(11-30-2023, 10:21 PM)xpert11 Wrote: Interesting. Are those volumes worth reading?
I miss automatic subscribing. I did not realise you had replied.
I found them worth reading. They are densely packed, full of background detail about events like the Yom Kippur war, and full of insights into how diplomacy is done. For example, he complains about the State Department negotiators that they are so obsessed with obtaining "results" in terms of making agreements that they are inclined to give away too much ground too quickly.
A sample; "We were now in a serious predicament. The urgency of Brezhnev's appeal suggested that the plight of the Egyptian Third Army was far more serious than our own intelligence had yet discovered or the Israelis had told us. If the Unted States held still while the Egyptian army was being destroyed after an American-sponsored ceasefire and a Secretary of State's visit to Israel, not even the most moderate Arab could co-operate with us any longer. We had to move quickly...
A few minutes later Golda called primarily to assure me that Egypt had been first to break the cease-fire. I mumbled something about my impression that her soldiers were obviously not heart-broken by that unexpected turn of events. Having proved my skill at repartee, I explained my thinking on the U.N. resolution. I suggested that Israel pull back a few hundred yards from wherever it was now and call it the old cease-fire line. "How can anybody know where a line is or was in the desert?" I said. Golda's melancholy at my obtuseness was palpable even at the distance of six thousand miles. She replied "They will know where our present line is, all right."
Now I understood. Israel had cut the last supply route to the city of Suez. The Egyptian Third Army on the east bank of the canal was totally cut off. A crisis was upon us."
Years of Upheaval, p571
