Secretary of State George Shultz

...The proposal falls squarely within the framework of Camp David, and in that sense, it is not new...

...It didn't close down because of preoccupation with these events, as one could have imagined it might...

...Quite to the contrary...

...It shouldn't be an impossible chore at all...

...You had a spectrum...

...I think everyone must see that as the fundamental objective...

...It's hard for me to believe that that could be rejected...

...Is this a right that only Israel has, or do all countries have this right...

...What are the parameters...

...In our statements about what it is in Soviet behavior that causes us problems, we have always put the human rights concerns very high, and the problem of Soviet Jewry...

...If you're even halfway observant, in a company like Bechtel, you learn quite a lot, because it's a very well-managed company, it's an honorable company and it has operations all over the world...

...That is a place where Bechtel has done work historically, but it's only one of many places...

...In an area that's been so torn by war, that has to have the greatest possible appeal...

...He's thought this through, and it's not a kind of quick proposal, which if it works, okay, if it doesn't work, okay...

...I wish I could close this interview with some new piece of information, that I could tell you that I just had a phone call saying that...

...When people are in a mood to be realistic and reasonable, they're going to wind up somewhere near there...

...Given the history of these things, that's quite a significant statement...

...Quite to the contrary, I think that in spite of the trauma the ideas are still very much alive...

...Is there any reason to believe that it will be more forthcoming than it has been thus far...

...On the other hand, before the President took his initiative, we had many detailed discussions and discussions of the atmosphere he was trying to create, what might happen, and so on, and the President was very clear in his mind that while we might hope for something to happen quickly, given all the problems, it might not happen quickly...

...We have brought it up a great deal...

...Gro-myko...

...A good mediator in an important dispute is very active with all the parties to the dispute, and at times makes suggestions...

...I can only speculate that one of the most powerful criticisms leveled at people around the world, in Europe and elsewhere as well, in the face of the Holocaust was, "You knew what was going on...

...I would prefer not to comment on it further, to await the results of the investigation...

...Sharon called it when he was here—and Jordan and Israel as well, so that would help the economic viability of the whole area...

...And the same with the Treasury, where I was Secretary...

...I think that's worth the time and the effort if it can possibly be brought into being...

...We had to be prepared for the long haul here, and the President is prepared to stay with this, to exercise his kind of impatient patience...

...The first time was when I was Secretary of Labor, and I spent some time there...

...Those experiences recede totally in terms of your doing something that would have an impact on an organization you were once involved with, but at the same time your experiences throughout your life have a continuing impact on you...

...The Saudis have been very helpful in many respects...

...So when I've gone to Israel, I've been greeted by former students or colleagues or people I've known, and that gives a sense of personal involvement with the problem...

...Of course, the reason they're alive and so prominent in people's thinking is that the importance of peace is so much alive...

...It's clearly going to be a thorough investigation, and I think that's called for...

...Now, without necessarily agreeing with all the particulars or details, the thing that comes across in Asia and in Europe, in South America and in Africa, is that maybe there's a chance...

...It's a very legitimate preoccupation, and the President is committed to responding to it...

...Then let's close by thanking you so much for your time and your courtesy...

...We have been working on it...

...I said, "What's that...

...Brzezinski's tenure in the National Security Council, the word was that yes, there would be peace for territory, but the territory envisioned was to be measured in meters, not kilometers...

...The MNF departed according to the plan and the requests and everything...

...It has been quite forthcoming in the sense of the King's statement about the President's ideas...

...I suppose you only have to'reflect for a moment to see why a president of Lebanon would be interested in the peace process...

...So the role of a mediator is one that has a lot of variety to it if it is conducted in a professional mediator's way...

...Bashir...

...Of course, in the course of my government work before that I got to know many Israelis...

...And the leader in that was Bashir's father, who counseled that all around...

...I've done a lot of mediating and arbitrating in my life, and it has always seemed to me that people who say, "You made suggestions, therefore you're not a mediator anymore," have never understood what a mediator does...

...I think that's a part of it, it's something that's gnawing at people's insides a little bit...

...So we'll have to work within the framework of that principle...

...And in my capacity on the faculty at MIT and at the University of Chicago and more recently at Stanford—I was on the Stanford faculty as well as at Bechtel—I saw many Israelis coming through as students, or as visiting faculty members, or whatever...

...To me, it is important to have discussions start on a broader spectrum...

...If one looks at the history of American foreign policy in the Middle East, the same term surely applies...

...To use the terms of your earlier trade, is the United States now shifting from the role of mediator to the ' role of arbitrator...

...Is that in order to insure a constituency of support for it in Israel, or does it reflect a serious independent judgment in this country regarding how Palestinian rights can best be expressed...

...And all of a sudden there is at least the possibility of peace...

...I personally did, here, with the duly authorized representative of Israel, saying that "You don't know what you're going to get into if you go there, and the minute you occupy that piece of territory, you are responsible for what goes on in there...

...Actually, after Bashir's murder, according to the soundings we had—and this was another reason why we urged the Israelis not to go into West Beirut—the reactions were reactions of reconciliation, amazingly enough, not of retribution...

...You were there, we know you say you didn't approve of it, but you knew it was going on and you didn't do anything about it...

...on November 1, 1982...

...But I don't want to dwell on that...

...But the United States Government really pleaded with Israel not to go into West Beirut...

...One of the foreign ministers of one of the Arab countries came to see me for a lengthy discussion of the President's peace proposals...

...And that's a devastating criticism...

...I engaged in some very interesting activities in that capacity...

...Having discussed this with him a great deal, we have felt from the beginning that the pressure that would be applied would be the most intense pressure of all—namely, the pressure that comes from the possibility of peace...

...It has such an impact on what you think about for your children and your grandchildren...

...If you say that you're not in favor of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank, then what would be the condition of that piece of land with over a million people living on it...

...One presumes that when an American citizen accedes to the august office of Secretary of State, whatever prior experiences he's had recede in importance when compared to his new mandate—but I'd rather hear what you have to say about it...

...If you're the Budget Director of the United States, let me tell you, you get to know many Israelis, and quite well...

...Shcharansky was here just a week or so ago, and it was one of the toughest hours I've spent since I've been Secretary of State, talking to her...

...There's no other way to look at it...

...On a different matter entirely, if I may, there is continuing concern in some parts of the Jewish community regarding your Bechtel connection...

...can you exercise that responsibility...

...Yet in yesterday's New York Times, there is a report that were Hussein and the PLO to say the magic words, to recognize Israel, the United States would then be prepared to apply "fierce'' pressure on the Israelis if they did not respond...

...The word around town, as you know better than I, is that the Administration has been disappointed during recent months by Saudi behavior with regard to these matters, that the Saudi impact hasn't been what it might have been expected to be, what you hoped it might be...

...You never know what people can do if you give them a chance, and they were hit very hard by the movement of Israel into West Beirut...

...he's ready to stay with it and try to have it come about in a good way...

...In the President's conception, there is envisaged an easy flow of commerce and work arrangements and so forth between what we now call the West Bank—or what I'll call the West Bank, since that's not what Mr...

...Where does the matter stand—or does it rest...

...And it also follows from our sense that if you set up something that's supposed to be a state and it has a hard time working economically though it can act like a state otherwise, what is it going to do...

...It is his conviction that it is perfectly possible to find an answer to the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and the security interests of Israel simultaneously...

...You once described American trade policy as a kind of "light-switch" policy...

...And if transitional arrangements that are along the lines envisaged in Camp David can be brought about, that's a step in the right direction, and the final status issues can then be debated...

...King Hassan and the group that accompanied him—that was a very interesting group because it included foreign ministers from the spectrum of Arab countries—Algeria and Syria as well as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Morocco, of course...

...I think a great deal has happened since the President made his "fresh start" proposal...

...It's now two months since the President's speech, and the initial reactions from the interested parties have clearly not been auspicious...

...It hasn't been as though the President made his proposals and then nothing happened, everybody rejected them or the trauma of Beirut came along and shut them off...

...Not the probability of peace, not a big possibility, but just a possibility of peace, and it's so exciting...

...If I may interrupt there just for a moment, you'll recall that during the days of Mr...

...Nevertheless, I think we all have to recognize that Israel throughout its existence has been surrounded by countries that have declared themselves hostile to Israel in extreme terms, so it shouldn't surprise anybody that there's a preoccupation there with security...

...The Israelis have a reputation such that you never hear the word "whitewash" applied to them...

...So of course, in my work with Bechtel I became acquainted with people literally all over the world...

...And I think that with some sort of affiliation such as we propose it has more of a chance for economic workability than something standing by itself...

...I speak for me, and I believe I speak for the President...

...When did you first visit Israel...

...It's a subject I've raised with Mr...

...When you go to the United Nations, mainly what you do is sit around and talk to other foreign ministers...

...If there's any country that's taken a beating from the lack of peace, it really has been Lebanon...

...That reflects the quality of the relationship between the United States and Canada...

...On the Arab side, the meetings we've had here...

...I think it's important, if it can be brought off, that he does come in with that kind of support and participation, because then he is not an isolated figure...

...So what I'm saying is that there has been a lot of movement...

...I don't know how well you know him, but he has a kind of impatient way of being willing to stick with things, and he does stick with things...

...I admire the fact that the Israeli political process insisted on a thorough investigation...

...It's going to be an explosive situation...

...In closing, can you say anything at all encouraging about the condition and prospects of Soviet Jewry...

...Do you have an interesting hypothesis as to why, in the aftermath of the massacres, all the attention has been focused on Israel, almost to the exclusion of those who wielded the knives and pulled the triggers...

...And the King has been talking with his Arab colleagues and with representatives of the Palestinians—not only the PLO but other Palestinians that he talks to—trying to arrange a situation in which he enters peace talks with the support of the Arab community and with the participation of Palestinians...

...I think it does have a tremendous appeal, at least from my little sampling...

...And that's what many people in Israel have argued, too, and it seems to me a sensible argument...

...And I know quite a few people in the Arab countries also...

...Much depends, as you suggested, on the Jordanian response...

...I don't expect that you'll draw boundaries here and now, but are we talking about significant border rectification, about significant adjustments...

...Those are things a mediator does, but those aren't the only things a mediator does...

...This was a country, incidentally, that was not supposed to be interested in those proposals, yet he spent two hours talking about them...

...And in the course of our conversation, he said, "I see the President has enunciated a new international right...

...Erom the perspective of Jews, I don't know...

...You're trying to work things out constructively with them...

...So you're saying that the rejection of an independent Palestinian state is not only a concession to Israeli sensibilities, but also an independent assessment by the American Government of what has a chance of prospering there...

...As far as Israel is concerned, the Government of Israel has been unequivocal in its rejection of the President's ideas...

...At times he makes, those suggestions privately, and at times he makes them publicly, depending on what the mediator thinks is going to advance the process of negotiation in a constructive way...

...And it means something to people that you've been there, that you've talked and listened to them...

...The American role, in the light of the proposal, is rather interesting...

...Are you saying that this time the light is on, and will stay on...

...it's a matter of great concern to us...

...The MNF came to undertake a specific mission that was highly structured, that had to do with the evacuation of the PLO and the emergence of some stability in the region...

...Also, in arranging a territorial compromise, you want a territory arranged in such a way that it has a chance of being a reasonable economic unit that works over a period of time...

...Usually the reason that you're having negotiations is that people aren't in agreement, and they have to work something out...

...I think the President has set out very clearly a kind of absolute rock-bottom concern with the security of Israel and with having borders that lend themselves to that security...

...I heard no such pleas at the time the MNF left...

...And it was interesting to see King Hassan with the President at the White House with these foreign ministers behind him talking about the importance of coexistence and setting out the President's ideas, and Resolutions 242 and 338, and the Fez Summit ideas, as the basis for peace...

...After all, you don't expect that you start negotiations with everybody in agreement...

...In the connection we've been discussing, people focus on the Middle East...

...The massacres, and preceding them the devastation of Beirut—I'm not making a judgment here as to who is responsible for what, merely noting that there was a devastation in Beirut and there was the movement into an Arab capital by the Israeli armed forces, and then there was the massacre—all of that, of course, has had a big impact all over the world, and in the Arab countries...

...Still, I think it's worth noting that in the Camp David process, a two-stage process is envisaged, starting with interim or transitional arrangements and then moving on to final status decisions...

...How do you reconcile those two statements...

...I'd rather not speculate about that...

...Certainly one could nourish the hope that things might have moved faster than they have...

...I've said on other occasions, and I'll say to you, that I happened by chance to be in Israel shortly after President Sadat's first visit there, but before anything much else had happened...

...That country has been wracked for years by the fallout of that lack...

...In many respects, the ground the President has set out for himself here in his fresh start is the high ground...

...And after they departed, things continued to go along all right...

...But I'm sorry to say that I can't...

...The light is on, and it's going to stay on...

...As one woman put it to me, "We have lived with the certainty of war...

...We had a special meeting of a different sort that we arranged...

...And it is traditional in the sense that it proposes a sort of peace-for-territory formulation that's been part of the thinking for many, many years...

...But it has been very interesting to me, in reading the cable traffic that our ambassadors are sending us all the time— they have been out and around, talking with officials and others throughout the Arab world, on our instructions to do that—the thing that comes through is a tremendous interest in the peace process...

...That's what you hear from the representatives of those places...

...Now in thinking about that, I have to think about the borders of the United States...

...In the President's view, this is a key part of the world, and this is a moment when something might take place that is truly constructive...

...We had meetings last week with President Gemayel and also with the Arab League delegation here...

...What would you identify as the new elements in the President's initiative...

...It's at a pitifully low level right now...

...I know that others have, as well...

...well, let me back up a little first...

...You take charge, you assume responsibility...

...It seemed to the President that this would be the arrangement with the best prospects...

...And he replied, "The right to defensible borders...

...There is an image in some people's minds that what a mediator does is pass messages back and forth between people, and be somebody who convenes meetings and has some idea of when it's worthwhile to convene a meeting and who provides a neutral place for people to come to...

...The counter-criticism in Israel, of course, is that they pleaded with the Multi-National Force countries to stay until the Lebanese army could take over—the claim that the exit of the MNF was with unseemly haste...

...It's got to be something...

...In your speech to the UJA in September, you took great pains to reassure the audience that the American Government was not threatening sanctions if Israel didn't go along...

...That's created a palpable backlash among Jews, who feel they are being treated quite unfairly...

...he's ready to discuss some way of attaining peace in the region...

...On the basis of those talks, I think there is around the world a sense that somehow there should be peace in the Middle East—and everyone is frustrated that peace has not yet emerged...

...The quality of the relationships has a lot to do with what you need to have in order to defend your border...

...So, since it's populated by people who live next to Jordan as well as Israel, and by people who have had Jordanian law applied to them historically, it's a sensible thing...

...We have a long border with Canada that's essentially a line across land where you can't tell one side from the other, but it's totally defensible in terms of there not being any threat there whatsoever...

...Quite to the contrary...

...Of course, he also says that in a sense, the quality of peace that is offered and emerges has something to do with what's defensible...

...The President of Lebanon, while of course looking to the immediate problems he faces, was very strong on the importance of the peace process, and very supportive of the President's ideas...

...And while we are disappointed at the quick, unambiguous, flat rejection by Israel, I can't help but wonder what the reaction of Israel would be were King Hussein to come forward and say moment's conversation with Secretary of State Shultz took place in Washington, D.C...

...As I come to the job of Secretary of State, it happens that I know lots of people in Israel, some quite well...

...It has had a very positive effect around the world, one that I couldn't help but notice in the United Nation meetings I had with foreign ministers from all over the place...

...It envisages a two-stage process...

...It was an electric time, and it was striking to me to see the impact on people...

...Why tie the plan so closely to the Jordanian option...

...Do you share that view...

...He may not be representing them in any direct way, but there is then an element of broad Arab participation if it comes about in that manner...

...I don't speak for the New York Times...

...So he's very interested...

...Gemayel had been elected, there was stability, and the prospects were all looking very good...