President: Let me know Monday. If the committees were informed it shouldn't be a problem.
Kissinger: They were regularly informed.
President: Let's ride it out and we'll see.
Kissinger: We have to have these things. We'll need them more for Portugal, Spain, and so on.
At our, meeting today I will go into the Israeli arms requests, then CIA will brief, then I will explain the strategy. The CIA will have charts showing the forces the Arabs can bring to bear.
What is it we are trying to do? What are the others trying to do? What are some of the problems?
We want to guarantee the security of Israel, but we want to prevent the coalescence of the Arab states -- that would create an unmanageable situation for us. We also want to prevent the resurgence of Soviet influence. We want to prevent an Israeli-Arab war and the consequent confrontation with the Soviet Union. If negotiations stall, or if there is a war, there will be an embargo. That would push Europe over the cliff. The Europeans' response to the Cyprus business shows their mood. There would be a massive anti-U. S. blow-up. The same will happen in Japan. 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.
As for the Israelis, another war would result in world pressure for the '67 borders. It would be tough for the U.S. alone to resist, and the result would be demoralizing like what was done to Czechoslovakia in '38.
We have been giving the Arabs the feeling that each of them had something to gain--Egypt immediately: 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. WithSECRET/SENSITIVE/XGDS
