Office of the Historian

163. Minutes of a Senior Interagency Group No. 8 Meeting1

Washington, June 24, 1982, 11:30 a.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • See List Attached2

SUBJECT

  • SIG Meeting on Law of the Sea, June 24

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

The SIG convened to discuss agency views and recommendations on the issues presented in the Report to the President on Law of the Sea.3 Chairman Buckley introduced a draft summary. The paper was discussed line by line. A number of clarifications were agreed to, particularly with regard to Issue 5. It was the chairman’s view, supported [Page 476] by USUN and others, that both courtesy and tactics require some acknowledgement of the urgings of other governments, notwithstanding the SIG’s negative assessment of their eventual usefulness to U.S. objectives. Interior and others expressed reservations that in case such offers yielded only partial results when measured against the President’s six objectives, the U.S. would suffer in meeting its objectives through an alternative seabed arrangement. All participating agencies agreed the U.S. should strengthen high-level efforts to persuade key allies to remain outside the LOS convention and to participate with us in alternative seabed mining arrangements.

Responsibility for revising the paper was assigned to Mr. Guhin of the NSC and Mr. Salmon of State, with others invited to participate as well. Mr. Guhin announced that an NSC meeting on Law of the Sea was being considered for Tuesday, June 29.4

ACTION REQUIREMENTS

1. A drafting group was assigned to revise the paper according to the guidance developed in the SIG meeting.

2. The SIG undertook to circulate the revised paper for final interagency clearance. This was to be done the day of the SIG, with agency clearances requested the following day in time for the final paper to be conveyed to the White House by COB Friday, June 25.5

  1. Source: Reagan Library, Guhin, Michael A.: Files, LOS (Law of the Sea) Follow-On Review (4). Secret. Prepared on June 25.↩
  2. Attached but not printed.↩
  3. See the attachment to Document 162.↩
  4. See Document 165.↩
  5. See Document 164.↩