Office of the Historian

23. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, September 21, 1974, 10 a.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • President Ford
  • Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
  • Lt. General Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

Kissinger: Vignes is related to Cuba. We must not be driven by events and be beaten to death by the OAS. In November, I recommend we abstain and everyone else will vote yes. We ought to get something for any change. We ought to establish some contacts with the Cubans. Frank Mankiewicz has offered, but we ought to deal directly. Maybe someone in their UN mission—he should have a reentry visa and not be restricted to a 25-mile radius.

[Page 77]

President: Can we wait until November?

Kissinger: Sure.

On Vignes. They are very proud and can be obnoxious and somewhat racist. The Latins and Arabs are two places where with flattery you can get more than you anticipated. Vignes is old but looks young.

President: Is he a Peronist?

Kissinger: He is very close to Peron. Argentina reestablished relations with Cuba in defiance of everyone—but they have been very helpful in defusing Cuba from the meetings last spring. This week there was a meeting on Cuba. The original draft was a disaster, but I worked with Vignes and it isn’t bad now. It will be passed in November in Quito.

You could thank him for his leadership. We look at Argentina as an Latin American leader. We will try to make a success of the Buenos Aires if he helps.

President: Is that an OAS or Foreign Ministers meeting?

Kissinger: Foreign Ministers. Most of them think the OAS is moribund. You could say you are sending me down—it has been promised for a long time. They forced us to let them sell trucks to Cuba—but since then they have been cooperative.

Say you are open-minded about Cuba but we will not be pressured—we have our pride.

With Argentina and Brazil on our side, we can manage the OAS.

[Omitted here is material not related to Cuban affairs.]

  1. Summary: Kissinger briefed Ford in advance of meeting with Argentine Foreign Minister Alberto Vignes on OAS initiatives related to Cuba.

    Source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser, Memoranda of Conversations, Box 6, 9/21/74. Secret; Nodis. The meeting was held in the Oval Office. All brackets are in the original except those indicating text omitted by the editors. In a September 21 conversation, Kissinger, Ford, and Vignes agreed the United States and Argentina would work to postpone OAS action on Cuba until after U.S. elections in November. The memorandum summarizing that discussion is published in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. E–11, Part 2, Documents on South America, 1973–1976, Document 22. In a September 21 memorandum to Kissinger, Bowlder reported that the OAS Permanent Council voted on September 20 to convoke a meeting of Foreign Ministers in Quito on November 8 to consider the Cuba sanctions. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P850148–2126)

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