Office of the Historian

86. Minutes of the Secretary of State’s Staff Regional Staff Meeting1 2

Washington, April 25, 1975, 8 a.m.

PRESENT:

  • THE SECRETARY OF STATE—HENRY A. KISSINGER
  • D—Mr. Ingersoll
  • P—Mr. Sisco
  • E—Mr. Robinson
  • T—Mr. Maw
  • C—Mr. Sonnenfeldt
  • AF—Mr. Mulcahy Acting
  • ARA—Mr. Rogers
  • EA—Mr. Habib
  • EUR—Mr. Lowenstein, Acting
  • NEA—Mr. Atherton
  • INR—Mr. Hyland
  • S/P—Mr. Hyland
  • EB—Mr. Enders
  • S/PRS—Ambassador Anderson
  • PM—Mr. Stern, Acting
  • IC—Ambassador Buffum
  • H—Ambassador McCloskey
  • L—Mr. Aldrich
  • Ambassador Brown
  • SAS—Mr. Springsteen
  • S—Mr. Bremer
[Page 2]

[Omitted here is material unrelated to Diego Garcia.]

MR. HYLAND: On Diego Garcia, it seems to me we ought to point out what the Russians are doing in the Indian Ocean that makes anything we do in Diego Garcia fairly pathetic.

MR. INGERSOLL: We had quite a discussion on this in the ANZUS meeting yesterday. I don’t think the Australians or New Zealanders were really aware of it. But we told them about Somalia.

MR. SONNENFELDT: Is Schleslinger going to publish some pictures today?

MR. STERN: The story was he was going to give them to Newsweek.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Only to Newsweek?

MR STERN: That is what we heard.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: It’s an odd procedure.

MR. HYLAND: The photographs by themselves are not very impressive, unless you know what the analysis is. They are dust a bunch of buildings.

MR. INGERSOLL: It mentioned an air field.

[Page 3]

MR. HYLAND: You can see an airstrip.

MR. HABIB: Cruise missiles.

MR. HYLAND: The cruise missile facility—it would take a genius to know it is a cruise missile facility, unless there is an adequate explanation, and a matching picture from the Soviet Union. It is just some buildings and a road.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, is it a cruise missile facility?

MR. HYLAND: Yes. It looks like the same facility in the Soviet Union. It has a large bay building.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Why would they put a cruise missile facility there?

MR. HYLAND: Well, it will give them a lot more time on station for the cruisers.

MR. Sonnenfeldt: It is a storage facility, to provide ships.

MR. HYLAND: But it is also to take down—the smaller cruise missiles they have to take out the fuel and refuel them, because they deteriorate.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: How often?

MR. HYLAND: They have to do it about every ninety days. And preferably around sixty days. And at present, [Page 4] what they have to do is go all the way back to the Soviet Union. With this facility in operation, they can come into Somalia, take the missiles off the ship, refuel them at this base, which is inland a little way, and the ship goes back out to sea and stays on station.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Why would they put a base to refuel cruise missiles inland?

MR. HYLAND: I mean it is not right on the dock. It is about three miles away.

MR. SONNENFELDT: They have a complete facility there. They have a compound for their people. It is a base in every sense of the word.

MR. HYLAND: That is just one part. They also have a communications facility. They have POL storage.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Why does Somalia do it?

MR. HYLAND: For weapons. I’m not even sure that the Somalians realize how extensive it is.

MR. SONNENFELDT: The communication facility is almost unique for an overseas facility by the Russians, isn’t it?

MR. HYLAND: Yes. Other than possibly Cuba. It is the only place outside of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, that they have a command headquarters that is in [Page 5] control of tactical units.

To complain about Diego Garcia in the light of what the Russians are doing in the Indian Ocean is a little silly.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: How would you answer the argument that would be made why shouldn’t both abandon their bases?

MR. HABIB: That is the argument New Zealand proposed yesterday—we should negotiate with the Russians to get down the presence.

MR. SONNENFELDT: The result would be that the Russians continue to stay in Somalia and we don’t get into Diego Garcia.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: We have not made a good case for Diego Garcia.

MR. LORD: If you try the Russians and they turn you down, you have a stronger case on the Hill, it seems to me.

MR. HABIB: Several years ago you tried the Russians, and they didn’t respond.

MR. HYLAND: The Russians hardly ever mention it.

MR. LORD: if we can’t get Diego Garcia, isn’t it better to get rid of the Russian base?

[Page 6]

MR. HYLAND: I don’t think it is such a good idea to keep going around trying to find bases to negotiate the neutralization of Soviet or American presence. If we get Diego Garcia, maybe we can negotiate. If we don’t get it, I don’t see how you can negotiate.

[Omitted here is material unrelated to Diego Garcia.]

  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Transcripts of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meetings, 1973–77, Entry 5177, Box 3, Secretary’s Analytical Staff Meetings. Secret. Only portions of the meeting relating to Diego Garcia are published. A previous discussion of the shutdown of Kagnew and the rationale for Diego Garcia’s expansion exists in the Regional Staff Meeting for February 7. (Ibid.)↩
  2. The Secretary and his principal staff members discussed the Soviet position on the Indian Ocean, the Soviet base at Berbera, and Diego Garcia in relation to international initiatives to remove bases from the Indian Ocean.↩