The documents, which officials said included messages between Bin Laden and his top operations chief over the past year, provide the first suggestion that Bin Laden considered Pakistan’s government amenable to a bargain that would ensure the safety of top Qaeda leaders.

The officials emphasized that they had found no evidence that such a proposal, which one American official said was in the “discussion phase,” was ever raised with Pakistani military or intelligence operatives.

But the fact that Bin Laden even considered a truce with Pakistan suggests that he thought the idea might have had some support inside the country’s national security establishment. At the same time, Pakistan could argue that the discussions provided evidence that there was no deal already in place allowing Bin Laden to hide in the sprawling compound in Abbottabad, a middle-class town 75 miles by road from the Pakistani capital.