Camp David summit

The Camp David Accords are two framework agreements, "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East" and "A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel," signed at the White House on September 17, 1978 by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, with U.S. President Jimmy Carter signing as witness, after thirteen days of negotiation at Camp David, Maryland, that began on September 5.¹ The second framework led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, signed on March 26, 1979.² The State Department historian describes the later talks on Palestinian autonomy that followed the treaty as "ultimately inconclusive."³ The Nobel Peace Prize for 1978 was awarded jointly to Sadat and Begin "for jointly having negotiated peace between Egypt and Israel in 1978."⁴ After the 1979 treaty most Arab countries ostracized Egypt and expelled it from the Arab League, and the Palestine Liberation Organization rejected the accords. The 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO provided for a transitional period, an elected self-governing Palestinian authority and negotiations on final status.⁵

Preparations and the Intelligence Briefing

Carter decided on July 30, 1978 to call a summit, after talks at Leeds Castle earlier that month had been inconclusive; the White House announced the meeting on August 8.²³ On August 21, Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner sent Zbigniew Brzezinski a Central Intelligence Agency report, described as a raw report not finally evaluated, on Sadat's expectations for the summit. According to the report, Sadat hoped for two achievements: a publicly announced agreement on principles based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 together with an agreement on the Palestinian question based on the Aswan Formula Carter had announced in January 1978, and a precisely written secret agreement on a framework for a settlement, to be signed by Sadat and Begin and witnessed by Carter. The report stated that Sadat wanted Carter's witnessing signature to prevent either party from later misinterpreting the understanding, and that Sadat had "lost the trust and confidence" he had in Begin. The copy printed in the State Department's documentary series carries a handwritten notation, "Outside the System. Bill Quandt," referring to the National Security Council staff member William B. Quandt.⁶

On August 26, 1978 Ambassador Hermann Eilts met Sadat and Vice President Hosni Mubarak at Ismailia. In the course of that meeting, as Eilts recorded it, Sadat said that the Israelis, who took nineteen days to defeat the Egyptians in October 1973, "would not have been able to do so if the U.S. satellite photography had not been furnished to the Israelis," and that the photography had revealed his 25th Division preparing to cross the Canal.⁷

During the same month Carter, visiting the CIA, interrupted a briefing to ask how the agency could help before the summit, saying that he wanted to be "steeped in the personalities of Begin and Sadat." Three CIA components were tasked: the Office of Regional and Political Analysis with political profiles, the Office of Central Reference with biographic profiles, and the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, which updated studies of Sadat and Begin first produced in 1977. The Center's updated profile of Begin "called attention to the increasing trend of oppositionism and rigidity in his personality"; its updated profile of Sadat was entitled "Sadat's Nobel Prize Complex" and "stressed his increasing preoccupation with his role in history and the leverage this could provide in negotiations." A third paper addressed the contrasting intellectual styles of the two men. The Center's founder, Jerrold Post, wrote in the agency's journal Studies in Intelligence in 1979 that Carter afterwards told the agency: "After spending 13 days with the two principals, I wouldn't change a word." Carter's own diary entry for September 4 records that he spent the day before the summit studying "psychological assessments of Begin and Sadat."⁸

The Summit Record

The U.S. delegation worked in two groups. The political group consisted of Carter, Brzezinski, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, press secretary Jody Powell, adviser Hamilton Jordan and, occasionally, Vice President Walter Mondale and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown. The expert group, directed by Vance, consisted of Assistant Secretary of State Harold H. Saunders, Ambassador-at-Large Alfred L. Atherton Jr., Eilts, Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis and Quandt.⁹

The State Department's historians reported that, according to members of the U.S. delegation, no written memoranda of conversation were kept of Carter's discussions with Begin and Sadat, and that none of the delegation's internal discussions have been found. Carter kept his own notes and held debriefings with his staff. The unedited version of Carter's diary is held privately by the Carter Center, and the department's request for access to it was denied. Brown and Brzezinski gave historians access to significant portions of their papers at the Library of Congress, both of which were closed to the public when the volume was published in 2014; Brzezinski denied access to his personal journals.¹⁰

The State Department's milestones history states that U.S. experts produced a draft treaty text that served as the basis of negotiation and was revised numerous times, and that the trilateral format became impossible to sustain, after which Carter and Vance met the Egyptian and Israeli delegations individually for twelve days.³ Carter wrote in a note dated September 20 that on the night of September 16 he, Vance, Begin, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and the Israeli legal adviser Aharon Barak agreed the wording on new settlements in the West Bank and Gaza: "After the signing of this framework and during the negotiations, no new Israeli settlements will be established in this area. The issue of future Israeli settlements will be decided and agreed among the negotiating parties." On September 17 Barak brought Carter a text from Begin that differed from it, and Carter told him it was unsatisfactory.¹¹

The Frameworks and the Side Letters

The first framework, citing Resolution 242 "in all its parts," provided that Egypt, Israel, Jordan and representatives of the Palestinian people would negotiate on the West Bank and Gaza in three stages: transitional arrangements for a period not exceeding five years under an elected self-governing authority, negotiations on final status beginning no later than the third year of that period, and an Israel-Jordan peace treaty by the end of it. The second framework set a three-month goal for an Egypt-Israel treaty, full Egyptian sovereignty to the international border, Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai within two to three years of signing, civilian use of the airfields near Al-Arish, Rafah, Ras en-Naqb and Sharm el-Sheikh, and limits on forces in zones on both sides of the border.¹²

Nine letters accompanied the frameworks: Begin's undertaking to submit the Sinai settlements question to the Knesset; Sadat's letters on the Sinai settlements, on Jerusalem, and on Egypt's readiness to "assume the Arab role" for the West Bank and Gaza provisions; Begin's letter on Jerusalem; Carter's letters of transmittal and acknowledgment, including his acknowledgment that Begin understood "Palestinians" to mean "Palestinian Arabs" and "West Bank" to mean "Judea and Samaria." A tenth letter, from Secretary of Defense Brown to Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, agreed on September 28, committed the United States to consult with Israel on assistance for relocating the Israeli airbases at Eitam and Etzion in the Sinai to the Negev. Egyptian Foreign Minister Muhammad Ibrahim Kamel resigned after the signing ceremony, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali replaced him on an interim basis. The Knesset approved the agreements on September 28 by 84 to 19, and Commerce and Industry Minister Yigael Hurvitz resigned in protest.¹²

The Saudi Channel

The documentary series records Kamal Adham, adviser to the Saudi royal family and chief of the Saudi intelligence secretariat, at several points around the summit. Vance's August 11, 1977 report to Carter and Brzezinski from the aircraft carrying him, on his stop in Amman to see King Hussein, records that "Adham also said there had been some progress on acceptance of Resolution 242 by the PLO."¹³ After the summit, Saunders held meetings with Adham, Prince Turki bin Faisal and others in Jidda on October 18 and 19, 1978; on October 20 he told Begin that he had spoken with Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdulaziz, Prince Saud, Adham and Turki, and that "I had found the task of selling the CDA difficult."¹⁴

A February 16, 1980 telegram from the U.S. Embassy in Jidda reported that Fahd had asked the ambassador to tell Carter that Saudi restraint toward Egyptian press attacks on the royal family was wearing out. The ambassador commented that Saudi replies would probably include revelations that Mrs. Sadat "was involved with the Arab arms industry" ("It was rumored that she held a ten percent interest therein"), that Fahd had referred to information furnished by Ashraf Marwan, "the now deposed head of Arab arms," and that the "Saudi principal in this venture was Kamal Adham, now out of favor here."¹⁵

Treaty Negotiations and the Aid Commitments

Negotiation of the treaty began at Blair House in October 1978, reached a deadlock that Vance's visits could not break, and was concluded after Carter travelled to Israel and Egypt in March 1979.¹⁰ The financing of the commitments to both governments is documented in a series of March 1979 memoranda. On March 14 Brown reported to Carter that in discussions with Egyptian Minister of Defense Kamal Ali and Weizman he had described, for Egypt, United States financing of $1.0 to $1.5 billion over three years, and for Israel, $2.0 to $2.5 billion over three years in addition to the existing annual $1.785 billion, including help relocating the Sinai airbases, subject to congressional approval.¹⁶ On March 19 Quandt reported that Brown and Weizman had agreed on $3 billion over three years, of which $800 million would be cash grants and the remainder foreign military sales credits on ten years' grace and twenty years' repayment.¹⁷ On March 20 Quandt wrote that the United States was committed to sell equipment and services worth $4.5 billion to Israel and Egypt, that if present terms were maintained "the U.S. Treasury will be hit for only $1.1 billion of that amount," and that "the total of resources (goods and services) which we will transfer to Egypt and Israel over the next three years will be almost $13 billion, of which over $3.5 billion will be financed directly by the U.S. taxpayer."¹⁸ On March 21 Brzezinski wrote Carter that the Egyptian proposal was "extremely lopsided in Israel's favor" and recommended credits for the full $1.5 billion; Carter approved that option.¹⁹ Brown's letter to Ali of March 23 pledged a recommendation to Congress of $1.5 billion in military equipment and services over three years, with up to $500 million annually in credits at current interest rates, and attached a list that included twelve improved HAWK batteries, 800 M113 armored personnel carriers and four destroyers.²⁰

At a meeting with Carter on March 26, 1979, the day of the signing, Begin asked that the $800 million grant and $2.2 billion loan ratio of the Israeli package be changed to 50-50 "as a personal gift to his wife." The record states that Carter said he could not offer any encouragement. In the same meeting Carter asked whether Sadat had agreed to return the oil sector in seven months in return for an uninterrupted flow to Israel, and Begin confirmed it.²¹ A draft Memorandum of Agreement between the United States and Israel, annotated by Carter, with a final version dated March 26, provided that the United States "will provide support it deems appropriate" for Israeli responses to treaty violations and "will oppose and, if necessary, vote against any action or resolution in the United Nations which in its judgement adversely affects the Treaty of Peace."²²

The Congressional Research Service reports that since 1946 the United States has provided Egypt more than $90 billion in bilateral aid, with military and economic assistance increasing significantly after the 1979 treaty, and that the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 provides Egypt $1.5 billion in total aid. It reports that Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II, with $174 billion in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding.²³

The Treaty Text, Sinai Observation and the Multinational Force

The Treaty of Peace, signed on March 26, 1979 with Carter as witness, provided in Article IV and Annex I that the parties would request United Nations forces and observers and would not request their withdrawal unless the Security Council approved with the affirmative votes of the five permanent members. Its appendix to Annex I requested that the United States continue airborne surveillance flights over the limited-forces zones "in accordance with previous agreements," and that the United States-operated Sinai Field Mission continue until Israel completed its withdrawal from the area east of the Giddi and Mitla Passes. The agreed minutes to Annex III provided for normal commercial sales of Egyptian oil to Israel, with Israel entitled to bid for Egyptian oil not needed for domestic consumption.²⁴

The Multinational Force and Observers history states that on May 18, 1981 the President of the Security Council announced that the United Nations would not provide the force, that Egypt, Israel and the United States then negotiated a Protocol establishing an organization outside the United Nations, signed August 3, 1981, and that the organization is funded in equal parts by Egypt, Israel and the United States. It also states that in 1979, after the mandate of the United Nations Emergency Force II expired, the existing U.S. Sinai Field Mission took on certain of the treaty's verification functions.²⁵ Public Law 97-132, signed on December 29, 1981, authorized U.S. participation; under 22 U.S.C. 3423 the United States share could not exceed 60 percent of the budget for establishment and initial operation through September 30, 1982 and 33 and one third percent of annual operating expenses afterwards.²⁶

The KH-11 Agreement

Seymour Hersh wrote in 1991 that in March 1979 Carter decided to give Israel access to KH-11 satellite photographs covering troop movements or other threatening activities up to one hundred miles inside Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan, that the decision disrupted the satellite's scheduling and left some American intelligence agencies with less access, and that "some American intelligence officials" suspected it was a reward for Begin's conduct at Camp David. Hersh also wrote that the Israelis regarded the agreement as inevitable because of what they saw as the CIA's failure to anticipate Soviet pressure on Afghanistan and the upheavals in Iran, and not because of the success of Camp David. Hersh attributed the account of the unpopularity of the decision to a former official of the National Security Agency.²⁷