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 effort. Upon our arrival in Israel on May 2, 1974, a light note was interjected by Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban. In his welcoming remarks, Eban said: “We have come to Lod [the airport’s location] to welcome Mrs. Kissinger who is on her first visit to Israel. To our pleasant surprise, we found out that accompanying her is the Secretary of State and we welcome him too.”

Originally, Kissinger had planned on a 17-day trip, and if he could not conclude it on this mission, he could return later. The reporters accompanying him were taken by both sides to visit the front lines to see why the area around the small town of El-Quneitra was considered so important and more importantly, the hills around it. Before the 1967 war, some 17,000 Syrians lived there, but it was now a ghost town, and nearby, some Israeli settlements were established.

The current situation in and around Syria is quite grim. A civil uprising  started in 2011 when in the spirit of the Arab spring, some villagers began protesting Bashar al-Assad’s rule. They were brutally put down, and the fighting and repression have continued, with many outside powers now involved. Bashar al-Assad is a son of Hafez al-Assad who was the Syrian leader in 1974, a man who had cracked down hard on opposition groups and ruled a rather tight dictatorship. His death in 2000 led to Bashar taking over. There had been hope in those early years of a more liberal regime emerging but that turned out to be inaccurate.

The Kissinger party stayed at the New Omayad Hotel, which was within walking distance of the famous mosque of the same name, Omayad. But after the first night there, we never stayed another night because Kissinger objected to being awaken at 5 A.M.t by the call to worship at the mosque. The hotel was also close to a shopping area, and during that trip, I bought Marie-Jeanne a beautiful gold necklace made in Aleppo from a local jeweler and also a kaftan which she once wore later to a black tie affair at the State Department.

With Kissinger no longer willing to stay overnight in Damascus, we fell in the habit of starting each day at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where Kissinger would confer with Israeli officials there or at the foreign ministry. Then, late in the day we would be bussed back to the airport and flown to Damascus. The news reporters on the trip spent the time in the New Omayad Hotel, where the Syrians had provided a telex operator. Later, we would be driven to the headquarters of Hafez al-Assad where we might get a statement from Kissinger on the record. I don’t recall ever hearing Assad speaking to us. Kissinger had a Palestinian-American as his interpreter from the State Department. We would then fly back to Ben Gurion Airport arriving around midnight. I would then file my story by a pay phone at the airport. In those days, The Times had a wonderful recording room, staffed by excellent typists to whom you could dictate your story.

This diplomatic shuttle lasted 33 days, longer than anyone had predicted and it had its ups and downs. As a journalist who in effect was a “prisoner” on Kissinger’s plane where the only information was what he dished out on the flights back to Israel after his late night meetings with Assad, It was at times frustrating, and I did my best to roll with the punches. Here is a sampling of my stories from that long ago time.

“Kissinger Believes Syrian-Israeli Decision is Near. Jerusalem, May 10—Secretary of State Kissinger told Israeli officials tonight [Friday], that he might know by next Tuesday whether he could bring about an agreement by Syria and Israel to separate their troops on the Golan Heights during his current Middle East trip. now in its thirteenth day…He told his aides and the Israelis tonight that he should know by Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday whether an agreement was possible. If it is, he plans to try to work it out by the end of next week. If he concludes it does not seem likely, he probably will return to Washington late in the week, perhaps Thursday or Friday.”

“Kissinger Talks Show No Progress. Jerusalem, May 14—Secretary of State Kissinger shuttled between Syria and Israel today without making any significant progress toward a troop separation between the two countries. He had set tonight as his deadline for deciding whether he could achieve the accord during hte current mission, not in its 17th day. But newsmen were told on the way from Damascus that Mr. Kissinger still wanted 24 to 36 hours to try to extract a compromise from the two sides. A senior official on the Air Force 707 jet said the situation was ‘essentially in a holding pattern.’ He thought the chances for an agreement by the end of this week, when Mr. Kissinger must return to Washington were slightly less promising than a few days ago.”

“Kissinger Makes ‘Good Progress; in Mideast Talks. Tel Aviv, May 20—Secretary of State Kissinger said today in Damascus that ‘good progress’ had been made in his talks with President Hafez al-Assad of Syria toward concluding an agreement to separate Syrian and Israeli troops on the Golan Heights.”

And finally:

“Israel and Syria Accept Accord for Disengaging on Golan Front; Long Kissinger Effort Succeeds,”

“Jerusalem, May 29[Wednesday]—Israel and Syria agreed today on an accord to separate their forces on the Golan Heights. The agreement, which was worked out by Secretary of State Kissinger in a month of intensive personal diplomacy will be signed by Syrian and Israeli military officers in Geneva on Friday.”

It was a truly exhausting trip. Some of my colleagues, particularly those working for TV networks on short deadlines made judgment errors, going on air saying that the mission had failed when it had not. I was pleased with my work, but I was lucky in that I was able to just report the situation without making any judgment calls. On the way back to Washington, Kissinger stopped in Cairo and he filled us in on some important details. The most interesting was that three times Kissinger was very close to giving up and returning to Washington without an accord.

On May 29, Kissinger went to see Assad alone and the two men agreed that it was now necessary to end the negotiations peacefully in a way that did not precipitate a crisis. Kissinger and Assad were drafting a statement for Kissinger’s departure, I wrote, “when in the last five minutes, Assad told Kissinger that breaking off the talks [was] painful for him and really a pity considering how far they had moved toward an agreement. Kissinger then suggested that instead of finishing the departure statement they make one more effort to overcome the remaining differences, Those talks lasted all day. “The next day, the Israelis made the last concession, giving back another village on the northern part of the Golan area. And Tuesday night, Kissinger went back to Damascus to wrap it up and celebrated with a midnight buffet.

One footnote. During that lengthy shuttle, Kissinger celebrated —marked would be a better word—his 50th birthday on May 27 [he is now 93]. The correspondents chipped in ahead of time and produced a poster, mimicking a Braniff Airlines poster of the time showing a pretty airline hostess standing in front of a plane, waving and saying something like: “I’m Kackie, Fly Me to Miami.” We had a smiling Henry waving, saying “I’m Henry, Fly Me to Damascus.” I recently unearthed my copy of the poster, and it included Kissinger’s signature saying: “Dear Bernie Gwertzman. Sorry I couldn’t live up to all your Predictions.”

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