Reagan Administration held 9-month talkis with PLO

By Bernard Gwertzman, New York Times   Feb. 19, 1984

For a period of nine months, the Reagan Administration conducted secret discussions through an intermediary with Yasir Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, according to American participants in the effort.

They said that the purpose of the talks was consistent with previous attempts by the Carter Administration to persuade the Palestinian leaders to accept the American offer of recognition of their organization in return for acceptance by the P.L.O. of Israel’s right to exist. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the talks were broken off by the P.L.O. with no certain sign that they were succeeding.

The intermediary was John Edwin Mroz, a specialist on Middle Eastern and Soviet affairs, who heads a New York- based foundation.

How Information Was Obtained

The New York Times learned of the Mroz mission about a month ago from a person involved in the discussions. Mr. Mroz, on the record, confirmed his role in an interview with The Times. American officials involved in Mr. Mroz’s mission agreed to discuss the matter with The Times so long as they were not quoted by name. In addition, a senior State Department official who was not a participant in the mission, read the record and provided some additional material. It was not possible to confirm the information directly with Mr. Arafat.

The United States’ policy toward the P.L.O. since 1975, reiterated by Secretary of State George P. Shultz this week, has hinged on a promise to Israel that it would not recognize or negotiate with the P.L.O. until that group acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and accepted certain United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Officials say that the 1975 statement does not rule out contacts that would be limited to trying to get fulfillment of the American conditions. The Reagan Administration’s efforts were similar in some respects to those carried out by the Carter Administration through the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal.

The effort to bring about P.L.O. acceptance of Israel in return for American recognition reportedly collapsed in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon before any agreements had been reached.

Mr. Mroz is uncertain whether the effort could have succeeded, and some senior American officials say they always were skeptical that the P.L.O., divided into competing factions, could ever have taken the step of formally accepting Israel’s right to exist in the absence of a parallel agreement by Israel.

There has been no public disclosure of any American-authorized contacts with the P.L.O. during the Reagan Administration except in the context of the Palestinian group’s withdrawal from Lebanon in the summer of 1982. American officials said that only Saudi Arabia was informed of the latest discussions. Israel and other Arab states were not told, they said.

From August 1981 to May 1982, Mr. Mroz had more than 50 meetings with Mr. Arafat, totaling more than 400 hours, Mr. Mroz’s associates said. Mr. Mroz, now 35 years old, is president of the Institute for East-West Security Studies in New York, but was director of Middle East studies at the International Peace Academy in New York when the effort began.

Talks Suggested by Arafat

Current and former Administration officials said the Mroz mission was authorized by Alexander M. Haig Jr., who was then Secretary of State, in August 1981 after Washington received a suggestion from Mr. Arafat about secret talks. Mr. Haig told President Reagan in a private meeting in California of his plan to have Mr. Mroz sound out the P.L.O. position, and later told his aides that Mr. Reagan had approved the idea, the officials said in interviews in the last three weeks.

Only a handful of American and Palestine Liberation Organization officials knew of the talks, participants said. Nicholas A. Veliotes, who was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and is now Ambassador to Egypt, was Mr. Mroz’s chief contact in Washington, officials said.

Although Mr. Haig had often condemned the P.L.O. for its terrorist activities, he was persuaded by Mr. Veliotes to try, State Department officials said, to split the Palestinians away from the Soviet Union and make it easier to achieve progress in Middle East peace issues.

The Palestinians seemed eager at that time to gain formal American recognition, the officials said. Mr. Arafat had, in fact, reportedly originated the mission by sending a message to Washington through Mr. Mroz dated Aug. 4, 1981, suggesting talks on ”a possible framework for a U.S.-P.L.O. agreement,” with Mr. Mroz to be the secret intermediary. Saudi Government Brought In

The Saudi Arabian Government was brought into the effort as a channel to confirm messages sent between Mr. Arafat and the Administration, the officials said.

The discussions reached a potentially crucial point in May 1982, with the P.L.O. telling Mr. Mroz that it would give its response by mid-June to a suggested American plan for mutual recognition, a participant in the effort said.

After Israel invaded Lebanon on June 6, the Palestinians, under heavy Israeli attack, did not send a reply.

Later, P.L.O. officials told Americans they believed that the Administration, at the same time it was talking to them through Mr. Mroz about a negotiated accord, had connived in the Israeli attack and had thus deceived them. This has been denied by Mr. Haig and other American officials. The theory that Mr. Haig had given ”a green light” to the Israelis during a meeting in Washington in May with Defense Minister Ariel Sharon has also been put forward by Israeli authors in recent months.

Mr. Haig says that he refutes such contentions in his own book on his years in office, which is scheduled to be published in April. Final Effort Authorized

State Department officials said that despite the defeat suffered by the P.L.O. in the Lebanon war that summer, the new Secretary of State, George P. Shultz, authorized Mr. Mroz in September 1982 to make one more effort to meet Mr. Arafat, who had been forced out of Beirut by the Israelis and was living in Tunis.

They said that Mr. Shultz, seeking to broaden the Middle East peace efforts to include the Palestinians, wanted Mr. Arafat to accept the American conditions for recognition and facilitate diplomatic steps then under way in the aftermath of Mr. Reagan’s Middle East initiative of Sept. 1, 1982. But Mr. Arafat refused to see Mr. Mroz, who made several trips to the Tunisian capital.

Department officials stressed that Mr. Shultz and Mr. Haig both had made it clear to the P.L.O. that there would be no backing away from the public commitment not to deal directly with the P.L.O. until it acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and accepted pertinent Security Council resolutions. They said that the Palestinians to this day had refused to do this.

The Reagan Administration, like the Carter Administration before it, was reported to have felt that the chances for Middle East negotiations would be enhanced if the P.L.O. could be persuaded to meet these conditions that would allow the United States to deal with it directly. Arabs Still Urge Direct Talks

Moreover, an American-P.L.O. understanding would please friends of the United States in the Arab world, who had been – and still are – urging it to deal directly with the Palestinian organization as a way of finding solutions to Middle Eastern problems.

Without the P.L.O.’s approval, King Hussein of Jordan, for instance, has declined to enter talks with Israel and Egypt on the future of the West Bank. And Egypt has repeatedly said that only by including the P.L.O. in negotiations can the Palestinian issue, which is at the heart of the Middle East troubles, be resolved.

Israel, however, refuses to deal with the P.L.O., which it regards as a terrorist organization whose charter is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Israeli officials have been opposed to any American contacts with the group. Because of this, officials involved in the Mroz mission, and Mr. Mroz himself, have been concerned that their effort not be seen as inconsistent with oft- stated United States policy that goes back nine years.

The Ford Administration, in a written pledge made by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to Israel in 1975, said it would ”not recognize or negotiate with the P.L.O. so long as the P.L.O. does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and does not accept Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.” That pledge has been affirmed by the Carter and Reagan Administrations.

As a result, every Administration since 1975 has ruled out any substantive discussion between an American official and a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Clandestine Contacts

Clandestine Central Intelligence Agency contacts have been maintained for security and intelligence matters, officials said. But any effort to discuss ways of bringing about recognition of the Liberation Organization or any issue involving Arab-Israeli matters has had to be conducted through intermediaries.

Mr. Mroz, in an interview, discussed his role as intermediary, for which he received no pay from the United States. Asked why he did it, he said, ”If I could get Arab recognition of Israel, there’s nothing I could do that would be more important in my life.”

He is known to believe that the P.L.O. leadership was close to a favorable response to the American proposals of April 29, 1982. Those ideas were presented in a document called a ”Notional Text,” an unofficial draft from the State Department that outlined what the P.L.O. and the United States would have to say in order that ”a direct dialogue” might begin between the United States Government and the Palestinians.

Mr. Haig and Mr. Veliotes have let it be known that they regarded the Mroz mission as a possible opportunity that could not be passed over, but that they never believed the chances for success were high, in view of the repeated inability of Mr. Arafat to accept the American conditions. ‘Very Minor Thing’ to Haig

Mr. Haig’s view is that the affair was ”a very minor thing” and that he did not pay much direct attention to the matter beyond August and September of 1981, leaving the contacts with Mr. Mroz to Mr. Veliotes and his staff in the bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian affairs.

Mr. Veliotes drew up a two-and- a-half-page memo for Mr. Haig in August 1981 that was described as ”a game plan” for pursuing the Mroz mission. The memo took note of an offer from Mr. Arafat to enter into talks through Mr. Mroz. It argued that it would be worth probing the possibility because there was nothing the United States could do that would more weaken Soviet influence in the Middle East then to persuade the P.L.O. to recognize Israel and thereby enter into direct dealings with Washington.

Harold H. Saunders, who as a senior official in the Nixon, Ford and Carter Administrations, was involved in all Middle East negotiations over that period, was informed of the Mroz mission by State Department officials and by Mr. Mroz. Mr. Saunders is a member of the board of directors of Mr. Mroz’s New York-based Institute for East-West Security Studies.

‘Elaborate’ and ‘Official’

”On the basis of what I was told,” Mr. Saunders said in an interview, ”this seemed like a more elaborate and more official exchange than any we had launched during previous administrations, with the exception of the openly reported dialogue between Secretary Vance and the Saudi Foreign Minister in August 1977.”

Mr. Mroz was was able to keep his frequent meetings with Mr. Arafat secret because his regular job with the International Peace Academy, an institute that works closely with the United Nations in training officers, obliged him to travel to the Middle East regularly. He had previously met with Mr. Arafat and other P.L.O. officials, as well as with Israelis and other Arabs.

In June 1981 he was approached in New York by a Palestine Liberation Organization member from a Persian Gulf nation who

produced a document of five points that later were expanded to seven. Mr. Mroz showed the second document to State Department officials in July and was told that it looked interesting, insofar as there was mention of Israel and the right of states to live in peace. Talks Held in Beirut

But at this point, the United States had no authorized connection with Mr. Mroz, who went to Beirut for talks from Aug. 3 to 5 with Mr. Arafat. Also present was Farouk Kaddoumi, the P.L.O. specialist on foreign relations. From that session emerged Mr. Arafat’s message to Washington saying that the ”seven points” could be the basis for talks. He suggested that Saudi Arabia also be involved as an alternative channel to Mr. Mroz.

At about this time, Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia made public his own eight-point plan for peace in the Middle East, which was even less acceptable to Washington than Mr. Arafat’s still-secret seven points, which were more explicit in mentioning Israel by name.

In September, having given the go- ahead for the probing of the P.L.O. position, Mr. Haig, on a previously planned trip to Berlin, stopped in southern Spain for several hours of talks with Prince Fahd.

Mr. Haig asked the Prince ”as a personal favor” to verify the message that the United States had received from Mr. Arafat through Mr. Mroz. The Saudi official agreed to do so, but delayed his confirmation to Washington for months, for reasons not clear here.

Message Given to Arafat

Meanwhile, Mr. Mroz, having been given authorization by Mr. Veliotes, presented Mr. Arafat on Aug. 29 with an unsigned, typewritten message saying that Washington welcomed the opportunity to pursue a discussion based on the seven points.