with Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller

“ Geneva hasn't met for a year--we held off, because it brings all the Arabs together and it lumps all the demands, and makes the Soviet Union the protector of the Arabs and us of Israel. But we can hold that off only with some Arab help.
Israel has an unbelievable domestic structure and a vicious group of politicians. They have a Jewish community here which vicariously tries all the time to prove its manhood. The same people who were doves on Vietnam are hawks on Israel. ”

“ The Soviet Union has suffered because they operated too cautiously in the past. They were too much in the middle. They won't be caught doing too little again. That makes an Israeli victory more dangerous than an Israeli defeat. Last time we had a massive airlift and a massive showdown, and we would have lost the ability to present ourselves to the Arabs as means to a solution. ”

“ Jordan in the mid-term, and Syria somewhat later. The Syrians know that Israel doesn't want to move; they also know that the more the others are satisfied the more isolated they will be, so they will work to lump everything together. With massive effort we can head it off. We can defuse the Soviet Union with your Brezhnev meeting.
We are operating at the edge of the margin with the Arabs. We have been stalling. The delivery dates on equipment for Egypt are so late that they are turning to the Soviet Union. The Syrians are restive because they got nothing. ”