160. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Israel1
282029. WH for Brzezinski. Subject: Letter From President Carter to Prime Minister Begin. For the Ambassador From the Secretary.
1. Please deliver following letter to Prime Minister Begin.
2. Begin text:
Dear Mr. Prime Minister:
I appreciate your letter of November 23 and the additional details that you have given Ambassador Lewis on your talks with President Sadat.2
Let me say first of all, Mr. Prime Minister, that I agree with you that President Sadat’s visit, the reception he received in Israel and your private meetings and exchanges were good for Egypt, Israel and the cause of peace. The method that you and President Sadat have decided upon to continue your dialogue will have my support. As always, we stand ready to assist in any way that the Governments of Israel and your neighbors may desire, though our preference of course has always been that the parties deal directly among yourselves.
President Sadat has also given us, through Ambassador Eilts, a report of his impressions of the visit and of his thoughts on next steps,3 and they are much the same as those you have conveyed. We are gratified that you both reconfirmed your commitment to a comprehensive settlement at Geneva, embodied in peace treaties, though in the light of the promising new developments that have emerged from your talks we recognize that time should be allowed for its preparation. We further agree that it is important that Israel and Egypt give fullest consideration to ways in which the other parties can be brought into the negotiating process. I know we all agree that to be strong and durable a settlement must be comprehensive, and I am glad that you appreciate the danger of making the negotiations seem to be exclusively an Israeli-Egyptian undertaking.
Mr. Prime Minister, in hardly a week’s time, thanks to your and President Sadat’s initiatives, the Middle East has moved closer to peace [Page 787] than in all the negotiations of the past thirty years. It hardly needs saying that the path ahead will be difficult. I know that you recognize better than anyone the magnitude of the changes that will be required to reach agreement. You may be sure that the Government of Israel will have the full support of the United States in the period ahead as it takes the momentous decisions necessary for the just and lasting peace that we have so long sought.
Sincerely,
Jimmy Carter.
End text.
3. When delivering foregoing, or on other early occasion, we would like you to explore with Begin or Dayan an idea put forward by Sadat in conversation with Eilts November 23.4 Sadat asked Begin’s and our comment on the possibility of assigning an Israeli diplomat to the American Embassy to convey messages to Begin and to resolve day-to-day problems between Egypt and Israel, using our communications. Sadat’s idea is that the Israeli diplomat would be listed as an American and no announcement would be made for the time being that he was in fact Israeli.
4. You should say that in principle we like the idea of direct diplomatic link between Egypt and Israel but would like to have some time to think it through. We are frankly concerned about the obvious complications that could be created by having an Israeli diplomat under American cover in the American Embassy in Cairo. There may be other alternatives that would accomplish the same purpose. Before going further, however, we would appreciate having Begin’s and Dayan’s thoughts.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P840072–2378. Secret; Flash; Exdis Distribute as Nodis Cherokee. Drafted by Korn; cleared by Atherton, Habib, Quandt, and Robert Perito; and approved by Secretary Vance. Sent immediate for information to Cairo and the White House.↩
- See Documents 156 and 157.↩
- See Document 155.↩
- See Document 155.↩