TRIAL BALLOONS FROM BOTH SIDESthe CIA chief was acting on secret information ... that a renewal of diplomatic relations
between Russia and Israel may be in the offing. ... Israeli officials also may be worried about
the so-called phantom memorandum, a paper given Eg ypt in May by ... [Donald] Bergus
... for getting the Suez Canal reopened. It apparently prompted complaints by Russia of
secret Cairo–Washington dealings.^24Helms’s supposed dispatch to Israel was interpreted as another mark of decline for
Rogers, whose State Department hastened to assert that the Bergus paper was “per-
sonal and unofficial” and had not been cleared in Washington.^25
Helms’s supposedly urgent, secret visit soon turned out to be only a “stopover” on
a rather ostentatious “15-day swing around Europe” with his wife on board the CIA’s
converted jetliner.^26 Gromyko’s belittlement of Louis’s mission was fairly apt at least
in terms of its results. He did not get the interview he sought with Meir or Dayan,
despite his suggestion that even a brief photo opportunity—and “a bit of public-
ity”—would gain the attention of the top Soviet leaders for his purported initiative.
The transcript of his talk with the only Israeli official he got to meet, Meir’s adviser
Simha Dinitz, shows that Louis described the renewal of full diplomatic relations
only as a distant prospect, with a pointed warning that the Israelis should not seek to
humiliate Russia or to extract any apolog y for the rupture in 1967.
His immediate purpose, Louis stated, was to suggest a Soviet–Israeli “back chan-
nel.” To sweeten the proposal for Israeli ears, he sounded harsher about Sadat than
Primakov’s “special file” had, and even disclosed—though in a skewed version—
Sadat’s offer to Rogers about removing the Soviet military presence. This should have
been a momentous discovery for the Israelis, but it appears to have slipped by them
unnoticed as they were concerned more about Bergus’s “phantom cable.” Even more
remarkably, Louis gave away that the Soviets either had the Eg yptian president’s office
bugged, or had access to Sadat’s own recordings:
When this Rogers business came, the Russians were horrified—for heaven’s sake look what
is going on there with Sadat, almost embracing him! Sadat failed to say [to us] what he was
saying to Rogers ... Rogers began to sort of lure Sadat and suggest ... that [Soviet] arms
could be substituted by American arms, and Sadat said: but not the advisors. ... And when
he was asked questions, he didn’t mention this part of the private conversation [with
Rogers] which was on tape.Louis was likewise dismissive of the Soviet–Eg yptian treaty:
This treaty which the Eg yptians were refusing to sign for five years ... [was] a kind of pay-
ment after they had been caught red-handed that they haven’t been honest with us ... Who
needs this treaty? What is the advantage for Russia? ... But Podgorny is proud that he
brought the treaty [just as] Rogers came proud that he had done something.^27