8 OCTOBER, 1973, THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW Since March, 1973, Brezhnev and Gromyko had been warning Kissinger and Nixon that war between the Arabs and Israelis was possible. Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev had proposed to Kissinger and Nixon that the Israelis withdraw from the territories they had won in their surprise attack of 1967 in exchange for guarantees of their security. The Israelis had rejected this proposal, and Kissinger had backed them, telling Nixon that he did not want to see Soviet troops introduced into the region under United Nations auspices.
The battle was now going well for the Arabs. Brezhnev and the leadership met to examine their options. If the Soviet Union were to back the Arabs and the Arabs were victorious, they would extend their power throughout the Mediterranean and the Arab world. The United States would lose its military superiority in the Mediterranean and its oil supply would be interrupted. While the Arabs were mostly superstitious Moslems, their countries could still be put on a communist course.
It was decided. They would encourage other Arab countries to support Egypt and Syria in their war, and they would provide them with weapons.

9 OCTOBER, 1973, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON Despite his best efforts to conceal it, Nixon's own involvement in the taping of the telephones at the Democratic Party Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel was becoming public. If the investigation and Congressional hearings continued as they had, Nixon knew that he would be the first President to be impeached in office, and that realization was driving him insane. From the beginning of the year Nixon had tried to get Kissinger to put pressure on the Israelis to settle with the Arabs. Nixon thought that without a settlement the Moslem fundamentalists, the "radicals", would be a threat to the governments of the countries which supplied the United States with oil. Each time Nixon had pressed Kissinger, Kissinger had deferred, saying the political difficulties were too great. Under ordinary circumstances, the President would have been required to resign for reasons of mental health and the Vice President would have taken over. Unfortunately, Vice President Spiro Agnew was under indictment for taking bribes while he was Governor of the state of Maryland, which meant that under the law the leader of the majority Party in the House, a Democrat, would become President. This course of action was clearly not open.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had previously formed his own replacement for the President's National Security Council, the Washington Special Actions Group. He would now single handedly set the foreign policy goals of the United States without oversight from either Congress or the President, and he he alone would now determine the U.S. course of action in the present war between the Arabs and Israelis.
Kissinger had already instructed President Nixon's nominal National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft to give the Israelis all the intelligence the United States had. But the Israelis had asked for immediate military aid, and Kissinger would have to consult with others before he could dispatch it. Kissinger called a meeting of his Washington Special Action Group.
Secretary of Defense Schlesinger saw no problem with sending military equipment as long as no American technicians were required. He was concerned that sending equipment and turning around a battle that the Arabs were winning would ruin the United States relations with the Arabs. "There's a difference between defending Israel's survival and helping Israel maintain its conquests." Others present agreed.
Kissinger disagreed. The best outcome, as he saw it, would be an Israeli victory without an Arab debacle. Through the Washington Special Action Group Kissinger would be able to make his preferred outcome the policy of the United States. President Nixon was not consulted, and at this time VicePresident Spiro Agnew was trying very hard not to go to jail.
Kissinger brought up a second issue. The Soviet Union was stirring up the Arabs. Even if some of those present did not want to give Israel weapons, they all did not wish to see the Soviet Union active in the area. No one would oppose arming the Israelis.
Later in the day Kissinger would meet with President Nixon, Nixon's Press Secretary, Nixon's Chief of the White House Staff, and his nominal National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. Kissinger would not have to deal with the National Security Council and any member of it who might oppose his plans. He arranged for jets on board United States aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean to be repainted in Israeli colors and flown directly into battle.

21 OCTOBER, 1973 THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW The American jets enabled the Israelis to concentrate their forces against the Syrians. After the Israelis had eliminated the Syrian air force and placed the capital of Syria under air attack, they had turned their efforts toward the Egyptians. Air superiority had allowed them to encircle the Egyptian Third Army.
Brezhnev asked Nixon to send Kissinger to Moscow to negotiate a cease fire, and Kissinger accepted. The time it would take him to stall the Soviets would allow an even greater Israeli victory. But President Nixon sent Brezhnev a letter giving Kissinger full bargaining authority for the U.S. government, without consulting Kissinger. This upset Kissinger, as the letter would not allow him to stall Brezhnev and the Arabs, and he would have to negotiate in earnest.
Brezhnev asked Kissinger if he had accepted the Soviet three point plan. Kissinger told Brezhnev that he accepted the need for a cease fire. Kissinger told him that he rejected an Israeli withdrawal to its pre1967 borders. Kissinger demanded that the Arabs enter into direct negotiations with the Israelis, thus recognizing Israel as a country, instead of a colony of the United States, France, and Britain. Kissinger rejected Brezhnev's suggestion that the United States and the Soviet Union guarantee the outcome, and thus prevented the Soviets or the United Nations from introducing troops into the region.
Brezhnev and Foreign Minister Gromyko agreed to Kissinger's and the Israelis' terms.
24 OCTOBER, 1973 The Israelis had no intention of abandoning their attack. They could now annihilate the Egyptian Third Army and perfect their hold on the Sinai.
Leonid Brezhnev and the other leaders of the Soviet Union sent a letter to Kissinger. They proposed that a joint U.S. Soviet military mission be sent to Egypt to implement the cease fire, save the Third Army, and then enforce the United Nations decisions, decisions which had uniformly gone against Israel. If the United States would not agree, the Soviet Union was prepared to act by itself.
Kissinger now called a meeting of the Washington Special Action Group at the State Department. Nixon's Chief of Staff Alexander Haig objected to this. Kissinger's Washington Special Action Group would be discussing a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union without the President or the Vice President being present. At the State Department Kissinger would have even more power, and there would be no possibility of involving the President, the Vice President, or any other members of the National Security Council. The meeting was moved to the White House.
Kissinger increased the readiness of U.S. forces to fight a nuclear war. Kissinger told the Israelis about the Soviet threat of attack. Kissinger sent a message to Egyptian President Sadat telling him that if Soviet armed forces appeared the United States would engage them on Egyptian soil. To cap it off Kissinger put Nixon's signature on the message.
Nixon was unaware of the Kissinger's letter, as he was completely consumed with the impending criminal proceedings before him; former Vice President Agnew was preparing for sentencing for bribery; there was no replacement Vice President yet. The President's next successor the Senate Majority Leader had not been informed of Kissinger's decision; none of the Congress had been informed; none of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been informed.
Kissinger now dispatched to Brezhnev his threat about the consequences of unilateral action through the British Ambassador. The American ambassador in Moscow would also not be informed about Kissinger's decision.
After the meeting Kissinger told the Israelis alone about his threats and asked them how long it would take them to destroy the Egyptian Third Army if the Russians intervened. They told him three days. He told them that this would cause another crisis with the Soviet Union, the permanent hatred of the Arab states, and humiliate Sadat completely, making any peace impossible. The Israelis would have to stop, and make the Egyptians bargain for the freedom of their trapped Third Army.

25 OCTOBER, 1973, THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW As Kissinger was threatening war between the United States and the Soviet Union if the Soviet Union acted unilaterally, the leaders of the Soviet Union told Sadat that he should ask for an "international" force to be sent to enforce the cease fire, for if Kissinger and the Israelis tried to block that they would find themselves completely isolated.

25 OCTOBER, 1973, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON The congressmen informed Kissinger that they too opposed a joint Soviet American peace keeping force in the Middle East. Many of their constituents had had their lives wasted in Nixon and Kissinger's continutaion of the Vietnam war, and the congressmen did not want to send U.S. troops anywhere, even if the Soviets moved unilaterally into the MidEast. Nixon restated his determination to match any Soviet troop moves. The congressmen once again expressed their opposition.
Nixon knew that it would take some extraordinary act if he was to survive Watergate. Later in the day Nixon would beg Kissinger to emphasize to the news media his indispensability throughout the crisis, and he asked him to make the same appeal to America's Jewish leaders. Nixon suggested that Kissinger should ask them, "Who is going to save Israel and who will save it in the future?"
Kissinger never would honor Nixon's request.

NOVEMBER 1973 KELDYSH talks about 50/50

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