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While Sadat remained outwardly confident, privately he must have realized that the Reagan Administration lacked not only a clear Middle East policy but a sense of urgency about the region and, worse, was giving the Israelis reason to think that Washington would apply less pressure toward a settlement than the Carter Administration had done. Sadat was discouraged about the autonomy talks, having made clear that he could not accept the very limited form of Palestinian self-government envisaged by Israel. But he readily agreed to the resumption of negotiations. He urged the U.S. to try to include the P.L.O. in the talks but received no support. He accepted Reagan's strategic-consensus plans and allowed the U.S. to expand the Egyptian airbase at Ras Banas on the Red Sea for possible use by the Rapid Deployment Force. As the pressures mounted at home, Sadat grew almost desperate for some real progress in this stage of Camp David, but he could find no way to achieve it.
Washington realizes that it will not see Sadat's like again, but it is encouraged by the way Mubarak has taken charge. Said Secretary of State Alexander Haig: "We are greatly assured that the policy will be one of continuation of the Sadat legacy." Assuming that all goes well domestically, U.S. officials agree that, in time, Mubarak will seek ways to renew ties with his Arab neighbors and look for alternative approaches to peace. Many Western diplomats believe that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Fahd's plan, announced two months ago, which offered peace to Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from territory occupied in 1967, was a constructive effort to enlarge the scope of the negotiations.
The Fahd plan, TIME has learned, was worked out in close consultation with Arafat and thus might provide a basis for bringing the P.L.O. into the peace process. But that prospect is still anathema to the Israelis. As William Quandt, a Middle East expert, observes, "The hardest thing for Mubarak to do in the next six months is going to be to send reassuring and credible signals to the Israelis while at the same time beginning the slow process of rebuilding ties to the Saudis, the gulf states and Jordan."
As the week ended, leaders from all over the world gathered in Cairo to pay final tribute to Anwar Sadat. Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Schmidt were there, as were Prince Charles, Begin and Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri.
Among the members of the American delegation, in addition to the three former Presidents and Rosalynn Carter, were Haig, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Henry Kissinger. They paid courtesy calls on Mubarak and on the widowed Jehan Sadat. She also, of course, met with Begin, to whom she said: "It is very sad, but I am glad my husband died on his feet and not on his knees."