327. Minutes of the Secretary of State’s Staff Meeting, Washington, January 31, 1974, 3:08 p.m..1 2
In Attendance:
- Secretary of State Kissinger
- D - Mr. Rush
- M - Mr. Brown
- S/AM - Mr. McCloskey
- ARA - Mr. Kubisch
- NEA - Mr. Sisco
- EA - Mr. Hummel
- EUR - Mr. Hartman
- AID - Mr. Parker
- EB - Mr. Weintraub
- IO - Mr. Herz
- AF - Mr. Easum
- L - Mr. Maw
- S/PC - Mr. Lord
- S/PC - Mr. Wilhelm
- S - Mr. Bremer
- S - Mr. Eagleburger
- S/S - Mr. Pickering
[Omitted is material unrelated to the Philippines.]
MR. HUMMEL: Two brief items, sir. One on the island situation in the Paracels and the Spratlys. You’re getting a more comprehensive report from CIA but just for preliminary update, there are no indications that the PRC intends to move toward the Spratly Islands. Despite this, there’s considerable nervousness being exhibited by the Japanese, the Filipinos — and, most especially, the South Vietnamese — who the news tickers said today have sent a 200-man contingent off to occupy some of the presently unoccupied islands in the area of the Spratlys.
The ROC has already occupied at least one island and the PRC also.
[Page 3]SECRETARY KISSINGER: Have the Chinese got all the Paracels also?
MR. HUMMEL: Yes, sir. That’s over and finished. And apparently no more activity has taken place. But this has caused people to worry about the PRC intentions in regard to this matter. And there does not, in my view, seem to be any indication that anybody really needs to work at this point.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Can we steer them towards the Senkaku Island?
MR. HUMMEL: Beg pardon, sir?
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Can we steer them to the Senkaku Island?
MR. HUMMEL: Steer whom?
SECRETARY KISSINGER: The PRC.
MR. HUMMEL: Are you sure we want to do that, sir?
SECRETARY KISSINGER: It would teach religion to the Japanese.
MR. HUMMEL: I realize we have to teach religion to the Japanese, but is it worth that price?
SECRETARY KISSINGER: No, no.
[Page 4]MR. HUMMEL: The question has been raised about whether our Mutual Security Treaty with the Philippines would be invoked in the event that the Philippine forces know the Spratlys are attacked by PRC if they move there. The lawyers have come up with what Bill Sullivan describes as a somewhat waffly position, but negotiating this treaty gives us apparently a number of outs.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Whose lawyers?
MR. HUMMEL: Mr. Maw’s lawyers, George Aldrich. It is not, apparently — well, it’s not a clear-cut case.
MR. MAW: It’s not a clear-cut case. At our insistence, the treaty was broad, very general, to cover the outer islands, and having in mind that we were trying to cover apparently naval stations at sea. They can cover these islands as part of the Philippine archipelago — at least, that’s our construction of it.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Have we told this to the Philippines?
MR. HUMMEL: Yes, sir. And there is no sign that they really are raising the issue that Bill Sullivan had raised with us. For legitimate reasons is why he did it. But Filipinos have not cited the Mutual [Page 5] Security Treaty as being applicable in the dispute over these islands. Lastly —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: I don’t think I ever saw that. Did I ever see that Sullivan cable?
MR. HUMMEL: Yes, sir. It’s my understanding you signed off a reply to it, which summarized important parts of it. One went out with your name on it.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: That’s a different proposition!
(Laughter.)
MR. RUSH: I saw the cable and the reply —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: You’re ahead of me.
MR. RUSH: — with your name signed.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Should we have cancelled these meetings?
(Laughter.)
I don’t remember addressing that problem. It’s all right; I don’t disagree with it. But do you want to check into what happened there?
MR. EAGLEBURGER: Yes, sir.
MR. HUMMEL: I can give you a bit of background now. The telegram was either in the NSC or in your office here — on different occasions over a period of three days — [Page 6] and I know the pressure on your time, but you had not had time to get to it. A number of us thought it was quite urgent and tried to bring it to your attention. I don’t know if we failed or somebody slipped. Maybe somebody decided, in desperation, not to send it —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: O.K., but where do we stand now? So this is where we stand on the Philippines?
MR. HUMMEL: Yes, sir.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: We have notified the Filipinos?
MR. HUMMEL: Yes, sir.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: And their attitude was what?
MR. HUMMEL: They are quite calm about this and they have not been disposed in any considerations to attempt to invoke the Mutual security Treaty.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Did they raise it or did we raise it with them?
MR. HUMMEL: The conversation that Mr. Ingersoll had on his trip there with Bill Sullivan on the Marcos problem and on the Spratlys and the Paracels came up, and an opportunity in the general discussion came up.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: The question is: Did we volunteer to them the information that we would not let [Page 7] them invoke the treaty, or did they first ask us whether we considered them to be covered by the treaty?
MR. HUMMEL: I’m sorry, sir. I’ll have to — I don’t think it was ever that clear-cut. First of all, our reply was not a flat no that the treaty could not apply —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: My question was: Did we volunteer it or did they first ask us? — because this, I think, would make a psychological difference.
MR. HUMMEL: It was not something that was shoved at them. And whether Bill Sullivan drove through an opening that was given to him in order to convey this or whether the Filipinos raised this, I honestly don’t remember.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: That, to me, is the only interesting question. I agree with the fact that we should not invoke the Mutual Security Treaty. I wonder whether it’s in our interest to show excessive eagerness in volunteering reluctance to take on the Chinese when we haven’t been asked — whether that might not actually trigger things, the way things leak out there.
MR. HUMMEL: Well, at the same time, sir, our governmental spokesman has been saying repeatedly that we [Page 8] take no position on the Southeast —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Yes; but that isn’t the question of what we would do if a Philippine garrison was attacked — which was the issue before us.
MR. HUMMEL: Well, I think the atmospherics surrounding our repeated statements about these islands certainly conveyed already to the Filipinos that we don’t intend to or that we don’t want to.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: I don’t think we want to encourage the PRC in believing that they have a free shot at military moves, and we don’t want to encourage our allies there to believe that we are needlessly panicky.
Our answer is the right answer. I do not think that we should have indicated that we would defend it. The question is whether we should have left some ambiguity in other people’s minds, not in ours.
MR. HUMMEL: Well, there is ambiguity built into our position that they conveyed — but I’ll check into this, sir, and see if I can get something.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: O.K.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Transcripts of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meetings, 1973–1977, E5177, Box 2. Secret. According to the summary of decisions that proceeds these minutes, Kissinger decided at this meeting “That we do not want to do anything re the Spratly Islands that would encourage the PRC to believe it has a free hand to take military action or lead our allies to believe we are needlessly alarmed at the prospect of such action.”↩
- Kissinger and his staff discussed the Spratly Island dispute.↩