Office of the Historian

182. Memorandum From William B. Quandt of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1

Washington, undated

SUBJECT

  • Third Day of Camp David Talks (U)

The atmosphere in the talks between Vance, Dayan, and Khalil was considerably better today. We submitted a new draft letter,2 along with suggestions on the other outstanding issues. Khalil showed some flexibility on the question on the timing of the exchange of ambassadors, and we appear now to have agreement on the easiest of the issues, Article IV. (S)

Dayan now sees the question of a target date, Article VI of the treaty, and the exchange of ambassadors as the remaining difficult issues in the negotiations with Egypt. In addition, he has presented us with an outline of a memorandum of understanding which he would like us to respond to. (S)

I anticipate some serious difficulties in the talks Saturday3 and Sunday,4 but I think that we can expect to conclude this round of talks by Sunday afternoon with a package of proposals5 for Dayan to take back to the Cabinet. The most difficult decisions for us will come in the next round of the talks, when we will be obliged to address bilateral issues and to deal with Begin directly. (S)

If you have the time on Saturday or Sunday, I think it would be worthwhile to talk with both Dayan and Khalil about broad regional developments. (S)

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Middle East, Subject File, Box 16, Egypt-Israel Negotiations: 2/79. Secret. Outside System. Printed from a copy that does not bear Quandt’s initials. Carter initialed “C” at the top of the memorandum, indicating that he saw the document. No memoranda of conversation for the day’s meetings have been found.↩
  2. Not found.↩
  3. February 24. No record of the meetings held between the delegations on this day has been found.↩
  4. February 25. No record of the meetings held between the delegations on this day has been found.↩
  5. On February 25, the Egyptian and Israeli delegations were presented with drafts of the letter on the West Bank/Gaza negotiations as well as the agreed minutes to Articles I, IV, and VI and Annex I. Copies of these drafts bearing Carter’s handwritten annotations are in the Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Middle East, Subject File, Box 7, Camp David II: 2/79.↩