Office of the Historian

202. Minutes of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meeting1

Washington, July 26, 1976, 8:09 a.m.

[Omitted here is a list of attendees.]

PROCEEDINGS

(The Secretary’s Staff Meeting was convened at 8:09 a.m., Secretary of State Kissinger presiding as Chairman.)

Secretary Kissinger: Hello, Chuck.

Mr. Robinson: Welcome back.

We have an effort going forward under White House supervision—the mechanics on nuclear proliferation, nuclear policy.

Secretary Kissinger: Where?

Mr. Robinson: We have a paper for the press in September. We have a man on the task force. But I have recommended to you that we set up our own task force within the Department—

Secretary Kissinger: Absolutely.

Mr. Robinson: —to follow this thing carefully.

Secretary Kissinger: I thought we had this thing already. I thought we were doing our internal study on that. Win, you and I talked about this.

Mr. Lord: Yes. We had some preliminary work, but Chuck wants to formalize.

[Page 642]

Secretary Kissinger: Just don’t give me one of those papers with ten endorsements on it. It doesn’t mean a goddam thing. We have to have it under somebody’s control.

Mr. Robinson: Hal Sonnenfeldt, and all of them.

Secretary Kissinger: But they shouldn’t spend time changing language. If anyone doesn’t like a prevailing opinion, let him put down his views separately.

Mr. Robinson: We’ll go ahead with that.

Secretary Kissinger: Yes. Can we have a paper in three days?

Mr. Lord: We’ll try to.

Secretary Kissinger: That’s better, when we all know the basic element. Don’t repeat just by rote all the reprocessing arguments because I frankly am developing the most serious doubts about the multilateral reprocessing, which is an article of religion here. I mean, you put them down but look at the other.

I don’t see why multilateral reprocessing in those areas is better than bilateral reprocessing—if there’s to be any reprocessing—and when we get into the Iranian-Pakistan Cooperative Agreement, I’ll be damned if I see why a joint Iranian-Pakistani one is better than an Iranian-U.S. or Pakistani-U.S. one.

The key thing is to have a supply. That I have no problem with.

Mr. Robinson: Well, we’ll keep you advised of how it’s coming along.

Secretary Kissinger: I don’t have a problem—that’s essential, but I’d rather have the U.S., together with one of these countries, than Germany or France—who have no leverage at all when the violations begin. If you have a European consortium, they have even less leverage. You have the Dutch, together with the Swiss, and somebody else. What can they do when their safeguards are disregarded? You’re going to make policy recommendations too in the paper?

Mr. Robinson: In this paper, yes—to you.

Secretary Kissinger: The quicker the better.

Mr. Robinson: We should act.

Secretary Kissinger: No—I’m strongly for it.

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to nuclear reprocessing.]

  1. Summary: Kissinger discussed nuclear proliferation with his senior staff and expressed doubts about multilateral reprocessing vis-à-vis bilateral reprocessing with regard to the Iranian-Pakistani Cooperative Agreement.

    Source: National Archives, RG 59, Executive Secretariat, Transcripts of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s Staff Meetings: Lot 78D443, Box 10, Secretary’s Staff Mtg, 0/7/26/76. Secret. All brackets are in the original except those indicating text omitted by the editors. There is no indication as to where the meeting took place. On July 12, Elliott and Oakley sent Scowcroft a memorandum informing him of Kissinger’s decisions after Pakistani rejection of the President’s request that Pakistan not acquire a reprocessing plant from France, inlcuding Kissinger’s comments on multinational reprocessing facilities; see Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume E–8, Documents on South Asia, 1973–1976, Document 232.

    ↩