Nation: The Mid East: Search for Stability

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One Sunday night meeting had just broken up when news came that the Syrians had overrun Irbid in northern Jordan. Kissinger's deputy, Brigadier General Alexander Haig, ran outside, called the Action Group members back to the situation room. They recommended putting N.C., the on 82nd alert—another Airborne at move Fort Bragg, designed mainly to influence Moscow.

The news grew worse last Monday morning as Syrian armor continued to roll. Kissinger got Nixon out of bed again at 3 a.m. to keep him advised. The President asked for a new reading on what should be done, called Kissinger back in just three minutes to get a report. Next day, Nixon created a new crisis group, dubbed &#quot;the principals&#quot; consisting of Kissinger, Laird, Rogers, Moorer and Packard. They worked over each recommendation of the Action Group for Nixon's benefit.

Nixon Unpredictable

Through it all, the Administration never once said publicly that it might intervene in Jordan with troops to back up Hussein. It spoke only of a possible rescue mission to get Americans and hostages out of the embattled country. But Nixon's private talk to Chicago editors, the air of urgency in Washington, the alerting of troops, all had their intended effect. No one could be sure that a rescue attempt would not be used as pretext for intervention. The President's unexpected dispatch of U.S. troops into Cambodia last spring made his actions now unpredictable.

Actually, the possibility of a U.S. invasion never became really imminent. It was considered—and promptly rejected in any situation short of unspecified "dire circumstances" or as a "last resort." One reason was that the Joint Chiefs of Staff adamantly opposed such a move. Their opposition was so emphatic that they even offered political objections. If ordered to execute such an operation they would, of course, have done so, but most reluctantly.

One general who sits regularly in the Pentagon "tank," where the Chiefs meet, explained his colleagues' attitude: "They stood 100% behind a rescue of American people. But if that operation turned into support for Hussein, they were saying, 'Look, we have been burned on Viet Nam, and before we get out there on the sand we want a much more detailed foreign policy scenario than we have got now.' " The real question, said another general, was: "How could we have got out of there in any possible way with any good?"

The Chiefs questioned the political wisdom of intervening in what they considered an Arab civil war and reasoned that the cost to the U.S. in terms of Arab enmity would not justify trying to save Hussein. On military grounds, they considered landlocked Jordan a logistical nightmare. Moreover, at the height of the crisis, the Sixth Fleet had no way of transporting Marines into Jordan by helicopter; Guam and its choppers were still five days to the west. Militarily, however, the Chiefs had little objection to providing Hussein's troops with carrier-based tactical air support.