Office of the Historian

110. Summary of Conclusions of a Special Coordination Committee Meeting1

Washington, December 3, 1979, 9–10:15 a.m.

SUBJECT

  • Iran

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Vice President

  • State

    • Secretary Cyrus Vance
    • Warren Christopher
    • Harold Saunders
    • Richard Cooper**

  • Defense

    • Secretary Harold Brown
    • W. Graham Claytor

  • JCS

    • General David Jones
    • General John Pustay

  • CIA

    • Admiral Stansfield Turner
    • Frank Carlucci

  • Energy

    • John Sawhill**

  • Treasury

    • Secretary William Miller**
    • Richard Solomon**
    • Robert Mundheim**

  • Justice

    • John Harmon**

  • White House

    • Hamilton Jordan
    • Stuart Eizenstat**
    • Lloyd Cutler**
    • Jody Powell**
    • Zbigniew Brzezinski
    • David Aaron

  • NSC

    • Colonel William Odom
    • Gary Sick
  • **Present for discussion of domestic issues only

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to Libya.]

4. Libya. The SCC agreed that we should suspend relations with Libya. The American diplomatic staff would be reduced from 12 to 5, no consular duties would be performed, and our diplomats would work out of an Interests Section in another country’s embassy. Depending [Page 278] on the Libyan response, explanation and willingness to compensate, this can be reviewed later.2 (C)

5. Next Steps. The SCC tomorrow will consider a scenario for the diplomatic efforts over the next two or three weeks. It will also examine the longer range objectives and strategy of our relations with Iran.3 (S)

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 106, SCC 217, 12/03/79, Iran. Secret. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room. Minutes of the meeting were not found. Carter initialed and wrote “Zbig” in the upper right-hand corner.↩
  2. Carter checked the Disapprove option and wrote: “Call Libyan Chargé in. Give Khadafi 24 hours to reply satisfactorily to a presidential demand. Then suspend (not break) relations.”↩
  3. The summary of conclusions of the portion of the December 4 Mini-SCC meeting pertaining to Libya noted the following: “Mr. Aaron reported the President’s view that we should call in the Libyan Charge and give him 24 hours to make a satisfactory response. If such a response is not forthcoming, we should suspend relations. State will follow up.” (Carter Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 106, SCC 218, 12/04/79, Iran)↩