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Press Release

Office of the Historian
Bureau of Public Affairs
United States Department of State
May 31, 2018

This revised edition incorporates critical material found since the publication of the first edition in 2014. This added material consists largely of personal handwritten notes taken at the September 5–17, 1978, Camp David summit by Samuel W. Lewis, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 1978 until 1985. Department of State historians found these notes while researching volumes for the administration of President Ronald Reagan, amidst Department material dating largely from the 1980s. Discovered subsequent to the initial publication of Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, volume IX, Arab-Israeli Dispute, August 1978–December 1980, these documents add significantly to the record of U.S. diplomacy at Camp David. While they do not alter substantively the portrait of U.S. diplomacy at the summit already represented in the first edition of the volume, this material enhances the documentary record. Department of State historians also located a more complete version of a document already published in the first edition. Sometime shortly after the summit’s completion on September 17, 1978, U.S. officials produced a draft day-by-day summary of the meetings held over its duration. Readers familiar with the first edition will note that the version of this summary document published in that edition covers most, but not all, of the summit. As a result of these discoveries, the decision was taken to issue a revised edition.

This volume was compiled and edited by Alexander R. Wieland. The volume and this press release are available on the Office of the Historian website at https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v09Ed2. Copies of the volume will be available for purchase from the U.S. Government Publishing Office online at http://bookstore.gpo.gov (GPO S/N 044-000-02669-4; ISBN 978-0-16-092659-4), or by calling toll-free 1-866-512-1800 (D.C. area 202-512-1800). For further information, contact history@state.gov.