240. Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Kissinger and the Minister of the Soviet Embassy (Vorontsov)1
V: Hello.
K: Yuly?
V: Yes, Henry. Good morning.
K: How are you? First of all, many thanks for the great kindness with which we were treated.
V: Oh, that’s wonderful.
K: And we think, and I’ve just come from the President, we think we did a historic work.
V: That’s exactly the case.
K: And now we have to build on it.
V: Right.
K: Now I have two problems. One, I’m sending you a note which you can play with, which you can weigh, which I inform you as I have already done your Ambassador in London.2
V: Yes.
K: That the Israelis have agreed in principle to the guarantee that’s used, subject to a few modifications.
V: Right.
K: So I hope by the end of this week we will have that on the way.
V: Yes, yes, that’s good.
K: Also, for your information, I mean your leadership’s information, we have told the British that the only sponsorship we are interested in is joint sponsorship with the Soviet Union. And that we don’t want any larger group, which I understand is our understanding.
V: Right.
[Page 675]K: Now, we have the immediate problem of the allegations by both sides that the other side has broken the cease-fire.3
V: Yes.
K: And I recommend that at the Security Council we do our utmost to act together, if that’s possible. Our judgment, but we’re willing to listen to you, it’s just our best judgment, is that we have the Security Council ask the Secretary General to call on all parties to observe the cease-fire immediately.
V: Yep, right.
K: And, if you are willing to have the Security Council call on the UN observers to make their services available to the two parties. You know, the observers that are there. We are also willing to consider the proposal of the Scandinavian countries to send a force there, but we’re not proposing it, we’re telling you what we are willing to consider. But I think the meeting today at 12:15, the easiest is, rather than a new resolution, to have the President of the Security Council be asked to appeal to both parties, and to all parties, and to offer the services of the UN observers. I want to tell you that we are urgently in touch with the Israelis. Above all, I think we should not have controversy between our two delegations today.
V: Right.
K: And I have instructed Scali not to say anything critical or attacking the Soviet Union.
V: Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, I’m just writing down all this to report immediately to Moscow.
K: Now if you have problems getting through to Moscow we can get you a phone line opened up.
V: No, no. It’s o.k., we can manage it. I’ll do it in no time.
K: Good. Will you call me back?
V: Yes, I’ll call you back whenever I have something from them.
K: When is the Ambassador coming back?
V: Well, he’s ________ down somewhere in Frankfurt to get here on time and something happened to the plane. So he took another plane and will be here around 4:00.
[Page 676]K: O.K. Good. Fine. Many thanks. Bye.
V: Thank you. Bye.
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Transcripts (Telcons), Chronological File, Box 23. No classification marking. The blank underscore indicates an omission in the original.↩
- Kissinger stopped in London on his return from Tel Aviv.↩
- At 9:32 a.m. on October 23, Secretary General Waldheim telephoned Kissinger and informed him that he had talked with the Egyptian Representative to the United Nations, who had complained bitterly that Israel had broken the cease-fire. Egypt was requesting a Security Council meeting for noon. Kissinger responded that he had received the same call from the Israelis. Waldheim noted that the United Nations had 4,000–5,000 soldiers from the Nordic countries, Canada, and Austria who could serve as UN observers in the Middle East. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, Kissinger Telephone Conversations, Transcripts (Telcons), Chronological File, Box 23)↩