Office of the Historian

140. Memorandum for the Record by the Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany (Stoessel)1

Bonn, June 16, 1980

SUBJECT

  • Chancellor’s Comments concerning President’s Letter on TNF

I had the opportunity for a brief, private conversation with the Chancellor Friday afternoon, June 13, at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung before he went into the seminar meeting. The Chancellor said he had received a message from the President on TNF and asked if I had seen it. I said I had.2 The Chancellor said that he could not understand why such a message had been sent. He simply did not know why the President would have done such a thing. He thought the President’s message probably had been motivated by the article by Vinocur in The New York Times concerning the Chancellor’s speech at Essen.3

The Chancellor said that he would make a response to the letter which would surprise people.

Following the seminar meeting, I had another brief exchange in private with the Chancellor. I said I hoped he would reflect on the situation before sending his reply to the President. Perhaps it would be good if he could telephone the President. In any case, I suggested that he might want to sleep on the matter before taking action.

The Chancellor said he would do so.4 In any event, he said we should not let all of this spoil the weekend. However, he repeated that he could not understand why such a message had been sent. Moreover, he said he was deeply hurt by the suspicion and mistrust reflected in the President’s letter.

Walter J. Stoessel, Jr.5
Ambassador
  1. Source: Department of State, Stoessel Papers, Lot 82D307, Box 3, Ambassador, Memos for the Record, 1980. Secret; Sensitive. A copy was sent to the DCM.↩
  2. See Document 204. In a June 18 message to Vance, Stoessel wrote: “I wanted to bring to your attention the problem I had last Friday, when I was confronted at lunch by the President’s press spokesman, Klaus Boelling, with the fact that the President had sent a letter on the TNF issue to the Chancellor about which I had no knowledge. Von Staden, the Chancellor’s foreign affairs advisor, subsequently spoke to me about the letter, but I was unable to comment on it. We were successful in our efforts in obtaining a copy of the message from the Department before I saw the Chancellor, who assumed I had known about the letter all along and wanted to talk to me about it.” (Telegram 11506 from Bonn, June 18; National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P900086–1965)↩
  3. Reference is to John Vinocur, “Key Bonn Aide, Backer of U.S., Changing Tone,” New York Times, June 10, 1980, p. A3. See Document 203.↩
  4. Kissinger, who saw Schmidt during the afternoon of June 16, reported to Stoessel that “he had found the Chancellor in a very upset state of mind as a result of the President’s letter. He said that he had been insulted by the first paragraph, which based Washington concern on TNF on newspaper articles. Moreover, the Chancellor had regarded the last part of the second paragraph, which indicated that the U.S. might go public regarding its own position, as a threat.” The Chancellor also told Kissinger that he had decided, at least for the time being, to discuss the matter personally with Carter instead of responding in writing. (Memorandum for the record, June 18; Department of State, Stoessel Papers, Lot 82D307, Box 3, Ambassador: Memos for the Record 1980) Schmidt did write a letter to Carter, which is dated June 16; see AAPBD 1980, Document 175.↩
  5. Stoessel initialed “WS” above thus typed signature.↩