398. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Brzezinski) to
President Carter1
Washington, August 12, 1980
SUBJECT
- Scenario for the Autonomy Talks (U)
At Tab A is a memorandum Chris prepared, based on a meeting2 I held yesterday on the way forward on the autonomy
talks. It lays out a scenario for getting the talks restarted—one which,
however, is highly dependent on reactions by both Sadat and Begin. Sol concurs in this approach. (S)
If you approve it, we would like to begin implementation immediately,
since Roy Atherton may be seeing
Sadat as early as tomorrow
morning,3 and his being able to lay out our thinking to
Sadat could be critical in
shaping the Egyptian reaction to the recent Begin letter. The Egyptians are already talking of
Sadat’s responding to
Begin tomorrow, in view of
the Israelis’ having published the Begin letter. (S)
The letter to Sadat which you
requested (Tab B)4 would not be delivered, under the proposed scenario,
until the last week of August; thus it can be revised further in light
of developments. At that time, you might want to write it out longhand.
(S)
If the proposed scenario worked, there could be as many as three public
events in the near future to demonstrate that the peace process is
moving forward:
—public announcement of continuing bilateral technical talks (late
August);
—announcement in three capitals, during Sol’s next trip, on restarting
the talks (early September); and
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—a possible Begin-Sadat Summit (late September/early
October), with high-level participation from here, where in my judgment
Ed Muskie would be the ideal
person. (S)
RECOMMENDATION:
That you approve the scenario presented in the memorandum from Christopher at Tab A, and provide
comments on the draft letter to Sadat at Tab B.5
Tab A
Memorandum From the Acting Secretary of State
(Christopher) to
President Carter6
Washington, August 12, 1980
SUBJECT
- Working Toward a Resumption of the Autonomy
Negotiations
Attached is a draft letter to Sadat, along the lines you requested. It has the
concurrence of Sol and Zbig. I am
sending a copy of the draft letter to Ed Muskie in New York, together with this
memorandum.
Sol, Zbig and I feel that the letter would be most effective if it
came at a time after some preliminary work had been done in the
capitals by our Ambassadors. The following sequence of steps appears
to us to be the one offering the best prospects for success.
1. As an immediate first step, Roy
Atherton will make it clear in Cairo that before the
Egyptians send a further letter to Begin, he wishes to meet with Sadat. He will urge Sadat not to engage in further
polemics but rather to use his reply to try to open doors for an
eventual resumption of the talks. Our second objective with
Sadat on this occasion
would be to give him a sense of the timing of the sequence of steps
that we have in mind as outlined below. In doing so, Roy would make
it clear that while we were not pressing for an immediate resumption
of formal trilateral negotiations, we want to continue work on the
Heads of Agreement through publicly announced bilateral meetings
with each side, and perhaps some technical-level trilateral meetings
if Sadat will agree to them,
until formal negotiations are resumed. Because of
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the religious holidays, Roy may not
be able to see Sadat until
the end of this week (August 15–16).
2. Concurrent with the approach to Sadat, we would ask Sam
Lewis to see Begin and explore whether there is any flexibility
for an Israeli gesture that would make it easier for Sadat to resume the negotiations.
(We would take care in our contacts with Sadat not to imply we are promising to deliver
something from the Israelis.) At present the possibilities strike us
as being: (a) some gesture on the Palestinian front, e.g. an
expression of willingness to meet with moderate Palestinians and
allow them to articulate their objectives; (b) an Israeli concession
that could enable us to show real progress on the Heads of
Agreement; and, (c) the remote possibility that Begin might be willing to postpone
the transfer of his office to East Jerusalem.
3. After we have had a chance to assess the results of these
contacts, Atherton would
deliver a pre-positioned letter from you along the lines of the
attached draft on or about August 25–26. The letter would pave the
way for a trip by Sol to the area in the first week of
September.
4. Sol would go with the purpose of clinching an understanding with
Sadat about resuming
formal trilateral negotiations. If he is successful, Sol could
report to you by telephone7 during his visit
and an announcement of a resumption of talks could be made in
Washington, Cairo and Jerusalem simultaneously.
5. If all of this works out, a further possibility might be to try to
arrange a summit meeting between Begin and Sadat shortly thereafter, with Sol or possibly Ed
attending for the U.S.
A number of general considerations led us to think that the above
sequence of steps made the most sense:
—Sadat will be easier to bring
around if we have given him a bit of time to maintain his present
posture in terms of domestic Egyptian and Arab public opinion, and
if he does not appear to be bowing immediately to U.S. pressure. With the passage of some
time, he will be better able to blur the fact that he has gotten
little or nothing from the Israelis.
—As long as we have Begin’s
office move to East Jerusalem hanging over our heads, it will be an
added obstacle in persuading Sadat to agree to a resumption of the negotiations.
The timing of the steps suggested above gives us time to explore
with Begin what the
possibilities are for dealing with this problem. If we can’t get
Begin to agree to
postpone this step for a significant period of time, the next best
thing would be for him to get it over with quickly (although we
would of course not make that suggestion to Begin).
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—An announcement of a resumption of the negotiations in early or
mid-September might be the optimum timing from many standpoints.
—Finally, we all felt it would be wiser if Sol did not make his trip
until the ground has been prepared and we have a reasonable basis
for thinking Sadat can be
persuaded to resume the negotiations. Having Sol go prematurely
would only expose a visible failure if in fact we were unable to
persuade Sadat to come back
in.
