The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; The US and Saudi Arabia

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. It was the greatest defeat Israel ever suffered in Congress. That was how Israel`s opposition leader, Shimon Peres, saw last night`s Senate vote approving jet sales to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. To the Saudi government radio today it was a clear indication that "the Jewish lobby in the United States is weakening." Reactions at home were equally vivid in the wake of an agonizing debate and a 54-44 vote, which divided liberal from liberal and conservative from conservative. Last night was, as the New York Times says, a watershed. Whatever complicated diplomatic motives lay behind Mr. Carter`s decision to sell modern jets to the Arabs as well as Israel, one reality stand out: the growing relationship between the United States and its chief source of foreign oil, Saudi Arabia; the need to keep its friendship and to consider its defense. Tonight, the implication of tilting to the Saudis. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, matters of state and international politics aside, President Carter clearly has a special place in his heart for Saudi Arabia, and he puts it in very personal terms. Last June he said his experience with the Saudis had been "one of the most pleasant things that I have witnessed since I have been in office." Two weeks ago he reinforced that feeling by stating flatly, "No other government has been more helpful to me than Saudi Arabia." Secretary of State Cyrus Vance laid out the overall case for Saudi Arabia and the plane sale before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this way: (May 3rd.)

CYRUS VANCE, Secretary of State: Saudi Arabia has consistently demonstrated its friendship toward the United States. Saudi Arabia strongly supports a negotiated settlement for the Middle East conflict. It plays a vital role in promoting a moderate Arab consensus on the difficult questions of Middle East peace. It is a major stabilizing force in international financial matters and in decisions affecting the pricing and supply of oil.

LEHRER: One of the fifty-four Senators who ended up yesterday agreeing with the administration`s position on Saudi Arabia was Senator Robert Morgan, Democrat of North Carolina. Interestingly enough, Senator Morgan was recently selected to receive the Brandeis award of the American Zionist Organization for his long-standing support of Israel and the Zionist cause. Senator, what persuaded you to vote for the Saudi Arabia plane sale?

Sen. ROBERT 11ORGAN: Jim, I believe that in the long run it`s in the national interest of the United States and in the best national interest of the state of Israel. It`s important that you must remember, we`re not talking about balancing arms between Israel and Saudi Arabia, we`re talking about giving to Saudi Arabia defensive capabilities. It`s surrounded on one of its northern borders by Iraq, a rather radical Arab nation supplied with arms by Russia, the Soviet Union. On the southern border is Yemen, with Cuban troops already present. Across the Red Sea, there at the Horn of Africa, is Ethiopia with Russian troops, with Cuban troops. And on the Persian Gulf we have half of the world`s oil supply. And I think it`s important that Saudi Arabia be able to defend itself and defend the half of the world`s oil.

LEHRER: Were you convinced that without these airplanes they were vulnerable from a military standpoint?

MORGAN: I think they were, and I think even with them they`ll be vulnerable. But I`m also convinced that if we had refused to sell the F-15s to Saudi Arabia they would have had to look elsewhere, in their own national interest, probably to France. This would have given us no control over the planes that they would have bought, and yet they would have had almost the same capabilities.

LEHRER: I know you can`t give us any details, but did anything new or startling come out about Saudi Arabia`s vulnerability in that two hour closed part of the debate yesterday afternoon that dealt with the security of Saudi Arabia?

MORGAN: I don`t think anything came out that was particularly startling that we didn`t know generally about; maybe some of the details we didn`t know, but basically we talked about the vulnerability of Saudi Arabia.

LEHRER: How important was the oil issue to you in your vote?

MORGAN: Insofar as oil was concerned to the United States, it didn`t play a major role, but when you talk about placing twenty-five percent of the world`s oil reserves, which are in Saudi Arabia, and another twenty five percent that`s on the Persian Gulf, within the grasp of the Soviet Union, then it concerned me. And I have to believe that this is in the minds of the Soviets. For what does Ethiopia have to offer to the Soviets and Cuba? What does Yemen have to offer? Nothing. And I think it`s the first step toward gaining control of a large part of the world`s oil reserves.

LEHRER: Finally, Senator, do you share President Carter`s feelings that we have a special relationship and a special obligation to Saudi Arabia, or was your decision based on the pragmatic reasons that you just laid out solely?

MORGAN: Mine were pragmatic. It`s simply trying to preserve or to give to Saudi Arabia the means to defend itself. When the British moved out right after World War II, a vacuum was left there, and I think the Soviets would know it; and there`s nothing they`d rather do than to control this part of the world.

LEHRER: All right, thank you, Senator. Robin?

MacNEIL: Forty-four Senators remained unimpressed by those arguments advanced by the administration and voted against the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia. One of them was Senator Howard Metzenbaum, also a Democrat, from Ohio. Senator, why did you remain opposed in the face of what one reads was an extraordinary lobbying and pressuring effort by the administration?

Sen. HOWARD METZENBAUM: Well, I was convinced that you don`t attain peace in this world by sending almost five billion dollars of armaments into a part of the world that is in controversy. And I can`t believe that sending arms to either the Saudis, the Egyptians or the Israelis would be a force for peace. Now, we talk about the Saudis as being moderates, and in many respects they are. But we can`t overlook the fact that they spent $48 million last year in financing the PLO and their terrorist activities; they spent about two billion dollars last year financing the Egyptians and the Jordanians and the Syrians; and if they were prepared to do so, they could cause peace to come about very rapidly in the Middle East. They talk moderation, but the fact is that when the terrorists struck in Israel which caused the incursion into Lebanon, they immediately saluted that on their national radio. And the assurances that we had been given that they wouldn`t station the planes within so many miles, that they wouldn`t be used for offensive purposes -- at the very same moment they were saying that, spokesmen for Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince, the Foreign Minister and other leading spokesmen for Saudi Arabia were saying that they do not recognize any limitations with respect to the matter of either using the planes offensively, aggressively, nor do they recognize any obligation not to use the planes and make them available to their Arab neighbors.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you this, Senator: do you think the United States was blackmailed by Saudi Arabia and our dependence on its oil?

METZENBAUM: I think the simple question that you can ask is, do you think that the vote would have been different had there not been the question of oil from Saudi Arabia; and the answer is unequivocally yes. There isn`t any question that what happened yesterday came about by reason of a kind of a fear, a concern that we couldn`t get the oil from Saudi Arabia. But the fact is that Saudi Arabia needs the United States every bit as much as we need their oil. They can`t turn to Iran for protection, they can`t turn to the Soviet Union for protection; and their only real protection, in order to keep their government viable, is the United States. So whether we had sold them the F-15s or not, I have no doubt in my mind that their relationship with this nation would have remained the same.

MacNEIL: Senator, is your concern mostly for the effect this will have on Israel, psychologically and practically, or have you some concern about continuing to develop a relationship, special or not, with Saudi Arabia?

METZENBAUM: I think that it`s a first step in developing a kind of relationship with Saudi Arabia that does not bode well for the future; I think we`re playing oil politics. And when oil politics are permitted to determine the kind of foreign policy that this nation is going to have, I think we`d better take another look. And I say to you that there was a tremendous lobbying effort made to put this measure across -- the administration did it, the Saudis did it. You talk a lot about the Israeli lobby, but the Saudis had as powerful a lobby as probably has ever been brought to bear in the United States Senate, including many of the oil companies of this country and their business allies. And I am concerned as to what this means for the future vis-a-vis our relationship with Saudi Arabia and also vis-a-vis our relationship with the state of Israel, which with no exception over the past thirty years has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States, standing up and fighting for the very same concerns and ideals that this nation has.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you, Senator. Jim?

LEHRER: Around Washington today the man being given the most credit besides President Carter for pulling off yesterday`s vote is attorney Fred Dutton. Mr. Dutton was Saudi Arabia`s principal lobbyist on the arms sales issue. He has long been active in Democratic Party politics, serving in campaign brain trusts of both John and Robert Kennedy. He served in the State Department during the Kennedy administration and later wrote a book on politics. He now practices law here in Washington, and one of his clients is the government of Saudi Arabia. First, Mr. Dutton, after the Panama Canal vote, you recall, Panama President Torrijos said that he would have destroyed the canal if he had lost that vote. What would the Saudi`s have done if they`d lost this one?

FREDERICK DUTTON: The Saudis were on record they would have continued with their American relationship. Certainly it would have had some effect on them, how much we were concerned about their security; but they would have sold the oil, they need us. I`d like to go back a little bit to Senator Metzenbaum, because it relates to your question. I think this is a very thoughtful show, but I really must put it in question--first your charicature at the beginning of the program -- that was an ethnic stereotype you would not have used on a Jew or a black or a Japanese or anything else like that. It is indicative of the subjective, subliminal prejudice that I think is through much of the media, and I`m afraid it`s here.

Secondly, I`ve got to take on Senator Metzenbaum, who`s a long and dear friend. I don`t see where we do any good talking about that part of the world in terms of blackmail. The Saudis do give 45 million, roughly, a year to the Palestinians...

LEHRER: Why?

DUTTON: For the camps, to moderate them -- the same reason that we have given money...we can be asked that about the South Korean government at present. I don`t particularly tolerate it; I`m not for it. But they do try to moderate it, it does try to hold the Palestinians somewhat away from Qaddafi, a madman, somewhat down from the Russians. We have been giving money to the Palestinians for many, many years. What the money`s used for, I think we can question it. I think that it is not in their self interest, but they have their problems in that area. Secondly, their radio did not salute the raid. I happen to have investigated this and looked at the U.S. records; there was a monitoring by Jerusalem Radio, which then distorted, made a mistranslation -- absolutely wrong. Third, the Foreign Minister certainly did not endorse transfer of the weapons; he said that they would apply the conditions which they had obeyed since 1944, they would obey conditions which all other countries do, and that includes non- transferability.

But I don`t want to talk about the specifics here. My problem is, are we going to talk about this as a very complex subject of people who have been fighting for ?.,000 years and more, are we going to try to bring some reconciliation? America is interdependent with them; we have great hold on them, we have great leverage. They have some on us. We`ve got to work out these problems. The Israelis are in that part of the world, the Arabs are. We`ve got to try, as difficult as it may be, to try to bring them together. And I just don`t think we`re going to do that if the Arabs sit as they do, and as I condemn, with their rhetoric and slam away at the Israelis; and spokesmen for the American Jewish community, or for their viewpoint of the American national interest or for Israel, sit here and slam away at Saudi Arabia. We have problems to solve, not accusations to exchange.

LEHRER: Well, did the Saudis view this vote, or this plane sale, as something that they had already earned based on past actions, or was it something that, "Look, if you`ll sell us the planes we will do so-and so in the future"?

DUTTON: Not at all. The origin, as I understand it, was that American military has been advising them for many years. And I`m a long-time critic of the American Pentagon. Our two different defense teams told them that they needed planes, that the British Lightnings which they`ve had since the early to mid-60s had metal fatigue and would have to begin to be phased out beginning this year and would be substantially phased out by 1981. They have a territory as big as the U.S. east of the Mississippi, they have 2,000 miles of coastline, they have the radical states on the north and south and southwest, as Senator Morgan said; there is a security need. America has got to stop looking at the Middle East just in terms of the Arab-Israeli problem. It is a very substantial one, but it is not a large one compared to all the rest of the region. We are going to best protect Israel, in my opinion, and Israel will best protect itself if we get some stability in that part of the region. And we are not going to get it if we feed radicalism, if we leave large numbers of people alienated, if we don`t try to find some kind of order there.

LEHRER: All right. And you think this sale will do that.

DUTTON: I think this sale is a very modest security need that they have. Why do they take the F-15s instead of something else? It`s a very sophisticated weapon. They took it, one, because after looking at all the various planes which the U.S. offered, this fit best with their pilot capabilities, it has a limited number of (unintelligible) needs; it is an interceptor. It`s been described as a fighter-bomber, a this or a that. A hot air balloon that goes up can drop bombs, but this is essentially an air-to-air interceptor. McDonnell-Douglas originally tried to sell it as something else and the Pentagon, as I understand it, has drawn specifications and veered the development over as a defense plane, for the most part. And this is what they have need for.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: The ever-closer Saudi-American connection raises questions in the minds of some experts on the Middle East military situation. Geoffrey Kemp lectures on international security at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He`s also a consultant for the Defense Department and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Professor Kemp, what dangers do you see involved in our dependence or our growing relationship with the Saudis?

GEOFFREY KEMP: Over the long term it seems to me our basic strategy and interest is to divest ourselves of our oil dependency on Saudi Arabia. That dependency is growing at a rather alarming rate, and there is no indication that it`s going to slow down in the next ten to fifteen years. Now, any step that`s taken, such as this one, which perpetuates a feeling of security -- false security, in my opinion --on the part of the American administration and the American people is something we need to guard against very, very seriously.

MacNEIL: In other words, you see the decision as simply buying security for our oil supplies.

KEMP: Yes; I see short-term benefits for oil supplies, but our long-term interest in the Middle East should be to break this dependency on Middle East oil, because it is extremely vulnerable, as has been pointed out before. The Soviet Union is not unaware of this fact, and any threat to our oil ten years from now will be much more serious than it is today. And what I would like to see us do is to move away from this dependency. And that`s why I feel that the emerging relationship with Saudi Arabia needs to be put in this sort of strategic perspective.

MacNEIL: Where do our interests as a nation and theirs converge and diverge? What do you think we have in common in terms of interests, and what don`t we?

KEMP: What we obviously have in common is an unwillingness to see the Soviet Union dominate the area, and including the Horn of Africa. To that extent, one would have to support many of the Saudi initiatives in this region. Where I think our interests diverge are first that over the long run, as I said earlier, we have an interest in reducing our dependency on them; they, I would argue, because they are weak in some respects, have an interest in maintaining this dependency. Secondly, we clearly diverge on the basic issue of Israel. And no matter what language is used and no matter what terms, such as "moderation," are used on the part of the Saudi Arabians, still this is the fundamental problem between our government and theirs.

MacNEIL: You do not see them as a consistent support for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East.

KEMP: Well, they`re obviously more moderate than several other Arab governments in the region. But the question is -- and this was raised by Senator Metzenbaum -- could they be more moderate? Could they have put more pressure on their various clients? What more could they do to bring about a peaceful settlement? It`s in this regard, it seems to me, that we had more bargaining power than we have calculated in this arms agreement. I think we could have put considerably more pressure on them to adopt an even more moderate stance on Israel. Not that I think they are particularly moderate on Israel, by the way; I think that if you look at the record, where do they have their army, or elements of their army, they`re not all dotted around the southern flank and along the Iraqi border, they do have elements still in Syria and in Jordan. And they have, of course, participated -- albeit in a moderate way -- in all the Arab Israeli wars to date.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Senator Morgan, are we buying a false sense of security by this Saudi plane sale?

MORGAN: I don`t believe so. I don`t think anyone thinks for a moment that by selling planes to Saudi Arabia everything will be all right. I think it is one step toward securing that area of the world for the free countries of the world, not just for the United States.

LEHRER: How do you see it in the long range -- five, ten years from now -- in terms of a permanent relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia? Do we have another common interest with Saudi Arabia be sides their dependence on our planes and our dependence on their oil?

MORGAN: I don`t know that you can see it that far down the road. I think we ought to remember that Israel is the only free and democratic country in that whole part of the world, and that`s one of the reasons I`ve been such an ardent supporter of Israel through all the years. We really don`t know what`s going to happen to the government of Saudi Arabia. It`s sometimes what I call maybe a one-shot government; one assassination could change the course of the whole foreign policy for that country. But I do think we have to be pragmatic, we have to deal with the facts as we see them now and hope that down the road somewhere the whole world can be come less dependent upon the oil supplies in the Persian Gulf area.

LEHRER: Senator Metzenbaum, how do you see the long run for the relationship between the U.S. and the Saudis?

METZENBAUM: That will depend upon the Saudis and the United States. The ball is in their court now. They wanted the F-15s; the F-15s will not provide the kind of protection that the Saudis need. They`re a country of five and a half million people; a million and a half of them are foreigners. What they need to worry about is insurrection from within, they need to worry about infiltration, and the F-15s aren`t going to provide the kind of protection that they need -- it will give them a status symbol, but it won`t be much more than that. Now, I believe that if the Saudis take the F-15s and have that ego-satisfaction and then feel that they`re in a position to press Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the PLO to move towards a peaceful resolution of the problems of the Middle East, then

I think the purpose will have been served. I doubt very much that that will happen.

LEHRER: Do you doubt very much that that will happen, Mr. Dutton?

DUTTON: No, I don`t. But I want to go back and cover some points here. First, I don`t think the Saudis want us to be oil-dependent upon them any more than we want to be. A big superpower like us can move very ham- handedly to try to see that we get what we want. They only need to produce, as has been in many publications, about five million barrels of oil a day; instead they are at the moment pumping about eight million, they`ve gone up to ten at times. That`s to keep the economies of Western Europe and Japan and the United States afloat. They`re using up an irreplaceable resource much too rapidly. We are the ones who are forcing that. We have had our top officials over there this year trying to get them to raise their oil production capability because we`re going to need it in the 1980s. So the Saudis don`t want the oil dependence, we`re the ones. Why do we? Because we don`t have the social discipline at home to conserve, because the Congress can`t get an energy bill through. The responsibility is here, not there, for that. We should quit using these bugaboos, in my opinion.

Secondly, as far as the deployment of the Saudi military that was mentioned in New York, yes it is deployed somewhat to the northwest of the frontier. Israel has been buzzing the Tabuk base for some time, repeatedly, over our U.S. objections, the Saudi objections; they held naval maneuvers off the Red Sea. This is before the F-15s were authorized. Israel is the one that has been the provocative one. Now, to the extent that the Saudis have been engaged in some of the stuff, the wars the last... they`ve been ground, no air; I don`t believe it`s correct. I believe to some extent they`ve been trying to protect themselves, to buy some security against the Arab radic4lism and things like that. What can we do in the future? I personally think that first of all we have not only oil, we have trade. Our trade has jumped from less than a billion dollars a year early in this decade, it`ll be almost five billion this year. We are going to sell more to Saudi Arabia this year than we sell to Japan or Italy. We need to begin to get some of our historical relationships in better perspective.

Third, we`ve got to quit talking about petrodollars and just petroleum and talk about people there. The third world, we all can sit here and in other contexts we will say the third world is coming along like a Mack truck, that we have to learn to live with it -- white people, industrialized people, affluent people. It`s going to be a great headache for our children fifty and 200 years from now. If we can`t begin to make some kind of relationship with the Saudis, if we can`t work out some kind of mutual dignity and respect, how are we going to do it with that part of the third world that has no money, that does not have the will and the discipline to try to get ahead? This is a small case study, in my opinion, of what`s going to happen in the whole third world problem. And there`s no point talking about human rights if we can`t talk about human rights for Arabs. They are not the gooks of the Mideast.

LEHRER: All right. Robin?

MacNEIL: Yeah; let`s just discuss finally, what does this do to the currently stalled Middle East peace negotiations? Do you have a sense of how this alters the situation? Does it reinforce the Israeli hard line or put additional pressure on them to make concessions or back up the Sadat position? What does it do, in your opinion?

KEMP: I think in the short run it`s going to make the Israeli position more hard-line. Over the next few weeks or months I can`t tell, there may be internal mechanisms in Israel that we can`t guess that will lead to sort of a new Israeli initiative. I do think, however, it`s going to call into question the overall balance of the American approach. One of the points you mentioned earlier -- namely, that Mr. Carter seems very at ease with the Saudis and very ill at ease, as we know, both with Mr. Begin, and Mr. Rabin before him -- I think is illustrative of one of the fundamental problems we have here. We`ve had other presidents who were more at ease with authoritarian regimes than with democratic regimes, and until we can get this into balance I don`t think the United States` role is going to be a particularly fruitful one in the months to come.

MacNEIL: Senator Morgan, do you have a view on that -- how it`s going to affect the peace negotiations?

MORGAN: I personally think that it will not have a great deal of effect on it, and I do not think that it`ll have a great effect on the Israeli lobby in the United States. It has been referred to as a defeat for the Israeli lobby; I don`t think so, I think it`s just a question of difference of opinion between those of us in the Senate as to what is best for Israel and for the Middle East as a whole.

MacNEIL: Senator Metzenbaum?

METZENBAUM: I`m hopeful. I`m hopeful that the administration recognizes that the responsibility is theirs now, but I`m not overly optimistic; I would like to say that I am. You know, this comment about the Israeli lobby; let me make one comment about the Arab lobby. Fred Dutton, my good friend, is a very effective lobbyist. Clark Clifford is very effective. Pat Caddell, the President`s pollster, also works for the Saudis. The son-in- law of the ambassador to Saudi is a lobbyist here in Washington. All over the place you see lobbyists for Saudi Arabia, and I think we ought to quit talking about the Israeli lobby unless in the same breath we talk about the very, very effective Saudi lobby.

MacNEIL: How would you talk about that, Mr. Dutton?

DUTTON: (Pause.)

MacNEIL: Are you smiling in embarrassment, or...?

DUTTON: No, no, no. I think it`s the way our processes, political institutions move ahead.

MacNEIL: I see. Do you have an opinion on whether this is likely to have an effect -- what effect -- on the Middle East peace negotiations?

DUTTON: I generally agree with that part of Senator Metzenbaum`s comments. I`m not optimistic, but I think we have to persevere, and I think we do have to make progress.

MacNEIL: I see. Well, thank you all in Washington very much -- Mr. Dutton, Senator Morgan, Senator Metzenbaum. And thank you very much. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We`ll be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.