124. Memorandum of Conversation1
PARTICIPANTS
- Henry A. Kissinger
- Peter M. Flanigan
- William D. Eberle
- Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
- John H. Holdridge
- Robert D. Hormats
Dr. Kissinger: I understand that Alex Johnson is in the process of drafting his own Communiqué over at State.2
Amb. Eberle: I gather it is primarily on political issues.
K: There should be no Communiqué without White House approval. Johnson should not be negotiating this.
Mr. Holdridge: I have told them that nothing should go out without White House approval.
K: In no negotiation in which I am involved do I tolerate study groups. No one has ever leaked on me because they do not know what I am doing. I ask a lot of questions but no one knows which I will use.
I want John to go over there to get concrete agreement or at least so that we will know what we will face when we meet Tanaka. I don’t want to be faced with a State Communiqué. I don’t want to go over there and get hit so that we will have to pay a high price for what we want to get.
Mr. Flanigan: It is essential to get rid of the trade deficit with Japan. The President will not want to negotiate figures. Tanaka should be able to say that he agrees that we should get rid of the deficit or, if [Page 452] agreement has already been reached, we should announce specifics in such areas as agriculture, uranium, airplanes and opening up of Japan to investment. A general commitment from the Prime Minister would be useful for the President.
K: Ushiba will work with Eberle to see what can be done, but can these discussions be kept quiet until Hawaii? Then, if we can keep this quiet, we can say in the Communiqué that the President has been informed by the Prime Minister that Japan will do . . .
Eberle: We can keep this quiet over here. The question is can Japan. There are four ministries involved over there. However, this might be to our benefit since some may leak, but only a part of the package.
Flanigan: We can get a pretty good package. It could be three quarters of a billion dollars.
Eberle: $600 to $900 million. With regard to wholesale and retail packaging, letters are being prepared.
Flanigan: Can these be held up?
Eberle: Yes, they can be held until Hawaii. There is also the issue of uranium. The Japanese team has delayed coming here. The AEC wants to go quickly. The issue can be moved quickly.
K: Good. Do that.
Eberle: The Foreign Office and Finance Ministry feel that we can put together a large agricultural package. But their Agriculture Ministry feels that the present $440 million is the best estimate of additional purchases. There will be another meeting tomorrow in Tokyo on this.
K: Do you control this?
Eberle: They report to me.
Flanigan: This goes through State. All correspondence and replies goes through State.
K: I am amazed that they haven’t leaked it.
Eberle: They come to Johnson directly and he sends them to me.
K: Can you identify things for John to push in Tokyo?
Eberle: I will give him some papers.
K: Alex is working with Ingersoll. Ushiba wants to work with me. Should we let the Japanese choose which Communiqué they want. This is insanity. I want to see the State Communiqué to see if it is strong enough.
Flanigan: Also we need a talker for the President to explain what he should say to Tanaka.
K: Give me the talker ahead of time so that I can discuss this with the Japanese so when the President makes a reference they know what he means. Also, Tanaka and Ohira are diminished when they are separated. They act as one person. This means Rogers will be in the meetings. [Page 453] When the Japanese say something he will be soft. Then outside he will say how tough we were. Give me a talker so that I can lean on the Japanese.
Flanigan: We are soon going to make a “dumping” finding on Japanese textiles. Tanaka is concerned with this.
Eberle: He is personally involved. He views it as a slap at him because he entered into the textile agreement and agreed to quotas and then we will hit him with a dumping case. Under statutes we will have to act by August 12. We must go through with this or we violate our agreement. Japan thinks that just because these items are under quota they can dump.
Eberle: There is one out. We can accept the Japanese price assurances. We changed our policy recently and now do not accept price assurances where the price difference is above a minimum.
Flanigan: The price difference is not within the minimum.
K: Can we get this delayed? Can we reopen the case? Can we delay for six weeks?
Flanigan: I will go back and ask about this.
K: There is only one way to get this economic stuff: 1) John, find someone in Japan who represents Tanaka to whom I can talk and who speaks for Tanaka; 2) We need primary negotiations. I will do this. Then when the President makes an elliptical comment they will know what it means. I do not want to get into negotiations. I will talk along gross categories, along the lines we had in this Communiqué. We want to put relations with Japan on a new basis. What is past is past and settled. And I want to tell them that no leaks will be tolerated.
Flanigan: Then I will prepare you with a talker to use with the Japanese.
Eberle: You want to delegate that?
Flanigan: No, because there are monetary issues involved.
Eberle: There is another issue—defense burden sharing. We can raise this question if we don’t brutalize.
K: I have no objection to raising this since we do establish the basis for going back later.
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 538, Country Files, Far East, Japan, Vol. VIII, May–Dec 1972. Secret. Presumably drafted by Holdridge or Hormats. The meeting took place in Kissinger’s office at the White House. On August 9, Hormats prepared Kissinger’s talking points for this meeting. (Ibid.)↩
- Reference is to the Nixon–Tanaka communiqué that was scheduled to be released following their meeting in Honolulu, August 31–September 1.↩