In the Nixon and Ford administrations Middle East hands saw their investment in area specialization lead to career advancement, and they were poised to assume key roles where they might have shaped policy. Ironically, they arrived at the top just as Nixon and Kissinger made the Oval Office the center of Middle East policy making.

Middle East hands reached the top only to find a false summit, a mountaineering term that describes the quest to reach the top of a mountain, visible afar, but, because of a steep angle of ascent, the climber reaches the summit only to discover another looming above it. They had climbed the mountain, but never truly reached the top. They had not been, as one critic described them, the “secret drivers of America's Middle East policy since the end of World War II,” but more in the Nixon era its victims. Within a span of less than three years a wave of assassinations took the lives of five American diplomats in the region.

The Nixon White House resorted to secret diplomacy rather than the Middle East hands’ quiet diplomacy. American foreign policy was bifurcated: Secretary of State William Rogers worked through normal diplomatic channels, while National Security Council (NSC) adviser Kissinger communicated via a “backchannel” sending different, often contradictory, messages to foreign leaders. Foreign governments quickly learned to ignore what came from Secretary Rogers or his State Department. Later in the Nixon era Kissinger replaced Rogers as Secretary of State and retained his NSC post as well.

The Middle East According to Nixon and Kissinger

Richard Nixon always took special pride in his foreign affairs expertise. As Eisenhower's vice president he established his reputation by making frequently global tours to gather information and advised him during the Suez Crisis. He was visiting American embassies in the Middle East, in preparation for his presidential run, at the outbreak of the Six Day War. The policies that Nixon adopted as president did not reflect the practical counsel he had earlier offered Ike. An examination of the record in 1958, 1960 and 1967 reveals this disparity.

During a January 1958 White House debate on long-range strategy, Nixon argued that “anyone who has visited the Near East or studied the area must certainly have reached the conclusion that the major immediate problem there was the problem of the Arab refugees”.