The Central Intelligence Agency has declassified 1,400 pages of intelligence surrounding the Camp David Accords, the historic peace treaty negotiated in 1978 by then-President Jimmy Carter with the leaders of Israel and Egypt.
Carter, now 89, said Wednesday in Atlanta that the documents helped him grasp the full sweep of Middle East tensions in that era, convinced him U.S. diplomatic expectations were too low and steeled his resolve to seek a full-fledged treaty between Egypt and Israel — and nothing less.
A leading achievement of Carter’s foreign policy, the accord led then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to share the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 for the first treaty between the Jewish state of Israel and one of its Arab neighbors.
The documents released this week include political and personality profiles of Sadat and Begin that Carter read before the 13-day summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in rural Maryland.
There also are transcripts of U.S. National Security Council sessions; summaries of key meetings, including conversations among the heads of state; and analyses of undercurrents among Mideast nations that still reverberate in the region.
The papers cover the period from January 1977 to March 1979, from the months before the summit to the following spring when Egypt and Israel signed the peace treaty that emerged from the outline forged at Camp David.
The deal did not curtail Israeli occupation of the West Bank, but it ended open hostilities between Sadat’s and Begin’s countries. Begin also withdrew Israeli troops from the Sinai peninsula and Sadat opened the Suez Canal to Israeli ships.
The collection suggests an American administration that knew the president faced a balancing act.
“You will have to control the proceedings from the outset,” Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in one memo to Carter.
Carter paid a visit to CIA headquarters in August 1978 to help prepare for the talks. “President Carter … indicated that he wanted to be ‘steeped in the personalities of Begin and Sadat,’ ” said a CIA document written after the summit.
Carter recalled Wednesday that he was particularly interested in the pressures and quirks that drove Begin and Sadat: “What were their strengths and weaknesses? What were there attitudes toward me? … What did they say about the United States and each other privately?”
The CIA’s analyses described Sadat, then 59, as “a former revolutionary and ardent nationalist … a moderate leader and a pragmatic politician and diplomat.”
“He has become known for his realism, political acumen and capacity for surprising, courageous and dramatic decisions,” said the CIA profile.
As to Begin, 65 at the time, CIA analysts had written: “The situation is complicated by the uncertain state of Begin’s health. Despite the denials of his doctor that he is seriously ill, both coalition and Labor Party leaders are already jockeying for position in the succession sweepstakes.”
Carter said the analyses suggested the two men’s personalities might dictate speaking with each leader separately. Begin — Carter recalled — was obsessed with minutia, while Sadat preferred to talk in generalities, often involving long discourses on history.
Indeed, Carter called the early days of the summit, when he hosted the two leaders together in his cabin, a “disaster.” For the next 10 days, Carter served as the go-between, speaking to Begin and Sadat separately. “When the Egyptians were sleeping, I was talking to the Israelis,” Carter said. “When the Israelis were sleeping, I was talking to the Egyptians.”
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