Behind the Headlines Nixon’s Mideast Course Set

Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s threat to resign over the innuendos on the telephone taps on his former White House aides is seen here as unlikely to have any dramatic impact on the course of events in the Middle East. The problems and the promises of last week remain today and the “new relationship” of the United States to the states of that area that Kissinger had spoken about only last Thursday will not be altered significantly, if at all, in the near future.

In any case, many feel here, President Nixon would not let it appear that Kissinger and not he himself is the master strategist at the helm of America’s foreign affairs. Indeed, some here believe that while the “magician” Kissinger performed the intricate details of the disengagement agreements and received for his efforts the applause around the world, the outline of U.S. policy is Nixon’s.

It was Nixon, one hears here, who seized on the Yom Kipper War and the oil embargo aftermath as the opportune time to reverse the wheels of U.S. policy to regain Arab friendship while quieting Israel’s anxieties and blocking the Soviet Union from the riches of Araby all at one time.

JEWISH LEADERS APPLAUD NIXON

Last Thursday a delegation of Jewish leaders led by Max Fisher of Detroit emerged from a 45-minute meeting with Nixon and said that the President reaffirmed his Administration’s continued support for Israel “in all spheres,” economic, military and political. Rabbi Israel Miller, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who was the spokesman for the group, said the Jewish leaders had come to the White House to convey to Nixon prior to his trip to the Middle East the “appreciation of the Jewish community” for his economic and military support to Israel, particularly during the Yom Kippur War and for his efforts to bring about lasting peace in the Middle East.

Rabbi Miller said the meeting was “friendly, frank and we think a very fruitful meeting.” David Blumberg, president of B’nai B’rith, who was among the seven leaders present, said the “President’s comments on the Middle East were very satisfying.”

No dramatic communiques are expected to be forthcoming from the Nixon trip and not even some of the basic reasons for the agreements on disengagements may emerge. These may be left for the time, after the present leading figures on the scene disappear. But questions continue to be asked.

QUESTIONS ON TRIP

In Cairo, will Egyptian President Anwar Sadat demand and Nixon affirm that Israel will surrender all the Sinai without Sadat’s formal adherence to a bilateral peace treaty with Israel? Will Nixon pledge to Sadat that with American money and guns he will be the master of the Levant that Nasser had hoped he would be? And will Sadat, in turn, pledge that Egypt will “respect” Israel’s “sovereignty” and that Egypt will be pro-American (and not pro-Soviet despite superficial blandishments toward the Kremlin)?

In Riyad, will Nixon pledge to King Faisal that East Jerusalem will be permanently open to the Arabs, that Saudi Arabia will become a power with American weapons and industrialized into a modern state with American technology, if in return Saudi Arabia allows American interests to handle its oil output?

Will Nixon in Damascus, pledge to Syria that if it agrees to keep the peace he will urge Israel to withdraw, in stages but completely, from the Golan Heights and provide funds for Syria’s rehabilitation with the approval of Congress, of course? Will he insist that President Assad allow Syria’s Jewish remnant to leave Syria peacefully and ask the Soviet contingents to depart as a gesture of international amity?

In Amman, will Nixon promise Jordan’s King Hussein that he will remain monarch over both banks of the Jordan either in a unified state or in a federation with a Palestinian state which would be his dominion? (Al Ahram in Cairo reported Sadat had told the Palestine Liberation Committee’s leaders that he would coordinate his political strategy with Hussein despite their objections.)

PLEDGES FOR ISRAEL

And in Israel, will Nixon pledge long-term military, financial and diplomatic support if Israel will only agree to withdraw to its pre-1967 border and “give peace another chance?” Will he also promise that he will demand of his friends in Lebanon that they require the terrorists to abide by civilization’s laws? Will he, as a sign of his favor, write off $500 million more as a grant, raising the gift to $1.5 billion, as Congress had suggested from the $2.2 billion U.S. emergency fund?

Will the President also tell Israel that he has Syria’s promise to free its Jews and that he will urge the Kremlin when he goes there June 27 to increase its emigration flow to Israel? And will he as a clincher assure Israel that he will never agree to a hostile Palestinian state adjoining Israel but insist at Geneva and elsewhere that the Palestinians must make their arrangements with Jordan?

President Nixon’s every moment in the Middle East will be weighed by the world’s political analysts alert to its hopes, anxieties and suspicions.