Word: damascus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...week's end, Wynn flew to Beirut to fill in for Bureau Chief Karsten Prager, who was in Damascus gauging the reception accorded the Nixon entourage. After the Syrian capital, only visits to Israel and Jordan lay ahead before Dean Fischer and hundreds of other weary whistle-stoppers could return to Washington for a good rest...
SYRIA. Twenty minutes' flight time from Damascus airport, Colonel Ralph Albertazzie, the pilot of Nixon's Spirit of 76, spotted four Soviet-built Syrian MlGs coming up fast. He immediately took evasive action, putting the giant jet through a series of sharp turns and steep banks while radioing the Damascus control tower for help. Assured that the fighters were on a friendly- though unannounced- escort mission, Colonel Albertazzie landed the President in Syria for his meetings with the leaders of a nation that has been bitterly anti-American as well as anti-Israeli...
President Hafez Assad, who politely received Nixon at the airport, had made no effort to get out big crowds. Not until the presidential limousine reached Damascus, 28 miles from the airport, was there any buildup of spectators along the roadside. Then Nixon asked that the roof of the car be opened, and the two Presidents stood to wave to the crowd, which numbered perhaps 100,000. The people smiled and waved back but did little cheering. Though American flags dotted the route, only one placard was visible. It said pointedly: REVOLUTIONARY DAMASCUS WELCOMES PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON...
...deemed to be no security threat. Also emptied was the 110-room Y.M.C.A. across the street. In the King David (code-named "Beehive"), the Nixons occupied the presidential suite on the sixth floor, which was Kissinger's quarters when he was flying his diplomatic shuttle between Jerusalem and Damascus. This time the Secretary was relegated to a lower floor. Everything was as ready for Nixon as a sprinter on his blocks. Even the Beehive's chef was well briefed: he had been advised of the President's predilection for cottage cheese...
Assad is slowly turning Syria into a more open society. Middle-class Syrians who fled the Baathist coups are being wooed back with economic inducements, while foreign investment is being encouraged with guarantees of repatriation of profits. New hotels are being built, including a 350-room Damascus-Sheraton and a 400-room French Meridien. In the meantime, the old hotels and marketplaces are suddenly filled with Western and Japanese businessmen who sense the tantalizing opportunities that Economy Minister Imadi has outlined. If disengagement and peace work out, Damascenes will once again look westward. "We prefer the West," one government official...