99. Editorial Note
Early in 1968 State Department officials began to prepare for the February 1969 conference to negotiate permanent arrangements for communications satellites. On January 9, 1968, U.K. Government officials told Embassy officials that the European countries generally were favorably inclined toward Intelsat, but that some conditions would definitely require renegotiation and that France especially was inclined not to agree: “FonOff representative made thinly veiled insinuation that but for the French there would be a unanimous position and that this position would closely parallel that of the U.S.” (Telegram 5328 from London, January 9; National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Records of the Department of State, Central Files, 1967–69, TEL 6)
The Embassy in Rome reported on March 15 that an Italian Foreign Ministry source claimed that “the French are obsessed by American hegemony in INTELSAT… . Their objection to any move that would reduce the divergencies between the American and European positions, he believes, based on French tactics: if the American and European concepts are far enough apart, the French will be able to pull out all the stops at the time of the formal negotiations for the permanent INTELSAT arrangements, and rely on nationalistic and crowd-pleasing arguments to carry the day and disrupt the proceedings.” (Airgram A–928 from Rome, March 15; ibid.)