Monthly Archives: July 2017
Looking back on 1977, I can remember the expectation of change that was in the air. Jimmy Carter, the former governor of Georgia, with virtually no experience on the world stage, had been elected president. But almost as if to prove journalists wrong, Carter set out early to give emphasis to foreign affairs, and in particular to human rights abroad. In advance of taking office, he named Cyrus R. Vance, a prominent New York lawyer, who had served as deputy…..
Looking back on 1974, it is very hard to describe to a new audience the tensions that pervaded the White House. Even though Kissinger had just achieved a major diplomatic triumph by working out the first Israeli-Syrian agreement after a 33-day act of shuttle diplomacy, Nixon was feeling the increasing pressure on him from the Watergate investigation. His secret telephone tapes were being sought by the special Watergate prosecutor; Nixon’s top aides, H.R. Halderman and John Ehrlichman had been forced…..
Following the quick and successful shuttle agreement between Egypt and Israel in January 1974, Kissinger decided to set out in May 1974 on what everyone knew would be a much more difficult assignment, to work out a new frontier between Israel and Syria, and to achieve the return of Israeli prisoners of war from Syria. In the interim between the two trips, Kissinger married Nancy Maginnis, a former staffer for Nelson Rockefeller, and she accompanied him on his latest negotiating…..
It is one of my most treasured memories to remember how the Middle East negotiations began for real some 44 years ago, In the year 2017, when Middle East accords seem almost impossible to achieve, it is a pleasurable memory to relate how Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his team of assistants were able to open the way for a series of agreements that led eventually to the Camp David accords of 1978 which produced the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement…..