Office of the Historian

148. Memorandum From Robert King of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1

Washington, October 5, 1977

SUBJECT

  • State Department Actions on Returning the Crown and Granting Hungary MFN

In consultation with Ambassador Kaiser from Budapest, who is here until this weekend, State is drafting a lengthy cable of instructions on the procedures for return of the Crown.2 It will specify the assurances which the Hungarians must give on the display of the Crown, our [Page 454] views on the kind of ceremony at which it should formally be handed over, a draft public announcement, and a draft joint US-Hungarian statement to be issued when it is returned. At my suggestion, the date for return and the individual to head the delegation will be left open, but State will send a memo with its suggestions. This cable will come to the NSC for clearance.

A cable is also being drafted directing Ambassador Kaiser to undertake with Foreign Minister Puja a discussion of the assurances that must be received from the Hungarian government in order to satisfy Jackson-Vanik requirements.3 (This cable will also require NSC clearance.) He will attempt to get these assurances by the first of November. Meanwhile, agency assignments for a draft trade agreement with Hungary have been made and are to be completed by mid-October. Interagency clearances and consultations are to take place afterward with a view to starting negotiations with the Hungarians on the trade agreement in December.

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 27, Hungary: 1–12/77. Secret. Sent for information. Brzezinski wrote at the bottom of the memorandum, “Give me a history of the Crown, how it was stored before the war, what annual honors—religious or political—was it paid, etc?” King replied on October 12, summarizing two lengthy studies prepared by the Office of the Legal Adviser, one in 1971 and the other in 1977. (Ibid.) The 1971 study is in the Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Europe, USSR, and East/West, Hunter Subject File, Box 14, Hungary: Crown of St. Stephen: 2/76–3/77. The June 15, 1977, study is in the Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Europe, USSR, and East/West, Hunter Subject File, Box 14, Hungary: Crown of St. Stephen: 4–6/77.↩
  2. See Document 150.↩
  3. See Document 149.↩