222. Minutes of the Secretary of State’s Staff Meeting1
[Omitted here are the Summary of Decisions and discussion unrelated to oil.]
Secretary Kissinger: Bill.
Mr. Casey: There is an energy consultation with the Canadians on Tuesday, and I plan to go up with John Love.2
Secretary Kissinger: Can we know what is going to be discussed?
Mr. Casey: The whole range of the energy questions between the two countries—the Alaska pipeline bill.
Secretary Kissinger: But to what end? I am assuming you will discuss energy. But what are we trying to accomplish?
Mr. Casey: Well, we are going to express our displeasure about their policy on energy—export restrictions.
Secretary Kissinger: What are we trying to get them to do?
Mr. Casey: There is no specific action that I know of that we want to get. The last consultation we had with them focused on an emergency arrangement under which we supply oil to their eastern provinces, and they would compensate us by sending stuff down to the mid-west.3 That broke down. We have had no success at all in any kind of energy discussions with them. Their energy ministry takes a tough anti-American line.
The significant thing about this meeting is that it has been broadened. And they suggested the meeting. We suggested a broader meeting.
Secretary Kissinger: I am for the meeting. I have a sort of a horror of palavers for their own sake. When one consults, I am assuming we know what we want. Otherwise, it is just sort of a little tea party.
Mr. Casey: We want them to get on board with us on this oil-sharing deal. We have the same interest and the same reluctance they have. We want them to be singing the same tune as we sing in the OECD. We want to examine with them what adjustment might be desirable from the standpoint of shifting supplies—if their western [Page 619] provinces are cut off, what kind of emergency collaboration we can work out with them. We want to see what we can do to stimulate their production.
Secretary Kissinger: Do we know what we would consider desirable?
Mr. Casey: I know certain things that I consider desirable.
Secretary Kissinger: You know, the problem is nobody seems to know what to do in the energy field.
Mr. Casey: That is right. The first step in knowing what to do is to examine what other people think they can do, too. And see whether there is anything we can do together.
Secretary Kissinger: Chip Bohlen said to me once, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
Mr. Casey: It isn’t that bad, Henry. We really ought to see what we can do in the Athabaska tar sands. Here is a resource as big as the Middle East. We have some American companies up there. This is probably the most economic source of supplementary energy. The Canadians want our capital. We ought to be intensifying an effort to do something beyond what is going on now in the tar sands. And there is an agenda, and it covers the whole range of common interest in energy. The Alaska pipeline bill mandates us to start talking to them about a Mackenzie Valley oil pipeline. We will begin that on Tuesday.4
Secretary Kissinger: I am for the consultation. What are we doing at the OECD meeting?5
Mr. Casey: At the OECD meeting, we are listening.
Secretary Kissinger: Okay.
Mr. Casey: There are no proposals.
Mr. Rush: You will get a paper on it today.6
Mr. Casey: The other thing in energy—Senator Jackson is holding an executive committee hearing on Wednesday. It is a panel kind of thing. He would like you to attend. I don’t think you want to attend.
Secretary Kissinger: I have no intention of attending. I will be in China—Japan—somewhere.
Mr. Casey: Well, he has come up with this National Emergency Petroleum Act, which is pretty much based on the Treasury’s contingency plans.7 He just took all the ideas and threw them into a bill in about three days. He wants reactions to that. He wants to know about [Page 620] the Administration’s contingency plans. He wants an updating on what is happening in oil in the Middle East.
Secretary Kissinger: But can you do it, or Ken and you?
Mr. Rush: Yes.
Secretary Kissinger: You will be back from Canada.
Mr. Casey: Yes.
Secretary Kissinger: Between you two. I certainly will not do it—even if I put off my departure for China.
[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to oil.]
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Transcripts of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meetings, 1973–1977, Box 720, Secretary’s Staff Meetings 9/73–10/73. Secret. According to an attached list, the following people attended the meeting: Kissinger, Rush, Porter, Tarr, Bowdler, Casey, Sisco, Hummel, Newsom, Springsteen, Pickering, and Lord.↩
- See footnote 7, Document 221.↩
- See Document 168.↩
- October 23.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 220.↩
- See footnote 3, Document 221.↩
- Presumably a reference to the October 14 memorandum from Love; see footnote 2, Document 214.↩