Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XXII, Southeast Asia and the Pacific

296. Record of a Policy Review Committee Meeting¹

Washington, April 21, 1977, 4–5 p.m.

SUBJECT

• Philippine Base Negotiations

PARTICIPANTS

• State:

  • Secretary Cyrus Vance
  • Richard Holbrooke
  • Philip C. Habib

• Defense:

  • Secretary Harold Brown
  • Charles W. Duncan
  • David E. McGiffert
  • Morton Abramowitz

• JCS:

  • General George S. Brown
  • Lt. Gen. William Smith

• CIA:

  • Admiral Stansfield Turner
  • [name not declassified]

• OMB:

  • Edward R. Jayne

• NSC:

  • Zbigniew Brzezinski
  • David Aaron
  • Mike Armacost

Marcos’ Desires

It was agreed that Marcos is not interested in forcing us out of our bases at an early date; that his primary interests are in maximizing the financial quid pro quo and eliciting from us a strong reaffirmation of our defense commitment; and that his demands on both these counts are unrelated to the precise size of our military presence. The Mindinao problem,² moreover, is Marcos’ principal preoccupation at present; until he makes progress in resolving the conflict in the South, he is unlikely to wish to move ahead with the base negotiations. Indeed, he may neither expect nor intend to bring the base negotiations to an early conclusion.

U.S. Military Requirements in the Philippines

There was general agreement that Subic Naval Base remains essential to our ability to project military power into the Southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean and to protect our sea lanes of communication in that region. Retention of Clark Air Base was regarded as “highly desirable”, though all agreed that it would be possible and desirable to achieve some consolidation of our presence at Clark through more efficient management. All participants agreed on the political importance of avoiding major reductions in our presence at this time, given the prospect of ground force withdrawals from Korea and widespread uncertainties in Asia (including Japan and China) concerning our future intentions.

State, Defense, and the NSC agreed that we should seek to retain access to our key facilities; that it would serve our interests in the Philippines and on the Hill to consolidate our base presence to some degree; and that we should “Filipinize” to the extent possible our defense relationship by transferring to Philippine control certain operations such as depot maintenance, and other base service functions. The Defense Department will undertake an assessment of possible reductions at the bases.³

Compensation

President Marcos would prefer a “rental” agreement. The Defense Department feels that the payment of rent as such to an ally is incompatible with the mutuality of interests that presumably underlies the security relationship, and would amount to our paying for the right to defend the Filipinos. In addition, a shift from MAP/FMS to “rent” (which would be included in the Defense budget) could invite unmanageable jurisdictional problems between the Foreign Relations Committee and Armed Services Committee on the Hill. State feels much less strongly about this; considers our MAP as “rent” in essence; and would like to preserve the payment of “rent” as a possibly necessary fallback to achieve an agreement. All agreed that we need to look for possible semantic ways of bridging our differences on this question.

As for the upper limit of our financial offer, it was generally agreed that our chances for reaching an agreement with a lower offer than the last Administration’s are not promising, but that we should examine ways of repackaging the elements of our quid pro quo to possibly induce Marcos to accept lower amounts and/or to elicit Congressional support for the level we offered last year. It was generally agreed that we have a public relations problem here; the U.S. constructed an offer in 1976 which was designed to look big to the Filipinos without imposing a large claim on U.S. grant assistance funds. Congress views it as a bigger package than it actually is. A Defense, State, NSC task force will be organized immediately to put together by June 1 possible compensation packages.

U.S. Defense Commitment

There was general agreement that we cannot accede to Marcos’ desire for a more “automatic” commitment to Philippine defense, and that our interests would not be served by interpreting our treaty obligations in more unequivocal terms in contested areas like the Reed Bank or the Spratly Islands. All agreed that Marcos is unlikely to press us on this issue. Marcos does, however, appear concerned that passage of the War Powers Act⁴ has eroded our commitment. It was agreed that at some point in the negotiation we will need to assure him that our existing commitment still stands even though we cannot extend its coverage or give it greater “automaticity”.

Special Emissary

It was agreed that a special emissary might possibly be utilized to resume the negotiations, and that his task might usefully discuss privately with Marcos such tricky issues as our security commitment, and nuclear weapons transit, in addition to exploring Marcos’ general views on the broader base questions. As for timing, there is no reason for haste; we can afford to let the Filipinos set the pace. We need not think of sending an emissary before July, and we could get a longer reprieve.⁵

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Brzezinski Office File, Country Chron File, Box 39, Philippines, 1977. Top Secret. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room. Carter wrote “C” at the top of the first page.
2. Reference is to the Moro National Liberation Front insurgency; see footnote 14, Document 293.
3. See Document 297.
4. P.L. 93–148, passed on November 7, 1973. (87 Stat. 555)
5. Beneath the final paragraph, Carter wrote, “all OK. J.”