Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume I, Foundations of Foreign Policy

149. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, June 4, 1980, 1:15–1:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

• US-Soviet Relations

PARTICIPANTS

• President Jimmy Carter
• Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
• Ambassador Thomas J. Watson, Jr., United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union
• Mr. Marshall Brement, NSC Staff Member

The President. Congratulations on your daughter’s wedding. I hope everything went well. (U)

Ambassador Watson . Everything was fine. Thank you very much. (U)

The President. I understand you appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning. How did it go? (U)

Ambassador Watson . I think it was a good session. There were no problems. (U)

The President. What message did you bring them? (U)

Ambassador Watson . I voiced complete support for all your policies and everything you have been doing. I stressed the importance of evenhandedness and of getting the country behind the President. I talked about the need for the draft, and even for universal military training, if our adversaries as well as our allies and others throughout the world are not going to regard us as paper tigers. (C)

The President. That is a very good message. (U)

Ambassador Watson . I very much appreciate the chance to talk with you and I know that your time is very short. There are four points that I would like to make to you and I have written them down. The first point at the top of my list is real congratulations for the appointment of Ed Muskie. I have a summer house in Maine, have had it since 1958, and I know Senator Muskie very well. The appointment was terrific, a real ten strike. Was this your own idea? (U)

The President. Sometimes other people around here think of good ideas, but this was something I thought of myself. (U)

Ambassador Watson . Well, you deserve real congratulations for it! My second point is the need to find some way to go on with a strategic dialogue with the Soviets, particularly if the SALT process flounders. Both my DCM² and I think it would be a good idea to form high level groups of strategists from both sides to continue the dialogue process. There has to be some way to follow up and to talk together, especially if SALT won’t apply. (C)

(Dr. Brzezinski entered the Oval Office.)

As far as the sanctions which we are undertaking against the Soviets, I am completely with you all the way, even though many of them will lose their effectiveness as time goes on. But we have no choice, it seems to me, except to continue them, and not to make any basic changes in what we are doing. (C)

The President. I think we ought to hold firm on that. (C)

Ambassador Watson . My third point (turning to Dr. Brzezinski) and here you might disagree with me, because I’m going to mention China. The Soviets have a paranoid fear of China. They have a long border with that country and they are irrational on the subject. They do not talk about China. In fact, during my tour there no Soviet has even mentioned the subject to me. So I think it important that we do not take actions that will be misunderstood by them and that we maintain an even-handed policy and not hurt them in this regard just to hurt them. (C)

The President. All the actions we have taken toward China are based on our desire to improve relations with that very important country. We are not normalizing our relations with the Chinese just in order to hurt the Soviets. (C)

Ambassador Watson . I am no historian, and Dr. Brzezinski certainly knows more about the subject than I do, but it seems to me that the Chinese have a tendency to jump around from bed to bed. And I think we ought to make sure that they are lashed down to our bed before we undertake actions which we might regret later on. (C)

Dr. Brzezinski . You have to remember that we are very sexy people. (U)

Ambassador Watson . The fourth point I would like to make, if I may, is to raise the confusion and conflict between the NSC and the State Department. This is bad for our country and, when such confusion exists, it cannot help but affect morale in our embassies, particularly when there is disagreement about basic policies. (C)

The President. What kinds of policies? (C)

Ambassador Watson . Well, China would be one thing—the policy of evenhandedness, especially the question of MFN and of supplying strategic products to the Chinese. We seem to be sending out mixed signals. (C)

The President. This is a misconception. There have been no high level differences on China policy. You can ask both Ed Muskie and Cy Vance and they will tell you that all our decisions about China were reached with complete compatibility at the top level. There are, of course, differences within the State Department, with each area and head of area thinking his area should be preeminent and that his area is the most important for our foreign policy. Dick Holbrooke’s attitude toward China is different from that of the man in charge of European affairs.³ I think that is the real origin of any confusion regarding our policies. The State Department is an unwieldly, compartmentalized bureaucracy. That is its nature and it is not going to change. On MFN, we wanted to move together with both the Soviets and the Chinese, but events made that impossible. I can assure you that on the question of normalization with China and on the sale of military related equipment to China there have been no major differences at the top levels of this Administration. Isn’t that so, Zbig? (C)

Dr. Brzezinski . There’s been only one difference that I am aware of. And that is that Fritz pushed for MFN for China even before we did. (C)

Ambassador Watson . Still, I think we should keep in mind the basic nature of the Chinese and what they believe in. What are the real differences between the Chinese takeover of Tibet and what has happened in Afghanistan? (C)

Dr. Brzezinski . One main difference is that the Chinese invasion of Tibet took place many years ago and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan took place last December. We cannot as policy-makers deal with events which took place in the distant past, or continually place in the forefront such occurrences as the Soviet takeover of the Baltic States. In fact, the President’s policy on the USSR was quite clearly articulated in his speech in Philadelphia.⁴ (C)

Ambassador Watson . I did not in any way mean to suggest that we should condone what the Soviets did in Afghanistan. If you look back at the original telegram sent out by Garrison and me on December 25, you will see that our recommendations encompassed about 80% of what the Administration finally decided to do about Afghanistan.⁵ We are in complete agreement with that policy. (C)

The President. Did you get a copy of my letter to Gromyko? (C)

Ambassador Watson . No, I don’t think so. (U)

The President. You ought to see it. (U)

Ambassador Watson . I have not seen it as yet, but I have been out of Moscow for some time. (C)

Dr. Brzezinski . Unless you have had an advance copy, you probably have not seen it, because Warren Christopher will be taking it to Europe with him to discuss with our allies. But the letter will be delivered through you in Moscow.⁶ We think it is important that the Embassy be used more in the future than it has been in the past, when we relied too much on Dobrynin. You should know that it is the NSC that has been urging greater utilization of Embassy Moscow. (C)

The President. We will be greatly minimizing our use of Dobrynin. (C)

Ambassador Watson . I think that is important. Thank you very much. I certainly appreciate all the support which you have given me. (C)

The President. Has there been any change in the way they have been treating you since the Afghanistan crisis began? (C)

Ambassador Watson . Nothing at all. They treat me with the greatest respect. And I have instant access to high level Soviets. It was for this reason that I thought it important to see you. I wanted to demonstrate the importance which you attach to the work of my Embassy. And I intend to go out now and get our message across to every member of the Politburo. (C)

(The President walked across the room to his desk, took a copy of his Philadelphia speech from the desk and handed it to the Ambassador.) (C)

The President. This is a basic document. Ed Muskie worked on it. You ought to take a careful look at it, if you have not read it. (C)

Ambassador Watson . I have not seen it as yet. I think it may have been given when I had already left Moscow. I will study it carefully. Thank you very much for your time. I hope that someday we will have a chance to see you in Moscow. Mrs. Brement has been there recently, but we have not had many other visitors and no high level visits. (C)

The President. I don’t rule out a visit to Moscow at some point. (C)

Dr. Brzezinski . I will be glad to travel there. (U)

Ambassador Watson . If we could contrive some way to get you to visit us, it would really be a fine thing. (C)

Dr. Brzezinski . Perhaps the President could stop off on his way to China. (C)

Ambassador Watson . Sometimes I think that all you would need would be a half hour and you could straighten the whole thing out. (C)

The President. Thank you for coming by. I think it is very important to convey to the Soviets how disturbed we are about the invasion of Afghanistan and at the same time that we are ready to resume a productive relationship as soon as they withdraw their troops from that country. (C)

Ambassador Watson . Every chance we have we try to get that message across. (C)

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject File, Box 38, Memcons: President: 6/80. Confidential. The meeting took place in the Oval Office at the White House. Drafted by Brement, who sent the memorandum to Brzezinski under a June 4 covering memorandum, requesting that Brzezinski approve it. Brement also noted that the memorandum “should make interesting reading for future historians studying internecine rivalry within the US government in the late 1970s.” Brzezinski placed a checkmark on the covering memorandum, indicating that he approved it, and added the following handwritten notation: “It makes for hilarious reading, but it’s accurate! ZB.” Aaron’s notation on the covering memorandum, dated June 12, reads: “ZB—This is wonderful! DA.”
2. Garrison.
3. Presumable reference to Vest.
4. See Document 147.
5. Possibly Watson is referring to telegram 28126 from Moscow, December 29, 1979. In it, he listed various options for U.S. counteractions to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P840150–2177)
6. A letter from Muskie to Gromyko about Afghanistan, dated June 5, was delivered on June 12 by Watson. See Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, vol. VI, Soviet Union, Documents 282 and 283.