Kennedy, Khruschev, Arafat and Sharon

Issue #77

I recently re-read parts of Richard Reeves' fascinating book about the presidency of John F. Kennedy.  Like many, if not most, baby-boomers, I have had my ups and downs with the 35th President, particularly following all the revelations about the recklessness of his personal life.  Nevertheless, like many, if not most, baby-boomers, I was profoundly affected by JFK, as I discover anew each time A&E or the History Channel broadcasts the Zapruder film; and I find myself sadly imagining what might have been if he had not gone to Dallas.

As Reeves tells it, President Kennedy's finest moment came during the Cuban Missile Crisis, those harrowing days in October 1962 when Kennedy was informed that the Russians had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba.  Kennedy, desperate to get the missiles removed without triggering nuclear holocaust, ignored the advice of his advisers to attack the missiles (and the Soviet soldiers manning them) and offered to remove America's obsolete missiles in Turkey if the Soviets would pull theirs out of Cuba.  That deal was kept secret because some Kennedy opponents in Congress would have gone ballistic if they had known the President had given up anything in exchange for the removal of the Soviet missiles.  But that deal saved the day, not to mention the planet!  The Soviet Union managed to collapse and disappear without the loss of American or Russian lives, less than three decades later.

But there would have been no deal at all if Kennedy had not made a critical decision just as the crisis was reaching the boiling point.  As Kennedy was canvassing his aides on the question of whether there was any alternative to a military attack on the Soviet positions in Cuba, he received a surprising personal message from the Soviet leader, Nikita Khruschev.  Khruschev wrote that, as a first step toward ending the crisis, he would stop shipping weaponry to Cuba if Kennedy would promise not to invade the island.  In anguished tones, Khruschev told Kennedy that "only lunatics or the suicidal" would allow the situation to deteriorate to war.

A relieved Kennedy viewed the Khruschev letter as the first sign that the Soviet leader was ready to deal, as anxious to end the deadly crisis as he was.  His relief lasted exactly fifteen minutes, until a second message arrived from Khruschev that was as inflexible as the first had been conciliatory.  Kennedy despaired, assuming that the second message rendered the first irrelevant.  But Bobby Kennedy, United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson, and National Security Council chief McGeorge Bundy told the President to simply ignore the second message and respond to the first.  He did, a deal was reached, and the Cuban missile crisis ended without a shot being fired.

Kennedy's behavior in October 1962 was a demonstration of diplomacy at its best.  By choosing to focus on possible areas of consensus, rather than on contentious rhetoric, he produced a solution acceptable to both sides.  He understood that there was no downside to pretending the second letter did not exist.  At the very worst, Khruschev would have repeated his harsh rhetoric and Kennedy would be back to square one.  Looking for the proverbial silver lining cost Kennedy nothing and might have saved everything.

Compare this to some of the reactions in Washington and Jerusalem to Yasir Arafat's op-ed in the New York Times last Sunday.  In his op-ed, Arafat both condemned all acts of terror against Israelis and offered his vision of the post-intifada future.  "Palestinians," he wrote, "are ready to end the conflict.  We are ready to sit down now with any Israeli leader, regardless of his history, to negotiate freedom for the Palestinians, a complete end of the occupation, security for Israel and creative solutions to the plight of the refugees while respecting Israel's demographic concerns. . . ."  He stated that he had no interest in or expectation of achieving statehood in any part of "Green Line" pre-1967 Israel, but only in the "22 percent which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967."

American and Israeli policymakers were immediately suspicious.  Some called the Times piece nothing but a "PR move" which is obvious.  Any opinion piece in the Times or anywhere else is designed to affect public opinion.  Others said that Arafat had offered "mere words," another truism.

Words by themselves of course do not change anything.  And that is precisely why a better response to Arafat is to seize upon his fine words and press him to live up to them.  Absolutely nothing is accomplished by dismissing an Arafat formulation, which by condemning terrorism and recognizing Israel's right to security, is infinitely more conciliatory than anything any Palestinian spokesman said prior to Oslo.  As insignificant as words may be, there is no doubt that some of the same people who dismissed the Times piece as mere rhetoric would be screaming from the rooftops if Arafat had been rattling sabers in his column and not waving an olive branch.

The good news is that it appears that both the Israeli and American governments are not quite as indifferent to evidence that the Palestinians might be ready to end the intifada as their public statements may suggest.  Prime Minister Sharon met with two potential successors to Arafat who came to the meeting with Arafat's blessing.  The Bush administration, while pressing Arafat hard to stop the terror, is not going along with calls to ignore him altogether.  Maybe all sides are beginning to understand that sometimes, in order to see light at the end of the tunnel, you need to put on your glasses.

Tough Talk from Chevy Chase

In today's Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer, for the umpteenth time, urges the Bush administration to break with Arafat and to encourage local warlords to establish various fiefdoms in the West Bank and Gaza.  Meanwhile, a mother and daughter were killed in a brutal terrorist attack on a settlement, and Ha'aretz today tells the story of one Palestinian family who lost two children, killed after throwing rocks at soldiers.  Krauthammer apparently finds this level of violence preferable to negotiating a cease-fire with the likes of Arafat.  Neither President Bush nor Prime Minister Sharon, who has repeatedly sent his son to meet with Arafat and who himself met with Arafat's emissaries ten days ago, seem to agree.  Krauthammer (and two other Montgomery County, Maryland-based columnists, William Safire and George Will) all claim to be strong friends of Israel.  And yet each of the three clearly think that the sad post-Camp David 2 present is preferable to those days when Oslo was in effect, terrorism was at an all-time low, and Israel was booming with tourism, foreign investment, and international recognition.  With friends like these....