Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XII, Afghanistan

281. Summary of Conclusions of a Policy Review Committee Meeting¹

Washington, June 2, 1980, 9–10:05 a.m.

SUBJECT

• U.S. Relations with the Allies (S)

PARTICIPANTS

• State

  • Secretary Edmund Muskie
  • Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher
  • Mr. George Vest, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European Affairs
  • Mr. Harold Saunders, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs

• Treasury

  • Deputy Secretary Robert Carswell

• OSD

  • Ambassador Robert Komer, Under Secretary for Policy
  • Mr. Frank Kramer, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs

• Agriculture

  • Secretary Bob Bergland
  • Dr. Dale Hathaway, Under Secretary for International Affairs and Commodity Programs

• Commerce

  • Deputy Secretary Luther Hodges (Acting Secretary)
  • Mr. Homer Moyer, General Counsel

• JCS

  • Lt. General John Pustay, Assistant to the Chairman

• DCI

  • Mr. Bruce Clarke, Director, National Foreign Assessment Center
  • Mr. Joe Zaring, NIO for Western Europe

• USUN

  • Ambassador Donald McHenry

• White House

  • Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski
  • Mr. David Aaron
  • Ambassador Henry Owen

• NSC

  • Mr. Robert D. Blackwill
  • Brig. General William Odom
  • Mr. Marshall Brement

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

In opening the discussion, Secretary Muskie asked CIA if our lack of success with the Allies in persuading them to respond vigorously to the Afghanistan crisis was an indication that they disagreed with our strategic analysis of the situation. He noted that our original rationale had been to try to persuade the Soviets to withdraw and to deter repetition of the Soviet invasion. The Secretary asked if the Europeans had in effect accepted a permanent Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. CIA said yes, Ambassador Komer thought that was indeed the case, and David Aaron added that there was an important train of thought in Europe that argued that we would in the end have to trade Western acceptance of the Babrak regime for eventual Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. (S)

Responding to Secretary Muskie’s observation that these issues should be discussed at the Venice Summit, Dr. Brzezinski stressed that it was important for the leaders of the West to talk together in detail about the strategic challenge, either formally or informally at dinner. Before going to the Summit, the President would have to decide if he wished to pose sharply and directly the strategic issues we confront, or to soft-pedal them. Dr. Brzezinski thought that the President should use the Venice forum to portray the Soviet challenge as he saw it and to make clear that palliatives such as a partial Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan would not work. With this approach the President would stress that if we did not act to meet the Soviet threat in Southwest Asia, a fundamental tipping of history would occur. Giscard, Schmidt and Ohira all had said that they more or less concurred with our strategic assessment, but it was important to get their collective agreement at Venice to our view of the implications of Afghanistan. If we could do that, the individual measures we had proposed would then be easier to achieve. Therefore, the President should make a tough-minded, forceful statement at Venice.² (S)

Secretary Muskie observed that if we fell back from any of our efforts so far to apply punitive measures against the Soviets, we would inevitably have reduced in European eyes the urgency of our evaluation of the crisis and made it easier for them to minimize their own contributions in meeting the crisis. He thought the President should make a statement in Venice in a way to force the Allies to face up to the issue. The President should ask whether the Allies agreed with our strategic evaluation or not. Dr. Brzezinski agreed and said that it was important to set a higher standard for European action than we thought they could probably meet. This would show U.S. leadership and also realistically recognize that we had to ask for more in order to get the minimally acceptable. (S)

In beginning to go through the individual measures we had pursued relating to Afghanistan, Secretary Muskie asked Secretary Bergland to address the issue of the grain embargo. Bergland observed that this matter would be decided by something over which we had no control—weather. If the Soviet Union could harvest 225 metric tons of grain this year, it could muddle through with minimal grain imports whatever we did. We would not know until late June or July how the Soviet crop would turn out. Under Secretary Hathaway added that Argentina would not cooperate with us in this endeavor and that the key to holding at last year’s export level to the Soviet Union was Canada. If Canada cooperated with us, Australia would follow. (S)

Hathaway stressed that in order to gain Canadian cooperation, Presidential intervention would be necessary. The Canadian bureaucracy was dead set against our approach. In stressing that the Allies were generally against us on this matter, Henry Owen said that the chances of Canadian cooperation were less than 50–50. Moreover, if the Soviets had an average crop year, our efforts to reduce grain exports would not make much difference anyway. In any case, the Canadians would make a decision on this issue in the next week or so and if we intervened, it would have to be soon. Bergland agreed and stressed we had only two alternatives—to pressure the Canadians or to abandon this effort altogether. He thought the Canadians could be pressured but we must act now. Secretary Muskie, observing that this issue was a centerpiece of our post-Afghanistan measures, said if we dropped it this would signal to the Europeans and the Soviets that we were in effect dropping our anti-Afghanistan effort. We would be saying that the problem was too tough. That would be perceived abroad as a relaxation of our determination to respond to the Soviet invasion. Dr. Brzezinski agreed and said that we had no choice except to go to the Canadians. It would be better to fail because Ottawa did not agree than to drop the effort ourselves. The consensus at the table was thus that talking points should be urgently drafted for the President to use in a telephone conversation with Trudeau asking that the Canadians maintain their grain exports to the Soviet Union at last year’s level.³ (S)

Noting that the Allied response to our efforts to restrain export credits to Moscow was very bleak, Secretary Muskie asked if we should nevertheless press ahead on this issue. Dr. Brzezinski said he thought that tactically we should continue to pressure the Europeans on credits even though we knew we would not get their complete cooperation. To do otherwise would send the wrong message to the Allies. At the same time, Dr. Brzezinski stressed that we should keep our efforts private since we did not wish to inflate this matter publicly to a point at which our lack of success became a public defeat for the President. Secretary Muskie registered the participants’ agreement that we should continue to push the Europeans on credits. (S)

Moving on to COCOM, Komer emphasized that this issue had long-range strategic implications and that we should press the Europeans hard. The JCS agreed. Secretary Muskie thought reduced technology transfer to the USSR had the greatest potential for giving pain to the Soviets over time. The group thought that we should do our best to expand the COCOM list, recognizing that the Europeans would resist. Again, all concurred that this should not be a matter for public discussion. (S)

On the Olympics, it was agreed that we should send messages this week to ensure that there is no slippage among those who had already decided not to go to the Olympics and to try to persuade individual federations not to attend the Moscow Games. Near the time of the Moscow Games, we should also emphasize to those who would be attending that we hoped they would insist on reduced ceremonies (no flags, anthems, etc.) at Moscow. Dr. Brzezinski suggested that we try to think of ways to give more credit to those governments which would not be going to the Olympics. Secretary Muskie agreed, and thought perhaps the Senate might do something in this respect, as might the UN and public groups in the U.S. Aaron wondered whether we might schedule bilateral games—track with the Kenyans, swimming with the Australians, and the like—and it was agreed that these suggestions would be followed-up. (S)

On the remaining issues before the group, it was agreed that we should make clear to the Allies that, aside from political-level contacts, we intended to maintain our basic practice of minimal contacts with the Soviets and hoped they will do the same; State promised an options paper on the issue of debt relief for Pakistan; and all thought it would be useful to press the Allies harder on the NATO defense response to Afghanistan, especially the Belgians and Dutch who were apparently not going to make their three percent defense commitment. (S)

Dr. Brzezinski then reminded the participants that the President had endorsed the following division of labor concepts for coordinating U.S. and Allied contributions to the security of the Persian Gulf region:

1. Most important is that our Allies increase their commitments to NATO’s defense. This is the greatest contribution they can make while the U.S. is building a security system for the Persian Gulf region. (S)

2. Facilitating U.S. enroute access for military contingencies in the region is the next most helpful thing the Allies can contribute. They should be pressed to provide that access. (S)

3. On military exercises and deployments, we should encourage our Allies to go through with those they have already planned but not to do more at this time. (S)

4. We should encourage the British, French, and Australians to improve their rapid deployment capabilities, but we should not encourage them to go beyond their current plan. (S)

5. We should encourage the Allies to expand their security assistance to key regional countries, particularly Turkey, but also Oman, Somalia, Djibouti, and Sudan. We should encourage them to maintain at least the same level of economic aid to Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan and to expand economic aid with the smaller countries in the region. (S)

Finally, David Aaron observed that another matter of transatlantic concern in the next months was CSCE and the CDE. It was agreed that there would be a follow-on to this meeting next week which would discuss how this issue might affect our relations with the Allies and, if required, what steps we should take after the President’s call to Trudeau on Canadian grain exports.⁴ (S)

1. Source: Carter Library, Donated Historical Material, Brzezinski Collection, Brzezinski’s Geographic Files, Box 17, Southwest Asia/Persian Gulf—General (William) Odom’s File: (6/80–9/80). Secret. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room. In the upper right corner, Carter wrote: “Zbig. J.”
2. A report on the June 22–23 Venice Economic Summit is printed in Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, vol. III, Foreign Economic Policy, Document 247. On June 22, the participants at the Summit issued a statement on Afghanistan that called for “a world in which the rule of law is universally obeyed, national independence is respected and world peace is kept.” The statement continued: “We therefore reaffirm hereby that the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan is unacceptable now and that we are determined not to accept it in the future. It is incompatible with the will of the Afghan people for national independence, as demonstrated by their courageous resistance, and with the security of the states of the region. It is also incompatible with the principles of the United Nations Charter and with efforts to maintain genuine détente. It undermines the very foundations of peace, both in the region and in the world at large.” The text of the statement is printed in Public Papers: Carter, 1980–81, Book II, pp. 1170–1171.
3. In the right margin at the end of the paragraph, Carter wrote: “OK—An official cable should also be sent.” No cable was found.
4. At the bottom of the memorandum, Carter wrote: “We must convince the Allies that there will be no business as usual until they help us force the Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. They must face up to this choice. Otherwise, we will all fail, & the Soviets will win this struggle—(They will still have a bear by the tail in Afghanistan). J.”