174. Draft Message From the Department of State to the Swiss Ambassador to Iran (Lang)1
1. We would be grateful if Ambassador Lang could deliver the two separate messages contained in this telegram to Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh and to President-elect Bani-Sadr or his associate, Salamatian. We very much hope this will give Ambassador Lang occasion for direct meeting with Bani-Sadr himself.
2. The first message is a statement of the U.S. position which was communicated to Secretary-General Waldheim by Secretary Vance for Ambassador Farhang early in January.2 We are uncertain whether the statement reached Tehran. The last point in the statement would appear to be responsive to Iranian desires for an expression of the attitude of the U.S. towards the revolutionary government. (In the meeting with Bani-Sadr, Ambassador Lang might make specific reference to paragraph 6 in relation to Bani-Sadr’s call for a U.S. expression of views towards Iran during his American TV interview on February 3.)3 Begin text: (insert from attachment) End text.
3. The second message presents information on Soviet military deployments relating to Iran. Begin text: In the current circumstances of tension in the Middle East and combat in Afghanistan, the American Government has tried to keep thoroughly abreast of the disposition of Soviet forces in the region. Besides following Soviet moves related to Afghanistan, there has been high interest in the status of Soviet ground and air forces adjacent to Turkey and Iran.
Until January, Soviet units in the Transcaucasus were essentially quiet with no change in their normal state of very low readiness for action. During January this changed.
Steps have been started to raise manpower and readiness levels for all of the approximately one dozen Soviet divisions stretched out between Tbilisi and Baku. A number of these units have begun training [Page 458] exercises and elements of almost all of them seem to be out of their regular garrison areas. Air force units and the one airborne division in the Transcauscasus seem to be in a normal state. The same appears true for naval units in the Caspian Sea.
These Soviet moves should probably be interpreted as preparations for contingencies, rather than as signs of any decision in Moscow to undertake operations in the next months against Iran. However, the USSR remains worried about instability on its borders, especially now when it is engaged in war in nearby Afghanistan. It probably wants to be ready to take any action that it deems necessary in the light of future developments in northern Iran or in the Persian Gulf region. There have been reports that the Soviets have not been willing to accept Iran’s renunciation of those parts of the 1921 Iran-USSR treaty which give to the USSR certain rights of military intervention in Iran. Can the GOI confirm these reports, and if so, how does Iran interpret the Soviet position? End text.
4. We would like Ambassador Lang to deliver the following two-point message only to Bani-Sadr, or, if it is impossible to see him, Salamatian. First, we have seen the recent article by the Egyptian journalist Heikal.4 We would appreciate knowing whether Bani-Sadr has been in recent touch with Heikal and whether what Heikal has to say coincides with Bani-Sadr’s views. Second, we listened with great interest to the Bani-Sadr television interview.
We earnestly hope that we can move with great speed to resolve it; further delay serves the interests of neither Iran nor the United States and will make a solution more difficult.
- Source: Department of State, Records of David D. Newsom, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Subject Files, 1978–1981, Lot 81D154, Box 8, Swiss Channel. Secret. Attached to a February 7 Summary of Report from Ambassador Lang on his meetings with Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh, drafted by Precht. (Carter Library, Records of the White House Office of Counsel to the President, Lloyd Cutler’s Files, Box 2) The text is the cable as approved for the Swiss Embassy in Washington to transmit to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. All subsequent messages to Lang went by this channel.↩
- Attached; printed as Document 137. ↩
- Bani-Sadr appeared on CBS’s “Issues and Answers” on February 3. No transcript of this interview has been found, but it was summarized in Graham Hovey, “Bani-Sadr Firm on Iran Demands,” New York Times, February 4, 1980, p. A6.↩
- Presumably a reference to Heikal’s front-page article in the London Sunday Times. (“Egyptian Journalist Cites Progress in Hostage Crisis,” Washington Post, February 3, 1980, p. A18)↩