DIPLOMACY: A Triumphant Middle East Hegira

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SYRIA. Twenty minutes' flight time from Damascus airport, Colonel Ralph Albertazzie, the pilot of Nixon's Spirit of 76, spotted four Soviet-built Syrian MlGs coming up fast. He immediately took evasive action, putting the giant jet through a series of sharp turns and steep banks while radioing the Damascus control tower for help. Assured that the fighters were on a friendly— though unannounced— escort mission, Colonel Albertazzie landed the President in Syria for his meetings with the leaders of a nation that has been bitterly anti-American as well as anti-Israeli.

Nixon's reception on the ground was similar to the one he had experienced in the sky — officially friendly but militant in tone. After the 1967 war, Syria broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S. and moved even closer to the Soviet Union for aid in its enduring fight against Israel. Syria made no secret of the fact that it held out no great expectations for Nixon's visit. The prevailing attitude was one of wary suspicion: What was the President really up to? A government newspaper did not get around to running a front-page story on Nixon's arrival until the morning his plane actually touched down.

President Hafez Assad, who politely received Nixon at the airport, had made no effort to get out big crowds. Not until the presidential limousine reached Damascus, 28 miles from the airport, was there any buildup of spectators along the roadside. Then Nixon asked that the roof of the car be opened, and the two Presidents stood to wave to the crowd, which numbered perhaps 100,000. The people smiled and waved back but did little cheering. Though American flags dotted the route, only one placard was visible. It said pointedly: REVOLUTIONARY DAMASCUS WELCOMES PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON.

In Syria, President Nixon could see visible proof of the searing nature of the problems that he was trying to help solve. As his plane approached the airport, he could detect in the distance the salient from which, by coincidence, Israeli troops that day were beginning to pull back in accordance with the disengagement agreement that Kissinger had worked out. One of the larger groups that watched the motorcade pass by was composed of Syrian refugees from the Golan Heights. The tough-looking young soldiers that guarded the airport and roads were armed with Russian-made AK-47s. Nixon's limousine also swept by a Palestinian refugee camp composed of grim, concrete-block and tin-roofed buildings.

Nixon and Assad were planning to discuss the possible resumption of diplomatic relations as well as the $100 million in the pending foreign aid bill that the Administration has said could go to Syria. But there was no getting away from the tougher subjects that were blocking a general settlement in the Middle East, and Assad gave Nixon the hard line. "No peace can be established in this region," he declared, "unless a real and just solution is found for the Palestinian question." In reply, Nixon said again that he had set out on his tour with no quick solutions to such complex problems. But he added: "Now we must move forward step by step until we reach our goal of a just and equitable peace."