”47
It would prove to be one more argument that Rogers would lose. Dur-
ing Meir’s visit, Kissinger eclipsed Rogers in closed-door meetings. The
United States agreed to supply Israel with new Phantoms and Skyhawk
missiles over a three-year period, marking the first long-term arms deal
ever between Washington and Jerusalem. Both sides agreed to focus on
a limited settlement with the Arabs with the understanding that Israel
would not be bound by the Rogers plan. Additionally, it was agreed that
talks on an interim settlement would be conducted on two tracks. The first
track would be spearheaded by Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco
and would be between Egypt and Israel. The second would consist of secret
meetings between Kissinger and Dobrynin with the promise that these
talks would not result in any pressure on the Israelis to accept a deal con-
cocted by the superpowers. Also, it was agreed that Rabin and Kissinger
would hold secret discussions.48 Notably absent from the picture was
Rogers.
In the end, it would be Kissinger’s strategy of militarily bolstering Israel
while dangling the carrot of negotiations to the Arabs that would triumph.
It fit nicely with the Nixon Doctrine. Importantly, with Nixon’s upcoming
visit to Peking in February 1972, the last thing the White House wanted
was to rock the boat. And with a presidential election in November, Middle
East negotiations would be disruptive politically. The White House explic-
itly told the State Department not to push any Middle East initiatives until
after the coming elections.49 For the time being, the strategy in the Middle
East amounted to a policy of delay, one of pursuing Kissinger’s deliberate,
gradual course. While optimum for the Israelis, it was not yet clear to the
U.S. just how unacceptable the status quo was to the Arabs.

The Failure of Intellect

With Kissinger advocating a gradualist approach to negotiations in
the Middle East while focusing his energy on Vietnam, China and the
Soviet Union, and Rogers’ attempts to broker a peace settlement bearing
little fruit, the new Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, became convinced
that war was his only alternative to retrieve lost Egyptian territory. In ret-
rospect, it is difficult to imagine how the signs of war were missed. In the
36 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

Nixon meeting with Kissinger regarding the resignation of Vice President Spiro
Agnew on October 10, 1973. Agnew’s resignation due to allegations of tax fraud
occurred during the first week of the war.

fall of 1973, warnings, sometimes indirect, often unequivocal, came from

multiple directions, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the
Soviet Union. Additionally, evidence of an Arab military buildup from U.S.
and Israeli intelligence continued to mount. Yet as Nixon recalled in his
memoirs, “the news of the imminent attack on Israel took us completely
by surprise.”50
While Nixon and Kissinger realized that the Israeli occupation of
Egyptian and Syrian territory was unsustainable, they misinterpreted the
signs of war that were emanating with increasing frequency from the Mid-
dle East. Despite the immense numerical superiority of the Arab armies—
Israel’s population of 3.2 million paled to the 55.2 million Egyptians, Iraqis,
Jordanians and Syrians combined—this had never stopped Israel from
victory in the past. In 1956, allied with Great Britain and France, Israel
quickly defeated Egyptian forces in the Sinai. In 1967, Israel launched a
brilliant preemptive strike and routed the forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
Additionally, the qualitative differences were seen as insurmountable.
The discipline, training, and dedication of the Israeli Air Force and Army
were seen as decisively important factors in the past that would serve to
guarantee future Israeli victories. The Israeli Army was bolstered by a
 2. The Prelude to War 37

“never again” philosophy stemming from the Holocaust.51 In part due to

hubris, in part due to a lack of foresight in imagining that Sadat might
stage a limited attack with narrow objectives in order to break the diplo-
matic stalemate, as opposed to total war which would clearly lead to an
Egyptian defeat, both Israel and the United States allowed themselves to
be lulled into a precarious state of complacency.
It was not because Egypt and Syria lacked sophisticated weaponry.
Following the 1967 War, both countries had procured highly advanced
Soviet arms, especially air defense and anti-tank capabilities aimed at
undermining the Israeli air and tank superiority By the early 1970s Egypt
and Syria boasted the world’s densest networks of SA-2, SA-3, and cutting-
edge SA-6 Soviet surface-to-air missile batteries. They integrated modern
Soviet bloc anti-tank weapons, such as the SAM-7 shoulder-fired missile,
the RPG-7 rocket launcher, and the AT-3 Sagger wire-guided missile. Yet
the idea that the Arab countries would attempt another military excursion
after their sound beating in the Six-Day War seemed, at the time, prepos-
terous, and the specter of these capabilities were discounted by Israeli
intelligence.52
As early as 1971, Sadat had threatened to go to battle. In an address
at the Naval Academy in Alexandria, on June 22, 1971, he declared, “I fully
understand my duty towards my homeland, towards national problems
and towards our courageous armed forces…. I am telling you in all sin-
cerity and clarity that the year of 1971 is a decisive one, for we cannot wait
forever.”53 However, the year passed with limited hostilities.
Despite the Egyptian president’s seemingly direct warnings, he was
sending mixed signals, particularly when his action are viewed through a
Cold War lens. The divide between Egypt and the Soviets deepened early
in Sadat’s presidency. In July 1971, he condemned a Communist coup d’état
in Sudan, claiming he did not want a Communist regime on Egypt’s
doorstep. On October 11, he visited Moscow and was promised shipments
of military equipment, including aircraft, after he argued, “I don’t mind,
my friends, if you keep me one step behind Israel, but I find it a bit too
much to be twenty steps behind her!”54 By February 1972, the arms had
yet to arrive. Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev blamed it on the
Soviet bureaucracy and red tape. “I am not convinced of that,” was Sadat’s
reply, “and if this is repeated, I will have to act—a decision will have to be
taken.”55 Given these developments, it was easy to imagine that an
unbridgeable gulf was developing between Moscow and Cairo, and poten-
tially, an easing of tensions between Cairo and Jerusalem.
A source of the conflict between Sadat and the Soviets was that as
38 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

much as Sadat saw war as the only solution to the impasse of regaining the
Sinai from Israel, Moscow continued to emphasize the desirability of a
negotiated settlement. Speaking of his meeting with the Soviet leaders on
March 1, 1971, Sadat declared in a radio speech: “The Soviet Union’s view-
point was that a peaceful solution was the only solution.”56
According to Kohler, Gouré and Harvey, Moscow realized that it had
to tread carefully. On the one hand, they did not want to jeopardize détente;
on the other hand, they were reluctant to alienate their Arab allies. They
observe:
Although Brezhnev in a speech on March 21, 1972, warned that “Arab coop-
eration is expanding and the defensive military strength of the Arab coun-
tries has greatly increased,” the Soviet Union seemed too involved in
developing its détente policy with the U.S. to seriously consider supporting
Sadat’s insistent calls for a renewal of military action. Nevertheless, Moscow
also recognized that to ignore this problem threatened to alienate not only
Sadat but also Syria’s President Assad.57

The same Soviet position was evident in its critique of the Syrian
Communist Party Program in May 1971. According to the transcript, the
Soviet representatives rejected a military solution to the Arab-Israeli con-
flict because a new war could “lead to a confrontation between the Soviets
and the Americans.” The transcript continues:
We do not conceal the fact that we are not in favor of this except in the case
of extreme necessity. Our opposition is not to a military solution per se, but
arises only because we are realistic. This does not prevent us from working
to increase the military fighting capability of the Arab countries.58

In late May 1972, Nixon made his historic first trip to the Soviet Union
for a series of talks with Brezhnev, focusing on détente. The joint Soviet-
American statement that followed made scant reference to the Middle East.
Only a mild statement calling for “military relaxation” was included. Sadat
was infuriated. He felt abandoned by the Soviets, whom he saw as capit-
ulating to Israel, which was receiving arms from the United States in grow-
ing numbers. Writes Craig Daigle, “There can be no mistaking the fact that
the Middle East agreements at the summit ‘proved the last straw’ for Sadat.
By telling the Egyptian president, who had promised his people 1971 would
be the year of decision, that 1972 would also pass without a decision of
any kind, and by calling for a ‘military relaxation’ in the area for the benefit
of détente, Soviet and American leaders left Sadat in an untenable posi-
tion.”59
On July 6, Sadat received the official Soviet analysis of the talks with
 2. The Prelude to War 39

Nixon. It explained that no progress had been achieved on the Middle

East question. Worse, no mention was made of the promised weapons,
which had yet to arrive. Sadat ordered the immediate withdrawal of the
15,000 Soviet military advisers from Egypt, and demanded that all Soviet
equipment be either sold to Egypt or withdrawn to the Soviet Union. By
July 16, Sadat had made good, and an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 advisers
and four Soviet MIG 25 aircraft had been returned to the Soviet Union.60
Journalists Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez argue that the normally
used term “expulsion,” regarding the withdrawal of Soviet advisers is mis-
leading and inaccurate. “We contend,” they write, “that the withdrawal of
Soviet troops from Egypt in 1972 was by prior consent.” They continue:
“Actually the personnel withdrawn in the summer of 1972 consisted mainly
of the integral Soviet units which had been stationed in Egypt since 1969–
70, while at least the bulk of the genuine advisers remained—and contin-
ued preparing the Egyptian forces for the cross-channel offense.61
However, Sadat does not support this view in his memoirs. He writes:
One of the reasons behind my decision was the Soviet attitude to me; but
another important reason was that within the strategy I had laid down, no
war could be fought while Soviet experts worked in Egypt. The Soviet
Union, the West, and Israel misinterpreted my decision to expel the military
experts and reached an erroneous conclusion, which in fact served my strat-
egy, as I had expected—that it was an indication that I had finally decided
not to fight my own battle. That interpretation made me happy; it was pre-
cisely what I wanted them to think….
Yet another reason for my decision was that I wanted to put the Soviet
Union in its place—in its natural position as a friendly country, no more, no
less. The Soviets had thought at one time that they had Egypt in their back
pocket, and the world had come to think that the Soviet Union was our
guardian. I wanted to tell the Russians that the will of Egypt was entirely
Egyptian; I wanted to tell the whole world that we are always our own mas-
ters. Whoever wished to talk to us should come over and do it, rather than
approach the Soviet Union.62

Additionally, at the time of the expulsion, a war of words erupted

between Egypt and the Soviets. On August 19, the Egyptian newspaper
Akhbar al–Yom charged that the Soviet Union did not supply enough arms
to Egypt to enable it “to eliminate the traces of the [Israeli] aggression.” A
week later, the Soviet newspaper Izvestia countered that the U.S.S.R. had
fulfilled its commitments to Egypt and that “the only basis for peace in
the Middle East is the total liberation of Arab territories from the Zionist
invaders.”63
By the end of the month, Sadat made diplomatic overtures to the
40 Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War

White House. Significantly, backchannel communications were established

between Cairo and Washington. A secret meeting between Kissinger and
Hafiz Ismail, Sadat’s national security adviser, was set for early in 1973.
Kissinger was baffled by Sadat’s decision to expel the Soviets. Why
had he not consulted the U.S. first and asked for a quid pro quo? It seemed
to him, at the time, to be the epitome of diplomatic naiveté. In retrospect,
Kissinger acknowledged that Sadat had used an “extraordinary tactic that
no one fathomed.” He writes in his memoirs:
If a leader announces his real intentions sufficiently frequently and grandilo-
quently, no one will believe him. Sadat had first declared 1971 as the “year of
decision.” We had believed him…. Sadat made no military move that year or
in 1972. Ominous threats continued to issue from Cairo, but … our assess-
ment was that Sadat had few if any military options. Israel’s military superi-
ority appeared unchallengeable. Sadat could not escape his dilemmas by
launching an all-out military offensive since it was bound to fail…. There
seemed no rational military purpose for it…. Thus it would follow that
Egypt had no choice but to await the American diplomatic initiative.64

At some point in 1972, Sadat began to prepare for war. According to

Badri, Magdoub, and Zohdy, the decision was made in November, when
Egyptian political and military leaders reached agreement that “Egypt
could never escape from the stagnated state of no war, no peace, without
recourse to armed force.”65 Sadat biographer Raphael Israeli writes that
beginning on July 12, 1972, Sadat began in earnest to execute a plan of
disinformation when he leaked a report saying that the Egyptians had not
been able to use the sophisticated weaponry that had been left by the Sovi-
ets. “Such a leak was calculated to indicate to the West and to Israel,” says
Israeli, “that Egypt could no longer man and operate her most advanced
weapons, therefore she was unlikely to wage war in the foreseeable future.”
This leak was followed by more detailed “reports” about the Egyptians
having insufficient and badly maintained arms as well as poorly trained
personnel to operate them. According to Sadat, Israeli writes, “both Israel
and the West ‘swallowed’ these reports and ‘went to sleep,’ assuming that
Egypt was technologically doomed and that all the sophisticated weaponry
in her possession had become useless.”66
On January 2, 1973, Kissinger received a report stating that on Decem-
ber 17, a representative of King Hussein, Zayd Rifai, met with Sadat, who
proposed that Egypt and Jordan resume diplomatic relations and work
together to force a political settlement on Israel. Sadat told Rifai that he
had become convinced that the only way to regain Egyptian lost territories
was to start a war with Israel. Only by hitting “hard and deep” in Israel,
 2. The Prelude to War 41

Sadat said, and inflicting a sizable number of civilian casualties, could Egypt
convince Israel that it would be best for them to surrender occupied ter-
ritories.67
Warnings continued to mount. On January 28, Dobrynin handed
Kissinger a message, which emphasized the urgency of the United States
and Soviet Union working together to settle the Middle East conflict. It
read:
It is necessary to emphasize that time is passing while the situation in the
Middle East remains complicated and dangerous. If effective measures are
not taken, the events there can get out of control. There is no doubt that if
hostilities in the Middle East erupt once again then—taking into account
existent ties with this area of other states including major powers—there
could develop quite unwelcome consequences for the cause of international
security, and it is difficult to envisage what would be the end of it and for
how long these complications would persist.68

Kissinger was unfazed. Meanwhile, Nixon was growing impatient with

Kissinger. High on his agenda was achieving what he saw as the dual objec-
tives of détente with the Soviets and diminishing Soviet influence in the
Middle East. Additionally, Nixon was sensitive to the growing restlessness
and antipathy of the Arab world to the status quo. It was his last term in
office, and the president, who had yet to feel the sting of Watergate, wanted
results. Nixon noted in his memoirs of February 3:
I hit Henry hard on the Mideast thing. He now wants to push it past the
Israeli elections in October, but I told him unless we did it this year, we
wouldn’t get it done at all in the four-year term. I spoke to Henry about the
need to get going…. I am pressing him hard because I don’t want him to get
off the hook with regard to the need to make a settlement this year because
we won’t be able to make it next year, and of course, not thereafter with ’76
coming up. He brought that up himself so apparently the message is getting
through. What he’s afraid is that Rogers, et al. will get ahold of the issue and
will try to make a big public play on it and that it will break down. On the
other hand, Henry has constantly put off moving on it each time, suggesting
that the political problems were too difficult. This is a matter, which I, of
course, will have to judge.69

Nixon also acknowledged the challenges to reaching a settlement

posed by American Jews. He continues:
He [Kissinger] agreed that the problem with the Israelis in Israel was not
nearly as difficult as the Jewish community here, but I am determined to bite
this bullet and do it now because we just can’t let the thing ride and have a
hundred million Arabs hating us and providing a fishing ground not only for
radicals but, of course, for the Soviets.70
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the

free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this
work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase
“Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of
the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or
online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand,
agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual
property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree
to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease
using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for
obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms
of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only

be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by
people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.
There are a few things that you can do with most Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the
full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There
are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™
electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and
help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright
law in the United States and you are located in the United
States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying,
distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works
based on the work as long as all references to Project
Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will
support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free
access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for
keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the
work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement
by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full
Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge
with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside
the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to
the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying,
displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works
based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The
Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright
status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project

Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project
Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed,
viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United

States and most other parts of the world at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United
States, you will have to check the laws of the country
where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of
the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to
anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges.
If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of
paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use
of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth
in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and
distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder.
Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™
License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright
holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files
 containing a part of this work or any other work associated with
Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute

this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1
with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the
Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if
you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project
Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or
other format used in the official version posted on the official
Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must,
at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy,
a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy
upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or
other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project
Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™
works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or

providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive
from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
 payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt
that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project
Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different
terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain
permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3
below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on,
transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright
law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these
efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium
on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as,
but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data,
transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property
infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be
read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except

for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in
paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic
work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for
damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE
THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT
EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE
THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you
paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you
received the work from. If you received the work on a physical
medium, you must return the medium with your written
explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu
of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.
If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund
in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set

forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’,
WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this
agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this
agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the
maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable
state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of
this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the

Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless
from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you
do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project
Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or
deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect
you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission

of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new
computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of
volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project
Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™
collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In
2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was
created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project
Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your
efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-
profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the
laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status
by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or
federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions
to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and
your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500

West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact
links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation’s website and official page at
www.gutenberg.org/contact
 Section 4. Information about Donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission
of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works
that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form
accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated
equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly
important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws

regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of
the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform
and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many
fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not
solicit donations in locations where we have not received written
confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine
the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states

where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know
of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from
donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot

make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations
received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp
our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current

donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a
number of other ways including checks, online payments and
credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About

Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could
be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose
network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several

printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by
copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus,
we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any
particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear
about new eBooks.
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com