Office of the Historian

213. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, October 19, 1973, 7:17–7:28 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
  • Dr. James Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense
  • William Colby, Director of Central Intelligence
  • Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
  • Major General Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

Secretary Kissinger: Dobrynin called last night with a resolution he wanted to kick around. It included a demand to return to the 1967 lines, and possible negotiations.2 I said we would call back. This morning we got a message from Brezhnev proposing that the President send me to Moscow.3

[To Scowcroft:] Make sure that Jerry Warren gets out that we let the Chinese know about the Kissinger trip before their dinner [the dinner for Secretary Kissinger that evening at the PRCLO at the Mayflower Hotel].

[Page 622]

Sending me would delay it a few days, give them a face-saver, and avoid Gromyko coming here with tough instructions. Brent will keep you informed. I will work for a simple ceasefire, with maybe a call for negotiations. The trouble is Israel doesn’t want anything, but I may have to include a reference to 242. I may have to go back to our original status quo ante.

Everyone knows in the Middle East that if they want a peace they have to go through us. Three times they tried through the Soviet Union, and three times they failed.

Please give me your best intelligence estimate.

Keep the aircraft going to Israel so Israel will be grateful and can’t say we screwed them in their hour of triumph. Give them the other eight F–4’s.

Last Thursday I arranged with the Soviet Union for abstaining from a ceasefire.4 I then beat Israel into agreeing, but Sadat turned it down.5 On Monday we offered a ceasefire again with a tie to 242.6

We can’t humiliate the Soviet Union too much.

The A–4’s should go at ten a day; the F–4’s at four a day.

I have long postponed this Chinese trip and have to go.

Colby: It’s only two weeks. Then put it off again if necessary.

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1027, Presidential/HAK Memcons, Memcons, HAK & Presidential, April–Nov. 1973 [2 of 5]. Secret. The meeting took place in the Secretary’s office at the State Department. Brackets are in the original.↩
  2. See Document 202.↩
  3. See Document 209.↩
  4. October 11. See Document 157.↩
  5. See Document 175.↩
  6. October 15. See Document 190.↩