206. Memorandum From Henry Owen of the National Security Council Staff to President Carter 1
SUBJECT
- Energy and the Summit
A dinner discussion last night with other heads of governments’ personal Summit representatives leads me to suggest that we should submit to them both of the energy proposals now being submitted to you:
—The Solomon proposal for an international public corporation to finance the development of alternative energy sources that Mike Blumenthal, Cy Vance, Jim Schlesinger, and I have put to you.2
—The proposal for an international agency without funds but with the mission of mobilizing support for alternative energy prospects that OMB is submitting to you.3
The other personal representatives say that each of their heads of government believes that agreement and action on energy should be the centerpiece of the Tokyo Summit (Giscard has written Ohira in this sense). The other representatives are, as usual, looking to the US for ideas as to how to translate this interest into action. Whatever ideas we submit will be discussed by the group and then probably refined into options among which the heads of government can choose. Hence this seems to me the time to canvas the field of possibilities, not to narrow it by submitting only the idea that State, Treasury, and DOE favor, or only the OMB proposal. We will get the best result if the preparatory group looks at the entire range of possibilities, and then tries to define the options for review by you and the other heads of government.
Recommendation
That you authorize me to submit both the State–Treasury–DOE and the OMB proposals to the Summit Preparatory Group.4
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Special Projects File, Box 11, Henry Owen, Chron: 5/18–28/79. Confidential. Sent for action.↩
- See Document 205.↩
- See footnote 5, Document 205.↩
- Neither the Approve nor Disapprove option is checked. Brzezinski wrote at the top of the page: “HO, just do it on an informal basis, to take soundings. ZB”↩