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PDF FormatThe United States initially stalled on aid requested by Israel. Kissinger spoke of allowing the belligerents to beat upon one another “for a day or two, and that will quiet them down.” However, after more desperate requests from Jerusalem, including a personal appeal from Golda Meir to the president, Nixon approved an emergency airlift of military supplies on October 13, 1973. This assistance was also in part a reaction to the evidence of increased Soviet aid to the Arab countries, particularly Syria. Over the course of the next month, the United States transported 11,000 tons of ammunition, electronic equipment, and other material to Israel. While Kissinger preferred to maintain a low profile for the American-Israeli relationship, the pressures of the war forced a more decisive and obvious expression of Washington’s support.36
With the assistance of American supplies, Israel finally gained the upper hand. Forces under the command of General Ariel Sharon broke through Egyptian lines on October 15, and during the following night Israeli units began to cross the Suez Canal into Egypt. Israeli soldiers also successfully pushed through the Arab-held sections of the Golan Heights, entering Syrian territory. After this turn of events, Kissinger reported to the president that “things may be breaking.”37
On the retreat, Arab leaders now looked to the United States for a diplomatic solution to the war. Through the course of the conflict, Washington had acquired unique leverage: Israel felt beholden, at least in part, to the United States because of its reliance on American military assistance. The Soviet Union, in contrast, had discredited itself in many capitals through its support for another failed Arab war. Also, the fact that Moscow lacked serious relations with Israel no doubt furthered American interests. “Everyone,” Kissinger explained, “knows in the Middle East that if they want a peace they have to go through us.” He set out to exploit this position in the last days of the Yom Kippur War.38
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Kissinger understood the curious way in which conspiracy theories about Jewish influence boosted Arab expectations of, and even respect for him. If Jews ran the world, as many antisemites wrongly presumed, then Kissinger—as the leading American and Jewish foreign policy official—appeared to be an all-powerful figure. Prejudice against Jews, ironically, increased Kissinger’s ability to bribe, cajole, and threaten. Preparing for his first trip to the Arab countries of the Middle East in 1973, for example, Kissinger noted Cairo’s anxious anticipation of his visit. Speaking with Brent Scowcroft, the deputy special assistant for national security affairs, he asked: “Have you heard about the Egyptians? They have already prepared for my arrival there.”
Scowcroft: That’s beautiful! They are something else.Kissinger: In the nutty Arab world I am sort of a mythical figure. The Arabs think I am a magician.Scowcroft: That’s right.39
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was the figure on whom Kissinger hinged his efforts to bring American-led stability to the Middle East. For Kissinger, Sadat held the potential of generating new diplomatic opportunities. In his memoirs, the former secretary of state recounts the admiration he developed for the Egyptian leader, dating to their first meeting on November 7, 1973—just two weeks after the cessation of Arab-Israeli military hostilities:
Sadat had emerged, dressed in a khaki military tunic, an overcoat slung carelessly over his shoulders…. He was taller, swarthier, and more imposing than I had expected. He exuded vitality and confidence. That son of peasants radiated a natural dignity and aristocratic bearing as out of keeping with his revolutionary history as it was commanding and strangely calming. He affected nonchalance.40
Sadat explained to Kissinger how he had planned the October 6, 1973, attack on Israel as an effort to restore Arab dignity and convince the Israelis that they could not dominate the region through force. The Egyptian leader also expressed his frustration with American passivity during the war. Sadat sensibly understood that Arab belligerence and alliance with Moscow only reinforced American support for Israel. Accordingly, he expelled Soviet military personnel from his country in July 1972, hoping that the United States would adopt a mediating role between Israeli and Arab interests. Instead of antagonizing Washington, he wanted to turn America’s influence to his advantage. Sadat pursued a strategy that encouraged American leaders to press concessions on Jerusalem in return for promises that Cairo would promote peace and pro-American sentiment in the region. “Egypt leads the Arab world,” Sadat told Nixon and Kissinger. “We started promoting better relations with the United States. The United States has all the cards in its hands and Israel should heed the United States.”41
In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, the Egyptian leader correctly surmised that his efforts to enhance his power through cooperation with the United States corresponded with Kissinger’s pursuit of a world order built around strong and stable regional figures. Washington did not seek to dominate the Middle East directly, nor did it want to build up Israel as a fortress nation, isolated from its Arab neighbors. The 1973 war made it clear to Kissinger that the Middle East needed a series of powerful states—Jewish and Arab, oil-rich and desert-poor—roughly balanced in military capabilities. The leaders of these states would recognize that victory in war was not conceivable, and they would seek cooperative relations instead. In accordance with his longstanding thoughts on how the United States should manage the “gray areas” of the Cold War, Kissinger sought to use American strength to ensure a military balance in the region and to stabilize Arab-Jewish relations. This is what the president meant when he explained to members of Congress, “If your goal is peace in the Middle East and the survival of Israel, we have to have some stake with Israeli neighbors.” The United States pushed for what Kissinger called “a diplomatic revolution” in the region, predicated upon “a triumph for the moderates.”42
Sadat was exactly the kind of Arab “moderate” Kissinger needed. He ruled a powerful and influential state in the region and rejected extremist calls for socialist or religious proselytism. Instead, he desired a working partnership with the United States. Most significantly, Sadat sought to build an enduring structure of relations in the Middle East that supported Egyptian interests, but also accommodated the needs of Israel and the United States. His desire was to move beyond conflict.
The Egyptian president fit Kissinger’s definition of a transcendent leader. Referring to him in his memoirs, Kissinger proclaimed: “The great man has a vision of the future that enables him to put obstacles in perspective.” Echoing his assessment of his own position as an “inside-outsider” in American society, Kissinger explained: “Sadat bore with fortitude the loneliness inseparable from moving the world from familiar categories toward where it has never been.” In place of religious intolerance and sectarian strife, Sadat and Kissinger sought to enforce diplomatic “normality”—including collegial state-to-state relations and political cooperation among diverse groups. Kissinger believed this was “the best chance to transcend frozen attitudes that the Middle East had known since the creation of the State of Israel.”43
Sadat described Kissinger as “the real face of the United States, the one I had always wanted to see.” He and the American secretary of state became, in Sadat’s words, “friends,” and the two had “no difficulty in understanding one another.” Both men sought to assure Egyptian strength as a bulwark against Arab extremism and Soviet meddling. They envisioned a stable Middle East dominated by roughly balanced regional powers in Cairo and Jerusalem that cooperated to restrain belligerent forces and work with the United States. “I want us to make progress; to make a complete peace,” Sadat told Nixon’s successor in the White House, Gerald Ford. “And I want the United States to achieve it, not the Soviet Union.”44
