355. Memorandum of Conversation1
PARTICIPANTS
- President Carter
- President Sadat
- Prince Bandar
- Zbigniew Brzezinski
President Carter: I read the message to President Sadat from Prince Fahd.2 I am concerned that there be an improvement in relations. President Sadat wrote a good letter to Prince Fahd which was conveyed through Ambassador Eilts.3 There was no response to it from your side, which was a mistake.
Prince Bandar: I was just with Crown Prince Fahd and Prince Sultan. They have asked me to convey their highest esteem for President Sadat and for the Egyptian people. They strongly believe that the Arabs are successful whenever Egypt and Saudi Arabia work together. We have never disagreed with the strategic objectives of President Sadat. We are not convinced that the tactics are right. We do not think the Israelis will deliver. We would be happy to be wrong. If things don’t go right, we will throw our weight into the balance, but we want to keep the Arabs together. We want to support both Presidents Carter and Sadat. The area cannot afford a failure.
President Sadat should not believe anything that is said to him about the views of Crown Prince Fahd or Prince Sultan. (Bandar adds that President Sadat’s late brother was his flying student.) If things fail, we will use our “single bullet.”
Dr. Brzezinski: How would you use it?
Prince Bandar: The time will come to support the American position. We will do whatever it takes to support it. We would be prepared to recognize Israel’s right to exist within approximately the borders of 1967.
President Carter: What President Sadat has done to move things forward other Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, failed to support. This increases Israeli doubts that Saudi Arabia would eventually accept [Page 1153] Israel. When Begin found a willing negotiating partner in President Sadat, there was no positive response from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, or the Palestinians.
President Sadat: There has been a misunderstanding. What we have reached is not the end of the road. We have to start somewhere. Camp David is not an end but only a beginning. You are right in saying that I have done some things against my own convictions, but after 1977, when Geneva looked like a failure, I got a letter from President Carter.4 I was disappointed that the Palestinians welched out on their promise on 242. Also, when I met with Arafat he proposed an American professor to represent the PLO at Geneva and then reneged on that. The Syrians, Soviets and Palestinians maneuvered against us. By October 1977 we had reached a stalemate. President Carter was vehemently attacked here after the U.S.-Soviet statement,5 which he intended to be a source of pressure on Israel. President Carter was the first to speak of a homeland for the Palestinians; the first to demand immediate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and that is what the United States should also have done after the 1967 war. Under Carter, the U.S. has a solid position on the settlements. I took the initiative because Carter was under attack from the Jewish lobby and also in the Arab world. But again he emphasized that this is not the end of the road. I initially also thought that the Israelis would not withdraw, but they did. I have recovered 80% of the Sinai, all the oil, etc. We have started on a road, but we cannot insist that Begin promise everything at once. To ask for everything is to give him the golden opportunity to do nothing.
Yet he evacuated the settlements, then abandoned the airports there. It was President Carter and I who brought him to do this. We have thus created precedents for the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Sitting in our capitals and waiting for Begin to act is going to get us nowhere. I made the breakthrough not to recover the Sinai alone but because it is the only way. We now have U.S. and world public opinion on our side. Let us exploit it.
I am not optimistic for the first time about achieving full autonomy on schedule, but I will continue to work for it. Whenever Egypt and Saudi Arabia work together, the Arab world comes along.
What I ask is this: Why not wait till I could clarify my position to you after I signed Camp David? I have nothing against Prince Fahd or Prince Sultan. I have always been on good terms of brotherhood with [Page 1154] them. But I am bewildered by Fahd. He is encouraging Iraq and the Palestinian dreams. The severing of relations with Egypt—I shall never forget it because I don’t want the Egyptian people hurt. I don’t ask for economic or diplomatic relations, but everything can be solved when relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia are normal. Moreover, somebody has to be able to sit down and argue with Begin.
President Carter: The most important thing is for Hussein and the West Bank mayors to join the negotiations. Saudi Arabia could help there. Also there must be a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It will take some courage for Saudi Arabia to withdraw from its close relationship with Iraq and the rejectionists.
Prince Bandar: The relationship with Iraq and Syria is not as close as it seems. We will support a peace process with all our weight.
President Carter: Your non-participation plays into the hands of those who oppose progress.
Prince Bandar: One final request: Please, no more speeches or press attacks on us. (Speaks briefly in Arabic.)
President Sadat: You have my word. A moratorium. As of now, no more.
President Carter: (to Prince Bandar) And that means both ways.
Prince Bandar: Yes.
(The meeting ended with warm greetings exchanged between President Sadat and Prince Bandar and personal best wishes to Princes Fahd and Sultan.)
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject File, Box 38, Memcons: President, 3–4/80. Secret. The meeting took place in the Oval Office. In the upper right-hand corner of the memorandum, Carter wrote: “OK. J.” Brzezinski also initialed “ZB” in the upper right-hand corner.↩
- Not further identified.↩
- Not further identified.↩
- Reference is presumably to Carter’s November 5, 1977, letter to Sadat. See Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, vol. VIII, Arab-Israeli Dispute, January 1977–August 1978, Document 142.↩
- See footnote 3, Document 221.↩