Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXVI, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1974–1976

168. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, March 31, 1975, 11 a.m.

PARTICIPANTS

• The Secretary of State
• Mr. John Stoessinger
• Mr. Elie Wiesel
• Mr. Hans Morgenthau
• Mr. Max Kampelman
• Mr. Jerry Bremer (Notetaker)

Kissinger: Would any of you like coffee or tea? How many is that, then. Three coffee, two tea. I tell you, Hans, it is beyond the competence of this Department to do coffee and tea together. If you all ask for coffee, or if you all ask for tea, we could handle it, but we can’t do it when it’s mixed.

Morgenthau: I always said the Department operated from a single-minded purpose.

Kissinger: In the 18 months I’ve been here, there has been no idiocy that I have predicted that has failed to come to pass. Anything which some bureaucracy could conceive, it has conceived.

First, I would like to get straight what basis we are talking on here. On a number of cases, frankly. I have talked to Jewish intellectuals who said they were in anguish over the situation. I told them our position, and then the next thing I know they published reports of our meetings, rarely reflecting what had actually been said or what had had happened. You should know that there is little in this meeting for me. You can help me intellectually, but I don’t need the meeting for public relations or for support on the Congress. But I do think, as a Jew, that we are in a critical period in which we will operate either in an atmosphere of trust or in an atmosphere of grave calamity.

Are we meeting as potential antagonists? I am not asking for your support, but I want to explain what happened. The current situation has the making of a disaster. At the end of the Cabinet meeting on the day that we broke up the talks, I said to the Israelis, you are not unreasonable but disastrous.² Rabin at the end said it was a Greek tragedy. As you know, in a Greek tragedy what happens is that both sides wind up bringing about the very consequences that they fear most.

Kampelman: Well, I would hope that we could be of some assistance to you, Mr. Secretary.

Kissinger: If you can, that’s fine. But if you do nothing, that’s up to you also. I know Hans will lascerate me anyway, but I admire him. By the way, your Encounter article was very good.

Morgenthau: Well, I said what I thought.

Kampelman: I don’t normally write in this area anyway but usually against the press. I am not an expert on the Middle East. As far as I’m concerned this is a confidential, off-the-record exchange of views with the hope that perhaps we can be of help.

Kissinger: Whether you tell the Israelis about this meeting or not is your business. I don’t want the Israelis to say that I am trying to organize the Jewish community.

Morgenthau: You used the word disaster. In what way is it a disaster?

Kissinger: Let me explain to you our strategy and why the Israeli decision is a historic disaster. First let me describe the situation in October 1973.

In October 1973, Israel confronted a united, radicalized Arab world, a western Europe on the record as supporting a maximum Arab position, the Soviet Union using military threats, and Japan moving rapidly to the Arab position—all of this without even addressing the question of the Group of 77 position.³ Israel at that time had one friend in the world to count on. That friend was under tremendous pressures that can only be generated by the close intellectual and cultural intimacy which we had with Europe.

In the Arab world, as a result of our airlift, the U.S. position was negligible. We faced an oil embargo, there was general panic and we faced also Geneva. Geneva could then have one possible outcome which was that Israel would be pushed back to the 1967 borders. Therefore, Israel at Geneva at that time would be totally defensive.

At this point I entered the sequence with a strategy of what we now call the step-by-step approach. Hans has said of it that if it succeeds it will be the greatest feat. I agree because it really should not have succeeded, logically. Hans, everything you said in the Encounter article about the pitfalls I faced, I agree with. You know Branch Rickey used to say that luck is the residue of design. Show me a statesman who succeeded without luck.

Our strategy was to segment the problem into component parts, to enable Israel to negotiate with the Arab states separately other than on the basis of final frontiers, to maneuver the USSR at the same time since we alone could produce progress for the Arabs; to scare off the Europeans and Japanese by saying that we had something going (this accounts for our strongly stated opposition to any political content in the Euro-Arab dialogue); and finally to induce the Arabs to engage in separate talks with the Israelis. Now some have criticized this as salami tactics. You can make that criticism and argue that we could have gone to Geneva and asked for an immediate final settlement with the enormous uproar that would have accompanied that.

However, I judged that if the process itself went along long enough with individual Arab states, the point would eventually be reached where one Arab state would say “This is enough. It simply is not worth fighting every six months for every 20 kilometers.” So my constant refrain with the Israelis (and the Israeli government will tell you) was: don’t yield too quickly. Make it hard for the Arabs to get gains. You know I invested a tremendous amount of time to enable the Israelis to look very difficult on these matters. The Soviets might also tire of this process, I judged, since their perception was that they were pouring billions of dollars into the Middle East and yet several countries were operating separately from Soviet control.

For example, Asad, who is really a remarkable man, I met with first for seven hours.⁴ He was vicious and violent. He threatened war, even against the United States. I was just as tough. He has the interesting technique of having me meet with him alone first and then he brings in his advisers to hear me repeat the same things I’ve said so that he’s not the sucker, I am. Anyway, the first meeting was the nastiest meeting I think I’ve had since I’ve been in office.

I told him and his advisers that if he had a war with the Israelis, he would lose it. If he threatened us with the Soviet Union, we would destroy him. Moreover, the Golan did not appear to be suitable for a disengagement agreement. The decisions were simply too big for Israel, since a withdrawal on the Golan would either be so small that it would insult Asad or big enough to touch the Israeli settlements on the Golan and thereby call in to question Israel’s very existence. I told Asad to think about this for a week. The next week, when I went back, he said he was prepared to talk about a Golan withdrawal with the Israelis.⁵ Now it is possible that we might have had some kind of principle on the Golan of withdrawing to the ’67 borders in stages giving Israel in return some kind of security zone. That might or might not have worked.

From the Soviet point of view, the point could have been reached, when someone in the USSR, someone in the Politburo says—this is a rathole, everything we pour in there is just going down a rathole.

Thus, our process required progress at stated intervals. Our trump card was always that we alone could get that progress. The essential quid pro quo for the Israelis was that the U.S. was protecting Israel from the international environment. I had even trained Faisal to stop talking publicly about the ’67 borders. The last time I saw him he said he would support our approach to progress even though he was not sure it would work.

Now, some people who are attacking me are saying that this would lead to a Czechoslovakia in the Middle East. Maybe, though not while I am Secretary of State. But the worst thing which we could have faced under our former strategy is now the probable outcome. Under our strategy, the 1967 frontiers. Their validity and the manner in which they are reached. If Israel goes to those frontiers all at once, it could very well hurt Israel’s self image and self defense.

Let me turn now to the negotiations themselves. Last June we told the Israelis roughly what we could see would be needed for another agreement with Egypt. The Israelis could have said at the time, no, we cannot give that—we don’t want that and we will have to move to one grand move towards a settlement. In fact, you could argue that they were honor-bound to tell us that. But they didn’t. In June, they said we are a new government and we need a little bit more time.

Now what I’m going to tell you is not generally known but in July, Hussein offered two things.⁶ In effect he offered to accept one half of the Allon plan,⁷ the concept that the Jordan valley was Israeli. He offered either an Israeli withdrawal of four kilometers there along a straight line (and when I asked King Hussein why would he stop there, he said—I know the Israelis, they don’t give up hills) or he offered to accept half of the Allon plan under which the valley would be Israeli but there would be a sausage shaped area under UN control along the West Bank and in Jerusalem so that the Arabs on the West Bank could continue to work in Israel. He would also have civil administration in the big towns such as Nablis and Jericho so that Jordan would be on the West Bank. This proposal was rejected by Israel since they said they could not face these issues until 1975. Now if the Israelis had accepted them then, there would have been no Rabat and we wouldn’t have this PLO problem now. We have never made an issue of this and we have never even told anyone about it.

It is a fact that on 24 separate occasions since last July, both the President and I have told the Israelis that formal nonbelligerency was unobtainable in our opinion, and on 18 occasions we have told them that Sadat could settle for no less than the passes and the oil fields. Now, they have the right to disagree with our assessment, but we have told them many times that that was our view. In both cases, Israel never told us that they could not accept these positions. When Rabin made his speech on nonbelligerency, I called Allon to ask him what was going on. (At this point the Secretary takes a phone call.)

Kissinger: Sadat told us he had to have something before Rabat and we told him it was not possible. Then, he told us he needed something before the Brezhnev visit and again we were forced to tell him we thought it was not possible.

Anyway, Allon said that I have told Rabin to take this comment out of his speech but he thought he was being helpful by leaving it in. Now, you could agree that there is such a thing as being Talmudically correct and such a thing as being politically correct. In sum, the President and I operated on an assumption that these negotiations would succeed.

Allon came over early this year and said “do the thing in two bites. You should first come for a week and then we will use some time to get the Cabinet aboard, then come out again to finish it off.”⁸ You know, it is interesting, I told Sisco and Scowcroft before we left on this last trip that something does not smell right about this negotiation. The Israelis are not, if you pardon me, being as obnoxious as they should be and as they have been in the past when they are getting ready to settle something. They are not asking enough, they are not bothering us enough on side issues. Sisco said, that’s impossible—it cannot be true.

Let me turn now to the substance of the negotiations. It is absolutely not true that Egypt tried ultimatums on us. Whether Sadat has in the back of his mind that he can somehow separate us from Israel and then kill off Israel more easily, I do not exclude. But Sadat in any case was willing to grant all the military aspects of nonbelligerency. This included the non-use of force during the duration of the agreement. He agreed that the agreement would last until it was superseded. He made a commitment both to Israel and to the U.S. on this so that we would have a standing in it. He was willing to assure that no matter what happened at Geneva, he would not use it as an excuse for breaking off the disengagement agreement. He agreed to the free circulation of Arabs and to the lifting of the boycott against U.S. firms. He agreed that Israeli cargoes could pass freely through the Canal and he agreed to renew UNEF on an annual basis. He also agreed, for example, that Egypt would tone down the Cairo radio attacks on Israel though he could not agree to tone down the PLO radio.

Kampelman: How did these compare with the 1957 assurances?⁹

Kissinger: These would be public assurances. Finally, Sadat said, if he gave up all aspects of belligerency right now, what was he going to do to recover the other 180 kilometers of Egyptian territory? How would he face the other Arabs? He said to me—You write the formulation on the military side, I will accept it. Now, I admit that it’s possible Sadat could be capable of breaking these assurances, but that is true either way. The only thing he didn’t give to the Israelis were things that had nothing to do with the security of the line.

Israel’s problem was that they were giving up tangible land for assurances and for non-belligerency. I tell you that if this were a negotiation between Spain and France in which the peace of the world were not dependent on the U.S. financing the whole thing, I would say that these were perfectly reasonable statements. Every country has to decide on the balance between their sovereignty and their security. This agreement would have taken six months to complete which would have guaranteed perfect Egyptian behavior in Geneva. Meanwhile, Syria had told me that they would not go to Geneva if Israel made a separate agreement and the Egyptians really had no interest in Geneva. So we would have been in the interesting position of being able to ask for Geneva with the assurance that no one would go there.

Now these terms for Israel involved the tangible giving up of territory. But the disaster of the thing, and here I am not an unbiased observer in this negotiation—they were very painful for me—the danger is that they are in danger of losing control over the process.

Let us assume that our aid is given to the Israelis in undiminished quantities so that we do not retalitate. And we are not talking of retalitating. I must tell you that I have never seen the President so outraged. He feels deceived. Jerry Ford from Grand Rapids, Michigan who thinks that all his life he has liked Jews and has supported Israel, suddenly he is faced with this. In September, we told Rabin what we wanted¹⁰ and we poured in the arms over the Arab protest because we felt it was important that when Israel was ready to move, it did so as a proud nation with a sense of its own security.

The President is outraged and this may or may not pass. But I tell you the loss of confidence among all of the people who were with me on this trip is very great. We simply cannot get over it.

We now face some practical problems. Sadat has extended UNEF for three months and if I know the Syrians, they will extend for two months both to make their expiration coincide with Egypt and to prove that they are tougher than the Egyptians. Then you will see that Sadat is already losing some control of the events because Asad won’t renew again when it expires. And at some point, both of these will not be renewed.

What do we say in Geneva?—having demonstrated now our impotence. My thought was to go there and say if you want some progress, you will have to come to us. If you want to have a lot of high-sounding talk, you can go to the Soviets.

You must forget now whether we are angry or whether we are going to retalitate. We will not retalitate. That is a petty for a great power to do.

As a Jew, I must tell you that if the Jewish community starts taking on the President we will have a debacle. I briefed the congressional leaders last week with pedantic accuracy,¹¹ especially since I know the verbatim transcript goes to the Israeli Embassy before the day is over. I leaned over backwards. The congressional reaction was unanimously hostile. We were talking about the Israeli observation stations in the passes and O’Neill asked—Why shouldn’t the Israelis have one there? And I said because it’s 180 kilometers from the border.

We can now try to get the talks started again. But I have almost no conviction that it will happen. The Israelis, of course, are saying they want to talk but when we ask them we get the same positions from them. Another alternative now is to go to a bigger forum toward which I now lean. But for that we will need a comprehensive plan and I don’t know how far we can deviate from the 1967 borders in the comprehensive plan. Also, the British and the French will certainly want to participate and we can’t refuse them. Then we face the PLO question. How can we exclude them now when we have no step-by-step process going? I am sure they will now accept the existence of Israel. We used to have intelligence contacts (though no political contacts) with the PLO until the Rabat Conference. Now we don’t have that any more. We had hoped that the other Arabs would tire of the Palestinians and finally go to Hussein. Boumedienne, who is a smart cookie, said: “I know what you are trying to do. Syria and Egypt will accept some kind of a peace with new borders and the PLO will get nothing.”

Hans, you’ve studied diplomacy a lot and you know all one can do as a diplomat is create options. You cannot guarantee how it will happen. The questions we now face would not have come up for three years if we’d followed my strategy. All of this for 8 kilometers and the passes and nonbelligerency! I’m not saying the Israelis were wrong. But if it were between other states you wouldn’t have the same problem; giving up something tangible.

Morgenthau: But a lot depends on what is in Sadat’s mind.

Kissinger: I don’t dispute that all Arabs, except possibly Hussein, may want to destroy Israel. Sadat I think is a statesman and an Egyptian nationalist. He has had his heroic moment and was beaten so he doesn’t want another war. When Asad speaks of other Arabs, I have noticed that he is talking of the same nation. But when Sadat speaks of other Arabs, it is as friendly governments. He doesn’t live there.

Morgenthau: But that doesn’t answer the question and the point that he cannot exterminate Israel now anyway unless Israel becomes sufficiently weakened.

Kissinger: No, I agree there is no question that Israel should not be so weakened that they need to live ever on the good will of the Arabs.

Morgenthau: Nonbelligerency has a symbolic meaning. If a country says we will end belligerency that has a symbolic value.

Kissinger: The only way to test their will is to return close to the frontier with Egypt I think. Would you, if you were Sadat, give nonbelligerency with 180 kilometers of your land still occupied?

Morgenthau: No.

Kissinger: As I see the diplomacy developing, there will be a certain dissociation between the United States and Israel. This is mathematically certain. We cannot go to Geneva as Israel’s lawyers. You can put anyone you want in this job—Laird, Richardson, it doesn’t matter. The United States has interests in Western Europe, with the Soviet Union, and with Japan that are different from our interests with Israel.

Quite frankly I fear the possibility of anti-Semitism in this country which I worry about quite a bit. You know I am in the unfortunate position that whenever I predict something, I am then accused of producing it when it comes true just to prove myself right. This is precisely what happened with Turkish aid.

Stoessinger: I can’t help but listening here and thinking that if we could make these facts public somehow . . .

Kissinger: I’m rather fatalistic since we’ve given Israel all of their equipment since 1969. This strategy was designed to give Israel the maximum opportunity to survive.

Wiesel: Is Israel’s survival at stake?

Kissinger: My honest opinion is yes. Not at this minute, mind you. A few weeks ago in Houston, I saw John Connally.¹² He called on me. He said, you know if I were advising somebody on how to sweep the midwest and the southwest in the next election, I would recommend an anti-Semitic campaign. And this he told me before the negotiations broke down.

If the Jewish community attacks the President you will see for the first time an American President attacking Israel and this could unleash the most profound consequences. If they attack me, the President may come to my support too. I can survive it.

Kampelman: It seems to me that we remain with one important question. We cannot undo yesterdays and this question has domestic and world implications. The worldwide ones come first and speaking as a supporter of your piecemeal negotiations I should say that I appreciated your efforts and I know that your objectives were both pro-U.S. and pro-Israeli.

When Rabin was here last, I had a breakfast with him alone. Simcha was not there. And we talked about you. This was at about the time of the Commentary piece and his comment about you was, “I’ve had long dealings with Henry Kissinger. He has never misled me or never made a commitment that he has not fulfilled. I wish he had made more commitments to me but I understand that he is the United States Secretary of State.”

Kissinger: I think if Rabin could have acted like Golda, it might have worked.

Kampelman: I was in Israel when you were there and my impression is if you could have found a way to leave for one week to let the letter¹³ wear off . . .

Kissinger: The letter had no effect. It was over by that time.

Kampelman: Maybe if a different kind of letter or a different tone.

Kissinger: No, I don’t think so. We were going to have a meeting at 7:00 and announce the breakoff. I wired the President because he had to know we were going to break up. At 6:45, I called Rabin. Just to talk to him about the timing of the meeting and he said every cabinet member wishes to speak so it will go longer than I thought. I then called Scowcroft and said don’t under any circumstances send any Presidential letter. Scowcroft said it had gone just a half an hour ago. I then called Dinitz out of the meeting to say: “For Pete’s sake don’t let him read the letter.” Dinitz said he just read it five minutes ago.

But the letter was not intended to affect the deliberations. It was to tell the Israelis you are now in another ball game and it was to prepare Israel for Geneva.

Kampelman: I think if there is a way to open the piecemeal talks you should do it.

Kissinger: I will tell you I wrote a letter this week to the Israelis and to the Egyptians—this is very secret—asking each of them for any other thoughts saying what would you do now. Egypt gave us a forthcoming reply. This morning I got the Israeli reply and it was verbatim of the Friday evening statement to us when we broke up.¹⁴

On Friday evening I met alone with Rabin, Allon, and Peres¹⁵ as friends and said look, let’s take 24 hours and think about it. In those 24 hours they did nothing but give the Presidential letter to the Likud. They didn’t call any meetings, they didn’t call any cabinet talks, they did nothing. And I should tell you that this letter was nothing compared to the kind which Nixon sent them. Now Golda when we sent such letters would never read them to the cabinet. She would first ask me what to do about the letters. Sometimes I told her, look, you should take this one very seriously. But she never confronted the President.

I was hoping that they would say we will modify something. Our Ambassador there, who is not a genius, asked what is new here? They said what’s new is the old position which we gave you last week. I don’t think I’ll show this cable to the President.

Kampelman: You discussed the possibility that at the end of this process, the Israeli sovereignty might be recognized. I think that’s a new ingredient.

Kissinger: I cannot again stake U.S. prestige on this because they will leak the proposals, they will pocket them to bring them out later.

Stoessinger: Is there any way we can help?

Kissinger: We have two problems. Can the negotiations be rescued? Only if Israel moves in the next two weeks and changes their tune. Now I understand they are sending teams here to brief. I must tell you that the maps which they leaked to the newspapers are wrong.¹⁶ And if they continue to do it we will have to explain what is right and what is wrong. We are prepared now to keep quiet. Secondly, the Soviets have now approached us on Geneva. I told them it will take us at least three weeks to reassess our position. But I’m sure at some point we will have to say something. Hans, what do you think about the 1967 borders?

Morgenthau: They are inevitable except around Jerusalem which should be outside of artillery range.

Kissinger: Well, artillery range is 20 kilometers. You mean there can be no Arab troops within 20 kilometers?

Morgenthau: Well, there could be demilitarization around that area.

Kissinger: That is a concept.

Stoessinger: Will the PLO negotiate on the basis of 242?¹⁷

Kissinger: I don’t know what Sadat is other than an Egyptian nationalist. I’ve been to lunch and supper with him. I’ve seen him, his family and his lifestyle. I think he is an Egyptian bourgeois nationalist. To Asad, Israel is just southern Syria. To the PLO it is the dividing line across their fields. I wouldn’t trust the PLO and I wouldn’t ask the Israelis to either. Asad however, could be brought to do something and Sadat too.

You know what Sadat said last time? He said: “I miss the old lady.” And I think he is right. With Golda, everything would have happened on the first day which happened with us on the last day. We would have had a terrible blow-up on the first day and then later we would have moved on. But if I had talked to her in the kitchen, she would have understood that there is such a thing as historical versus negotiating truth.

Sadat said to Nancy this last time, when we thought things were still going well, “what worries me in the Israelis is their confusion. They’ve had the shock of the war and they have no confidence in the future. I don’t know how we will do it.” Now I grant you this could be great showmanship. But I think he’s a moderate.

I think the Israelis could get Egypt off their backs by going close to the 1967 borders. If you look at history the Israeli position is inherently desperate. How can Israel with 2½ million people hold off 130 million with the U.S. increasingly losing its own self-confidence? I’m not saying we’ll see the same thing as what happened in Indochina where after all it didn’t happen overnight either.

One misconception the Israelis had was that I needed the agreement for my domestic position. The Israeli press, while I was there, kept saying don’t yield to Kissinger because he needs the agreement to solidify his position. My historic position is now established. One agreement now will neither add nor subtract to it. And to say that I would carry out an agreement for my own sake is simply not true. No man in this job can carry out an agreement simply for his own sake. Also, they have forgotten that although if I had gotten an agreement I would be a hero for six weeks, and after six weeks I would be blamed for everything that went wrong. Now there will be a two month uproar and by June the people here will know nothing except the fact that there are tensions in the area. The issues will be forgotten. So even if I get blamed for botching a negotiation now the question is who will be blamed for producing a condition of war.

It is my assessment that there is a 50–50 chance of war. Now let me tell you. What would happen if in a war the Soviet Union lands two airborne divisions in Syria, since they simply cannot afford to have another humiliation in the next war. In the past, we operated from a position of great authority. Suppose the Soviets, this time, say that all they want to do is move the Israelis back to the ’67 borders. You know very well the Western Europeans will bend to that and then what will we do.

I ordered the alert in October, 1973.¹⁸ Although at the time all the Russians were going to do was to put a division at the Cairo airport. Simply to teach them that they could not operate far from home. If they put troops in Syria, we will have to put troops in Israel. But I doubt if Congress would approve it. And do you realize that now 40 percent of our troops are negroes. Think of the possible race riots here. Even if Congress approves we will have a real Vietnam-type situation.

Kampelman: I see the real possibility of a serious division within the United States society. To avoid this I think we simply have to eliminate the concept of fault and the President’s first interview was not very helpful in that regard.¹⁹

Kissinger: I didn’t even know he was giving the interview until after it was done.

Kampelman: The Jewish community here is now being held back by the Israelis. Many of them are very unhappy about the breakdown and are blaming the Israelis. They identify the possibility that if Israel is at fault, we will have an anti-Semitic campaign in the United States. In fact there is a danger of such a campaign whether or not it is correct to blame the Israelis. What is vital now, is to avoid internal domestic divisions on this issue similar to those we had on Vietnam. I know you have tried by saying that we need a bipartisan foreign policy. In my view if you can revive the negotiations we can make some progress.

Kissinger: Well you have to talk to the Israelis about that.

Stoessinger: Should we?

Kissinger: I’m not asking you for anything. I’m telling you scientifically that they have to tell us something new. That might possibly revive the negotiations but it has to be done within the next two weeks.

Kampelman: If that doesn’t happen, then it is vital that the different segments on the hill going to people like Humphrey, Jackson, and Goldwater must be brought in on the takeoff so they’re not just included on the crash landing.

Kissinger: We have to date deliberately avoided this. But once there’s Geneva we will have only three choices. We can try to revive the interim agreement. This we can do only at the Israeli initiative with some kind of a modification of the Israeli position. Even with that however, I have to ask myself if we wouldn’t be better off driving right now for a full solution. If we go the other route, I have to tell you that we will wind up very close to what Hans said—something like the 1967 frontiers with demilitarized zones around it. This would be similar to Resolution 242. What would the Jewish community reaction be to that?

Wiesel: That depends on whether Israel accepts it. Do you think they would not accept it, not even for a guarantee of peace?

Kissinger: I doubt it frankly. I don’t think they would do it for any frontier. Not even for a formal peace agreement.

Morgenthau: What will they do?

Kissinger: Well for Egypt they would be willing to draw a line from El Arish to Sharm-el-Sheik. On the West Bank I don’t know. On the Golan, perhaps half of the Golan.

Morgenthau: Sharm-el-Sheik is vital.

Kissinger: Yes, we could do a lot there but I don’t think the government will accept it. Therefore, I’ve engaged in such torturous negotiations.

Stoessinger: Well, we would like to help any way we can.

Kissinger: Jerry, would you please leave the room now so I can have a few minutes with these men alone.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Records of Henry Kissinger, 1973–77, Box 22, Classified External Memcons, December 1974 to April 1975, Folder 7. Limited Official Use; Sensitive. The meeting was held in the Secretary’s office.
2. March 22. See Document 158.
3. The Group of 77, founded in 1964 by 77 developing nations, sought to enhance its negotiating influence at the United Nations and promote its members’ economic interests.
4. See footnote 3, Document 19.
5. See Document 19.
6. No memorandum of conversation has been found. On July 14, King Hussein secretly met with Israeli Prime Minister Rabin to discuss possible solutions concerning Israeli control of the West Bank. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, CL 155, Geopolitical File, Israel, July–August 1974)
7. The Allon Plan was conceived in July 1967 by Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon. It called for Israel to maintain a row of fortified settlements along the Jordan River to provide Israel a security buffer from future Arab attacks, but leave the rest of the West Bank demilitarized. See Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, volume XX, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967–1968, Document 213, footnote 4.
8. See Document 127.
9. On February 11, 1957, Secretary of State Dulles handed to Israeli Ambassador Eban an Aide-Mémoire that provided assurances to Israel after the Suez Crisis. See Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, volume XVII, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1957, Document 78.
10. Kissinger and Ford met with Rabin on September 10 and September 13. See Documents 99 and 100.
11. See Document 160.
12. John Connally was Governor of Texas from 1963 until 1969 and Secretary of the Treasury from 1971 until 1972.
13. Document 156.
14. No letters were found.
15. No memorandum of conversation has been found for a March 21 meeting between Kissinger and only Rabin, Allon, and Peres. There was a meeting that included the Israeli negotiating team. See footnote 2, Document 157.
16. See footnote 2, Document 164.
17. See footnote 6, Document 7.
18. A reference to Kissinger’s request to President Nixon on October 24, 1973, to put American troops on nuclear alert. See footnote 8, Document 91.
19. See footnote 3, Document 164.