Shuttle to Disengagement

Never before in a quarter-century of bitter Middle East diplomatic negotiations has a U.S. Secretary of State been so handsomely treated by both sides. "You have made history this week," said a smiling Israeli Premier Golda Meir to Henry Kissinger. Five hours later and 600 miles away in Egypt, President Anwar Sadat embraced Kissinger, called him "Brother" and said warmly: "Let us hope that the road we paved is for a lasting peace."

The praise and affection were certainly deserved, for Kissinger almost singlehanded had worked out an agreement to disengage Israeli and Egyptian forces along the Suez Canal. He had achieved what President Nixon called "the first significant step toward a permanent peace in the Middle East."

Under the terms of the settlement, Israel agreed to pull back forces that have been in the Sinai for seven years. At the same time, Egypt, whose army moved across the canal during the October war, agreed to thin out its forces.

Aches and Pains. Kissinger's principal advantage in last week's negotiations was his dizzying, diplomatic milk run aboard Air Force Two, his blue and white 707 jet, between Jerusalem and the village of Aswan on the upper Nile, where Sadat was recovering from a bad case of bronchitis. Kissinger made three trips between Sadat and Meir in Jerusalem-- who was also ailing, with a painful case of shingles--before he was able to reach an agreement. But by week's end, in a dramatic demonstration of his achievement, he had only to make one final flight between Jerusalem and Aswan to get the signatures of both Meir and Sadat on a document spelling out the most important issues on which both sides agreed. Though its contents were not made public, the pact signed by the two heads of government specified, among other things, the numbers and types of weapons each side would be allowed to keep in the Sinai.

Meanwhile, yet another agreement was being jointly signed in the tent at Kilometer 101 on the Cairo-Suez road, where the disengagement talks had commenced three months ago. Under the watchful eye of the United Nations representative, Lieut. General Ensio Siilasvuo of Finland, the chiefs of staff of Israel and Egypt each placed their names. Then Israeli General David Elazar and Egyptian General Mohamed Abdel Ghani el Gamasi sat down over coffee to discuss implementation of their agreement. The document they had signed allowed each side five days to plan a withdrawal of forces to new and separate positions (see map next page). They have 49 days to complete the pullout. The Egyptians had demanded Israeli withdrawal to the Mitla and Giddi passes in Sinai in two weeks; the Israelis had requested six to eight.

The settlement pledged the belligerents to a "scrupulous" observance of disengagement, defined the broad perimeters of troop reduction and its timing, and emphasized that disengagement around the Suez Canal was only the first step toward a "final, just and durable peace." According to reports in Jerusalem, it allows the Egyptians to keep a token force of eight battalions, or 7,000 men and only 30 tanks, in the desert.

(There are now 60,000 Egyptian troops in Sinai.) The Israelis will pull their 40,000 troops back from the west bank of the Suez Canal and most of their forces from the eastern side to a line extending from Baluza, near the Mediterranean, to Ras el-Sudr on the Gulf of Suez, through the Mitla and Giddi passes. They are allowed to station 7,000 troops there. No missiles or airplanes are to be within 18 miles of the demilitarized zone.

Issues and Anxieties. Kissinger considers compromise the essence of negotiations, and compromise is essentially what he achieved. The Israelis had been forced to make a military retreat for the first time in 17 years. In addition, the Kissinger negotiations denied Meir's government the face-to-face meetings with Egypt that Israel had originally demanded as a sign of good faith. Nevertheless, by pulling back, the Israelis will gain a large measure of security--since, under the secret section of the negotiations, the U.S. is believed to have guaranteed Israel's existence--and they can begin to demobilize some of the reserves whose long stint of duty is damaging the Israeli economy.

Egypt also had to make concessions. Sadat had insisted at first that the Israeli pullback be only the first step in a total withdrawal from the Sinai, but there is apparently no mention of this point in the pact. Nevertheless, the agreement removes the immediate threat of renewed fighting and enables Sadat to get on with his economic development plans for Egypt.

Although disengagement was toasted as an Israeli-Egyptian accomplishment, both participants agreed that most of the credit goes to Kissinger. Said Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban: "He was able to explain to each party the perceptions, issues and anxieties of the other." In a sense, Kissinger, in his shuttle between the capitals, was protecting his earlier accomplishments. It had been he who worked out the cease-fire that ended the October war. And it was Kissinger again who flew off to take personal charge when the rhythm of the disengagement talks, which had moved from Kilometer 101 to Geneva, appeared to be slowing.

Meeting Kissinger in Washington earlier this month, Israeli Defense Secretary Moshe Dayan had proposed that the Secretary of State resume his intermediary role. The Egyptians were agreeable; indeed, when Kissinger reached the Nileside town of Aswan two weeks ago, he planned to stay in the region no longer than four days. Sadat asked him:

"Why confine it to getting a proposal for Geneva? Why not finish it while you are here? We can talk to you more easily than we can talk in Geneva."

Thus Kissinger commenced his six-day shuttle. Three times Air Force Two made the 1,200-mile round trip between Aswan, 450 miles south of Cairo, and the newly renamed Ben-Gurion International Airport at Lod, outside Tel Aviv. From there, his party of 40 diplomats, security men and correspondents helicoptered or drove to Jerusalem.

Untying Knots. The round trips, reported TIME Washington Correspondent John Mulliken, who accompanied Kissinger, were a study in contrasts. Aswan was summery warm; Jerusalem was wet from winter rains and, toward week's end, the season's first snowstorm. At one end, between working lunches and late-night discussions, Kissinger went sightseeing at the Soviet-built Aswan High Dam and the 4,000-year-old partially submerged Temple of Philae. At the other, he toured the Israeli National Museum's collection of Dead Sea Scrolls and the Billy Rose Art Garden.

Gradually, reported Mulliken, "the tone and tempo of the shuttle diplomacy improved. At the outset, both sides offered what one member of the U.S. party called 'total generalities.' But slowly, as negotiations continued, they shifted to 'absolute specificalities.' The Kissinger party knew that talks were succeeding when both Egyptian and Israeli officials pulled out maps on which specific points in Sinai were penciled in as withdrawal points in the line of disengagement. By midweek the two governments had apparently placed absolute trust in the U.S. Secretary of State."

In Cairo, Egyptians called him "Halal al-Uqad," literally the "man who unties knots"--a reference to the wise elder in Egyptian villages who is called upon to solve every problem from philandering husbands to failing crops.

The only serious objection to Kissinger's role during the week came from the suspicious Israeli press and from that country's right-wing opposition. Among columnists commenting acidly on "the Kissinger Festival" was Yoel Marcus of Ha'aretz. He suggested that the Secretary stay in Israel a few hours longer to form the new coalition government for Premier Meir. A conservative group called Citizens for the Prevention of National Disaster warned against a Middle East peace along the lines of the Kissinger "peace" in Viet Nam. It placed newspaper ads appealing to Israel's leading advocate in the U.S. Senate: SENATOR JACKSON: STOP KISSINGER. Knesset Opposition Member Shmuel Tamir called the agreement "Middle East Munich, 1974."

The accord was no Munich. Neither was it a foolproof solution for one of the world's most troubled areas. U.S. observers called it fragile and worried that the two sides eventually might not find themselves compatible. "You can't make an agreement to stop people from going to war," said one. For one thing, implementation of the agreement depends upon good will. For another, other parties are involved in the Middle East fighting who had scant part in last week's negotiations.

Untiring Efforts. Before returning to Washington, Kissinger flew off to confer with some of those other parties, stopping first to see King Hussein of Jordan and then going on to Damascus to meet with Syrian leaders, who have so far steadfastly boycotted all peace negotiations. Though he had achieved disengagement in the Sinai, there were such knotty problems remaining as the fate of the Palestinian refugees and the ultimate control of Jerusalem. Tartly commented The Arab World, a daily digest of Middle Eastern news published in Beirut: "Judging by the fact that Kissinger had to visit the Middle East three times before even the disengagement problem was sorted out, he might, if he is going to follow the same course, spend the rest of his working life shuttling between Israel and the Arab states trying to narrow gaps."

Not likely. The essential point of last week's negotiations was that both sides earnestly wanted peace, and the untiring efforts of one man could help them achieve it. If this much progress could be gained in only six days, then shuttle diplomacy had certainly proved its worth.

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