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 of March 1979.  Camp David also produced an outline agreement for Israeli-Palestinian peace which was never consummated.

But we are a bit ahead of ourselves. In December 1973, Kissinger and his plane-load of newsmen and women had just returned from his round-the-world trip which had included a tentative Egyptian-Israeli troop demarcation agreement governing the Egyptian forces on the east side of the Suez Canal and the Israelis on the west side. But there were still tensions in the region. The oil powers, led by Saudi Arabia, had imposed an oil embargo which was beginning to take a toll in the United States. Moreover, President Nixon who was under increasing heat for his involvement in the Watergate affair, was desperate for some good news to report, such as an Egyptian-Israeli agreement. Moreover, the Soviet Union, looking for part of the diplomatic action, had pressured for a Geneva peace conference at the end of December, 1973, The conference was indeed called into being, and it was attended by the United States, the Soviet Union, Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. Syria declined to attend.

I was there to cover the conference along with Henry Tanner, the veteran, Swiss-born correspondent, who Marie-Jeanne and I had met in Paris on our brief honeymoon visit on our way to Moscow in 1989. Tanner was in 1973 the Cairo bureau chief. Before going over to Geneva with Kissinger et al, I had told Marie-Jeanne that I had no idea how long this conference would last. It only lasted a few days and almost before I knew it, I was back in Kissinger’s plane flying home. Apparently it had been agreed that after the Israeli political scene was resolved, Kissinger would fly to Egypt and Israel to see if he could help resolved the stand-off in the Sinai. We —that is the news reporters on the trip –had first been led to believe that this Kissinger trip would involved brief visits to both capitals and then the actual negotiations would be held in Geneva. But what we only learned afterwards was that when Kissinger met with Sadat, who was then staying in Aswan, in southern Egypt, was that Sadat wanted Kissinger to handle the negotiations himself.

We all checked into the New Cataract Hotel which was connected to the Old Cataract Hotel, made famous by Agatha Christie in her mystery, “Death on the Nile.” During our time in southern Egypt, Kissinger and all of us visited tombs and the Aswan Dam which had been built with Russian money. Kissinger, of course, before setting out on this trip had met with Moshe Dayan, Israel’s veteran defense minister, for three days in Washington who had also encouraged him to press ahead.

Of all Kissinger negotiations, this one in the end probably was the easiest, but for those flying in the Boeing 707. it became something of a chore. I tried to have some fun with it in a “Reporter’s Notebook” I filed for the paper of January 19, 1974: “JERUSALEM, Jan. 15—A few minutes before take-off from Aswan last night, Joseph J. Sisco stood in the aisle of the Air Force jet and said to no one in particular, “Welcome aboard the Egyptian-Israeli shuttle.” Eastern Airlines in the 1950s had started a shuttle from Washington to New York, and New York to Boston and so, “shuttle diplomacy” was dutifully born. I like to think my story helped christen the term, “shuttle diplomacy” but who knows?

In any event, the initial accord got the Israelis to pull their forces back to near what are known as the Mitla and Giddi Passes in the Sinai. And rules wee put into effect on how many Egyptian forces could come over to the eastern side of the Suez Canal. Sadat was quite joyous at this accord. The Israelis were pleased, although the right wing was not. In Syria, where Hafex al-Assad, the father of the present Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, had been dubious about negotiating with Israel and had stayed away from Geneva, received Kissinger for some four hours on his way home, gave him some b=negotiating ideas, which Kissinger passed on to the Israelis before flying home. Kissinger was able to reassure Prime Minsiter Golda Meir that Israeli prisoners were being given good treatment. The Israeli-Syrian negotiations, a few months later, would be the toughest of all the Kissinger negotiations.