Bechir Ben Yahmed

As these words are written, it is not clear whether the mediation of Mr. Henry Kissinger will recover from its March setback and produce a second "disengagement" agreement between Egypt and Israel, exchanging another area of the Sinai desert for necessarily uncertain assurances. But whether or not there is such an agreement, it is by now absolutely clear to everyone that the limits of that procedure have been reached. Furthermore, one must sadly admit that much time has been wasted in the effort. The truth probably is that the Secretary of State's aims have really been not to achieve peace but rather to ease tensions and in the process to extricate America from embarrassing or intolerable situations.