LOS ANGELES - Edward Sanders, an attorney and leader in the Jewish community who served President Jimmy Carter as a special adviser on Middle East policy, died Monday at his Los Angeles home. He was 87.
The cause was cancer, said his son-in-law, Stanley Witkow.
Mr. Sanders gained prominence during the 1973 energy crisis when, as president of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, he challenged a letter from Standard Oil Co. to 300,000 stockholders that appeared to support a pro-Arab Middle East policy. He later became president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In 1976, he resigned the latter post to organize Jewish support for Carter’s presidential campaign. In 1978, he was named to a newly created post as adviser to President Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance on Middle East policy and the Jewish community. He quickly became involved in planning the historic Camp David summit, which culminated in a signed accord between President Anwar El Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel.