42. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, June 22, 1976, 3:35-4:05 p.m.1 2
PARTICIPANTS:
- The President
- Lt General Brent Scowcroft, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
- Ambassador Harry G. Barnes, Jr. (interpreter)
- Mr. Stefan Andrei, Secretary for International Affairs, Romanian Communist Party
- Ambassador (appointed) Nicolae Nicolae
- Mr. Mircea Mitran, Counselor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (interpreter)
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
June 22, 1976
DATE AND PLACE: Tuesday, June 22, 1976, 3:35 - 4:05 p.m.
The White House
The President: It is a great pleasure to have you here. I have just read the letter from President Ceausescu and it reaffirms, as I do to you, the good relations we have between our countries and the desire on our part and yours to continue and to expand them. Please extend my best wishes to your President. I enjoyed my visit to Romania and we were delighted to have him visit here.
Mr. Andrei: I would like to give you the original of the President’s letter and on this occasion extend on behalf of my President and his wife to you and Mrs. Ford their greetings and very best wishes for happiness and success. My President recalls with pleasure your visit to Bucharest and he hopes to meet you again so as to continue the dialogue with you. Right now it’s the time of the presidential election campaign and the President told me he doesn’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of the United States but he would like to wish you much success so he would be able to carry on this dialogue with you, to exchange views on questions concerning the relations between our two countries and on international matters.
The President: Will you express to the President my appreciation for his kind words and tell him I look forward to continuing this dialogue for the next four years.
[Page 2]Mr. Andrei: Speaking of the relations between our two countries, our President considers them as good. He appreciates the special role you personally have had. It is our desire to develop these relations, including economic relations, and in view of, or anticipating the results of the elections, we ask you to retain on your agenda the question of supporting Romania through a credit on advantageous terms which would enable us to purchase equipment and technology from the US.
The President: I consider the economic relations we have a very important element in our overall relations. We strongly believe we should continue the MFN relations we have. I submitted to the Congress the necessary recommendations on June 2 so Congress would have the opportunity to act affirmatively. The best information I have indicates that Congress may temporarily delay this affirmative act on the recommendations I made for extending MFN. You know, as I do, the problem we have with the Congress. When President Ceausescu was here he met with several committees to explain the policy of your country to them. He heard directly from Members of Congress the feelings they had. I just hope we will have some evidence that will respond to the views Congress has and if these responses are encouraging there will be no problem whatever with extending MFN.
[Omitted here is a discussion of Cyprus.]
- Source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser, NSC Europe, Canada, and Ocean Affairs Staff, Country Files, Box 21, Romania 1976 (4) WH. Confidential; Nodis. The meeting took place at the White House. The memorandum was included under cover of an unpublished July 13 memorandum from Davis to Borg.↩
- President Ford met with Secretary for International Affairs Stefan Andrei to discuss the continuation of MFN status for Romania.↩