Engineer Memoirs
The purpose of all this was to lay the groundwork for agreements to deliver all of the
arms, to be concluded in conjunction with agreement on peace between Egypt and
Israel. These earlier discussions exposed the kinds of arms transfers and other military
assistance that Israel and Egypt were looking for, without agreeing prematurely to the
things that they were asking for.
When Israel and Egypt agreed on the final terms of the peace in Washington, the United
States was able to say, "This is the response that we can make to your requests." And
that response was to provide
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.5 billion in credits to Egypt for it to start a
modernization program, a replacement of its Soviet weapons inventory with a U.S.
inventory. And to Israel, guaranteed loans of about .2 billion to finance the move out
of the Sinai, plus the 0 million for the airfields.
Q:
Is there sort of an underlying irony or something? You are handling negotiations with
countries that had recently been enemies in one trip, and countries that could again be
enemies at any time. I'm sure everybody understood that.
A:
That's one of the fascinating aspects of the politics of it. I think that the leadership in
the United States and the leadership in Israel were convinced that Sadat had turned
Egypt around and that the Egyptians were most unlikely ever to turn back. Egypt had
had its years--and they were years--of hostility. Its alliance with the Soviet Union was
not working. Therefore, they were going to move into the western camp.
There was a big negative in this because when Sadat went to Jerusalem and when he
made peace with Israel, he lost very large amounts of financial support that he was
getting from the wealthier Arab states. It's very hard to say from an economic point of
view what the net effect was. I'm sure that will be debated over time.
The Sadat regime was, and the Mubarak regime that succeeded it apparently is,
committed to the proposition that in the long run they will be better off. But I guess
people aren't under any illusion that this peace could go sour.
In all the subsequent aid bills that have gone to Congress, you find the supporters of
Israel also the strongest supporters of aid to Egypt because they feel that so long as we
have an adequate aid program, that will diminish the temptation for the Egyptians to
move away from what they've agreed.
Q:
When you were in the Middle East that time, was there knowledge that such an
agreement was pending--I suppose the Saudis and the Jordanians saw it coming--or
did they see it coming? Could you tell that they saw it coming?
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