Former President Carter, providing a preview into his soon to be published memoirs during an address to a convention of American booksellers, described this week how he had ordered increased security precautions one evening during the Camp David peace talks for former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat because he feared the Egyptian leader might be “in danger from the Egyptian delegation.”
Elaborating on his remarks to the American Booksellers Association convention meeting in Anaheim, California, the former president said at a later news conference, yesterday: “I thought Sadat was in physical danger. I called Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter’s former National Security Advisor) to come to my cabin about 3 o’clock in the morning and I called the head of the Secret Service detail to come to my cabin and I told them I wanted to tighten the guard around Sadat’s cabin without letting him know and not let anybody go into it.
“And the next morning about 8 o’clock I was waiting by the window and was relieved to see Sadat come out of his cabin and go for his morning four kilometer walk. And then a few days later, looking back on that time, I thought how foolish I was to be concerned about Sadat. Of course, even later, with the tragedy that resulted in Sadat’s death, I’m not so sure that was foolish.”
The Carter memoirs, “Keeping Faith,” are scheduled for release in November. The former President also mentioned his “frustrations” in trying to deal with Israel’s Premier Menachem Begin.
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