UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Lost Peace: Great Power Politics and the Arab-Israeli Problem, 1967-1979 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Galen Jackson 2016 © Copyright by Galen Jackson 2016 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION The Lost Peace: Great Power Politics and the Arab-Israeli Problem, 1967-1979 by Galen Jackson Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Marc Trachtenberg, Chair In the aftermath of the June 1967 Six-Day War, both the United States and the Soviet Union had powerful incentives to achieve a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli dispute. With each superpower concerned that the conflict’s continuation would jeopardize its regional interests and, more significantly, worried that it could ultimately lead to a direct U.S.-Soviet confrontation that might conceivably escalate to the nuclear level, strategists in Washington and Moscow were intensely interested in solving the problem via negotiation. Moreover, the superpowers wielded substantial influence with the parties to the dispute. From a power political standpoint, thus, one would expect that the two sides would have cooperated to settle the matter. Yet, in the end, precisely the opposite occurred. This deeply puzzling outcome is the heart of this dissertation; in its simplest terms, my goal is to show what prevented Washington and Moscow from working together to solve the Arab-Israeli problem and, in so doing, I use the Middle East as a window to ii explain what drove the continuation of the Cold War as a time when a lessening of superpower tensions seemed possible. Utilizing a mass of primary source—and especially archival— evidence, I show that this result was primarily attributable to two variables. First, American domestic political factors consistently constrained U.S. decision-makers in their formulation of Middle East policy and thereby limited their ability to pursue a cooperative approach with the Soviets on the issue. Second, it turns out that the United States was simply not interested in settling the conflict in conjunction with Moscow. Despite the Kremlin’s willingness to contribute helpfully to the achievement of a stable Arab-Israeli settlement, U.S. officials’ deeply anti-Soviet views led them to eschew superpower collaboration and, in fact, resulted in their making the reduction of USSR influence in the Middle East a top priority. In short, the United States throughout this period pursued a strategy in the region that was profoundly inconsistent with power political considerations, an approach that was bound to contribute to the undermining of détente in the late 1970s. iii The dissertation of Galen Jackson is approved. Francis Gavin Steven Spiegel Marc Trachtenberg, Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv For My Family v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Vita xii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Patrons and Clients 21 Chapter 2: Toward an “Era of Negotiation”? 70 Chapter 3: Forced out of Egypt 133 Chapter 4: “Under the Cover of Détente” 179 Chapter 5: The Finishing Touches 241 Chapter 6: Déjà vu All over Again 276 Conclusion: The Lost Peace 315 Selected Bibliography 323 vi Acknowledgements I could not have completed this dissertation without generous support from a number of institutions and organizations. The Department of Education’s Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship allowed me to commit two summers to formal training in Arabic, which proved invaluable when I spent a semester in Cairo in 2012 studying the language and learning more about the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli issue. The UCLA Graduate Division’s Research Mentorship and Summer Research Mentorship likewise provided me with additional time to study Arabic and allowed me to devote greater attention to my scholarship early in my graduate career. I also received generous travel grants from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation to conduct research at the Ford and Johnson presidential libraries in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Austin, Texas. Many of the empirical findings presented in this dissertation are based on the work I did at those repositories, which would not have been possible without such support. Above all, I am extremely grateful to the Bradley Foundation, whose assistance greatly facilitated my ability to focus on my research throughout my entire time at UCLA; to the University of California’s Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, which awarded me a Herbert F. York Global Security Fellowship during the 2014-2015 academic year and thereby permitted me to dedicate all my energies to the completion of this project; and to the Stanton Foundation for offering me a Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellowship in 2015-2016, during which time I was able to concentrate solely on finishing this dissertation. vii No scholar can get to this point without the benefit of impactful mentors. I first became interested in the Middle East and American foreign policy during the fall semester of my junior year as an undergraduate at Williams College. At the time, I still hoped to study neuroscience, but two professors—James McAllister and Magnus Bernhardsson—completely changed the way I viewed history and political science. Professor McAllister first showed me how much leverage one can get over major conceptual issues in international relations through the use of primary documents; opened my eyes to the complexities and importance of security studies, as well as awakened my fascination with such issues; provided invaluable guidance to me when I first began doing serious research in this area; and encouraged me to pursue a career in political science. For his part, Professor Bernhardsson challenged me to learn everything I could about the Middle East and instilled in me a drive to get to the bottom of historical puzzles; was as supportive as any undergraduate thesis adviser has ever been; and refused to accept my work until he was satisfied that it represented my best effort. Both men encouraged me to combine my understanding of history and political science, which to this day has allowed me to occupy an exciting space intellectually. When I spent a year getting my M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago, I was fortunate enough to work closely with a third mentor, Michael Reese. Anyone who has studied with Professor Reese knows that he cares, above all else, about the progress of his students, and that their future success is his top priority. During my year in Chicago, I learned more about international relations theory and research design from him than most students learn during their entire time in a Ph.D. program, and I am eternally grateful to him. He continues to read drafts of my working papers, has stayed involved in my career, and has become a friend. I feel extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to work so closely with these top-notch scholars and teachers. I would not have gotten here without them. viii Nor could I have achieved this goal without the help and support of my colleagues, friends, and family. Anyone who has done a Ph.D. knows that at times it can be a quite stressful and arduous process. Without a number of individuals, this dissertation would not have been possible. In particular, I am grateful to Jason Stone for the close friendship we developed during my year at the University of Chicago and to Matthew Gottfried for giving me comments on everything I have ever asked him to read and for his helpful advice throughout the time I have known him. I am also indebted to Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Rohan Mukherjee for their help and friendship, as well as to the faculty and graduate students in the MIT Security Studies Program for being so supportive and welcoming during the year I spent in the department as a Stanton Fellow completing my Ph.D. I owe a special thank you to the friends I made at UCLA who, more than anything else, have made my graduate school experience so rewarding. Specifically, I would not trade anything for the relationships I have developed with Jesse Acevedo, Soumi Chatterjee, Paasha Mahdavi, Felipe Nunes, Stephen Palley, and Ryan Weldzius. We have become lifelong friends and I look forward to staying tightly connected with them in the coming years. I also want to thank my other close friends and family. Their support and guidance sustained me through the hardest periods of graduate school and this is as much their accomplishment as it is mine. I could not have asked for a better doctoral committee. Frank Gavin, who offered to supervise my work on the first day that I met him, was instrumental in bringing me to MIT for a year and has stimulated my interest in nuclear-related topics. Professor Gavin has never been anything but supportive of the type of work that I do and has reinforced my belief that history and political science can be used in conjunction to shed light on critically important issues in international relations. I am a better scholar for having worked with him. Likewise, I am grateful ix to Deborah Larson for everything she has done to help me improve professionally. Professor Larson has written me countless letters of recommendation; read drafts of everything I have ever had published; always kept herself available to answer my questions; never stopped pushing me; and set a great example for how to be a more effective teacher. I am extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity not only to work with her on my research, but also as a teaching assistant for multiple classes. I have also been lucky to have Steven Spiegel as a committee member.