Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XL, Germany and Berlin, 1969–1972

281. Message From the Ambassador to Germany (Rush) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)¹

Bonn, August 9, 1971.

1. The meeting Friday² with Abrasimov, Falin and Kvitzinskiy went off very well and seemingly without suspicion on the part of anyone as to the real purpose of my visit to Potsdam. I opened the meeting by stating I would not discuss any changes in the draft of agreement since Bahr was not present, just as I would not expect him to have any such discussion without my being present.

We then reviewed in detail the strategy to be followed at the coming marathon session. In order to get the meeting off to a good start and avoid an acute confrontation between the French and the Russians on the question of “after consultation and agreement” in part II A, the order in which we will take up the items of the draft agreement will be as follows:

(A) Federal presence and ties. Part II B and Annex II.

(B) Representation abroad. Part II D and Annex IV.

(C) Access. Part II A and Annex I. We will take the annex up first, in order further to postpone the basic problem.

(D) Visits by West Berliners to East Berlin and the GDR. Part II C (where the same issue is involved) and Annex III.

(E) Consulate General and other Soviet presence in West. At the Chancellor’s request this will become a part of part II D and Annex IV.

(F) Preamble and part I.

(G) Final provisions of the quadripartite agreement. Part III.

(H) Final quadripartite protocol.

2. Falin was due to arrive at Bahr’s last evening (Sunday) at 7:40 and I was to arrive at 8:00. He had been to the Chancellor’s house, where Bahr also resides in Berlin, once before but did not have the address or the telephone number. He got lost on the way, therefore, and did not arrive until nine o’clock.³

The chances are that our intelligence forces, who are very good, may have observed that I went into Bahr’s house and Falin followed, although they may not have recognized Falin. To avoid suspicion from any possible intelligence report, I am going to have an Exdis cable sent out to the effect that Bahr called me last Saturday and stated that Falin was in Berlin and indicated that he would like to get better acquainted with me. Therefore, if I agreed, Bahr would have us in to dinner Sunday evening. I did agree. We had a pleasant dinner, passed lightly over a number of subjects such as the enlargement of the Community and President Nixon’s visit to China, and very casually mentioned the Berlin negotiations, with regard to which Falin stated that the Soviet was willing to negotiate on a reasonable basis and that he hoped an agreement might be reached by the end of August. Please don’t be surprised when you see this cable.⁴

The meeting itself went off very well. We again reviewed the agreement, and in compliance with Brandt’s request changed “may be” to “will, as a rule” in Annex I, paragraph 2 (a) and (c), so that the sentences concerned will read as follows:

“Examination procedures will, as a rule, be restricted to the inspection of seals and related documents”

and

“Procedures applied for such travellers shall not involve delay and will, as a rule, be without any search of their person or luggage.”

In part II D and Annex IV Falin has been insisting that we use the term “consular services” instead of “consular functions” since Russia refuses to accept the Vienna Convention definition of consular functions. This is a two-edge sword, since whatever difference there may be would apply to the Russian Consulate General in West Berlin as well as the FRG’s representation. We finally compromised on the words “consular matters.” We also agreed that representation abroad should be of “the interests of the Western sectors” instead of just the “Western sectors.”

We further discussed the unsettled issue of the use of FRG passports in Russia by West Berliners. Gromyko’s feeling evidently is based upon the fact that the passport contains the words “Staat-Angehorige— Federal Republic of Germany” and the FRG refuses to change the passports. We remained adamant with regard to the issue, and since Gromyko is now in India it may not be settled until he returns to Moscow, which I understand will be on Wednesday.⁵ However, from Falin’s approach it seems fairly clear that the Soviet is weakening and that a satisfactory outcome will be reached.

With regard to the clarification of the new section on ties (part II B), the Russians insist that, because of the GDR, they cannot sign a letter or minute but they factually will find no objection to our clarification. They are willing to accept a letter from us before signature of the quadripartite agreement giving the clarification and stating that we are signing the agreement on this understanding and would also accept a declaration just prior to signing, repeating this. The text of this clarification letter would be sent by the Allies to the FRG by letter and all would constitute part of the entire package to the released publicly. This issue is still under consideration.

We made some minor changes in the draft minute with regard to Soviet presence in West Berlin, but these are for appearance and not substantive, so I am not enclosing a redraft of the minute.

3. The State Department has now sent an instruction agreeing with the French and stating that I shall not accept the “after consultation and agreement” in II A and II C without coming back to the Department for approval.⁶ The British, French and Germans of course know about the instruction. It is too early for me to send in a request about this but, unless you advise me otherwise, I shall do so when the time is right. Knowing the strong feeling of the French, I have been urging Falin individually and also Falin, Abrasimov and Kvitzinskiy on Friday, to avoid the confrontation and agree to delete the phrase from these parts, since it appears in any event in Annexes I and III. They have informed me, however, that it was only by the inclusion of this phrase in A and C that they were able to get the agreement of the GDR to unimpeded access without reference to international practice and to many of the other distinct improvements on access, and that if this phase should be deleted they would have to go back to their prior position on access. As you know, to me the whole issue is a tempest in a teapot. It is rather illogical on the one hand to insist that the annexes are an integral part of the agreement and on the other hand to say that a phrase appearing in the annexes cannot appear in the main part of the agreement. But you know my views on this.

I have been flooded with instructions from the State Department⁷ and am more than ever convinced that without the intervention of the President and you we would probably never have had an agreement, at least in our lifetime.

Warm regards.

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 59, Country Files, Europe, Ambassador Rush, Berlin, Vol. 2. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. The message was sent through the special Navy channel in Frankfurt. No time of transmission is on the message; a handwritten note indicates that it was received in Washington at 1948Z.
2. August 6.
3. For his account of this episode, see Falin, Politische Erinnerungen, pp. 144–145.
4. In the telegram (1561 from Berlin, August 9), Rush reported: “I raised the subject of the Berlin talks with Falin. He said that the Soviets were willing to meet the Allies in a reasonable manner. The Soviets would move, he said, if we would move. Falin commented that he had been quoted as predicting an agreement by the end of August; he still believes this possible, although he thought now that he might be too optimistic in that estimate.” “No reason was advanced for Falin’s presence in Berlin at this juncture,” Rush continued. “I can only speculate that he is here in connection with the talks, since he is the leading Soviet specialist on Germany and Gromyko is in India.” (National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, POL GER E–US)
5. August 11.
6. In telegram 144479 to Bonn, August 7, the Department instructed Rush to oppose efforts to insert language stating that the Soviet Union had acted “after consultation and agreement” with East Germany, “since this would substantially detract from value of Soviet commitment.” (National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, POL 28 GER B)
7. In addition to the telegram cited in footnote 6 above, the “flood” of instructions from the Department on unresolved issues includes telegrams 142522, 142523, 142524, and 142525 to Bonn, August 5. (All ibid.)