On 3-4 November 2021, on the heels of the 30th anniversary of the 1991 Madrid Conference, the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP) at the Wilson Center hosted a virtual roundtable as part of their 1990s Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) Working Group oral history project. The event convened around 20 former ACRS delegates from key regional and extra-regional states for an in-depth exchange on their personal recollections from the ACRS process. In four sessions, which were conducted virtually over two days, participants revisited: the genesis of ACRS; the format and process of the ACRS Working Group; fault lines and inflection points during ACRS; and its successes, failures, and lessons learnt from the process.

It was following the Six-Day War of 1967 that Arab Americans began to seriously discuss, and be politically active in, questions regarding the Arab World and US government policy and US public mindsets towards it, as Salim Yacub’s Imperfect Strangers: Americans, Arabs, and U.S.-Middle East Relations in the 1970s (2016) has argued.

This document consists of two letters that were reprinted in the June 1969 issue of the newsletter of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG), a leading new Arab American organization founded following the 1967 war. The AAUG was directed by Ibrahim Abu-Lughod (1929-2001), a Palestine-born professor of political science at Northwestern University and a foremost critic of mainstream US views of the Arab world, who also edited the above-mentioned edited volume. He also is the author of one of the letters printed, a note sent to the president of Princeton University. The AAUG also printed Princeton’s reply, written by assistant to the president David S. Thompson (1917-2007), a son of Presbyterian missionaries.

A message from Ambassador Dobrynin to President Nixon regarding the Soviet military presence in the Middle East.

Kissinger provides a historical overview of the current state of the Middle East and the decisions the US has made, and offers a suggested proposal to negotiate peace between Israel and the Arab States while taking the Soviet Union into account.

A review of the papers requested in the February 11 WSAG meeting, and a plan to make them available by February 14.

Kissinger and Dobrynin discuss the upcoming SALT talks, the situation in the Middle East, and Vietnam.

A recap of a meeting in which Secretary Rogers and Ambassador Dobrynin discuss proposed formulations to negotiate a peace in the Middle East, and the Soviet Union's involvement in the UAR.

A conversation between Rogers and Kissinger, in which they discuss the meeting Kissinger previously had with Israeli Ambassador Rabin, and Kissinger's overall involvement in negotiations with Israel.

Memorandum for the President from Henry Kissinger summing up an NSC Meeting about the current issues facing the US position in the Middle East. Kissinger highlights the dangers of a "major-power war" breaking out over the Mid-East and the possibility of the US position giving way to Soviet predominance.

In a letter to the President, Rogers plans to take advantage of the favorable conditions created by the recent talks in New York by continuing bilateral talks with the Soviet Union, and participating in the renewed Four Power talks at the UN. The goal is to restart dialogue by mid-November.