Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XXVII, Western Europe

141. Letter From the Director of the Office for Central European Affairs (Niles) to the Ambassador to the Fedral Republic of Germany (Stoessel)¹

Washington, June 17, 1980

Dear Mr. Ambassador:

For the record and as a measure of self-protection, I wanted to give you my best account of the way in which the President’s June 12 letter to the Chancellor on TNF took form and how the various elements in the Washington bureaucracies performed during this process.² It was not, as you will see below, our finest hour.

As background, I should recall that there exists in the NSC and the White House an enormous reservoir of suspicion of the Chancellor’s objectives and his attitude toward the United States. For all I know, this goes back to the Chancellor’s endorsement of President Ford’s reelection in 1976. In any event, the Chancellor’s April statements on TNF provoked grave suspicion and distrust in the NSC and among some offices in this building regarding his intentions. During the intervening period, some of this feeling dissipated as the Chancellor and the FRG bureacracy walked the TNF position back to the point where there did not appear to be too much light between what he was saying and Washington orthodoxy. The New York Times article of June 10 by John Vinocur set the whole process churning again.³ Vinocur’s article concentrated on Genscher’s alleged leap away from positions espoused by the United States, but at the end of the article on Genscher there was an additional piece on Schmidt’s June 9 SPD convention speech which claimed that he had returned fully to the position he took April 12–13 in Hamburg and Essen on TNF.⁴ Bob Blackwill and Jim Thompson set to work drafting the letter from the President, and Bob suggested to George Vest that we consider doing a letter from the Secretary to Genscher. George urged that we wait until we had the full text of what was actually said at Freiburg and Essen, but the NSC proceeded with its drafting exercise. In the meantime, Senator Biden met with the Secretary and Christopher prior to his visit to Bonn. My reporting cable on that discussion (State 153085) distinctly underplayed the expressions of concern regarding German policy voiced by both the Secretary and Christopher, who were armed at the meeting with Xeroxed copies of Vinocur’s article.⁵

On June 11, the NSC draft appeared in this building, with PM having action at least in the first instance. I am enclosing for your information a copy of a memorandum from Reg Bartholomew to the Secretary which commends this draft, with some reservations.⁶ To Reg’s credit I must note that he did make the point that we should wait to see exactly what the Chancellor said in Essen before going ahead with the letter.⁷ At about the same time, Genscher called the Secretary to reassure him regarding his positions on Afghanistan, detente and TNF and to pass along the subsequently aborted proposal that the Islamic Conference Committee meet with the Summit participants in Venice June 21–22 (see enclosed memorandum from Arne Raphel on this aspect of the call).⁸ Subsequent to that conversation, I was instructed to do a message from the Secretary to Genscher which eventually went out in State 156863.⁹

The next act in the drama was the June 11 Muskie-Brown- Brzezinski lunch at which the NSC draft was reviewed. We had alerted the Secretary to this possibility and proposed that he simply pocket whatever draft Brzezinski presented and agree to get back to the NSC with comments. Unfortunately, the Secretary did not follow this course of action but rather engaged in a redrafting exercise with Brown and Brzezinski which naturally established a certain commitment on his part to the concept of a letter and to the text which emerged from the lunch. Later that afternoon when we learned of this development, Steve Ledogar and I were asked by George Vest to develop a counterdraft. This was at about 6:00 p.m. on June 11, and at that point Steve went to work. Shortly thereafter, however, we learned that the NSC draft, as revised by the three principals at lunch, was “on the President’s desk for his approval.” At this point George went up to the 8th Floor where the Secretary’s reception for the Diplomatic Corps was in process, talked to Warren Christopher who then took the Secretary aside and urged that the Department intervene with Brzezinski to stop the process. The Secretary agreed that we were moving in an unfortunate direction and asked Christopher to call Brzezinski, which he did. My understanding is that Brzezinski agreed to see what could be done but made no promises. We must remember, of course, that the President was looking at Brzezinski’s draft so one might question how actively Brzezinski intervened with him. In any case, the next morning when George and I were upstairs to see Christopher regarding preparations for the meeting with van Well June 16,¹⁰ we were given by Jerry Bremer a copy of Brzezinski’s LDX of what the President decided to send to Schmidt. I am also enclosing a copy of this document which is interesting because it shows exactly how the President revised the draft letter.¹¹

This more or less closes out the story of the June 12 letter. The letter I did for the Secretary to send to Genscher finally went out Friday morning and was delivered by the Embassy on Saturday.¹² I am not sure what the lessons of this episode are for those of us here in Washington. One obvious conclusion is that for the time being the Secretary is at a distinct disadvantage in his one-to-one contacts with Brzezinski since the latter has so much more detailed familiarity with the issues. Another conclusion is that we must be more alert to initiatives of this type at an early stage and come down hard on them if we are to have any chance of heading them off.

Sincerely,

Thomas M. T. Niles¹³

1. Source: Department of State, Stoessel Papers, Lot 82D307, Box 3, Classified Chron File 1980. Secret; Official-Informal. A stamp at the top of the page reads: “June 27, 1980.” Below the date, Stoessel wrote: “MvH = to read, WS,” an apparent reference to Van Heuven.
2. Reference to Document 204, a copy of which is attached but not printed.
3. Reference is to John Vinocur, “Key Bonn Aide, Backer of U.S., Changing Tone,” New York Times, June 10, 1980, p. A3.
4. Reference is to “Schmidt Urges Missile Freeze,” New York Times, June 10, 1980, p. A3.
5. Regarding telegram 153085 to Bonn, June 10, see footnote 1, Document 206.
6. A memorandum from Bartholomew to Vance entitled “TNF Discussion at Your Lunch With Harold and Zbig Today,” June 11, is attached but not printed. In the memorandum, Bartholomew wrote: “The luncheon will have to address two issues: a) whether we publicly disavow Schmidt’s ‘freeze’ proposal on TNF deployments and b) whether a Presidential letter and/or diplomatic approaches should be used to inform Schmidt.”
7. In a June 10 memorandum to Muskie, Bartholomew wrote: “Schmidt may have done it to us again on TNF with a speech on TNF in Essen in which he called for NATO and the Soviets to mutually refrain from TNF deployments for the next three years. Zbig plans to have a Presidential letter ready for the three of you to review at the MBB. The letter will contain the threat of an explicit public dissociation from Schmidt’s proposals unless he backs off. While we think a letter may be a good idea, we believe you should tell Zbig you will want to have the letter reviewed and will get back to him soon with our comments after we have had a chance to read the text of Schmidt’s speech.” (Department of State, Vance Papers, Lot 84D241, Box 2, Hold for CV 1978)
8. A memorandum from Arnold Raphel to Christopher, Newsom, Saunders, and Tarnoff, June 11, is attached but not printed.
9. Telegram 156863 to Bonn, June 13, noted that Genscher had called Muskie on June 11 to express his concerns about press coverage of his June 5 speech to the FDP convention, that the Department’s review of Genscher’s speech showed that Vinocur’s June 10 article overstated the change in Genscher’s position, and transmitted Muskie’s message to Genscher. In his message, Muskie wrote: “I fully share your desire that we not allow inaccurate press reporting to cause problems and misunderstandings in our bilateral relations,” indicated concerns about U.S.-German differences over Afghanistan, and suggested that they “seek to reach a common understanding during our meetings in Venice and Ankara.” (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D800290–0284)
10. On June 16, Christopher and Van Well met in Rome with their colleagues from other G–7 countries to prepare the political discussions at the Venice G–7 Summit. (Telegram 150775 to Bonn, London, Ottawa, Paris, Rome, and Tokyo, June 7; National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D800279–0626) That evening, Christopher, Vest, Gardner, and Blackwill met with Van Well and Von Staden for a working dinner to discuss U.S.-German differences over Afghanistan and TNF. (Telegram 15861 from Rome, June 18; National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P870047–0247)
11. The draft letter from Carter to Schmidt, June 11, is attached but not printed. The annotations to Document 204 indicate Carter’s changes to the draft.
12. Friday, June 13 and Saturday June 14. Regarding Muskie’s letter, see footnote 9, above. Telegram 160224 from Bonn, June 17, conveyed Genscher’s response to Muskie, in which Genscher wrote: “I gladly take up your proposal for points to be discussed in Venice and Ankara. It will be seen on that occasion that we are not divided on any question of importance.” (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D800295–0566)
13. Niles signed “Tom” above this typed signature. At the bottom of the letter, he wrote: “I am distinctly unhappy about this episode and my role therein. I’m sorry we weren’t able to do our jobs here more effectively. T.”