32. Minutes of Washington Special Actions Group Meeting1
SUBJECT
- Middle East
PARTICIPANTS
- Chairman—Henry A. Kissinger
- State
- Robert Ingersoll
- DOD
- William Clements
- JCS
- Gen. George S. Brown
- CIA
- William Colby
- NSC
- Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft
- Jeanne W. Davis
[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to oil. For this first portion of the minutes, see Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XXVI, Arab-Israeli Dispute, August 1974–December 1976, Document 126.]
[Secretary Kissinger:] We need a contingency assessment of what happens in an Israeli-Arab war if the Russians want to play it rough. Have the Russians the capability of launching missiles with high explo[Page 113]sive warheads from Syrian territory? Suppose they wanted to raise the ante during a war?
Mr. Colby: They could.
Secretary Kissinger: The Russians have never played up to their full capability in a crisis. Suppose they do.
Mr. Clements: The Israelis, after they have had time to think about it, wouldn’t be too excited about F-4s in Saudi Arabia. They would be a stabilizing influence. It’s possible the Russians would move into Iraq. The most excited person would be the Shah.
Secretary Kissinger: The Shah may not like it, but he is manageable. He’s nothing like the Israelis.
Mr. Clements: I think the Shah would go up the wall.
Mr. Colby: The Shah would think he could control the situation through us.
Secretary Kissinger: Bill’s (Clements) argument might carry weight with the Shah but not the Israelis. There would be no chance of selling it to them, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider doing it. If we face the total oil embargo of the West, we have to have a plan to use force. I’m not saying we have to take over Saudi Arabia. How about Abu Dhabi, or Libya?
Mr. Clements: We want to get you over to the JCS think tank. [2 lines not declassified]
Gen. Brown: [1 line not declassified]
Secretary Kissinger: You’d have trouble convincing Faisal.
Mr. Colby: He doesn’t have to know.
Secretary Kissinger: I was joking. Faisal would be thrilled by F-4s.
Mr. Clements: We can do it [less than line not declassified].
Secretary Kissinger: Maybe. Why not Abu Dhabi?
Mr. Clements: They have no reserves and no production facilities.
Mr. Colby: You’re talking about providing oil to Europe and Japan, not the US.
Mr. Clements: [1 line not declassified]
Mr. Ingersoll: Iran has a lot.
Mr. Clements: That’s a different horse.
Secretary Kissinger: We’re talking about something that hopefully won’t last more than six months to a year. If we assume that Iranian supplies would continue and we concentrate on one country, which one should it be?
Mr. Clements: Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Colby: [2 lines not declassified]
Mr. Clements: [2 lines not declassified]
[Page 114]Mr. Ingersoll: How long would it take to restore the facilities if they were destroyed?
Mr. Colby: Three months.
Secretary Kissinger: They won’t destroy them.
Mr. Ingersoll: Did you see the Yamani telegram?2
Secretary Kissinger: Yamani has the Americans psyched.
Mr. Colby: It could isolate Saudi Arabia from the Arabs.
Secretary Kissinger: (to Mr. Clements) I’ll come over and look at your material. (to Gen. Scowcroft) Arrange it for next week.
Mr. Colby: May I come?
Mr. Clements: Sure.
Secretary Kissinger: We will have to have an NSC meeting on that subject.
Mr. Colby: When? I would like to get the Russian estimate done before the meeting.
Secretary Kissinger: Can you get it done by the end of next week. We won’t have an NSC meeting for two weeks.
Mr. Colby: We can try.
Mr. Clements: (to Secretary Kissinger) I need to talk to you about POL. We’re roughly 10 million barrels short in our storage facilities. We have located plus or minus 18 million barrels of storage scattered around in the Mediterranean, Singapore, etc. It is strategically located and we can rent it on a short-term lease for about a year. We need badly to get those filled.
Secretary Kissinger: How much are we down?
Mr. Clements: Our normal storage is 93 million barrels—we have 83 million. We have never recovered to the pre-hostilities rate.
Secretary Kissinger: What will it cost to fill them up?
Mr. Clements: Plenty; around $350 million. We need to ask the Congress for it. We have to make them understand the possibilities and their responsibilities.
Secretary Kissinger: I will raise it with the President tomorrow morning.
Mr. Clements: Great.
- Source: Ford Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 24, WSAG Meeting Minutes, January 1975. Top Secret; Sensitive; Codeword. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room.↩
- Presumably telegram 251 from Jidda; see Document 30.↩