The Man With The Plan

By Massimo Calabresi/Washington

Where is the secret to peace in the Middle East? It's not in some high ideal or lofty principle. It's not in an undrawn line in the dry hills of East Jerusalem. It's not even in the hearts or minds of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders meeting since July 11 under the auspices of President Clinton at Camp David in Maryland's secluded Catoctin Mountains. The secret to peace in the Middle East is easy to find--it's scribbled on the loose-leaf paper of a black, flexible-plastic three-ring binder, just like the kind you used in high school. The binder belongs to Dennis Ross.

For almost 12 years, Ross has been writing notes and ideas on the Middle East into that binder, first as head of the policy-planning staff in the Bush Administration's State Department and for the past eight years as the Clinton Administration's special Middle East coordinator. It contains secrets that he and maybe one or two other people know, things like confidential Israeli and Palestinian negotiating positions, areas where they might concede, areas where they swear they won't. Occasionally he drafts handwritten memos in it to the Secretary of State or the President. In that binder are ideas that show the way to peace.

The binder and its owner are at the center of the action this week as President Clinton attempts to clinch a deal on peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The summit is a high-stakes attempt by the departing American President to force a "full, fair and final" settlement of such explosive issues as the return of Palestinian refugees, boundaries of a Palestinian state and control of Jerusalem--in short, all the issues dividing the two sides. Along the arbored paths of Camp David, over meals of steak and salmon or in their private cabins, every foreign policy heavyweight in the Administration, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, is hammering on those issues with the delegations of Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Failure is a very real possibility, and Ross, who will have to pick up the pieces, is keenly aware of it. But the U.S.'s top Middle East negotiator continues to search--in the words of his former boss Warren Christopher--for "glimmers of light...where most people can't see them."

Just to have brought the sides this close is an achievement. Twelve years ago, when Ross started working for Bush, Arafat was persona non grata to the U.S., a man whose sworn aim was to destroy Israel. Over the years, much of the progress was made by the parties themselves. The Oslo accords, reached in 1993 by Israel and the Palestinians, were achieved without the help of the U.S. But at key moments, especially in the past six months, the U.S. has brought agreement where none could be found by the sides alone. Every President and Secretary of State and foreign leader involved in the negotiations for more than a decade has had reason to turn to Ross and ask him for his thoughts. This week was no exception. Turning to him in a late-afternoon meeting, Clinton said, "Dennis, can you draft us something on this over dinner?" Ross, used to the routine, leaned toward an aide and said, smiling, "That's O.K., we missed lunch too."

For Ross, the Middle East has almost become an obsession. "We have seen too many victims," he said just weeks before the summit. "There has been too much violence; there has been too much pain and too much sorrow. It would not be responsible for us to sit back and not try to seize this moment." That obsession has meant a lot of traveling. He has flown abroad hundreds of times in search of peace. He has driven the region's embassies nuts, preferring to travel light and shunning the press, allowing no reporters to follow him and working without an advance schedule for his movements. A talented college basketball player at UCLA--and still a devoted Bruins fan today--Ross plays Middle East diplomacy like an NBA guard: with a broad game plan in mind but with quick movements, spontaneity and flexibility between quarters. Sometimes flying commercial, he's equally likely to order up Air Force planes on a moment's notice to jet him to Cairo, Damascus or Amman.

For someone so central to the process, Ross could not be more self-effacing. Of the three primary U.S. negotiators of the post-cold war era--the other two are George Mitchell, who helped midwife the Northern Irish peace, and Richard Holbrooke, the brash, Balkan knucklebuster and current U.N. Ambassador--Ross is far and away the most modest. While Holbrooke is known for his deft use of sycophancy and insinuation--key tools of diplomacy when used properly--Ross uses a different method. "Dennis makes up for that lack of flattery and manipulation through trust and discretion," says a former confidant.

Ross earns that trust in different ways. In 1993, when the Palestinians and Israelis on their own had negotiated a draft treaty of mutual recognition as part of the Oslo accords, Secretary of State Christopher sat with Ross, both reading copies of the draft. "There was a lot of tension over what the American reaction would be," says Uri Savir, one of the architects of the accords. "The reaction of Christopher would have an enormous impact on our region...Christopher turned to Ross and asked what he thought. Ross said it was a tremendous historical achievement. That was one of the finest moments of American diplomacy. There was no diplomatic ego involved."

Ross's credibility is due in some part to longevity. In an unusual Washington feat, he traversed Administrations from Republican to Democrat after Clinton's 1992 victory. "Ross just blew everyone away with how brilliant he was," says former Clinton spokesman Mike McCurry. As evidence, his former bosses, not usually the most talkative of men, return calls about Ross within minutes. "I don't do this very often," says Warren Christopher, taking time from his duties head-hunting for Al Gore's prospective vice-presidential candidate, "but Dennis is a special favorite. I've never known anyone more deeply committed to the pursuit of peace and willing to make personal sacrifices for it." Ross has critics, of course. The primary ones have been on the Arab side of the negotiating table, who distrust him because he is Jewish and who say that he takes the Israeli side. "Ross represented the ugly American and the Jewish enemy," says a senior P.L.O. official. Even some former Bush Administration officials, nominally fans of Ross, agree. "He has a fundamental emotional commitment to the state of Israel," says one. "Sometimes that gets in the way of objectivity."

Other critics focus on his secretiveness. Famous for that closely held binder and his lack of a paper trail, Ross shares only with his immediate superiors--Clinton, Berger and Albright--the most sensitive information on talks, and some say the lack of witnesses and signed documents leaves him vulnerable to those who would go back on their word. But most colleagues say such tactics are an asset, not a liability. "It makes his role all the more essential," says Ed Abington, a former member of Ross's team. In fact, the joke at State is that essential Ross has found lifetime employment in trying to bring peace to the Middle East, where deals take decades to mature. But if he manages a pact this week, he'll happily be one step closer to needing a new job.

--With reporting by Eric Silver and Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem, Jay Branegan and Douglas Waller/Washington and William Dowell/New York

With reporting by Eric Silver and Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem, Jay Branegan and Douglas Waller/Washington and William Dowell/New York