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On Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak. On many occasions Sadat would send Mubarak as a direct emissary to see me. Sometimes Mubarak would deliver a handwritten message in an unsealed envelope; Sadat was trying to show me he trusted him. I have never detected any inclination in Mubarak to do anything contrary to what Sadat would have done had he survived. I think Mubarak has pledged his life and honor to continue the basic Sadat policies.
On Jordan's King Hussein. Hussein is personally courageous but an extremely timid man in political matters. That timidity derives almost inevitably from the inherent weakness of Jordan. As a nation, it is a contrivance, arbitrarily devised by a few strokes of the pen. Hussein is caught in a nutcracker, between Israel on one hand and Iraq and Syria on the other. He has little inherent national wealth, so he is dependent on the largesse of Saudi Arabia and others for weapons and economic security. He has a difficult situation governing a weak nation. But he is frustrating because he has not been courageous at times when political courage was needed.
On the Saudis. The Saudis are a force for moderation and stability. They have a real commitment to the West and to the peace process, with certain provisos concerning Palestinian rights. I was frustrated that they did not have the confidence to say publicly, "Let us support Sadat and Camp David. We approve of Jordan and the Palestinians negotiating just to see if Israel is acting in good faith." That has not happened yet.
On the Soviet Union. The Soviets under Brezhnev will seize on every opportunity to further the Communist cause. I was not misled about their ultimate intentions.
They are uncertain of themselves; they do not have the calm self-assurance of the Chinese. They have to prove themselves over and over to be equals with our country. They are willing to make great sacrifices for military strength, which is perhaps their only strength.
I am fearful President Reagan is not sufficiently sensitive to the consequences of excessively isolating the Soviets. We need to give them hope that through negotiation and peaceful competition we can strive for accommodation. If that hope is removed, they might be induced to lash out and use their enormous military capability. It would be suicidal but it is a possibility. That is why it is so counterproductive for the President to imply that we are militarily inferior to the Soviet Union. We are not, but this claim tends to weaken the confidence of our own people, shakes the foundations of our alliances and might induce the Soviets to make a suicidal miscalculation.
On Ronald Reagan. I have seen our country suffer from the policies initiated by President Reagan in economics, in foreign policy, in some social programs. He has undone important accomplishments not only of me and other Democratic Presidents but of his Republican predecessors. Reagan and James Watt, his Interior Secretary, have tried to undo much of the progress made in environmental quality dating from Abraham Lincoln to Richard Nixon. It is grievously damaging. The budget deficits that Reagan will accumulate in four years, while claiming to be a fiscal conservative, exceed the total deficits of all the peacetime years