Emerging from a meeting last week with Syrian President Hafez Assad, U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim smilingly announced a notable bit of peace keeping. Assad had agreed to a six-month extension for the U.N.'s 1,250-man Disengagement Observer Force stationed on the Golan Heights.
Since Israel would have greeted any Syrian demand to eliminate the force as a casus belli, the Waldheim visit removed a lot of the tension that earlier caused Israel to mobilize troops.
It was not clear what Waldheim may have promised Assad to win his agreement, but Arab spokesmen indicated that...
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