278. Editorial Note
On September 11, 1972, President Nixon met with members of the CIEP Executive Committee to discuss trade issues relating to the European Economic Community. A record of that meeting is printed in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume III, Document 100. Following that meeting CIEP Executive Director Peter Flanigan sent William Eberle a memorandum on September 12 informing him that, pursuant to the meeting, the President had decided Eberle should pursue a policy of “modified confrontation exerting controlled but mounting pressures on issues involving both our trade interests and the principles of the present system … bearing in mind the overriding importance of our political relations with Europe.” (Ibid., Document 101) A copy of Flanigan’s memorandum was sent to Henry Kissinger.
Flanigan, using essentially the same language, reissued his September 12 memorandum on September 25 as CIEP Decision Memorandum No. 14, Document 277. Presumably he had in mind the consultations with the EEC scheduled for early October in Washington, because a copy of the CIEPDM was sent to the Department of State where it would be available to Deputy Secretary of State John Irwin who would head the U.S. delegation to the bilateral consultations with the EEC.
The U.S.-EEC consultations were held in Washington October 5-6, 1972. For reports on the results of those consultations, see Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume III, Documents 102–104. A follow-up October 20 memorandum from Irwin to President Nixon regarding European Union Trade Arrangements with Spain and Israel is ibid., Document 105. Flanigan, in his October 11 report on the consultations to the President (ibid., Document 103) and Irwin, in his October 20 recommendation to the President regarding Spain and Israel, essentially repeat the President’s language on the negotiating strategy set out in the CIEP Decision Memorandum.