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Dr. Quandt, a member of the National Security Council under Presidents Nixon (1972-74) and Carter (1977-79), was a member of the U.S. negotiating team at Camp David. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. This interview was conducted by Anne Joyce, editor of American-Arab Affairs, on October 7, 1985. See p. 143 for Dr. Quandt's Congressional testimony on terrorism.
AAA: You have just finished writing a book about the Camp David negotiations entitled Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics.[1] What was President Carter's primary motivation for wanting to take on the Middle East problem? Did his motivations change over time?
QUANDT: I think President Carter was interested in the Middle East for several reasons before he even became President. On one level there was clearly his personal interest in the lands of the Bible. It's hard to say how much that counted for, but he attributes some importance to it. He had grown up with stories about this part of the world, and in some sense it fascinated him. Secondly, any American president who was sensitive to questions of national interest would have said to himself in 1976-77 that the Middle East had to be near the top of his agenda. After all, we were within three years of the October 1973 war, which had resulted in major damage to American national interests, with the oil embargo and the near confrontation with the Soviet Union. I think anybody coming into a position of responsibility in January 1977 would have said, "How do I make sure that while I'm president something like the October '73 war won't happen again?"
In addition, there had been a pattern in the previous years of some degree of success in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. There had been three partial agreements negotiated under U.S. auspices: two with Egypt and Israel, one with Syria and Israel. There was something to build on, and that, of course, was conveyed to the incoming president by the outgoing administration. Here was a record that you could do something with. The situation didn't look hopeless and it didn't look like it was the kind of issue the United States could easily ignore.
There was another side to Carter that is harder to be...