U.S. diplomats Hermann F. Eilts, Samuel W. Lewis, William B. Quandt, Harold H. Saunders and Daniel C. Kurtzer discuss President Carter and the 1978 Camp David negotiations with Ken Stein at a conference at Hofstra University.
Recounting events at the Egyptian-Israeli-American negotiations, a dozen American, Israeli and Egyptian participants discuss those 13 days of negotiations. Negotiators agreed that they pursued success through “constructive ambiguity,” some at high levels, so the respective sides could agree, for example, on using the term “modalities” to describe a future element that could not be defined in a more tangible way. President Carter and Israel’s attorney general at the time of Camp David disagreed at the conference about what Prime Minister Begin promised on the duration of a settlement moratorium. William Quandt, an NSC official, acknowledged that there was no written record of a Begin promise for three months. Carter claimed the promise was in his diary notes, but others who saw Carter’s diary said no such promise was made or was in Carter’s notes.
The Shiloah Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, March-17-18, 1981, Reprinted with permission. Participants included researchers, academics, politicians, and business people.
