On September 5, 1978, President Carter welcomed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David, the secluded presidential retreat in Maryland, to negotiate a peace settlement.
Ten days later, in the midst of the Camp David Summit, President Carter sent this message to Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat to suggest an honorable and respectable closure to what then appeared to be a failed peace effort.
But in a turn of events, two days later, on September 17, 1978, Begin and Sadat signed the Camp David Accords, establishing a framework for peace in the Middle East and a framework for the conclusion of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
