Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume X, Eastern Europe

408. Telegram From the Embassy in Czechoslovakia to the Department of State¹

2310.

Prague, May 18, 1984, 1412Z

SUBJECT

• Dealing With Czechoslovakia: Implications of Strougal Conversation.

REFS

• Prague 2283² and Previous.

1. S—Entire text.

2. The Strougal outpouring to me was, for this Embassy, a landfall after a very long voyage. Even if it turns out to be a small barren island in this monotonous sea, as it may well, at least it breaks the boring seascape, and sparks the mind. That we have dumped six long telegrams on the Department as a result of this minor event is an indication of how rare it is that we hear anything of note. During my first months in Prague, I was tempted to send a message “There is not now and is not likely to be anything new from this post. This, therefore, is the last message from Prague until there is a change of leadership”.

4. Now we have in Strougal’s comments an opportunity at least marginally interesting:

— He was remarkably critical of recent leadership confusion in Moscow, the heavy influence of “the marshals” there, and the Soviet decisions on INF/START, CEMA and the Olympics.

— He believes that once a “face-saving” formula can be found to get the Soviets back to the negotiating table with the U.S. “they will never leave again”. He thinks he and other EE leaders can be of some help.

— He wants to do something to improve relations with the U.S. and said he has a green light from President Husak to “make up” a plan for me.

5. As I noted in an earlier cable, this was a meeting I do not fully understand or trust. There is an aura of a “Banana Republic” in the way this small Soviet dependency manages what they call a foreign policy. Strougal had been promising to meet with me earlier. It accidentally happened this week. Yet in order to bring a bit more pressure on Moscow, sow a little more knowledge and confusion in the Warsaw Pact, and continue to have access to this unexpectedly candid and well-positioned observer, I hope the Department will support my desire to have something to talk to Strougal about:

— I would like to propose to him in our next meeting, if it ever happens, a summer visit by you, a visit of Paul Nitze or another senior arms control expert, and a subsequent official visit to Washington of a Deputy Foreign Minister—either Johanes or Murin, who received Dobbins—and will be at the UNGA in the fall.

— I would like to offer periodic detailed briefings on international issues like the one I was able to offer him on East-West relations. EUR had prepared, fortuitously just in time, a first-class summary of US-Soviet relations.³ Papers on US-China relations, on nuclear issues, on Southern Africa, on the Middle East, plus a periodic update on US/Soviet relations which are specially tailored for them, even if largely public policy, would allow us to insert into the Warsaw Pact equation some clarity on U.S. policy. Communist leaders like to think they are reading classified U.S. documents.

— I would like to propose to them bilateral discussions in other areas—ecology/pollution (a major problem for them), peaceful uses of nuclear energy (they are beginning a major program with the Soviets which we would like to learn about; it is also one of the very few areas in which we have worked with this government constructively, i.e. at the IAEA), and terrorism (a more controversial area but one that we should, I believe, engage even with these governments).

— I will come to Washington next week with some additional ideas in the trade, scientific and cultural fields. This cable is simply to lay out some of my thinking before we meet on Friday, June 1.⁴

Luers

1. Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Cable File, Europe (State) NODIS IN (04/24/1984–11/30/1983). Secret; Sensitive; Nodis.
2. Telegram 2283 from Prague, May 17, provided a description of Strougal and the tenor of Luers’s May 14 meeting with him. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D840323–0770)
3. Not found.
4. No memorandum of conversation of this meeting was found.