Office of the Historian

Sources

Sources for Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, Volume IX

For this volume, the editor made extensive use of Presidential papers and other White House records held by the Carter Library. These records proved the best source of documentation on the roles of President Carter and the National Security Council in formulating, developing, and implementing United States policy toward the Arab-Israeli dispute and the Middle East peace process from August 1978 until January 1981. The National Security Affairs files are divided into two sub-series: Brzezinski Material and Staff Material. Within the Brzezinski Material sub-series, the Country File (especially those files on Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, and the files on the general Middle East region, which incorporate material on both bilateral relations as well as peace negotiations and the Palestinian autonomy talks which followed the March 1979 signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty), the Country Chron series of the Brzezinski Office File, the President’s Correspondence with Foreign Leaders File, and the Subject File provided the richest sources of documentation. The Cables File helped complete the documentation of the post-Camp David negotiations through its collection of Department of State Nodis telegrams. The Trip File provided important documentation on President Carter’s March 1979 visit to Egypt and Israel. The Staff Material sub-series is a similarly valuable resource for nearly all aspects of U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli dispute, especially the Middle East and Office Files. The Middle East File—particularly, the Subject File, Meetings File, Trips/Visits File, and staff member Chron File contained within—is essential both for the breadth of the topics it covers and for its ability to display the way in which U.S. policy was developed at the working level within the National Security Council. The Presidential Advisory and Outside the System Files of the Office File contain some of the most sensitive documentation generated by the National Security Council for Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Zbigniew Brzezinski and President Carter. Separate from the National Security Affairs collection is the National Security Council Institutional Files, which focus primarily on the records of meetings of the National Security Council and its sub-groups, the Presidential Review Committee and the Special Coordinating Committee, (including supporting documentation generated by the Department of State, Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and others for the meetings), as well as documentation related to Presidential Review [Page XVI] Memoranda and Presidential Determinations. Documentation from all of these files is further supplemented by that contained within the collection of papers donated to the Carter Library by Zbigniew Brzezinski (“Brzezinski Donated Material”) and the collection of material assembled by President Carter in order to write his memoirs (“Plains File”). Both contain a significant amount of material on the Middle East peace process, including meetings between President Carter and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and King Hussein of Jordan. Moreover, the Plains File includes Carter’s handwritten notes of numerous meetings and telephone conversations with Egyptian, Israeli, and U.S officials, including exchanges in which no formal memoranda of conversation or other official records were produced. Similarly, for keeping track of the President’s daily work schedule, the President’s Daily Diary is a particularly invaluable resource.

To document the Department of State’s role in the Middle East peace process, the conclusion of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, and the U.S. role in the negotiations which addressed Palestinian autonomy after March 1979, as well as key bilateral contacts between the United States and the Egyptians, Israelis, Jordanians, Lebanese, Saudis, and Syrians on these issues, the Central Foreign Policy File is a core resource. In 1973, the Department phased out the old subject-numeric Central Files, replacing them with an electronic system, the State Archiving System (SAS), which has been transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration and is part of the online Access to Archival Databases (AAD). For this volume, the Central Foreign Policy File provided cabled accounts of key meetings between Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and the President’s two Special Representatives to the peace negotiations, Robert S. Strauss and Sol M. Linowitz, with their Egyptian and Israeli counterparts, accounts for which no formal memoranda of conversation were produced. Similarly, the system contains important cabled messages from President Carter and Secretary Vance to Middle Eastern leaders, many of which were not followed up by signed original copies. Some of the most tightly held telegrams are not in the electronic system, but appear only on microfilm reels; the same is true of all non-telegram documents, such as memoranda of conversation, letters, briefing papers, and memoranda to principals. For the sake of consistency and traceability for researchers, all citations to documents from the Central Foreign Policy File include the original microfilm reel numbers and frame locations. A number of Department of State lot files are also of particular value: the records of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (Lot 84D241); the files of Ambassador-at-Large Alfred L. Atherton, Jr. (Lot 80D166); the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Front Office Subject Files, 1978-1984 (Lot 85D251); [Page XVII] and the Department of State Office of the Secretariat Staff, Special Handling Restrictions Memoranda File, 1979-1983 (Lot 96D262).

On the Department of Defense’s involvement in the negotiation of military aid packages for Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, particularly after March 1979, a number of files are worthy of note, especially FRC 330-82-0217B, the Official Records of the Secretary of Defense for 1980; and FRC 330-81-0446 and FRC 330-81-0711, both covering the policy files of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during 1979. Some additional material on Department of Defense involvement in bilateral relations with Middle Eastern countries is in the papers of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, an unprocessed collection in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress and to which Department of State historians were given access. This material, however, is largely duplicated in the official records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland.

A final collection worthy of note is the papers of Sol M. Linowitz, President Carter’s Special Representative to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from December 1979 until January 1981, which are in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. While it is one of the smaller collections represented in this volume, the Linowitz papers yielded significant records of conversations between Carter and Linowitz on the latter’s role in the Palestinian autonomy talks as well as reports produced by Linowitz for the President on his regular trips to the region, some of which were produced by Linowitz himself and were not found in the official files.

Unpublished Sources

  • Department of State, Washington D.C.
    • Bureau of Intelligence and Research Historical Files (INR/IL)
    • Lot Files For lot files already transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland, Record Group 59, see National Archives and Records Administration below.
    • Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Assistant Secretary’s Files—1973-1983, Miscellaneous Middle East Documents, Lot 83D340
    • Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, NEA Front Office Subject File 1978-1984, Lot 85D251
    • Office of the Secretariat Staff, Cyrus R. Vance, Secretary of State—1977-1980, Lot 84D241
    • Office of the Secretariat Staff, Special Adviser to the Secretary (S/MS) on Soviet Affairs Marshall D. Shulman—Jan 21, 74-Jan 19, 81, Lot 81D109
    • Office of the Secretariat Staff, Special Handling Restrictions Memos, 1979-1983, Lot 96D262
  • National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland
    • RG 59, Records of the Department of State
    • Central Foreign Policy File
    • Lot Files
    • Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, Files of Alfred L. Atherton, Lot 80D166
  • Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, Georgia
    • Brzezinski Donated Material
      • Geographic File
      • Subject File
    • National Security Affairs Files
      • Brzezinski Material
        • Agency File
        • Brzezinski Office File
          • Country Chron File
        • Cables File
        • Country File
        • President’s Correspondence with Foreign Leaders File
        • Subject File
        • Trip File
        • VIP Visit File
    • Staff Material
      • Office
        • Outside the System File
        • Presidential Advisory Board
      • Middle East
        • Subject File
        • Meetings File
        • Trips/Visits File
        • Chron File
    • National Security Council Institutional Files
    • Papers of Walter F. Mondale
    • Plains File
      • President’s Personal Foreign Affairs File
      • Subject File
    • Presidential Materials
      • President’s Daily Diary
      • Vertical File
      • White House Central Files
  • Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia
    • Office of the Director of Central Intelligence
      • Job 80M01542R: Executive Registry Subject Files (1978)
      • Job 81B00112R: Subject Files
    • Office of Near East and South Asia Analysis, Directorate of Intelligence
      • Job 06T00412R: Intelligence Publication Files
    • Office of Support Services, Directorate of Intelligence
      • Job 81T00031R: Production Case Files
      • Job 82T00150R: Production Case Files
      • Job 82T00466R: Intelligence Publication Files (’80)
    • History Staff Files
  • Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland
    • Record Group 330, Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense
      • FRC 330–81–0446, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, PDASD Policy Files, 1977–1981
      • FRC 330–81–0447, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, PDASD/ISA Files, 1970–80
      • FRC 330–82–0205, Official Records of the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1979
      • FRC 330–82–0217B, Official Records of the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1980
      • FRC 330–82–0270, Official Records of the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, 1979
  • National Security Council, Washington, D.C.
    • Carter Administration Intelligence Files
  • Defense Intelligence Agency
    • Historical Collection
  • Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
    • Harold Brown Papers
    • Sol Linowitz Papers
[Page XX]

Published Sources

  • Boutros-Ghali, Boutros. Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem: A Diplomat’s Story of the Struggle for Peace in the Middle East. New York: Random House, 1997.
  • Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977-1981. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982.
  • Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. New York: Bantam, 1982.
  • _____. White House Diary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.
  • Charney, Leon. Special Counsel. New York: Philosophical Library, 1984.
  • Congressional Quarterly. Congress and the Nation, 1977-1980, vol. V. Washington: Congressional Quarterly, 1981.
  • Dayan, Moshe. Breakthrough: A Personal Account of the Egypt-Israel Peace Negotiations. New York: Knopf, 1981.
  • Linowitz, Sol M. The Making of a Public Man: A Memoir. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.
  • Medzini, Meron (ed.). Israel’s Foreign Relations: Selected Documents, 1977-1979, vols. 4 and 5. Jerusalem: Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 1981.
  • Quandt, William B. Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics. Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1986.
  • United Nations. Yearbook of the United Nations, 1978-1980. New York: Department of Public Information, United Nations, 1981–1983.
  • United States. Department of State. Bulletin, 1978-1980. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978-1980.
  • _____. The Camp David Summit, September 1978. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978.
  • _____. The Quest for Peace: Principal United States Public Statements and Documents Relating to the Arab-Israeli Peace Process, 1967-1983. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983.
  • United States. House of Representatives. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Documents and Statements on Middle East Peace, 1979-82. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982.
  • United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1978, 1979, 1980-81. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979, 1980, 1982.
  • Vance, Cyrus. Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.
  • Weizman, Ezer. The Battle for Peace. New York: Bantam, 1981.