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

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

Washington, October 18, 1976, 8:10 a.m.

[Omitted here is a list of attendees.]

PROCEEDINGS

(The Secretary’s Staff Meeting was convened at 8:10 a.m., Secretary of State Kissinger presiding as Chairman.)

Mr. Robinson: Good morning.

Secretary Kissinger: Hi.

Mr. Robinson: The newspapers all report that there’s going to be a statement out of the White House today on nuclear policy.

Secretary Kissinger: Yes.

Mr. Robinson: And we’ve sent you an outline, a preliminary draft—

Secretary Kissinger: Yes.

Mr. Robinson: —that is still being worked on. But there are three questions. No. 1 is the basic form of the State—

Secretary Kissinger: But what’s the sense of showing me the draft 24 hours before it’s being delivered?

Mr. Robinson: Well, we still have some flexibility.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, not if it’s going to be issued today.

Mr. Robinson: Well, our draft was sent to you on Friday.

Secretary Kissinger: No, no. On Friday, when it was supposed to be delivered Saturday? That still only gave me 24 hours. It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that they were doing it.

Mr. Lord: We sent it as soon as we had a draft, and it was a summary of what we had sent you a week—

Secretary Kissinger: I have no objection to it.

Mr. Robinson: No variation in substance from anything else.

Secretary Kissinger: I didn’t understand it—which may have helped me. (Laughter.)

I don’t understand. What is the point? Can you sum up three main points of that document?

Mr. Lord: It really gets back to the three themes we’ve been talking about for a month or two—the strengthening of safeguards, the control of plutonium, the getting out of exports—

Secretary Kissinger: But my 15-year-old can do that. What are we proposing specifically?

That’s the one part I understood. What also?

Mr. Lord: The storage of plutonium under international auspices.

Secretary Kissinger: It will never be agreed to.

Mr. Lord: What?

Secretary Kissinger: It will never be agreed to.

Mr. Hartman: No. That might, as a matter of fact, because we volunteered to do it.

Secretary Kissinger: In individual countries but not in the United States.

Mr. Robinson: Ultimately it’s going to come back to control of the plutonium cycle in the supplier nations; and they’re going to be Europe, the Soviet Union, the U.S. And so what we’re talking about is not inconsistent with that. That will have to be negotiated. But our primary concern has been putting this statement in a form that didn’t look like we were trying to apply our principles unilaterally, but we were merely setting the stage for a multilateral discussion. So there are two other elements. No. 1 is advance notice to our allies, which we hope to get out before the statement is released. And No. 2 is the diplomatic follow-up which will be requested with France first, Germany second, then the balance.

Well, that’s our proposal to you, but—

Mr. Lord: One other element is the reprocessing is looked upon very tenderly. So that we set a trend, we make sure this makes sense before we go ahead with other countries rather than having to set up their own—

Secretary Kissinger: That’s what I thought it said. Our reprocessing will be looked at tenderly.

Mr. Robinson: Yes.

Mr. Lord: And to look at other technologies to see whether the process makes any sense.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, it sure as hell makes sense. It’s like prohibition. It certainly makes sense to countries that want nuclear bombs. Pakistan isn’t getting a reprocessing plant because it doesn’t understand that it is not now economical.

Mr. Lord: What this does—it takes care of the technical and economic dimensions. It doesn’t take care of the political-security dimensions, which is much more fundamental. That gets you into security guarantees; that gets you into regional conflicts being resolved by other means. And if a country wants a bomb that doesn’t get sold, there’s no question about that.

What it does do is tie up the technical and economic restraints.

Mr. Robinson: And what it does is set it out on the table for the world to get a look at it.

Secretary Kissinger: When is it going to be released? Is it going to be released today?

Mr. Lord: That’s not for sure.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, how is it going to be released? They’re just going to dump it on the White House Press Corps?

Mr. Lord: It’s going to be briefed by State, Scowcroft and Cannon.

Secretary Kissinger: Cannon?

Mr. Robinson: Cannon, yes.

Secretary Kissinger: What does he know about it?

Mr. Robinson: He’s on the Domestic Council.

Secretary Kissinger: Who’s briefing for State?

Mr. Robinson: George Vest.

Mr. Vest: And we don’t know that it’s going to happen today, sir, either.

Mr. Lord: It’s the detailed facts which make it a lot more palatable than the statement itself. (Laughter.)

Secretary Kissinger: Yes. It’s not a masterpiece of comprehensive ability either, I must tell you. I read both of them on Friday. That point, I figured, was coming out Saturday anyway, and it was beyond help. The basic document is incomprehensible.

Mr. Lord: It’s less incomprehensible than the one we got, that’s all I can say.

Secretary Kissinger: The basic document does not explain exactly what the solutions are, but it has sort of a mishmash of a variety of measures unrelated to a central theme.

The summary is better, I grant you. But it’s not a masterpiece of lucidity either. It does not explain exactly what the problem is with which we’re trying to deal and how. Neither of them explains that we’re inviting other nations to join us.

Mr. Robinson: Well, it doesn’t do it very clearly.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, if it doesn’t do it very clearly, it doesn’t do it.

Mr. Lord: What it does is set out the initiatives. What it does is address the speech. I agree with you that the statement should be clearer.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, if it’s supposed to be our basic document on proliferation, what’s the difference whether they put it out in a speech or in a statement; and why should a statement be less clear than a speech?

Mr. Robinson: Well, it’s being aimed at the domestic market for political reasons.

Secretary Kissinger: The domestic market is concerned with foreign policy. Why is it easier to explain domestically in a series of ad hoc, unrelated initiatives?

Mr. Robinson: You have to be tough to solve domestic problems, but you have to be more flexible in the approach to deal with the international.

Secretary Kissinger: That never works, and it doesn’t sound so tough; does it?

Mr. Robinson: We’ve softened it down in order to avoid problems.

Secretary Kissinger: I don’t object to it because it’s too tough. I object to it because it’s incomprehensible.

Mr. Robinson: I agree.

Mr. Vest: One reason it’s incomprehensible is because they have not made a firm decision on what they’re doing in one area.

Secretary Kissinger: Which is what?

Mr. Vest: Which is what you’re going to do about reprocessing in this country. They’ve made a halfway decision on that. It is not clear how they will carry it through, and it is not clear what kind of international association might be favored in this activity. It’s a—

Secretary Kissinger: In other words, we’re not going to offer reprocessing here?

Mr. Robinson: No, no.

Secretary Kissinger: We’re not going to go forward?

Mr. Robinson: We’re going to go forward with a demonstration effort in order to determine whether or not we can solve the technical, the economic and safety problems involved in reprocessing.

Secretary Kissinger: Here?

Mr. Robinson: Yes.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, if the goddam Pakistanis can do it, why can’t we do it?

Mr. Robinson: It’s to establish the technology and the economics—

Secretary Kissinger: Of the reprocessing?

Mr. Robinson: The Pakistanis are not concerned with the economics. Anyone knows you can make a dirty, inefficient—

Mr. Habib: Costly.

Mr. Robinson: —costly—one to produce weapons.

Mr. Sonnenfeldt: It’s in South Carolina, from where I have just returned, where the polls are changing. So I think that explains what’s happening.

Secretary Kissinger: Where are they changing—to the Democrats?

Mr. Sonnenfeldt: No, no. The other way.

Secretary Kissinger: Well, that would lead to three reprocessing plants. (Laughter.) Why keep it tentative?

Mr. Habib: More economic.

Mr. Robinson: We’re not proud of this effort, but it’s being handled by the White House. What we’re trying to do is minimize the damage in international relations.

Secretary Kissinger: Yes, but it doesn’t say something that’s correct. Well, I have—

Mr. Robinson: We’re doing the best we can to get that statement in a form—

Secretary Kissinger: Look, you can’t tell me you’re doing the best you can at 8:15, Chuck, on a day in which it’s likely to be delivered. That means it’s out.

Mr. Robinson: It’s not out yet, and we still have suggested changes.

Secretary Kissinger: Like what? I just haven’t been in on this at all.

Mr. Robinson: These are the basic changes that the group is trying to get into the last draft (showing document to Secretary Kissinger), and I’m hopeful we’ll be able to clarify some points that are important. That process is still going on.

Mr. Lord: I think what we’re trying to do is get a road map up front so it’s clear, with all the initiatives in place.

Secretary Kissinger: Why?

Mr. Lord: Why what?

Secretary Kissinger: Why is that hard to get across? That’s got nothing to do with policy.

Mr. Lord: It was in the fact sheet. The White House didn’t like it that way.

Mr. Sonnenfeldt: It’s a multipurpose operation which has to be geared to the domestic nuclear power industry as well as the non-proliferation. It becomes rather difficult—

Secretary Kissinger: Only if the theory of government on which we’re operating is that middle-level bureaucrats make treaties with each other and that I get involved only when the middle level can’t agree—even then, hopefully not, because I’ll hack it away. Nobody can tell me we can’t solve a thing like this at the appropriate level. You may not be able to solve it at the middle level.

I don’t see what interest of the White House is served by putting out an incomprehensible paper. Power industry or not, I don’t see what there is with the power industry on the non-proliferation—I don’t see how you’re going to handle an idiotic reprocessing plant in which we’re going to decide it’s economical for us and then we’re going to decide it’s not economical—so that nobody is going to reprocess, according to our plan, and we can’t reprocess here—which is one of the options we offered to the Shah.

Mr. Lord: We said it could be multinational or binational, including the suppliers. But we just want to see whether the whole thing makes sense. That’s the plan. It’s not totally nonsense.

Secretary Kissinger: When you brief, George, will you kindly present a coherent picture, no matter what anyone else does?

Mr. Vest: That’s right, sir.

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to nuclear nonproliferation.]

1. Summary: Kissinger discussed the status of current U.S. nuclear policy initiatives at home and abroad with his senior staff.

   Source: National Archives, RG 59, Executive Secretariat, Transcripts of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s Staff Meetings: Lot 78D443, Box 11, Secretary’s Staff Mtg, 10/18/76. Secret. No drafting information appears on the minutes. All brackes are in the original except those indicating text omitted by the editors. The topic of this discussion was a draft of President Ford’s “Statement on Nuclear Policy,” that Ford ultimately issued on October 28, 1976. In the statement, Ford said that while the United States opposed nuclear weapons proliferation, it wanted other nations to “enjoy the benefits of nuclear energy.” The full text of the statement is published in Public Papers: Gerald Ford 1976–77, Book III, pp. 2673–2678.