94. Telegram From the Department of State to Secretary of State Vance in Geneva, the White House, and the Embassies in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan1
Tosec 120125/265774. Subject: Egypt-Israel Negotiations October 19.
1. The President joined senior members of delegations for lunch at Blair House today,2 which provided the opportunity for a timely and helpful discussion covering not only the issues of the treaty text and military talks but also how the two sides might get things moving toward West Bank/Gaza negotiations.
2. Prior to lunch we held a short trilateral meeting3 with Ministers present to review the state of play on the text of the treaty. We had left it the evening before that each side would consider suggestions made (in some cases ours) for bridging the gap on a number of unresolved articles.4 Our review this morning revealed that positions had frozen on the various issues along the lines we have previously reported with no sign of further flexibility.
3. At lunch, the President urged the Egyptians to be more forthcoming on the pace of normalization, and the Israelis to be more understanding of Egyptian need for language on comprehensive settlement and Palestinian issues so long as it does not in any way make Egyptian-Israeli treaty conditional on progress with respect to those issues. The President also encouraged Egyptians and Israelis to begin discussions to work out timetable for getting West Bank/Gaza negotiations started. [Page 331] Other principal subjects discussed were (a) problem of ensuring establishment and maintenance of UN or other international force not under UN auspices, possibly including U.S. component among components from other friendly countries, and (b) those issues which are proving particularly difficult in the military talks (Israeli settlement near El-Arish and movement of Egyptian air defense missiles east of Canal). President said he would reflect on all these issues where differences exist and would convey to parties his views on what would constitute a fair way of resolving them with the hope that they would be receptive to his recommendations.
4. Following lunch at the President’s instructions our delegation went over the treaty with a view to preparing a fresh U.S. draft with our recommendation for compromise language on the disputed articles. I reviewed this with him at the end of the day and we now have an approved text5 which I will put forward to the parties tonight or tomorrow morning.
5. We did not deal with the preamble or annexes, the Egyptians have now presented to us and Israelis revised preamble language and proposed exchange of notes on “correlation.”6 We hope to move forward tomorrow with our recommendations on these two drafts as well as on Annex III (normalization and friendly relations), finally, President has asked us to convey to parties that we believe interim withdrawal line should be drawn closer to Al-Arish to include Israeli settlement on Israeli side of line, and that we could not support Egyptian SAM’s east of canal since this would be departure from Camp David understanding.
6. We have clearly reached our first difficult point with both sides digging in until the bidding can be reviewed at the highest levels at home. In these circumstances the President’s intervention today and the submission by us of new compromise proposals is timely.
7. In the military talks the Israeli and Egyptian cartographers encountered some differences in trying to plot on maps the limits-of-forces lines agreed to yesterday by Magdoub and Tamir.7 The differences were minor and should have been easily resolved, but neither Magdoub and Tamir will now give any ground, nor are they willing to discuss anything else until they settle the issues at hand. This means that the military discussions have ground to a halt, too.
[Page 332]8. The breakdown is more a reflection of the present sour political mood, however, than any inherent difficulty over military issues. As soon as things get moving at the political level, we expect Tamir and Magdoub will very quickly dispose of what problems remain.
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Cables File, State Department Out, Box 113, 10/17–22/78. Secret; Sensitive; Cherokee; Immediate; Nodis. Printed from a copy that indicates the original was received in the White House Situation Room. Drafted by Sterner; cleared by Quandt and James E. Thyder (S/S–O); approved by Atherton. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P840139–2072) Vance was in Geneva for discussions with the U.S. delegation on the upcoming SALT negotiations.↩
- According to the President’s Daily Diary, Carter met with the Egyptian and Israeli delegations at Blair House from 12:27 p.m. to 2:01 p.m. (Carter Library, Presidential Materials) Atherton’s briefing memorandum for Carter, prepared for the meeting, is in the Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Middle East, Subject File, Box 14, Egypt-Israel Negotiations: 10/19–20/78) Carter’s handwritten notes from the luncheon are in the Carter Library, Plains File, President’s Personal Foreign Affairs File, Box 3, Mid East, 8–11/78. No other record of this meeting has been found.↩
- No other record of this meeting has been found.↩
- The Department transmitted a summary of the treaty text negotiations held on October 18 in telegram Tosec 120099/264803 to Geneva, the White House, Cairo, Tel Aviv, and Amman, October 19. (Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Cables File, State Department Out, Box 113, 10/17–22/78)↩
- See Document 95.↩
- The Egyptian delegation’s proposed drafts of the treaty preamble and a proposed exchange of notes on the framework agreement between the heads of the Egyptian and Israeli delegations, annotated with U.S.-suggested textual changes and dated October 19, are in the Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 55, Middle East: Peace Talks Between Egypt and Israel, 10/19–31/78.↩
- No other record of this meeting has been found.↩