Word: bergus
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...interim settlement leading to the reopening of the Suez Canal, thereby helping to ease Egypt's humiliation over the continued occupation of its territory by Israeli forces. The way for Sisco's trip was paved by an assurance given by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Don Bergus, the senior U.S. diplomat in Cairo, that Egypt was still interested in achieving an interim settlement-providing it led to an eventual Israeli pullback from all Arab territory-and was still amenable to having the U.S. serve as a mediator...
...Cairo last week, State Department Middle East Specialists Donald C. Bergus and Michael Sterner received assurances from President Anwar Sadat that Egypt still wants the canal reopened -but on its own terms. Sisco is likely to hear much the same thing in Jerusalem. At present the Israelis are convinced that the talks are dead and that visits like Sisco's are merely cosmetics for a corpse...
Despite such pessimistic signs, Washington is hopeful of persuading Israel and Egypt to take the first steps toward peace. The State Department last week dispatched Donald C. Bergus, who was returning to his post as provisional U.S. representative in Cairo after consultations in Washington, and Michael Sterner, its Egyptian expert. Cairo, in keeping with the mood, sent no one to meet them at the airport...
...Israelis, who have never seen such a memorandum, much less agreed to such terms, were furious. Quickly, the State Department explained that the memo was not official. What had happened, it said, was that Donald Bergus, Washington's provisional representative in Cairo, had offered Riad his own "informal and personal" suggestion for a Suez plan. "He certainly stepped off the reservation," said one official, "but we're not going to disown him. He's a capable man with excellent contacts...
Bogus Memorandum. Publicly, Israel accepted the explanation; privately, its diplomats spoke scornfully of the "Bogus Memorandum." Their skepticism was well founded. It seemed most unlikely that Bergus, 51, who has spent more than 25 years on Middle East matters and served ably since 1967 in his present sensitive post, would have ignored Rogers' directive. A possible explanation is that Bergus was sending up trial balloons at the behest of the State Department. That seems especially likely in view of the fact that the U.S. is tinkering with a proposal-oral -much like Bergus' for solving the Suez impasse...