62. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Greece1

191589. Subject: Stoessel Mission on Soviet Human Rights Performance: Vatican Meeting. Madrid for Ambassador Kampelman.

1. C—Entire text

2. Summary: Ambassador Stoessel and Assistant Secretary Abrams presented US views on human rights situation in the Soviet Union to Vatican officials. Cardinal Casaroli said that the church agreed with US concerns and the need to continue raising these issues. Casaroli said the Helsinki process was particularly valuable. End summary.

3. Ambassador Stoessel and Assistant Secretary Abrams met July 6 with the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Casaroli and Under Secretary of the Council for Public Affairs of the Church, Archbishop Silvestrini, to explain US views on the Soviet human rights situation and seek the Vatican’s ideas.

4. Ambassador Stoessel outlined the worsening human rights situation in the Soviet Union, particularly the plight of Jews and groups associated with monitoring the Helsinki Accords. He emphasized the President’s concern with these developments and that pursuit of human rights issues is an important part of our policy toward the Soviet Union. Stoessel noted that our approaches to the Soviets on these questions might take various forms but that we considered human rights questions of paramount importance. Now that the Madrid CSCE meeting seemed to be coming to a conclusion, we would not stop raising these issues with the Soviets, but would keep a dialogue alive.

5. Cardinal Casaroli responded that the church agreed completely with the general US approach. He said that public pressure on the [Page 192] Soviets was not all bad, but that sometimes public pressure needed to be combined with private approaches to be most effective. Casaroli observed that approaches to the Soviets on these questions had to be tailored to the situation, and often involved several different tactics. Frequently, a private approach was more effective; in other cases combined public/private pressure seemed to work. The Cardinal said he agreed completely on the overall need to maintain a dialogue on these issues.

6. In this connection, Casaroli said that the Helsinki process had been most useful. He said he disagreed with those who opposed the process and felt that it was valuable to have some objective words for which the Eastern European “totalitarian regimes” must be accountable. The Marxist state’s view of man, he noted, considered the individual a part of a collective, devoid of any personal, individual dignity. This philosophy was directly opposed to the church’s view of man. For this reason, it was necessary to keep these regimes engaged on these issues. At the same time, Casaroli noted that when pressing human rights concerns in Eastern Europe it was necessary to keep our interests in proportion. Assuming our ultimate objective was the avoidance of war, which could be a tragedy for the planet, we had to be careful in raising the expectations of oppressed peoples. Poland, the Cardinal suggested, was a case in point. It was necessary to craft our approaches carefully to have a maximum impact without creating conditions which might contribute to an eruption—an eruption which the West probably would not be a position to support. Ambassador Stoessel agreed with the Cardinal’s observations and assured him that the US was cognizant of these factors and they formed part of our approach.

7. Ambassador Stoessel handed the Cardinal the President’s letter to the Pope,2 expressing the hope that our consultations with the Vatican on human rights matters would continue. Cardinal Casaroli agreed that this would be useful. In an aside to Assistant Secretary Abrams on leaving, Monsignor Silvestrini said that the Vatican raised individual human rights cases with the Soviet Embassy in Rome but with rare success.

8. Ambassador Stoessel has cleared this message.

Planty unquote: Dam

Shultz
  1. Source: Department of State, Soviet Union, 1958–1984, Lot 90D438, Stoessel Mission to Europe, 1983. Confidential. Drafted by Zebatto, cleared in EUR/SOV, and approved by Palmer. Telegram 191589 is repeat of telegram 15755 from Rome, July 15, 1983.
  2. See the attachment to Document 61.