Cabinet Gives Decisions to Kissinger to Take Back to Sadat That May Determine Latest Round of Negoti

Secretary of State Henry A, Kissinger took off for Aswan, Egypt tonight carrying with him decisions by the Israeli Cabinet that may well determine the fate of his two weeks of “shuttle” diplomacy aimed at a second-stage Israeli-Egyptian agreement in Sinai. The Secretary and his party boarded their plane at Ben Gurion Airport and the giant Boeing transport took off immediately, leaving a bevy of journalists and cameramen shivering on the runway without so much as a word from the departing Secretary for whom they had waited in freezing temperatures for hours.

Just about two hours before he left, Kissinger received from the Israeli leaders the results of one of the longest and possibly most fateful sessions ever held by the Cabinet. The message that he will convey to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was hammered out during almost continuous deliberations that began at 6 p.m. local time yesterday, continued until past 2 a.m. this morning, resumed at 1 p.m. this afternoon and ended only this evening.

The marathon sessions were interrupted briefly this morning by a further meeting between the Israeli and American negotiating teams, headed by Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Kissinger, respectively. Defense Minister Shimon Peres told reporters after that meeting that the Israeli negotiators had sought certain “clarifications” to report back to the full Cabinet.

SPECULATION RIFE ABOUT COMPROMISES

While the Cabinet was locked in closed session this afternoon, Kissinger remained in his sixth floor suite at the King David Hotel awaiting its outcome. No substantive information was available to newsmen beyond the clear indication from top Israeli sources that the latest ideas and proposals that Kissinger brought back from President Sadat could “not serve as the basis of a settlement.”

Speculation was rife among observers and newsmen here that Kissinger had proposed some kind of compromise formula of his own and was seeking Israel’s consent before broaching it to Sadat. But if that was the case, there was no inkling when Kissinger left of the contents of the proposals he was taking to Egypt.

Some sources believe the Cabinet abandoned hope of a “broad” settlement involving an Egyptian renunciation of belligerency and was casting around for some alternative scenario–either its original “modest” proposal for a 30-50 kilometer pullback in Sinai without relinquishing the strategic passes or the oil fields or some intermediate configuration that would rescue the current talks.

There was speculation, too, that differences of opinion between the Ministers or between the Israeli and American negotiators accounted for today’s inordinately long deliberations. A brief statement issued at 2:30 a.m. this morning did little to dispel the clouds of uncertainty. The statement said the Cabinet has “decided to authorize the negotiating team to continue the talks with the Secretary of State in accordance with the decisions of the Cabinet, striving for a positive conclusion to the negotiations on the attainment of an interim settlement between Israel and Egypt.”