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Interviews

Transcripts of interviews with history makers and witnesses

Using Transcripts, Interviews and Conference Proceedings to Write History

In writing history, documents and primary texts are reliably accurate. Veracity can emerge by crosschecking sources. However, if all we have is one shard of pottery from the second temple period, we must settle for it in isolation as evidence of how the pottery was constructed, its composition, use, etc. Unless of course, we are fortunate enough to have a text that describes the pottery piece, and we have the piece of pottery as evidence. When oral recollections are used to bolster the written text, subtle shades and emphatic dimensions provide colorful detail to historical writing. Unlike written records, oral evidence provides vignettes, opinions, hues, suppositions, and sentiments almost always absent in a document.

Conference Proceedings, Interviews, Transcripts|March 18, 2020

Bar-On: Ken Stein Interviews With Hanan Bar-On, Jerusalem, Israel

In the 1975-1979 period, Hanan Bar-On served in the Israeli Embassy in Washington and then for seven years as director general of the Foreign Ministry. His insights highlight the building strain that evolved between Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin. From an Israeli viewpoint, he recalls how unpredictable Zbigniew Brzezinski behaved toward the Israelis, how flexible Moshe Dayan was in seeking compromises, and how the Leeds Castle foreign minister talks in England in July 1978 established the contours for the successful Camp David negotiations two months later. He sheds important light on the context of the four Egyptian-Israeli agreements: Sinai I (1974), Sinai II (1975), the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty (1979).

Interviews|November 12, 1992, and July 9, 1993

Bashir: Ken Stein Interviews with Tahsin Bashir, Cairo, Egypt

Tahsin Bashir served as spokesman for Egypt and for the Arab League in many capacities from 1963 to 1978. He knew Anwar Sadat intimately, revealing that Sadat kept his own counsel while using others to test political and diplomatic options. His long-term goal was to reorient Egypt away from Moscow and obtain Sinai’s return. Sadat cleverly managed others, including Kissinger, Carter and his own advisers.

Interviews|November 10, 1992, and July 7, 1993

Ben-Aharon: Ken Stein Interview With Yossi Ben-Aharon, Jerusalem, Israel, November 12, 1992

Yossi Ben-Aharon was the director general of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s office from 1988 to 1992. He was intimately involved in Israeli-U.S. negotiations that eventually saw a highly reluctant Israeli prime minister attend the October-November 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace Conference. Ben-Aharon’s evaluations of U.S. Secretary of State Baker, his assistant Dennis Ross, and President George H.W. Bush are insightful.

Interviews|November 12, 1992

Bin Sultan: Interviews with Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan on the Arab world and Palestinian leaders

Ambassador Bandar Bin Sultan served as Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2006. From 2005 to 2015 he led the country’s National Security Council. He offers a scathing attack on Yasser Arafat’s failure to embrace multiple negotiating overtures proposed by Presidents Carter and Reagan. Additionally, he expresses his anger at the present Palestinian leadership for criticizing the UAE’s recognition of Israel in the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Interviews, Ken's Blog|October 5-7, 2020

Dinitz: Ken Stein Interview With Simcha Dinitz, Jerusalem, Israel

Dinitz focuses on mostly the 1973 October War period, the controversy of delay in the resupply of American military materials to Israel, his relationship with Kissinger and how the US Secretary of State maneuvered the Soviet Union out of postwar diplomacy. He notes that elements of the Israeli army leadership strongly wanted to embarrass Sadat after the war by harming his Israeli surrounded Egyptian Third Army. In the end Israel’s political leadership allowed diplomacy to unfold. Dinitz has great praise for Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat.

Interviews|March 20, 1992

El-Gamasy: Ken Stein Interview with General Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy, Cairo, Egypt

General Ghani el-Gamasy served as Egypt’s chief of staff during the October 1973 war, executed Egypt’s limited success across the Suez Canal, and negotiated with an Israeli counterpart, General Aharon Yariv, the details of the Kissinger-choreographed Kilometer 101 talks, which led to the January 1974 Egyptian-Israeli Disengagement Agreement. Gamasy was surprised when Sadat told him at Aswan then, “Egypt was making peace with the United States and not with Israel.” Gamasy to Yariv, “We (the Egyptians) are finished with the Palestinians.”

Interviews|November 10, 1992

Gazit: Ken Stein Interview With Mordechai Gazit, Jerusalem, Israel

Mordechai Gazit served as Director General in Prime Minister Golda Meir’s office from March 1973 to her resignation in April 1974. He observed the outbreak of the October 1973 War and Henry Kissinger’s diplomatic choreography as it unfolded thereafter. Gazit suggests that he was the source of Israeli and Egyptian generals to negotiate face to face at the end of the war near Kilometer 101.

Interviews|March 22, 1992

Ghorbal: Ken Stein Interview With Ashraf Ghorbal, Cairo, Egypt

Ashraf Ghorbal represented Egypt to the US for four years from 1968 to 1972 until Egypt restored diplomatic relations with the US in the wake of the October War. Ghorbal was Sadat’s Ambassador in Washington for 11 years until 1984. He credits Sadat with foresight in setting out and fulfilling his diplomatic objectives; breaking from the USSR, aligning Cairo with the US, harnessing US diplomacy under Kissinger and Carter to secure Sinai’s return to Egyptian sovereignty, and even if that meant signing agreements and recognizing Israel.

Interviews|November 9, 1992

Khaddam: Ken Stein Interview With Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam

From 1970 to 1984, Khaddam served as Syria’s foreign minister, and later he was Syria’s decision-maker for actions in Lebanon. He recounts Syrian anger toward Egyptian President Sadat’s slow but continual bilateral engagement and recognition of Israel. He recalls how Syrian President Assad, after a four-hour meeting, refused Henry Kissinger’s invitation to attend the 1973 Geneva peace conference, not wanting to sanction the closeness Sadat was establishing with Israel and with Washington. These were the same reasons why Syria refused President Carter’s invitation to attend a similar Middle East peace conference in 1977. Khaddam says, “We were shocked by Sadat’s actions.”

Interviews|July 18, 1993

Khalil: Ken Stein Interview With Former Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil, Cairo, Egypt 

Mustafa Khalil served as the primary Egyptian negotiator in tying up the Egyptian-Israeli treaty with Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan between September 1978 and March 1979. Though most of the talks took place in Washington, the final excruciating details were negotiated in difficult exchanges in Jerusalem between Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin in the week before the March 26, 1979, treaty signing.

Interviews|July 14, 1993

Kidron: Ken Stein Interview With Mordechai Kidron, Jerusalem, Israel 

Mordechai Kidron served in the Israeli Foreign Ministry during and after the October 1973 War. He touched on the war, its aftermath and the unfolding of the Sinai I – Egyptian-Israeli military negotiations and short military talks that took place after the war. He thought that the December 1973 Geneva conference was going to be a long process, not knowing that the conference was stage managed by Kissinger, Sadat, and Meir. Meir was deeply emotional about having Israeli POW’s returned. He notes that Foreign Minister Abba Eban, whom he called an optimist … “was not really altogether founded in reality.”

Interviews|August 5, 1992
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