We had been working on it for six weeks, under the leadership of Mickey Kantor; John Emerson, a friend of Hi Senator Byrd took a harder line than Nunn, echoing what I had heard from General Mundy. We tried to create a comfortable, informal atmosphere for the Israelis and Palestinians. If you were a civil servant, the only surefire way to stay out of trouble was to say no.
That same day Vladimir Putin was elected president of Russia in the first round, with 52. He understood the Middle East and the role each member of the Palestinian delegation played in their deliberations, and Arafat liked him. When the Palestinians saw that they were identified in the agreement as the “Palestinian delegation,” not the PLO, they balked. Another GOP proposal that met stiff resistance was its move to eliminate the Department of Education, which, like the school lunch program, had always enjoyed strong bipartisan support.
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