10. Transcript of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meeting1
SUMMARY OF DECISIONS
[Omitted here are decisions 1–3 unrelated to Latin America.]
p. 13–15 4. That our basic objective at the Mexico Foreign Ministers’ meeting is to prevent Latin America from sliding into the non-aligned bloc or forming a bloc that defines itself in terms of its opposition to us à la Gaullisme, by elaborating some form of special relationship between the US and Latin America.
[Omitted here are decisions and discussion unrelated to Latin America.]
Secretary Kissinger: Jack, do you want to—
Mr. Kubisch: Talk about the Mexico conference—the prospects?
Secretary Kissinger: It’s one of the ways I might have of finding out what you expect of me.
Mr. Kubisch: Mr. Secretary, you know more about it than I do.
Secretary Kissinger: No. But I will by the time we get there.
(Laughter.)
Mr. Kubisch: Well, you’re overtaking me fast—let me put it that way.
(Laughter.)
Secretary Kissinger: Bill, do you want to do something—have INR do something on the trends in the Philippines?
Mr. Hyland: Yes, sir.
Secretary Kissinger: Excuse me. Why don’t you sum up for the rest of the group?
Mr. Kubisch: Well, we’ve just completed a round of consultations in the Caribbean about the conference, and I think the whole thing has a much clearer sense of direction now. Coming into the home stretch, I [Page 41] would say there’s a mood which is just about right for going into the conference—optimistic in that most of those who would be disruptive of the conference—like Panama, for example—with the Secretary’s visit there last Thursday deciding the principles, it has finessed that issue, to a large extent.
We have a very fine prospect of finessing a major issue with Peru—there’s a set of about a dozen investment disputes—before we go there next Thursday before the conference opens. But even if we don’t reach agreement with them, we’re so close to it that it’s conceivable that they will not be a problem with us on that.
Argentina, which only last June was calling for our expulsion from the OAS, was saying at least that they are going to be supportive of the Secretary’s initiatives and activities there.
Brazil is an old friend, and their designs coincide pretty closely with ours.
And Chile has turned over last September. And in terms of a long dry spell with Latin America, there’s a great desire on their part to take advantage of the Secretary’s interest in these new initiatives and new spirit of cooperation with us to make the most of that conference and make it a success. The only—
Secretary Kissinger: But if I can convince ARA of the same, we’ll have a chance.
(Laughter.)
Mr. Kubisch: We feel we have a responsibility, Mr. Secretary—
(Laughter.)
—always to point out the pitfalls to you so that we don’t want to get overconfident. That’s the point.
Secretary Kissinger: We’re in no danger of that here!
(Laughter.)
Mr. Kubisch: I know that we have our overconfidence under firm control, as you might say, but we don’t want any unexpected slip or pitfall to trip you up or us up there. And so we’re trying to point these out to you as we go along. I know it’s a long and painful experience at times, but I think in the end the results will prove it has been worth it.
Secretary Kissinger: Well, basically, what we’re trying to do is to prevent Latin America from sliding into the non-aligned bloc and compounding our problems all over the world. This is on the negative side, since many of them have already high incentives to move in this direction or for some of the larger ones to play a French type of politics—and, finally, to prevent the same thing arising in the U.S.-Latin American relationships as has happened in our relationships with Europe: that they form a bloc, defined by its opposition to the United States.
[Page 42]On the positive side, we have the asset that the Latin Americans still are flattered to cooperate with us—or, at least, flatter us when we show an interest in working with them. In terms of attitude, it’s greater receptivity on their part than on the European part. There’s a technical competence.
And, finally, if it is true that relations between us and developing nations are a key issue—if we can’t handle it with countries with which we have an elaborate tradition of relationships—it’s hard to see how we can do it elsewhere.
Now, all of our technicians are explaining to us that we cannot give a special status to Latin America. If we cannot give a special status to Latin America, Latin America won’t give a special status to us—and, in the long political term, we’re going to lose more that way because we can find ourselves in a very uncomfortable position in international forums, if you look ahead to what games the Europeans are playing and where our support could come from.
The second argument that is made is that if we agree, for example, to prior consultation before international meetings, our hands are tied—that’s right. So are their hands going to be tied. Moreover, we are not going to be able to obscure the differences that are going to come up in their bilateral consultations or that are going to come up in their international forum. There’s no way of avoiding the problem unless, I know, the basic belief that it’s best to have negotiators as flexible as possible without a clear idea of where they’re going until they get into the forum.
So my predilection—assuming I can get the various Bureaus signed on—will be to seek to elaborate some sort of special relationship with the Latin Americans.
I must say if I can’t get the Bureaus signed on, I will do it my way. But it would be easier and it might be more competent—
(Laughter.)
—because I would then know more precisely what I’m talking about.
(Laughter.)
But this is the direction we want to take in the conference. And, joking aside, I think very good preparatory work has been done. And, basically, so there’s no misunderstanding, ARA is on my side of the argument. It’s the technical Bureaus and the Treasury that are opposing it. But I think we have good conditions for a very successful meeting if we can put more precision into our efforts and more heart and can give them more conviction that we are moving, rather than giving them school-masterly lectures.
[Page 43]But, on the substance, we have made major progress. Is that a fair statement?
Mr. Kubisch: I think so. You’ve been very helpful on that, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Kissinger: As Sonnenfeldt said after the Summit Meeting in Moscow in ’72, I got good work out of them.
(Laughter.)
Mr. Sisco: But I think your training in the Middle East, in terms of hand-holding and everything else, will go very well in your meeting in Latin America.
(Laughter.)
Mr. Kubisch: If I may add just a footnote, Mr. Secretary, there has been, for several years, a real alienation of the Latin Americans; and we have squandered some assets with some very important countries, in the last several years. But we have already, in recent months, as a result of your initiative in New York in October; your letters, contacts and meetings with them; the Panama thing, and moving toward this conference, not only arrested but reversed this. And this is a new opportunity to give it a major impulse.
Secretary Kissinger: Well, we had some assets going for us in Mexico City. One is, over a period of three years, the Mexican Foreign Minister knows who helped him settle the salinity problem. And he, up to now, has shown an extremely cooperative attitude. And, as chairman of the meeting, he will try to keep things, insofar as he can, within reasonable bounds.
We have defused the Panama issue, which was one of the agenda items, and which can now not be raised in any meaningful way.
Mr. McCloskey: How much Cuba do you expect will come up in the Mexico meetings?
Secretary Kissinger: I don’t suspect it will come up at all.
Mr. McCloskey: Is that controllable?
Secretary Kissinger: Yes. I have told them all—well, first of all, we have an understanding with Rabasa about the agenda, the procedures and the outcome; and he’s going to be chairman of the meeting.
Jack has been going around talking to the key countries; and I think that we have agreement with all of them, except Peru, as to the agenda procedures and the outcome of the meeting. We have others going around to the less key countries. I’ve told them all that I’m bringing a six-man congressional delegation. And I’ve said it again today at the lunch which I attended with all the Latin American Ambassadors in town. I said I am bringing a six-man congressional delegation. If they don’t want just abstract declarations, if they want a harmonious meeting, but these Congressmen get the idea that we’re up [Page 44] against a group of countries that are out to get us, then they can forget about what I said. And Jack has made this point in somewhat more diplomatic language. And I’ve told them all that until we get our relationships straightened out, we can’t talk about Cuba—move to Cuba. Of course, several of them don’t want to move to Cuba.
Mr. Sonnenfeldt: There’s a practical problem about getting squeezed by—
Secretary Kissinger: We’ll talk about that separately. Canada.
Mr. Rush: Yes.
Secretary Kissinger: I think Cuba doesn’t worry me. See, we have—with the presence of a really senior congressional delegation, these fellows have to be very careful about taking this on publicly.
Mr. Kubisch: I think it’s very—well, first, Cuba never got on the agenda. There are seven countries in the region that have relations with Cuba—about another seven that are just hard-line opposition to Cuba. And the rest are just prepared to do what we want to do. But they couldn’t get it on the agenda in Bogota because it was too divisive—not because of us but because the Chileans and the Bolivians and the others didn’t want it.
Secretary Kissinger: See, the result of this was—you were there at the Council of the Americas (to Mr. McCloskey)—
Mr. McCloskey: Yes.
Secretary Kissinger: —which caused them to call a meeting of the Foreign Ministers in Bogota, to which they called an eight-point agenda and to which we added two points so we can follow their agenda—which doesn’t cover Cuba.
Mr. Kubisch: If it comes up, it will be in the corridors and in bilaterals, I believe. Someone may mention it in passing.
Secretary Kissinger: I don’t think it will come up in the conference. I think that’s out.
What we can’t control is some Foreign Minister taking us on, like Jobert, for domestic politics and just listing all the things of “multinational corporations” and “imperialism” and so forth. And the only way we can control that is by the others sitting on them—by his not getting enough support from his colleagues.
We have not identified a single person who’s likely to do that, except perhaps the Peruvian—or have we?
Mr. Kubisch: No.
Secretary Kissinger: And we have identified a lot of them who are eager to have this success. See, they know that if they turn this into a show like Jobert did at the Energy Conference, they’ll never see me again and, therefore, their dialogue with us—this is not something that has to be.
[Page 45]Mr. McCloskey: If you want it to really succeed, you should take me and then do the opposite of what I suggest to you; and then it will come out all right.
Secretary Kissinger: I did that all the time.
Mr. McCloskey: You did it yesterday.
(Laughter.)
Secretary Kissinger: No—I thought I did the opposite of what I said I was going to do!
(Laughter.)
Mr. McCloskey: Either way you want!
Mr. Hartman: You had your earphone on.
Mr. Vest: But, sir, you did the opposite of what you thought they were going to do in the beginning.
Mr. McCloskey: The press coverage—by the way, have you seen it?
Secretary Kissinger: I was not prepared for their collapse. See, I couldn’t follow the strategy I had outlined at the meeting, since they yielded.
(Laughter.)
Mr. Kubisch: I don’t know whether you caught up with it or not yet, but in my meeting with the Brazilian Minister he suggested that this problem of the territorial reach and the sanctions is something that perhaps there should be some discussion on, and maybe consideration to putting that on the agenda for the April OAS meeting in Atlanta, so that the U.S., if it decided to grant a waiver for more than one, would not be doing it as a unilateral decision but as a result of consultation in some group or assembly in consideration of the problem.
Secretary Kissinger: I’ve got to get a unilateral decision first before I can put it on anybody’s agenda.
[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to Latin America.]
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Summary: Kissinger and Department of State officials discussed prospects for the upcoming Mexico City meeting with Latin American Foreign Ministers.
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Transcripts of Kissinger Staff Meetings, 1973–1977, Entry 5177, Lot 78D443, Box 2. Secret; Nodis. Drafted on February 15 by Springsteen. All brackets are in the original except those indicating text omitted by the editors. Kissinger chaired the meeting, which began at 3:15 p.m. and was attended by all principal officers of the Department or their designated alternates. Kissinger was in Panama City on February 7 to sign a statement of principles for negotiation of a new Panama Canal Treaty.
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