Muskie's Tightrope Trip

...He planned and held one press conference on leaving each of the host countries, and in each he limited himself to broad impressions...

...Most of a day was spent in the occupied Golan Heights area on the Israeli-Syrian frontier in the Northeast, at kibbutzim along the Jordan River, and in one small outpost high in the Golan Heights, overlooking the territory of Jordan...

...In an on-the-record interview with Richard H. Stewart of the Boston Globe and me the day after the Golan Heights remark, however, Muskie had said that if Israel was to have defensible borders, he could not see how they could be achieved in this critical area close by Jordan and Syria without the strategic Golan Heights in Israeli control...

...Meir for nearly two hours, two Israeli reporters confronted him outside the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth and asked what he was going to say to Sadat on the basis of that long talk...

...The remark did not seem particularly provocative at the time, and Muskie told accompanying reporters later, when the ramifications were more apparent, that his response had been intentional—that he had sought to convey to the young man an understanding on his part of the kibbutzniks' precarious strategic position...

...Since he was scheduled to see Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and then go to Egypt for talks with President Anwar Sadat, the obvious question was, would he be taking a message to Sadat from the Israeli government...

...At the Wailing Wall in the Old City, where he donned a yar-mulke as required by religious law, a few onlookers walked over to him, but most other visitors continued their intensive praying...

...There, Muskie made the one statement of the entire trip that caused some reverberations...

...Three staff aides —administrative assistant Don Nicoll, personal adviser Berl Bernhard, and press assistant Susan Harrigan—plus one or more local advance men handled the mechanical chores and counseled with him...

...for the time being at least, he escaped the George Romney syndrome/1 Having walked the tightrope through Israel and Egypt, Muskie went on to Moscow, where the feature of his two and a half day visit was a private talk of nearly four hours with Premier Kosygin at the Kremlin...

...When the Muskie party arrived in Cairo late the following night—after a long, roundabout flight via Rome necessitated by the diplomacy of the area, not the geography—the Golan Heights comment had become front-page news in the Egyptian press...

...But it was Romney's own inability to withstand the relentless scrutiny applied to him in 1967 which clearly underscored for all the political danger to a front runner that heavy and aggressive press coverage poses...

...Much staff work went into preparation for the trip, both in arranging for Muskie to see the ranking leaders in each capital—except Moscow, where he had to settle for the number two man, Soviet Premier Alexei Ko-sygin—and in briefing him for the high-level talks...

...Muskie for his part finessed the remark by saying in Cairo that he had intended only to express understanding of the young Israeli's position, and not to express a view of his own about a specific matter of territorial control to be decided between the Arabs and Israelis...

...In spite of the shortness of the trip, he talked to more key individuals in the Middle East crisis at greater length than has any other prominent American political figure, notably including President Nixon...

...Accompanied by former U.S...

...The Senator thought a moment and said: "If I were in your shoes, I'd hold onto them...

...The young man turned the question back to Muskie, asking him what he would do...

...Witcover is the author of "The Resurrection of Richard Nixon" and "85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy...

...So he proceeded like a man constructing a house of cards...

...He told the students he had come to Israel because he wanted "to know the people of this brave land...

...That resolution's first point calls for withdrawal by Israeli forces from all territories occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967...

...Meir, Foreign Minister Abba Eban, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon, and others high in the Israeli government...

...And for us to force them into a position would take a real crunch on either side, that the great powers might have to [apply] at some point...

...The fact that Muskie was embarked on a two-week political and diplomatic tightrope walk emerged almost immediately...

...Other, earlier aspirants to the Presidency, notably Richard M. Nixon, had demonstrated how one could accomplish considerable image-building while listening and learning abroad...

...Yet the nature of such touring enabled Muskie to adhere to his role as student and make use of what he saw and heard...

...Sightseeing, however, comprised a relatively small portion of the trip, in Israel and elsewhere...

...Whereas Romney four years ago intentionally set out to do his Presidential exploring in some of the more receptive political soils— he visited Mormon country, including his boyhood home—Muskie headed straight for a major crisis area...

...Although Muskie produced no startling new insights into the Middle East or into East-West relations as a result of his 17,769-mile trip (the staff totted it up), it was a success by his own standard of self-education, and probably also by the standards applied against globe-hopping Presidential aspirants...

...On departure from Israel to Egypt, reporters at Muskie's press conference in Tel Aviv thought they heard him say he came away with the impression it might be up to the Russians to provide the key to a Middle East settlement...

...It should be noted, however, that beneath the man's cautious demeanor is a thinly veiled irritability toward the press when it puts pressure on him to be more specific or to say what he doesn't choose to say...

...They pressed for answers, but they largely accepted the personal ground rules imposed by Muskie on himself...

...Muskie concluded the trip with a stop in Bonn for a one-hour talk with West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, after which Muskie reiterated his support of Brandt's "Ostpolitick" for greater normalization of relations with the Eastern bloc...

...Ever since Hubert H. Humphrey's eight-hour talk with Nikita S. Khrushchev in 1958, the staying power of American politicians with Russian leaders has been, irrationally, a kind of merit badge, and Muskie now has his...

...On the basis of this Brandt initiative, a possible European security conference and Berlin talks, Muskie told a Washington press conference on his return that he was having "second thoughts" about again supporting Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield's resolution for a unilateral American troop cutback in Europe...

...As part of this approach, Muskie determined that throughout the trip he would say nothing publicly that might undermine the confidence of those with whom he already had talked or might drive into reticence those he was yet to meet...

...And for the time being at least, he escaped the George Romney syndrome...

...ney himself painfully took note of the phenomenon at the time and later, calling it "the Teddy White syndrome" —a reference to the role Theodore White's Making of the President books had played in focusing the attention of the national press on the importance of the pre-Presidential year preliminaries...

...But it was at the guides' invitation, not his, and because of his outward calm and deference, this sort of politicking by him was not particularly offensive, as it might have been with a more aggressive, extroverted man...

...Also, his twelve years in the Senate have educated him about national issues and the ways of the national press corps...

...At any rate, having talked with Mrs...

...Some members of Muskie's staff and of the press who have had a glimpse of the fire within the Lincolnesque exterior have found it to be a humanizing quality in the man, and possibly an antidote to the recurring criticism that Ed Muskie is solid, but too bland...

...Thus, after two weeks, Muskie was saying nothing particularly new—that the United States and the Soviet Union should let the Arabs and Israelis settle their problems, and if this were not possible, the two superpowers might be drawn in, against everyone's wishes...

...The fact that at the moment he is regarded in the United States as the man most likely to oppose President Nixon in 1972 obviously opened doors for him in each country...

...Muskie weathered the fuss, partly it seemed because the Egyptian press and government elected not to make a cause celebre of the Golan Heights statement and thus scuttle Muskie's talks with Sadat and other Egyptian leaders...

...Three days later, after Muskie had met with Mrs...

...The curt response did not dissuade other reporters along the way from asking the same question, but the answer always was the same...

...What happened is now part of the Richard Nixon comeback folklore: Romney's talent for obfuscation, exposed by the prodding press, got him hopelessly ensnarled on the issue of Vietnam, sent his 1968 hopes plunging, and cleared the way for Nixon...

...Conferring and posing for photographs with foreign leaders always had been a short cut to a reputation for expertise in foreign affairs, even before Nixon elevated it to a political art form in 1966 and 1967...

...Men interested in the Presidency do not underplay the wisdom they have culled from travel abroad, but Muskie steadfastly declined to be stampeded into public declarations...

...He examined the Dead Sea Scrolls, placed a wreath in the solemnly impressive memorial to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis before and during World War II, and examined all the Holy Land shrines of Christians, Moslems, and Jews in the Old City...

...Appearing at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Muskie was subjected by the audience comprised mostly of American students to a vigorous interrogation on everything from his Middle East views to his movement after the 1968 election campaign to stronger opposition to Vietnam...

...Accordingly, he declined to characterize or reveal the specifics of what was said to him by any of the foreign leaders along the way, except in the most general terms...

...Meir, Sadat, and Kosygin for a total of eight hours, Muskie now concluded at the Moscow conference: "I have a very strong feeling that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States is in a position to dictate the positions of Israel and Eygpt in the Middle East without pushing perhaps more harshly than either wishes to...

...Edmund Muskie, of course, is not George Romney...

...Muskie's Tightrope Trip by JULES WITCOVER On the third day of January, when the front runner for the 1972 Democratic Presidential nomination boarded a jet at Dulles International Airport for a two-week tour of Israel, Egypt, the Soviet Union, and West Germany, his staff aides characterized the mission as "The Education of Ed Muskie...

...Only after Muskie had spent nearly three days conferring with the Egyptians and examining the pyramids did Cairo's largest newspaper, Al Ahram, deliver a parting shot to him in an editorial entitled "Fact-Finding or Rather Campaigning...

...This background has prepared the front-running Muskie of 1971 to cope much more adequately with the pitiless glare and penetration of national publicity than was the front-running Romney of 1967...

...the Arabs have insisted withdrawal must come as a first step, the Israelis insist that the two points—withdrawal and assured secure borders—form a package...

...RomJULES WITCOVER, a member of the Washington bureau of The Los Angeles Times, was one of the five reporters who accompanied Senator Edmund S. Muskie on his recent trip abroad...

...I'm not going to volunteer to be a messenger for anybody," snapped Muskie, weary after an all-night flight from London...

...As after talks with other leaders, Muskie declined to characterize Kosygin's observations except to make clear that within an atmosphere of courtesy no punches were pulled on either side...

...He also took a long helicopter trip into the Negev Desert to call on the retired David Ben-Gurion...

...Nevertheless, the timing and circumstances of Muskie's trip embodied certain political risks...

...prohibition against new projects started by the Israelis there...

...Romney, setting out then to "explore" his Presidential chances, had to charter a plane to accommodate the reporters who wanted to witness the exploration— and do a bit of digging themselves into the substance of the explorer...

...In Israel, the Golan Heights generally have been regarded as vital to achievement of "secure and recognizable borders" as spelled out in the United Nations Security Council Resolution of November, 1967...

...In addition to criticizing the Golan Heights comment, it charged him, correctly, with having failed to take a look at the Palestinian refugee camps and with making no mention in occupied Old Jerusalem of a U.N...

...By the same token, however, the Middle East of 1971 is not the American scene of 1967...

...Since Senator Muskie's role was not only that of a student but also front-running prospect for the 1972 Democratic nomination, a group of five reporters, one magazine writer, and a photographer also accompanied him...

...Unlike Romney in 1967, Muskie is a man thoroughly familiar with the national spotlight, having campaigned under it as the Democratic Party's Vice Presidential candidate in 1968 arid as a leading Presidential prospect ever since...

...I have some ideas but I think I'd be better advised to communicate them to Mr...

...And finally, there is his cautious Yankee nature— a source of impatience to some members of his staff and to the press, which always wants clear-cut answers and wants them now...

...And there was one other factor working in his favor that perhaps he did not fully realize at the outset: the reporters accompanying him, also aware of the diplomatic sensitivity of the trip, were particularly cognizant of Muskie's sticky position...

...The next day, Senator George McGovern, the only declared Presidential candidate, reiterated his support of the Mansfield resolution...

...Finally, and not least important, Muskie succeeded in portraying his trip to the public as serious business, not simply Presidential politicking abroad...

...Being by nature a careful man who prefers reflection at leisure to shooting from the hip, Muskie also resisted drawing immediate, firm conclusions from what he had seen and heard...

...They noted that Kosygin, like Muskie, is a serious man not given to garrulous or frivolous talk, and that therefore the duration of the interview—believed to be the longest granted by the Premier to any Western politician—indicated at the very least that Kosygin wanted to assess the man who might be the next American President...

...The Middle East is one of the world's prime trouble-spots with a new explosion possible at any time...

...Muskie said at the outset of his trip he was going to listen and learn, but the domestic political ramifications needed no spelling out...

...Sitting in the community room of the kibbutz, he discussed the difficulty of life on the Golan Heights where so much violence has occurred...

...He saw a great deal of Israel, a fact that certainly will not hurt him politically at home, and his four-hour talk with Kosygin is a clear political plus...

...Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, Muskie engaged in an intensive, thorough, and at times animated dialogue with the Soviet premier that raised eyebrows among both Western and Soviet newsmen and diplomats for its sheer length...

...These and other examples, the paper said, showed Muskie "comes to this area under the guise of searching for the truth, only to return home and support Israel's viewpoint—an act which he believes will be a short-cut to the battle for the Presidency and will win it for him...

...Muskie spent more than ten hours in intensive private talks with Mrs...

...Fortunately for fifty-seven-year-old Edmund Sixtus Muskie, these are three personal assets he has in adequate supply...

...Yet because of the precarious state of Arab-Israeli relations, and the Soviet Union's commitment to the Arab world, Muskie knew a misstep could slam one or more of those doors in his face...

...The Maine Senator never had been to the Middle East, and the Arab-Israeli ceasefire plus the Congressional adjournment in Washington provided the opportunity for Muskie to make his quick journey without triggering serious charges of foreign-policy meddling or neglect of his Senatorial duties...

...The television camera crews who followed him on the Jerusalem tour were like a cowbell around his neck, but he was not a drawing card to equal the sights he came to see...

...Asked at his Moscow press conference whether he still felt a Middle East settlement was up to the Russians, Muskie insisted he had been misinterpreted on the point, and that he was only relating what the Israelis felt...

...Asked at his press conference on departure from Cairo to Moscow whether he still thought so, Muskie said: "I would say I've not encountered any puppets in this region...

...The transcript seemed to bear him out...

...Rather, he said, out of all these matters might come "a balanced mutual force reduction in Europe...

...Muskie at his side in the first-class compartment on each commercial flight...

...For the full two weeks, he was the conscientious student, spending most of the many airborne hours deep in briefing papers and books, with Mrs...

...When a student asked him what reason he would give the next week to the people of Cairo for going there, Muskie replied: "As Adlai Stevenson once said, 'I can hardly wait to hear myself.' " In Jerusalem there was the inevitable sightseeing and visits to national shrines...

...Considering those difficulties, he asked a young member of the kibbutz whether he would stay and retain the Heights...

...But that testiness is always just below the tranquil surface, and in the months ahead, as he makes more factfinding trips abroad and tests the domestic political waters, there may be occasions when it breaks through...

...When one considers the long and treacherous political road ahead of him—and the political bones of George Romney by the wayside—the inclination of the cautious Senator from Maine to keep a prudent rein on his words and his actions is understandable...

...Sadat rather than to you gentlemen," he said...

...For an American Presidential hopeful who never had been there to venture into that sensitive area, and to attempt to engage in dialogue with the leaders of both sides without exacerbating the crisis, compromising American policy, or making some statement that would damage his front-running political position at home, was a challenge to his prudence, poise, and self-discipline...

...Muskie's political prominence produced some scenes that seemed to run against the private grain of the man...

...But I think that's a point that ought to be avoided, and that's why I've emphasized that I would hope the parties would build on the developments that have taken place in the Jarring talks (to bring the two sides into direct negotiations...

...As already noted, the decision entailed certain risks, but he took them, fortified no doubt by his own determination that he would not permit the entreaties of others to lure him from his set policy to look, listen, and say as little publicly as possible...

...Although Muskie's rough-hewn face and top-heavy frame are familiar in the United States, he is, of course, not nearly so well known abroad, and this enabled him to travel and study people and places without stirring up great excitement...

...Had they been traveling with him at home, on a purely political exploration, it is doubtful that the same degree of accommodation would have resulted— nor should it have...

...It is not in his nature to exploit it overtly, but the meeting and its length predictably will come up again and again through 1971 in discussions of Muskie's Presidential qualifications...

...When his El Al plane landed at Tel Aviv, American and Israeli radio, television, and newspaper reporters were waiting to ask him what his objectives were...

...For instance, he posed for photographs with various churchmen-guides before the Tomb of Jesus, a place of deep reverence for Roman Catholics, such as Muskie, and other Christians...

...On the occasions he was recognized, it usually was by a group of young American students crowding around to wish him well in 1972...

...The remark, the papers said, revealed a pro-Israeli bias that the Arabs had suspected of Muskie...

...He contained this trait in public throughout the trip, and demonstrated wit and good will toward his press companions, except in the few references to being misquoted or misunderstood regarding the Russians' intent in the Middle East...

...The feelings about each of those countries, about their irreducible national requirements —on the Israeli side in terms of borders, on the Eygptian side in terms of territories—are so emotional and firm that they cannot be ignored by the great powers...

...We were for Muskie a constant reminder of what has come to be known among national political writers as "the George Romney syndrome"—that phenomenon of 1967 which saw Rom-ney's front-running status for the 1968 Republican nomination demolished by a pursuing national press corps...

...It seems to me that is the most likely area in which to build a settlement that the parties immediately involved can live with...