ABSTRACT
Someone at the State Department had leaked to syndicated columnist James McCartney the essence of National Security Council (NSC) staff contingency planning for a possible war between Syria and Israel. According to former officials at the White House, the NSC staff considered American objectives regarding Lebanon, as well as diplomatic and military contingencies. Officials were reluctant to articulate differences in priorities across departments and focused instead upon alternative means for achieving their favored objective under various contingencies. In addition to objectives, the NSC staff specified diplomatic contingencies and the options associated with them, as well as the expected benefits and costs of each option. Middle East Policy Survey stated that the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote a contingency paper that recommended American-Soviet cooperation in Lebanon and anticipated the possibility of United States armed combat with Israel. Washington game planning linked objectives, contingencies, and options into more or less plausible scenarios of future states of affairs.
