93. Memorandum From Secretary of State Rogers to President Nixon1

SUBJECT

  • Negotiations with Czechoslovakia

In view of your desire that relations with Czechoslovakia be reviewed in light of a forthcoming NSSM/CIEPSM on our economic and other relations with Eastern European countries,2 we are postponing plans to begin discussions with the Czechoslovaks on the question of US claims for properties nationalized after WWII and the return to Czechoslovakia of gold taken by the Nazis and now in the custody of the Tripartite Gold Commission (US-UK-France).

In the meantime, we plan to proceed with the negotiation of a consular agreement and an agreement to facilitate cultural and scientific exchanges. We are seeking discussions with the Czechoslovaks on these agreements to begin in mid-November. Both agreements would be to our advantage and would parallel agreements we already have concluded with, or proposed to, other Eastern European countries. We would hope to have a response from the Czechoslovak side to our draft agreements before the start of the gold/claims talks. Since the Czechoslovaks seem particularly interested in the gold/claims negotiations and their expected impact on our economic relations, a sequence of this nature would provide them with some incentive for accommodating us on the consular and exchanges agreements.

The draft consular agreement we are preparing will take the form of a protocol supplementing the Vienna Convention, to which the US and Czechoslovakia are both parties. The main content of the protocol involves notification and access rights with regard to arrested citizens of each country, an area which is inadequately covered in the Vienna Convention.

The draft exchanges agreement we propose to give the Czechoslovaks is a general one intended to provide a framework for a broad program of exchanges in culture, education, science, technology and other fields. Under the agreement, the parties agree to encourage and facilitate exchanges and to permit distribution of cultural materials and access [Page 231] to cultural centers and reading rooms. The agreement would remain in force for two years.

By the time the Czechoslovaks have responded to these drafts we should have the NSSM/CIEPSM results. With the benefit of these we will examine the position we are currently developing on the gold/claims question and related economic matters and submit it to you for your consideration before entering into negotiation with the Czechoslovaks.

William P. Rogers
  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 672, Country Files—Europe, Czechoslovakia, Vol. II 01 Feb 70—. Confidential.
  2. See footnote 4, Document 92.