Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXXVIII, Part 2, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy; Public Diplomacy, 1973–1976

159. Memorandum From Helmut Sonnenfeldt and Richard T. Kennedy of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)¹

Washington, November 6, 1972.

SUBJECT

• Procedures for Dealing with Various Types of Non-Military Incidents

Your memorandum of January 20, 1972 (Tab II),² directed the Under Secretaries Committee to recommend improvements in procedures within the Government for dealing with incidents such as that involving the Coast Guard and the Soviet trawlers off the coast of Alaska in January. As you may recall, that incident pointed up serious flaws in our internal procedures for handling such matters.

The Under Secretaries Committee has conducted a thorough review of this somewhat diffuse problem and has forwarded a report (Tab B) to the President which identifies current deficiencies and recommends that a Presidential directive be issued prescribing general governmental coordinating procedures, with the Department of State’s Operations Center functioning as the focal point of coordination.³

The report, which is restricted to non-military incidents (in that military incidents are already coordinated by the National Military Command Center), reviews critically the existing procedures and their application in specific incidents over the past three years. It identifies some 26 significant non-military incidents since 1969 that have had a direct or indirect foreign relations impact, and predicts that a large majority of such incidents can be expected to fall into the categories of:

• —aircraft hijacking, and related incidents,
• —request for asylum,
• —those involving U.S.-owned vessels,
• —those involving U.S. citizens, officials, employees, or property abroad, and
• —those involving foreign nationals, officials, representatives, and property located in the U.S.

The report observes that past deficiencies in coordination have resulted primarily from one or more of the following:

• —lack of guidelines for officials in the field, incident not reported or reporting given low priority,
• —inadequate procedures for inter-agency coordination, delay in establishing contact with responsible officials,
• —in some cases, there is a lack of adequate communications between representatives in the field and parent departments or agencies,
• —error in judgment by officials handling incidents, possibility of adverse consequences not recognized, and
• —the incident involves an agency that would not normally be expected to furnish timely reports to the White House.

The principal conclusions of the report are that:

• —Many non-military incidents have impacted upon U.S. foreign relations or embarrassed the Government in the past, and associated coordination procedures could be improved for dealing with incidents which will occur in the future.
• —With regard to the Bering Sea incident, matters of coordination were “entirely consonant with such directives as existed at the time.”
• —No overall Executive Branch guidance exists on inter-departmental coordination of non-military incidents. While “understandings” have been reached on procedures for handling specific types of incidents, there is little uniformity or completeness.
• —The State Department Operations Center is equipped to provide a central focus for inter-departmental coordination.
• —The role of the Department of State in coordinating inter-departmental actions and, when appropriate, obtaining White House concurrences on matters relating to non-military incidents, which could impact upon U.S. foreign relations or embarrass the Government in the conduct of foreign relations, is a central one.

In considering improvements in procedures for handling such incidents, the report cites as guidance the Presidential statement in your January 20 memorandum:

“The President wishes it understood that the Department of State has primary responsibility for coordinating, with White House concurrence, the plans of action to be pursued in such incidents, both in terms of contingency planning and guidance and in dealing with a given incident as it develops. This responsibility, and the requirement for White House concurrence, also extends to public announcements of and comment on incidents.”

The Under Secretaries Committee therefore recommends that a Presidential directive be issued prescribing general coordinating procedures for handling non-military incidents, and making State the focal point of such procedures. It further recommends regular review by the USC of the procedures established in implementation of this directive.

We agree with these recommendations, but think that State’s responsibilities to the White House should be more rigidly defined than is the case in the draft Presidential directive forwarded by the USC. We have done this in the draft NSDM included at Tab A,⁴ which directs State to inform the White House of proposed actions in all cases rather than at its discretion, as State had proposed.

If you agree, the memorandum for your signature to the President at Tab I reviews the USC report and forwards a draft NSDM (Tab A) on procedures for dealing with non-military incidents for the President’s approval.⁵

Recommendation:

—That you sign the memorandum to the President at Tab I.

—That, if the President approves, you sign the NSDM at Tab A.

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–238, National Security Decision Memoranda, NSDM 207 [4 of 4]. Secret. Attached to a covering memorandum from Davis to Scowcroft, dated July 21, 1975.
2. Attached but not printed.
3. Attached but not printed. The report, submitted to Nixon by Deputy Secretary of State Irwin, concluded, among other things, that the Department of State had a “central role in the coordination of inter-departmental actions relating to non-military incidents which might bear upon the conduct of U.S. foreign relations.” (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–238, National Security Decision Memoranda, NSDM 207 [1 of 4])
4. Not found attached. NSDM 207, as signed by Kissinger on March 13, 1973, is Document 163.
5. The unsigned version of the memorandum was not found attached. However, a signed copy, March 8, 1973, discussing the USC report is attached but not printed. In the memorandum, Kissinger notes that the January 1972 incident involving the Soviet fishing trawlers “pointed out that there are still flaws in our internal procedures for handling such matters, flaws primarily involving faulty coordination among State, any other agency involved, and the White House.” Nixon initialed his approval of the memorandum and authorized the release of NSDM 207. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–238, National Security Decision Memoranda, NSDM 207 [1 of 4])