Kissinger to the Rescue, Again

For the third time since the cessation of the Middle East war in October, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger last week flew off on a frenetic visit to the unsettled area. His objective: to persuade Israel and Egypt to agree on a disengagement of forces that will protect the cease-fire agreement he helped negotiate. Kissinger also aimed to see that the peace negotiations in Geneva continue.

Washington tried to play down any sense of urgency about the Secretary's trip. His visits to Israel and Egypt were merely, in the polysyllabism of State Department Spokesman George S. Vest, "a supporting, catalytic adjunct" to the Geneva talks. But a Kissinger aide described the perils of personal diplomacy in words that were more germane: "The style and inclination of the man is to go and do it himself. But once you have sent the biggest aspidistra of them all, you are out of aspidistras."

The Links. Actually, the biggest aspidistra had been sent because the talks were bogging down. The men charged with plotting preliminary military disengagement at Geneva--Israeli General Mordechai Gur and General Taha El Magdoub of Egypt--had done well enough with the "technical models" that they proposed for separating forces in Sinai. The difficulty was that on both sides, the proposed military moves were inextricably connected to political decisions that neither general could make.Thus, after two meetings last week, totaling 3 1/2 hours at Geneva's Palais des Nations, the military talks adjourned and discussions shifted home.

The political complication on either side was the same: what diplomats refer to as linkage. Israel was prepared to pull back 20 miles from the Suez Canal to positions at Sinai's Mitla and Giddi passes. In return, Jerusalem expected Egypt to thin out its armor and artillery in Sinai, reopen the Suez Canal and, as a buffer, repopulate its ports of Ismailia, Suez and Port Said with civilians who fled the bitter cross-canal bombardments of the post-1967 war of attrition. Israel also insisted that Egypt issue a declaration forswearing further belligerency. For its part, Egypt wanted Israel to carry out a unilateral withdrawal beyond the passes and declare that this pullback was a forerunner of an eventual withdrawal from all Israeli-occupied Egyptian territory.

Neither side was willing to give in on these links. In Cairo, reported TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn, Egyptians were openly impatient at the slow pace of negotiations. Among other consequences, the lack of progress is holding up a massive postwar restructuring of the Egyptian economy, which Egyptian President Anwar Sadat has been planning at Aswan. To carry out this economic retooling and take over the Premier's job that he has also held since last March, Sadat is expected to choose Deputy Premier Abdel Aziz Hegazi, 51, a respected former business professor who already supervises the nation's finance, economy and foreign trade.

Israelis, meanwhile, were becoming increasingly agitated over cease-fire violations by Egypt and Syria; last week three more Israeli soldiers were killed and 15 wounded. Such losses make it more difficult for Premier Golda Meir, in the wake of a national election that returned her to power with a reduced plurality, to form a new government committed to continuing negotiations. The Tel Aviv newspaper Yediot Aharonot, echoing a widespread feeling, demanded: "Why can't we react immediately to the provocation? Do we have to obtain approval from Washington to protect ourselves against murder?"

Because the two antagonists were so far apart, American officials flying to Egypt with Kissinger insisted last week, the Israelis and Egyptians themselves had requested that the U.S. Secretary of State take a direct hand in discussions. Explained one American diplomat: "Neither side understands what the other is trying to do. Both might find it easier to have an outsider interpret for them." Arriving in Aswan, where Sadat was recuperating from bronchitis, Kissinger immediately arranged to shuttle by air between there and Jerusalem, where Premier Golda Meir's decisions were affected by, among other things, a case of shingles. Kissinger was hopeful about an accommodation on disengagement. "I wouldn't have come," he said, "if I didn't think there would be very good progress."

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