The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersthe open literature, for in two autobiographical works, White Nights
and The Revolt, Begin had detailed the experiences that had shaped
his personality and political attitudes. He emphasized the seminal
role of the Holocaust, which was to be captured in his well-known
phrase, "Never again!" Begin as leader frequently gave voice to
provocative statements, often precipitated by a reporter's questions,
losing sight of the context and of the negative political fallout from
the statement. Indeed, this trait was reflected throughout his career.
In White Nights, Begin's autobiographic account of his political exile
in Siberia, he proudly recounts the frequent debates with his Soviet
jailers over details of Soviet law in which he regularly bested his cap-
tors with his superior knowledge of their law. However, this was
quite counterproductive in terms of his own welfare. His focus on
detail and legalisms was emphasized in the profile, as was his ten-
dency toward oppositionism related to his vow "never again" to yield
to superior force.
In Keeping Faith, Carter indicated how steeped he was in Begin's
background. Believing that Begin, like Sadat, saw himself as a man
of destiny, Carter saw Begin as a student of the Bible who insisted on
using biblical names, such as Judea and Samaria, for disputed terri-
tories to emphasize Israel's historic entitlement to the land of Israel.
The prominence of the personality differences of Sadat and Begin
led to a proposal by the CAPPB to devote one of the dinner symposia
periodically hosted by Admiral Stansfield Turner, director of the
CIA, to the role of personality in the Middle East conflict. Partici-
pants in this dinner seminar, held in the spring of 1978, included a
number of senior individuals who had been intimately involved in
Middle East negotiations: Ambassador-at-large Alfred Atherton,
Ambassador to Egypt Herman Eilts, Assistant Secretary of State for
Near East Affairs Harold Saunders, and Dr. William Quandt, the
National Security Council's senior Near East specialist. The discus-
sion was purposefully free of discussion of policy and substantive dif-
ferences, focusing only on the striking differences in the personalities
of the two protagonists and how they would affect the negotiating
process.
How could two individuals constructed so differently psychologi-
cally participate in simultaneous negotiations? This was the subject
of the third paper prepared by the CAPPB for Carter concerned with