Meeting At Camp David

Considering the critical importance of the meeting confronting them, the three leaders seemed remarkably nonchalant. Jimmy Carter spent pleasant hours fishing in Wyoming, and Anwar Sadat went swimming in the Suez Canal. Though Menachem Begin stayed behind his desk in Jerusalem, he was working no more than his normal rigorous schedule. All this seemed a strange way for the leaders of the U.S., Egypt and Israel to prepare for the momentous summit conference that convenes this week at Camp David, the secluded presidential retreat in the Maryland hills. Observed one astonished diplomat involved in planning the meeting: "I expected frantic activity these weeks. But so far nothing's happening."

Despite the outward calm, the staffs of the three leaders have been busily working over the issues and options in the Middle East and preparing position papers for their bosses. By week's end Carter had received two black loose-leaf notebooks from his team of experts. They outlined, among other things, what would be "acceptable minimum" and "practical maximum" results on a wide range of problems. Begin's staff, meanwhile, had given him a pale blue folder titled "Possibilities and Recommendations," containing 70 pages of charts, documents and official statements on the Arab-Israeli conflict. And Sadat had been handed a sheaf of working papers drafted by his own special task force. The participants, moreover, are hardly strangers. Sadat and Begin have conferred twice; Carter has met Begin four times and Sadat thrice.

Still, there is an unsettling feeling that the Camp David summit has been somewhat ill prepared for. It is usually a firm rule of summitry that the participants arrive with a fairly clear idea of the outcome. Mostly, they ratify agreements that have already been worked out in intense negotiations by lower-level officials. Often even the concluding communiques are drafted before the parties formally take their seats. This tradition is designed to avoid the dangers of high-level misunderstandings and wounded national pride. But Camp David is unique; a high U.S. official calls it a "virginal experience." It is convening with very little joint preparation and no preliminary agreement. It lacks even a detailed agenda. Instead, as one of the participants remarked, "we're banking a great deal on chemistry leading to an evolution in the discussion."

This is risky, but perhaps inescapable—in view of the alternatives. Jimmy Carter last month called the conference only when he became convinced that the Middle East peace initiative, dramatized last November by Sadat's "sacred mission" to Jerusalem, was grinding to a dangerous halt, and that conventional diplomacy had found no way to renew it. And in the Middle East, stalemate generally contains the danger of increased terrorism or, ultimately, another war. Sadat has even hinted at October as a deadline when he would cancel the Sinai Disengagement Agreement unless there is some sign of progress toward peace. By promising to make the U.S. a "full partner" in the talks rather than simply a disinterested mediator, Carter determined to try to rescue the peace process by substituting his own initiative for Sadat's. The President has admitted that this "is