ABSTRACT

A large part of my first conversation with Sadat was devoted to a discussion of the possibility of war with Israel, of the goals of such a war and of the form the military operations might take. Sadat, as I have already mentioned, saw war above all as a means of awakening the Egyptian people. I had reservations about that idea, but I told the President that I was not opposed to a war aiming at liberating the territories Israel had occupied in 1967. As for the type of military operations Egypt could consider at the time, it was my impression that Sadat and those around him were still quite vague about how to proceed.