Great Negotiations

by Fredrik Stanton

  Bunche unwound by playing billiards, which he loved. “I never once saw him lose his temper,” his secretary, Doreen Daughton, said later. “Whenever things got bad he simply took a few minutes off and went down and played billiards. Then he came back and got to work again.”25 Shabtai Rosenne offered a similar description:

  My most vivid recollection of this physically huge man—handsome and attractive in his own way, a soupcon of a smile on his lips, a bubbling sense of humor that never seemed to leave him, a healthy touch of cynicism—is with a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lips, after dinner bent over the billiard table in the games room of the Hotel des Roses, vigorously playing a form of three-sided snooker with teams from the UN, Egypt, and Israel (possibly carefully choosing the winner for that night or at least ensuring that it would not be the UN). There were drinks around the table and the atmosphere became relaxed and human. At around 10 P.M. he would call a halt and summon members of one delegation or of both to meet in his room, where he would patiently, firmly, and sometimes roughly give his analysis or hear reports from the delegations, probe reactions to this or that suggestion, first from one side and then from the other.26

  Billiards also served a more subtle purpose. “Those games of snooker,” Rosenne continued, “were, I often think, one of the keys to Bunche’s success. Certainly they were the catalyst. They broke the ice. They showed us that the Egyptians were human like us, with similar emotions of pleasure when they were winning and of dismay when they were losing—Bunche insisted all the time on true sportsmanship in these games—and I hope and believe that the Egyptians observed the same human qualities in us.”27

  The talks resumed with the return of the delegates on January 27, but there was no movement. Bunche called for greater flexibility from both parties, and urged magnanimity from the Israelis. In his discussions with Eytan, Bunche appealed for “generosity toward what was at this stage, a beaten foe. . . . There was a real opportunity for great statesmanship on the part of Israel which in his purely personal view would pay handsome dividends in the future.”28 Eytan, while recognizing Egypt’s need to “get out of Palestine . . . without dishonor,” believed that rescuing the Egyptian government from its dilemma had “nothing to do with the armistice and was no concern of ours.” Sharett wrote Bunche more directly that “the Egyptians are paying for their criminal invasion and its failure, and the Egyptian government must not expect Israeli assistance if it lacks the courage to admit its failure to the Egyptian people.”29

  Bunche wrote his wife Ruth, “There is a cat and mouse game going on here between each of them [Egyptians and Israelis] and me—they would be happy if I would terminate the negotiations and thus relieve them of any responsibility. But I am not going to take that rap. . . . It’s like having a bear by the tail and being afraid to let go.”30

  The delegations were locked in an impasse. Neither side would change course, but neither wanted to take responsibility for terminating the negotiation. “Look,” Bunche finally told an Arab delegate, “you or the Israelis will have to break off the negotiations—and take responsibility! As the U.N.’s representative, I am your servant, and I will stay out here as long as one or both of you stay. I’ll remain ten years if necessary.” “Ah,” the Arab said, smiling. “Well, why not? What’s the hurry?”31 Bunche cabled Lie, “Following separate talks with each delegation conclusion is inescapable that prospects for an armistice are virtually nil. Each delegation is adamant on its position. Have exerted every possible effort to induce concessions from each side but to no avail.”32 Lie encouraged Bunche to “keep going and smiling,”33 and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk sent him a cable urging him to hold his course: “We have been much encouraged by your masterly direction of the Rhodes talks, and even though auspices may not now seem bright, we do hope you will stick by the job until it is finished. While fully conversant with your desire to return, we feel that no one but yourself should shepherd these delicate negotiations at this time.”34

  “Bunche was tough,” Rosenne wrote. “He could be harsh; he cajoled, he threatened, and he charmed. If he twisted your arm, it hurt, and was meant to. But he was fair and open to argument and persuasion and to me was the incarnation of belief in the UN—not the United Nations as viewed through the rose-tinted spectacles of a wishy-washy ideology but the UN as a necessity for the preservation of mankind in the nuclear age. From perhaps an opposing point of departure I personally could meet him halfway, and I regard him as one of the greatest men I have ever had the honor to meet and to work with, and against.”

  Bunche stepped up the pace. His efforts were going nowhere and he knew that he needed a more drastic approach. He understood that for all their bluff, the one thing that the negotiators feared more than making concessions was blame for scuttling the conference. On Sunday, January 30, Bunche threw down the gauntlet. He called in each delegation and told them he was increasing the pressure and his schedule called for agreement by Tuesday or disagreement by Wednesday. He promised them a meaty draft first thing the next morning.

  Bunche composed a new proposal that put both sides on the spot by putting forward compromise formulas that were below their minimum demands on crucial points but reasonable enough that they could not be refused without embarrassment. The draft articulated the outline of the armistice agreement, stipulated the eventual release of Egyptian troops at al-Faluja, and made specific recommendations on demarcation lines and the reduction and balance of forces located near the border. He figured that neither side would like the proposal but they would find it difficult to reject. “With this agreement,” he wrote, “both parties are trapped.”36

  The Egyptians took the draft back to Cairo for consultations with their government. With the Egyptians briefly gone, the Israelis shared their reservations with Bunche. They felt it set a floor below which the Egyptians would not go, whereas otherwise they might go all the way to accepting the Israeli position.37 The Israelis particularly objected to a provision Bunche included as a concession to Egyptian demands that demilitarized the southern town of El Auja, which lay at the Egyptian border along a strategic road and which Israel had captured at the close of the conflict. Reuven Shiloah, speaking for the Israelis, told Bunche that the agreement would “cause trouble,” and Bunche answered that “we already had plenty of trouble and a little more wouldn’t hurt.”38

  Bunche wrote to Eytan:

  I recognize fully that in certain important respects this draft falls below the minimum demands of each delegation. . . . But though positions are sacrificed on both sides, I am certain that no vital national interests on either side would be seriously jeopardized by an armistice agreement somewhat along these lines. My whole effort has been directed at trying to find some approach which could at once be considered moderately reasonable and fair while doing no gross injustice to the positions of the parties. . . . I honestly feel that the world would find it difficult to believe that two parties seeking peace could not discover it somewhere along the road thus outlined. I am sure the world will be seriously disturbed if agreement is not found, either along this road or some other. . . . Nothing could be clearer from these negotiations thus far than the fact that if peace is to be sought after, some sacrifices of significance must be made by those who seek it.39

  On January 31, Eytan wrote Sharett that he worried that their unyielding position might lead to the failure of the negotiation, and the blame would fall on Israel. He thought the Egyptians wanted an armistice, but if Israeli conditions remained stiff they might be satisfied with the cease-fire agreement already signed, quit Rhodes, and take their case to the Security Council. He asked Sharett to find out the extent of the government’s willingness to accept responsibility for failure of the talks and if the cabinet fully recognized the consequences to relations with the United States and the Security Council.

  Outside of Rhodes, Bunche set larger forces in motion during the Egyptians’ absence. The threat of UN Security Council sanctions invariably lay bene
ath Bunche’s discussions, and as the talks dragged on this danger began to sink in with the Israeli delegation. Israel worried that if the matter went to the Security Council, it might well impose a harsher solution than what the Egyptians offered. Bunche maintained direct channels with the American and British governments that he used to bring pressure on the Israeli and Egyptian leadership over the heads of the delegations, which often resulted in fresh directions to the negotiators at Rhodes from their cabinets back home. President Harry Truman sent word to Bunche of his willingness to exert pressure where and when it would be helpful. This was one of those moments, and Bunche hoped British and American support for his draft proposal would help turn the corner for the two sides.40

  Seif El Dine struggled to get the draft accepted in Cairo. The Egyptian military wanted an end to its troubles, but the politicians still preferred tough talk. With the support of the delegation and pressure from the Americans, the government finally went along. The Egyptians returned early on the morning of February 3. For once, Bunche felt, the Egyptians had shown clever tactics—they accepted the compromise draft with only minor modifications. In doing so, they put the Israelis on the spot.41 The immediate Israeli response was subdued. Eytan told Bunche laconically that Egyptian thinking was “a puzzle” to him. But beyond the grumbling, the Egyptian acceptance brought new life to the negotiation and marked a turning point in the conference.42

  Bunche called an informal joint meeting the next day, February 4. They made some progress, and prospects picked up. Bunche cabled Secretary General Lie, “Israelis have made no concessions of consequence since the compromise draft was circulated while Egyptians made very substantial concessions in accepting that draft. In view of all of us here provision for El Auja in compromise draft would afford fully adequate protection to security interests of both sides.”43 Seif El Dine suggested a meeting of the two military leaders to discuss specifics on the demarcation lines. “This gave things a shot in the arm and was quickly accepted,” Bunche wrote.44

  Because of the delicacy of the situation, Bunche took an incremental approach, breaking the issues into small, practical questions that both sides could address without involving matters of principle. Bunche, Eytan later noted, “took a realistic view of the situation throughout. He probably had fewer illusions than any of us. He not only preached the doctrine of ‘one thing at a time,’ but he practiced it.”45 A large number of issues had to be covered, and Bunche separated them into individual items. They included al-Faluja; demarcation lines along almost a thousand square miles of desert; provision for the withdrawal of over a hundred thousand troops; the status of dozens of towns in Israel, Gaza, and the Negev; and numerous derivative issues. He took each item to the delegations for talks—on the agenda for discussing the item. Then he would bring the two sides together to sign an agreement formally approving the agenda. Once they agreed on the agenda, they would then meet to discuss the item itself.46 “There was a double purpose in this,” Bunche explained:

  Primarily it was to get both sides to meet—but also, I wanted them both to get accustomed to taking formal action, and to signing something. That way, I figured, the next step might not be so difficult. . . .

  Whenever they got together, you’d always find that there was still a gap between them. It was always a matter of timing, always a matter of finding out when it would be appropriate to reduce a discussion to a formal, written draft of one point. We never would throw a whole draft at them at the beginning—that would’ve scared them to death. Finally, after we had gone pretty far along, we’d give them the first draft of a complete agreement [on that point.] That had to be modified over and over. It was just that you had to talk everything out with them beforehand, separately and together—a matter of their going back to consult with their governments, of compromises and more compromises.47

  The atmosphere was so tense that according to Bunche, “every time you blew your nose you’d offend someone. There was a crisis every day.”48 The negotiators worked every angle to gain advantage. They employed “all kinds of ruses—guile, promises, wheedling, threats, suggestions that they were leaving Rhodes” in an attempt to win concessions from the other side.49

  Bunche used creative language to bypass differences. “When the parties failed to agree,” an Israeli delegate wrote, “he could draft a formula so that each could interpret it in his own way. When I questioned him on this approach, he said the basic aim at the time was to bring an end to the fighting. Later, when the parties would discover that on certain items they did not get what they expected, they would not renew the war on that account, but the realities of life would shape the appropriate arrangements.”50 Bunche also made time an ally, drawing out meetings with both sides until three or four in the morning, when fatigue would compel the weary representatives to concede agreement on a subpoint and sign to it.51 One session lasted twenty hours: beginning at ten in the morning, without stopping for meals (“He lived on orange juice,” Daughton said) or leaving his sitting room, he alternated between delegations until they came to an agreement on the point in contention at six the following morning.52 His persistence won the delegates’ respect. “Dr. Bunche,” Eytan said, “never lost sight of the immediate goal, which, limited as it was, long seemed remote and perhaps unattainable. At the same time, he understood that the armistice was an essential step in the transition from truce to peace.”53 Another Israeli delegate wrote that “it was difficult not to be impressed by Dr. Bunche’s handling of the sessions. . . . He spoke little and listened to others with intense concentration. It seemed as though he was trying not only to hear what was being said but also to penetrate the mind of the speaker to discover what lay behind his words.”54

  The heavy negotiating paid off, and the differences between the Egyptians and Israelis began to narrow. A remaining point of contention was the status of Beersheba, a large town in the center of the Negev halfway between Jerusalem and Egypt, captured by the Egyptian army in the early days of the war but retaken by the Israelis in October. A large Israeli force there would pose a continuing threat to the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian border, so the Egyptians asked to make Beersheba a demilitarized area. Egypt also insisted on an Egyptian civil administrator for Beersheba, a town whose strategic crossroads made it the key to the Negev.

  Eytan resisted the demilitarization of Beersheba. The Israelis felt they needed a garrison there because they feared the presence of other Arab troops in the eastern Negev and British troops at nearby Aqaba. Also, by this point both the Israelis and Egyptians were negotiating with an eye to Israel’s subsequent armistice talks with the other Arab states, and the Israelis worried that their concessions would be seen as weakness and make things more difficult for them in future discussions. Egypt, in rivalry with King Abdullah of Jordan for stature in the Arab world, sought to reduce his chances of gaining access to the Negev, which Jordan also claimed.

  Bunche cabled the secretary general on February 5, “Egyptians announced at morning meeting they were prepared to sign the compromise draft today.”55 The next day he reported, “Israeli position unchanged. I had a long heart to heart talk with Eytan today and handed him a personal letter giving my full appraisal of situation. Egyptians conciliatory but are strongly resisting any further major concessions in absence of any concessions by Israelis.”56

  On February 7, Eytan wrote Sharett:

  The threat of Security Council action has of course lurked behind Bunche’s conversations with us ever since we came here, but it has never come out so clearly before. The basic question which the Government has to ask itself is whether it is prepared to face the Security Council on these issues. I take it from your cable to Bunche that the answer is in the affirmative, though I do not for the life of me know what the Government would do if the Security Council, egged on by Bunche and fed up with our failure to comply with orders, took a really strong line to force us to withdraw from Auja, return to November 13th lines, etc.— or be branded as violators of the truce and mocker
s of the U.N., with all that this would mean in respect of our chances of becoming members of that organization in the near future. For all the strength of our military case—and it is this of course that we have been pressing all along—we should have a very sticky time attempting to justify ourselves in terms of the international order as represented by Security Council decisions. . . . I am beginning to feel that unless there is some move on our part, the scene will soon shift from Rhodes to [the United Nations].57

  Eytan believed that the Egyptians were certain that Israel would not resume fighting and that Egypt would be able to achieve its objectives with regard to Faluja and El Auja through the Security Council even if there was no agreement. The Israelis also knew that failure of the Egyptian negotiation would preclude agreements with other Arab states. The Israeli delegation cabled Tel Aviv that Israel must make substantial concessions if it wanted an agreement, since “all concessions made up to now are not really concessions, but rather retreats from exaggerated demands.”58

  Bunche sent a telegram to Lie asking him to speak with the British about removing their forces from Aqaba to relieve the pressure on Beersheba. Meanwhile, at Bunche’s request, Truman ordered Secretary of State Dean Acheson to send a message to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion encouraging Israel to support the compromise proposal.59 Bunche and his chief of staff and military adviser, Marine Corps General William Riley, held a long meeting with Eytan and Colonel Yadin. Bunche suspected that Yadin, who was “obviously holding up the agreement,” really wanted a surrender. Bunche lectured him about impatience in negotiation and told him that the real test of the potential greatness of both a nation and a military leader was the ability to accept victory gracefully.60