Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–14, Part 2, Documents on Arms Control and Nonproliferation, 1973–1976

179. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, March 8, 1976, 6–6:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

• Nuclear Non-Proliferation

PARTICIPANTS

• Secretary Kissinger
• Deputy Secretary Ingersoll
• Counselor Sonnenfeldt
• Ambassador McCloskey
• Mr. Lord, S/P
• Mr. Vest, PM
• Mr. Kratzer, OES
• Mr. Nosenzo, PM
• Mr. Kahan, S/P
• Mr. Bengelsdorf, OES
• Mr. Kelly—C (Notetaker)

Kissinger: This appearance could be a nightmare. I will need people sitting near me who have quick answers to these questions. Is Ribicoff going to be hostile?

McCloskey: I don’t think so.

Kissinger: What is the bill that I am testifying on?

Kratzer: The bill is S–1439 which would change the procedures for export licensing with respect to nuclear exports and give more control of the process to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Kissinger: What is the NRC arrangement?

Kratzer: NRC is independent of the Executive Branch. This bill would raise problems in our ability to carry out nuclear exports.

Kissinger: What are the constraints in the bill?

Kratzer: The NRC was set up when the old AEC was divided. NRC decides whether or not export licenses can be issued. Under the bill, NRC could either decide to issue or deny an export license, or to take no action at all but refer the matter to Congress for sixty days for a congressional decision. This means they would buck the difficult cases to the Hill.

Kissinger: I suppose the NRC would have no problem on licensing exports to Canada but would send the prickly problems to Congress.

Kratzer: That’s right, and this would undermine confidence in the capability of the U.S. as a reliable supplier. The bill would also require ACDA to provide a nuclear proliferation impact statement on every export case. Mr. Ingersoll testified against the bill as have all of the NRC Commissioners.

Kissinger: Who is behind the bill?

Kratzer: Ribicoff and Glenn.

Ingersoll: Pastore is opposed.

Kissinger: Who else is on the Committee?

Sonnenfeldt: Jackson is but he will probably still be in Florida.

Kissinger: Percy sandbagged me into this appearance.

Kratzer: We’ve drafted your statement so that you can start on general policy rather than particular pieces of the bill.

Kissinger: The more passionate I am on the evils of nuclear proliferation, the more the Committee will become attached to their bill. I am going to confront Ribicoff if he is going to kick me on détente. What does he want us to do with Europe?

Kratzer: The Committee is pushing us to cut off nuclear fuel supplies to the allies, and to any other possible proliferator.

Kissinger: What about a country like South Africa?

Kratzer: South Africa has its own uranium. It has a small pilot enrichment plant. The Senators want us to use leverage on the other suppliers of equipment. The Senators think we can use our position as a major supplier of enriched uranium, but that is a position that will diminish by 1980.

Kissinger: Why should we not use our leverage until then?

Kratzer: It would be a disaster to our position as a reliable supplier.

Sonnenfeldt: It would mean the death knell for NATO if we cut off fuel to our allies because their exports don’t follow our standards.

Kratzer: The point is we have some influence because of our position as a supplier.

Sonnenfeldt: It would be a supreme act of faith for us to join the Russians in cutting off supplies to our allies. The Russians might agree, and once we had done it, undertake to supplant us and exploit us against our NATO allies.

Kissinger: Then we should say that we continue our supply of nuclear fuels in order to maintain our influence in the proliferation field. Is this going to be a Donnybrook or not?

Sonnenfeldt: The Senators are not hostile but they are hepped on proliferation.

Kissinger: Glenn is reasonable and I can deal with him.

Vest: Ribicoff will probably run off the rails.

Kissinger: What have we agreed to with the other nuclear suppliers?

Kratzer: It’s in your briefing book.

Kissinger: Who will take notes tomorrow?

Sonnenfeldt: Kelly will.

Vest: In the Suppliers’ Conference we agreed to the application of IAEA safeguards on all nuclear exports by any of the suppliers.

Ingersoll: We can’t say we agreed.

Vest: That’s right. These are unilateral statements of policy.

Kissinger: Is it an advance to get IAEA safeguards on all exports?

Vest: Yes, it is for France. Also, we have safeguards on transferred technology.

Sonnenfeldt: Non-NPT members will have to take these safeguards.

Kissinger: Will I be asked about the FRG/Brazil deal?

Kratzer: Yes, the query will be how hard we tried to block it.

Kissinger: We would have preferred the regional reprocessing facility.

Kratzer: Yes, the multilateral regional approach involves more countries and makes it more difficult for a country to abrogate the safeguards or to divert materials.

Sonnenfeldt: You will also be asked about the French/Pakistan deal. You should sign out the package you have on that which calls for further approaches to the FRG and the French.

Kissinger: I haven’t seen any package on Pakistan.

Vest: The suppliers’ guidelines also call for a commitment by recipient countries not to use any materials for explosives, whether military or peaceful. In the case of sensitive facilities, safeguards will continue on any replicated technology.

Kissinger: Does the supplier have to agree to the duplicate facilities in advance?

Ingersoll: Yes.

Lord: One of the problems in the suppliers’ effort was that we could not get a commitment from the others to the multilateral regional approach.

Ingersoll: We can’t get any commitment against the export of reprocessing or enrichment plants from the French or the Germans.

Kissinger: Why?

Kratzer: I think they would argue that if the suppliers do not export these facilities under safeguards, then various countries will build them on their own entirely without safeguards. Of course, one can argue how long it would take for various countries to build indigenous plants. The Pakistanis are less capable; the Brazilians are more capable.

Kissinger: Then I can say that the export of reprocessing plants is not the only way that would-be proliferators could obtain them.

Kratzer: That’s right. The technology is in the public domain. There is a range of capabilities among various countries. Japan has a reprocessing plant which is not safeguarded itself, but is safeguarded when it is processing material that falls under safeguards.

Kissinger: I have no question in my mind that the world would be better off without reprocessing plants and nuclear weapons. But that does not preclude a country from developing such entirely on its own.

Lord: Such developments are tremendously destabilizing.

Kissinger: But we have no guarantee that a single country cannot do this.

Kratzer: And we can’t convince France and the FRG of the merits of the multilateral approach.

Kissinger: Why not?

Kratzer: Because no one has done reprocessing successfully on a commercial scale.

Sonnenfeldt: We are promoting an IAEA study on reprocessing.

Kissinger: Well, I will read the briefing book and go over my statement again.

Sonnenfeldt: You might also read the Pakistani package and act on it.

1. Summary: In a meeting with his senior advisors from the Department, Kissinger discussed problems linked to nuclear exports and a multilateral approach to nuclear enrichment.

   Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P820117–1400. Secret; Nodis. Drafted by Kelly; approved by J. Covey (S) on March 16. The conversation took place in the Secretary’s office. Kissinger is referring to his appearance before the Senate Committee on Government Operations, scheduled for March 9. For Kissinger’s statement before the Committee, see Document 180.