Nation: The Mid East: Search for Stability

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But the President concluded that he had to signal the Soviets that the U.S. did not intend to stand by idly in this crisis. There was an element of compensation in this; two weeks before, the U.S. had appeared helpless and indecisive when Egypt and Russia callously violated the Suez standstill agreement. A second display of weakness might be highly damaging. He kept a date with editors of the Chicago Sun-Times and Daily News—and deliberately took an overly tough line. Nixon hinted that the U.S. might use the holding of the airline hostages as a handy excuse to attack the commandos. In an odd bit of gamesmanship, a mixture of guile and almost naive candor, the President indicated that it might be beneficial if the Soviets thought the U.S. capable of "irrational or unpredictable" action.

Heightened Determination

Meanwhile, Kissinger and company decided to move another aircraft carrier, Saratoga, into the eastern Mediterranean to join Independence, which had sailed eastward after the hijackings occurred. A group of C-130 transport planes was flown from Europe into Turkey. An airborne brigade had already been placed on semi-alert in Germany. At a later meeting, the group proposed moving a third carrier, John F. Kennedy, into the Med, and ordering the helicopter carrier Guam and its Marine landing team to leave North Carolina for scheduled NATO maneuvers in the Mediterranean a day early. Each move, as the Administration anticipated, was reported by newsmen. The sense of U.S. determination was now being deliberately heightened.

On the day after Nixon returned to Washington, intelligence sources passed along unconfirmed reports of movements in Jordan by both the Iraqis and the Syrians. Iraq has kept about 18,000 troops and 100 tanks in the country with Hussein's approval since the Six-Day War in 1967. The White House considered an Iraqi assault on Hussein's troops more likely, partly because Soviet officers serve with Syrian troops and presumably could keep those forces in check. A note from Moscow advised Washington that the Russians had no intention of intervening in Jordan and were trying to discourage others, including the Syrians, from such action. When the intelligence reports turned out to be premature, and Jordanian troops seemed to be handling the commandos well, much of Washington relaxed. Not Nixon. He told Kissinger not to take the Soviet assurances too seriously. "Take it easy," he said. "We've had that sort of thing before."

The Syrians Attack

The mood turned to alarm on Sunday morning, Sept. 20, when Syrian tanks rolled southward to relieve pressure on the commandos. Israeli troops began massing along the Jordanian border to the west. Nixon asked Secretary of State William Rogers to warn the Russians again. He did so, in the sternest note that the Nixon Administration has yet sent to Moscow. It threatened the "gravest consequences" if the Syrians did not withdraw.

Now there was no need to project a crisis atmosphere; Washington's concern was real. Rogers decided to spend the night on a cot in his office. Meeting followed meeting as news of the Syrian assault came in. At one point Nixon told Kissinger: "Let's you and me war-game this&#quot; and they worked the plans over to see, as Nixon put it, "where the weak points might be."