71. Telegram From Secretary of State Vance to the White House1
Secto 8061. White House for the President and Dr. Brzezinski Only from the Secretary. State for Warren Christopher and Peter Tarnoff Only From the Secretary. Subj: Meeting With King Hussein.
1. I had an initial meeting of a little over one hour this afternoon with King Hussein and his close advisers.2 The King in his opening remarks expressed his respect for your “courageous stand” and said that Jordan is prepared to do its part to contribute to the success of your efforts.
2. As he did during his Washington visit, the King again expressed his concern that expectations for progress are too high in the Arab world and his fear that if early progress is not made, there will be a political reaction which will favor the forces of extremism in the area. In view of the Begin victory in Israel, he is pessimistic about the prospects for any real progress. He also said that, despite his efforts, the Arab governments have not succeeded in arriving at a coordinated position with respect to the Palestinian representation questions and a definition of the nature of peace. He himself continues to favor a unified Arab delegation at Geneva and a Palestinian settlement which would provide for a transitional period of international administration followed by self-determination. Finally, given the many uncertainties which he sees, the King put particular stress on the importance of knowing what our positions are with respect to a settlement.
4. The King said that we had provided him some important matters to think about and that he would need to reflect on these with his advisers before giving us his reactions. We will therefore be having a further meeting Saturday morning, and I will report fully to you on the Jordanian position at that time.
3. I made the same presentation to the King that I made to both President Sadat and President Asad.3 I described Begin’s procedural proposal for starting negotiations, making clear we have differences [Page 406] with Begin on several points. I described the alternatives we see for Palestinian representation and gave him the Israeli, Egyptian and Syrian reactions to these, including Sadat’s proposal for an Arab League delegation to represent Palestine. In describing in general terms Begin’s position on the territorial and Palestinian questions, I affirmed to the King that our own position on these issues has not changed. I explained to the King our draft five proposals4 and gave him the Israeli, Egyptian and Syrian reaction to each. I also proposed to the King, as I did in Egypt and Syria, that Jordan give us a draft of the kind of peace treaty they would like for our own information in preparing a series of draft documents which could serve as a basis for further discussion among the parties. I said it would be useful to have drafts from all the parties prior to my meetings with the Foreign Ministers in New York at the beginning of the General Assembly in September. Finally, I explained to Hussein the formula we have discussed with the Egyptians and Syrians for PLO acceptance of Resolution 242, saying that such acceptance would provide a basis for us to begin talking to the PLO.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P840072–2635. Secret; Nodis; Cherokee. Sent immediate to the Department of State.↩
- No memorandum of conversation has been found.↩
- See Documents 63 and 68.↩
- See the Attachment to Document 54.↩