September 16, 2009 • 6 mins
In the third episode of a five-part series, former President Jimmy Carter looks back on his work forging the Camp David Accords. Learn more about international negotiation in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to you stuff you missed in history class from
how Stuff Works dot com. In celebration of the reopening
of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum and the
former president's eighty five birthday, we sat down with Noble
Laureate Jimmy Carter to talk about the highlights of his
(00:21):
presidency and his hopes for the Carter Senate. Well, you
have quite a legacy of of mediating, and um, perhaps
the Camp David Accords would come to mind. Can you
tell us a little bit about that experience and what
that was like. Well, when I was when I became president,
(00:42):
there had been twenty there had been five four wars.
Student when when I became president, there had been four
wars in the previous twenty five years, all of them
attacks on Israel, led by Egypt, which is the most
formidable Arab country in military capability, since they were lied
with weapons by the Soviet Union of Russia at that time.
(01:03):
And I thought that the Midias was a very important
place for America and for the Soviet Union, and was
the most likely place that we could actually erupt into
another World war. And so I decided to make my
best effort to resolve the problem between Israel and Egypt,
and hopefully between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel and Jordan,
(01:26):
Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon. So just a few
days after I became president, we began working on this.
I knew I had to do it the first year
I was in office, or it never would get done.
And so I met with all the leaders and eventually
was able to bring the two very courageous leaders to
Camp David. They despised each other. They had, as I said,
(01:50):
been at war, and both sides had killed the young
men and women of the other side, and they had
bombed each other and condemned each other, you know, in
published state. But they came. But Alcolm began from Israel
and and worser debt president of US Egypt, and they
were the men were quite different. Shortly before I went
(02:12):
to Camp David, I went on vacation, and I had
two enormous books prepared to me by psychiatrists and psychologists
and historians analyzing psychologically, Bagan and Sada. So I memorized
those books before we got to Camp David, and learned
the difference between the two men and what they had
(02:33):
in common, and so when I got to Camp David,
I knew how to deal with them as best I
could learn in advance us and worsad Uh considered himself
to be my personal friend, and he maybe trusted me
too much, and man Alcolm Began was suspicious of me
(02:56):
and he didn't trust me enough, So that was a
different US between them. Basically, when we got to Camp
David and all the Egyptians thought that that was too
easy in making concessions compromises, and all the Israeli delegation
about fifty on each side, I thought Began was too stingy,
(03:19):
too reluctant to make concessions for peace. And because the
two men were so different, I was able eventually to
kind of you to weave them. So they worked out
on the eventual compromises and success ah. I tried to
have the two men negotiate with me personally for three
(03:43):
days in a little room in my cabin, and they
were so incompatible that we couldn't make any progress. So
for the last ten days we were Camp David, I
never let them see each other, and so I went
back and forth to Bagan and negotiate. I could have
sad and negotiate, they would go to sleep. I would
(04:05):
have to continue to keep on working, and we did
this for ten days and eventually worked out on agreement
that led to a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt
thirty years ago, not a single word of which has
ever been validated. You still have a way to go
(04:25):
between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and Syria and Levanon.
But I hope that will come under President Obama. And
we had heard about your one sheet method. Actually we
were wondering if you could talk a little bit about that.
It really more than a sheet, it's a one document method.
Other negotiators and mediators have have had an inclination to
(04:48):
tell one side one thing and to tell the other
side something different in order to try to get them
somehow to come together. I decided when I became a
mediator that I would just have one document, one text,
and what I would do in case of Camp David
and other negotiations is to try to understand in advance
(05:11):
on both sides and to try to draft myself on
my own computer or back in those days, on a
tablet paper, what I thought was a fair agreement, and
then I would take that same paper to s Dot
and he would look at Owen said I can't agree
to this. I can't agree to that. And then I
would take the same document exactly to beg in and
(05:34):
say said Dot agrees with this, he doesn't agree with that,
and then as they agreed, then I would improve the
document to include fewer and fewer disagreements as we agreed
on a few things. And so I've done that, but
I convinced both sides in every case of mediation that
I was telling both sides exactly the same thing, so
(05:55):
they would trust not only me, but trust the other
side as well, and we would narrow down the disagreements
until the final day, when hopefully, in most cases, a
complete agreement on every issue would be reached. That's not
always possible. It wasn't, Kim David. But I've had other
(06:15):
efforts when it wasn't quite possible to reach agreement at
that time. Sometimes we went back again and tried and
had success. Sometimes we were not able to prevent unfortunately
a war be short to Tune in every Wednesday in
September for more of our interview with President Carter to
learn more about the Carter Center and its mission of
(06:36):
waging peace, fighting disease, and building help visit www dot
Carter Center dot org and, as always, for more on
this and thousands of other topics, is it housetuf works
dot com
Welcome to you stuff you missed in history class from
how Stuff Works dot com. In celebration of the reopening
of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum and the
former president's eighty five birthday, we sat down with Noble
Laureate Jimmy Carter to talk about the highlights of his
(00:21):
presidency and his hopes for the Carter Senate. Well, you
have quite a legacy of of mediating, and um, perhaps
the Camp David Accords would come to mind. Can you
tell us a little bit about that experience and what
that was like. Well, when I was when I became president,
(00:42):
there had been twenty there had been five four wars.
Student when when I became president, there had been four
wars in the previous twenty five years, all of them
attacks on Israel, led by Egypt, which is the most
formidable Arab country in military capability, since they were lied
with weapons by the Soviet Union of Russia at that time.
(01:03):
And I thought that the Midias was a very important
place for America and for the Soviet Union, and was
the most likely place that we could actually erupt into
another World war. And so I decided to make my
best effort to resolve the problem between Israel and Egypt,
and hopefully between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel and Jordan,
(01:26):
Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon. So just a few
days after I became president, we began working on this.
I knew I had to do it the first year
I was in office, or it never would get done.
And so I met with all the leaders and eventually
was able to bring the two very courageous leaders to
Camp David. They despised each other. They had, as I said,
(01:50):
been at war, and both sides had killed the young
men and women of the other side, and they had
bombed each other and condemned each other, you know, in
published state. But they came. But Alcolm began from Israel
and and worser debt president of US Egypt, and they
were the men were quite different. Shortly before I went
(02:12):
to Camp David, I went on vacation, and I had
two enormous books prepared to me by psychiatrists and psychologists
and historians analyzing psychologically, Bagan and Sada. So I memorized
those books before we got to Camp David, and learned
the difference between the two men and what they had
(02:33):
in common, and so when I got to Camp David,
I knew how to deal with them as best I
could learn in advance us and worsad Uh considered himself
to be my personal friend, and he maybe trusted me
too much, and man Alcolm Began was suspicious of me
(02:56):
and he didn't trust me enough, So that was a
different US between them. Basically, when we got to Camp
David and all the Egyptians thought that that was too
easy in making concessions compromises, and all the Israeli delegation
about fifty on each side, I thought Began was too stingy,
(03:19):
too reluctant to make concessions for peace. And because the
two men were so different, I was able eventually to
kind of you to weave them. So they worked out
on the eventual compromises and success ah. I tried to
have the two men negotiate with me personally for three
(03:43):
days in a little room in my cabin, and they
were so incompatible that we couldn't make any progress. So
for the last ten days we were Camp David, I
never let them see each other, and so I went
back and forth to Bagan and negotiate. I could have
sad and negotiate, they would go to sleep. I would
(04:05):
have to continue to keep on working, and we did
this for ten days and eventually worked out on agreement
that led to a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt
thirty years ago, not a single word of which has
ever been validated. You still have a way to go
(04:25):
between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and Syria and Levanon.
But I hope that will come under President Obama. And
we had heard about your one sheet method. Actually we
were wondering if you could talk a little bit about that.
It really more than a sheet, it's a one document method.
Other negotiators and mediators have have had an inclination to
(04:48):
tell one side one thing and to tell the other
side something different in order to try to get them
somehow to come together. I decided when I became a
mediator that I would just have one document, one text,
and what I would do in case of Camp David
and other negotiations is to try to understand in advance
(05:11):
on both sides and to try to draft myself on
my own computer or back in those days, on a
tablet paper, what I thought was a fair agreement, and
then I would take that same paper to s Dot
and he would look at Owen said I can't agree
to this. I can't agree to that. And then I
would take the same document exactly to beg in and
(05:34):
say said Dot agrees with this, he doesn't agree with that,
and then as they agreed, then I would improve the
document to include fewer and fewer disagreements as we agreed
on a few things. And so I've done that, but
I convinced both sides in every case of mediation that
I was telling both sides exactly the same thing, so
(05:55):
they would trust not only me, but trust the other
side as well, and we would narrow down the disagreements
until the final day, when hopefully, in most cases, a
complete agreement on every issue would be reached. That's not
always possible. It wasn't, Kim David. But I've had other
(06:15):
efforts when it wasn't quite possible to reach agreement at
that time. Sometimes we went back again and tried and
had success. Sometimes we were not able to prevent unfortunately
a war be short to Tune in every Wednesday in
September for more of our interview with President Carter to
learn more about the Carter Center and its mission of
(06:36):
waging peace, fighting disease, and building help visit www dot
Carter Center dot org and, as always, for more on
this and thousands of other topics, is it housetuf works
dot com
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