Jimmy Carter with Sadat and Begin

[vlyons]

Remember this? We were all so hopeful when this happened.

[John1956PA]

1. The Emmys telecast was interrupted to announce the breakthrough.

When the telecast resumed, presenter Alan Alda expressed gratitude for "the sweet words of peace."

[DFW]

2. You need to change your headline. That is not Yitzakh Rabin

It is Menachem Begin, who was Israeli Prime Minister at the time.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Yikes! Important correction!

This history, it was those two brave leaders who joined President Carter at the Camp David Accords.

[Lilaclady]

4. Letters

Shortly after the announcement of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty I wrote a letter to each of the gentlemen. I received a response signed by President Carter and one from a representative of President Sadat. I met Mrs. Carter in January of 1980 when she visited Rochester, NY.
I was at the event holding a six month old and a white rose. Secret Service approached me and asked if I wanted to meet the First Lady. They put me second in the greeting line, behind a young girl bringing her a bouquet. She was so gracious and asked about the baby. I sent her a note telling her how thrilled I was to meet her and I received a lovely note in return.

[deurbano]

5. What a wonderful memory!

[Tumbulu]

6. Thanks for sharing that memory with us

❤️

[SpankMe]

7. I was there in person

I was 15-1/2 years old. I was visiting Washington with my mom, aunt and brother just for tourism. We were on foot in the area and noticed crowds getting thicker as we got closer to La Fayette park. We had no idea that anything important was going on there.

We got to La Fayette park - the crown wasn't that thick - and saw this event happening on the North Lawn of the Whitehouse. I stood on something elevated (a bench or a rock or something) and was barely able to see Carter, Sadat and Begin because they were far away. After a while, they stood up and after some other movements they shook hands together and the crowd near the platform they were on cheered.

I didn't know what the event was until the next day when I read in in a newspaper. I was not aware of current events at that time as I was a clueless, aloof teen and was all jacked for the Air and Space Museum.

Decades after this event, I think back and was surprised at the somewhat small size of the crowd in front of the Whitehouse given the significance of the event. There were lots of people, but it wasn't a shoulder-to-shoulder dense crowd and we were able to walk into and out of it without a lot of trouble. Although Pennsylvania Avenue was still open to traffic in front of the Whitehouse in those days, it was blocked off for this event.

I recall we were able to freely walk into and out of the area; there was no fence or checkpoint we had to walk through in order to get to La Fayette park just off of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the Whitehouse. The security posture was different then, even with Middle Eastern leaders outside in public.