The Rogers Plan was a framework proposed by United States Secretary of State William P. Rogers to achieve an end to belligerence in the Arab-Israeli conflict following the Six-Day War and the continuing War of Attrition. The plan was publicly proposed in a December 9, 1969 speech at an Adult Education conference.
The December 1969 speech followed the failure of the Jarring Mission to negotiate an implementation plan for UN Security Council Resolution 242 among the principals in the Six-Day War.
Some of the points included in Rogers’ ten-point paper called for the following:
Failure of the Jarring Mission and the mediated peace talks reflected a long-standing stalemate between Israel and Egypt. Whereas Israel demanded a formal recognition of its sovereignty, gained via direct peace talks with Egypt, Egypt would only agree to offer a peace sponsored by the third-party United Nations (this would allow Egypt to avoid political fallout from the Arab nations, which were strongly opposed to recognition of Israel). In addition to this peace, Israel would return all land to Egypt. Both parties viewed the conflicting interests as a stalemate only to be resolved via military intimidation. Whereas the US government view hoped to use promises of arms to gain Israeli concessions on land, Israel desired arms to secure the land it refused to give up.
Negotiations leading up to Rogers’ plan were complicated not only by hostilities between Israel and Egypt, but also by the differing philosophies adopted by the Soviet Union and the United States in approaching the negotiations. Soviet strategy during the peace talks had been to “bring the Egyptians with them every step of the way. American strategy was wholly different. There was never any question of trying to persuade the Israelis to endorse each American move as it was made. To secure Israel’s agreement the Americans calculated that they would first have to have that of Egypt and the Soviet Union”.
Thus, though both Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yitzhak Rabin had conferred with U.S. President Richard Nixon in the last few months of 1969, Rogers' speech was viewed as a surprise.