FM Gromyko: The result would have been the same. But yes, it would have been more difficult.

Where were you during the war?

Dr. Kissinger: I was in a very lowly position. First in the Infantry then in the Counter Intelligence Corps. In Hannover during the occupation I put up a poster that all of those who were interested in police work should come to us. So one day a man came to me, and I said "What were you doing during the war?" He said, "I was with the Staatspolizei." I didn't think this was significant, so I said jokingly, "The Geheime Staatspolizei? He said, "Sure!" So I arrested him. He was very hurt. He said, "What do I have to do to show you that I really want to work for you?" I said, "Tell me who your colleagues are." He said, "Sure." So he went out and rounded up 45 of his Gestapo colleagues! I was decorated for this but I didn't do any of the work; I just gave him a driver and a police escort. Most of them were not Nazi, he said. And I believe him. It just shows their bureaucratic mentality.

FM Gromyko: What rank did you have?

Dr. Kissinger: I was a Sergeant when the war ended.

Ambassador Dobrynin: You would have been a General but unfortunately the end of the war intervened!

What is your protocol rank now?

Dr. Kissinger: I am equivalent to an Under Secretary. I could have it changed but it is not worth it.

Ambassador Dobrynin: If you go to Vietnam you could be a four-star General.

Dr. Kissinger: Anatoliy is always trying to get me to go to Vietnam. Ambassador Dobrynin: In Vietnam if you were going to be a member of the Coalition Government the North Vietnamese would drop their proposals for a Coalition Government.

Dr. Kissinger: Each side can appoint whomever it wants! This is North Vietnamese technique, seriously; even when we agree on some points they never agree on any agreed language; they always come up with some entirely new document with new language which we have never seen before. It makes it impossible to agree on anything or to make any progress.

Ambassador Dobrynin: No, Henry, I have always meant to explain this to you. What they are trying to do is to come up with a paper that you will look at and then accept all at once. Now you always have to think it over so long.

Dr. Kissinger: This is the decisive stage in the negotiation.

Ambassador Dobrynin: What will happen?

Dr. Kissinger: We will make one more serious effort.

[The Foreign Minister began speaking in Russian.]

Europe

FM Gromyko: On the question of the rights of the four powers, the formula that our Ambassador received from you [U.S. draft of September 18, Tab A]10 is something that simply cannot be discussed. It cannot be discussed. I can't imagine who it was prepared for. Let's agree this way! With regard to the admission of the two Germanies to the United Nations-this is why the matter of rights and responsibilities was raised in the first place11-the matter of rights and responsibilities simply is not touched upon; it does not arise. This is the best formula for us and for you. So as not to create the impression that it was discussed. Otherwise someone might develop a taste for reviewing these matters, and in some years from now they may want to review them.

Dr. Kissinger: I don't understand. How does it differ from what you said?

Ambassador Dobrynin: Yours said [shows copy of Soviet text handed over in Moscow, Tab B]12-it mentions all sorts of things about a peace settlement and unification and so forth.

Dr. Kissinger: Unification? Where does it say that? Peace settlement? We can take that out. [He puts brackets around the clause "which they retain pending a peace settlement for Germany"].

FM Gromyko: First, the word "Germany" is mentioned. We do not know such a phenomenon. Second, a peace treaty is mentioned; this cannot be. Third, everything is in terms of whether these rights exist or they do not exist, whether we respect rights or do not respect them. We think all three points are not justified. We should not create the impression that this is being discussed, or else three or five years from now someone will develop a taste to take up the matter of rights and responsibilities.

10 Attached but not printed at Tab A is the U.S. draft which reads: "The governments of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States and France... have agreed to support the application for UN membership when submitted by the FRG and GDR and to affirm in this connection that such membership shall in no way affect or change the four power rights and responsibilities, which they retain pending a peace settlement for Germany, or the agreements, decisions and practices and procedures which relate to them." Kissinger bracketed the phrase, “which they retain pending a peace settlement for Germany."

11 Reference to the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin, signed September 3, 1971, by the United States, USSR, France, and the United Kingdom. The negotiations that preceded the agreement dealt with the status of West Berlin and access to and from the city. For documentation pertaining to the Berlin negotiations, see Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XL, Germany and Berlin, 1969–1972, Documents 136 and 215. For the text of the Quadripartite Agreement, see Documents on Germany, 1944–1985, pp. 1135–1143.

12 Attached but not printed. The text is contained in Document 44.

Dr. Kissinger: I can see your point with respect to the clause "which they retain pending a peace settlement for Germany." Two of your points apply to this clause; that can be deleted. Let me tell you that the main operational difference between your version and our version, in our mind, was that we added the phrase about practices and procedures to the clause about rights and responsibilities. That was the important part for us. Your third point is about whether we should affirm these rights and responsibilities at all. On this there is a difference of opinion. The reason we feel we must have it is because by entrance into the United Nations the GDR acquires a character of sovereignty which up to now we have not admitted, and transit rights across a sovereign country are not the same as transit rights across a country whose sovereignty we did not admit.

FM Gromyko: But the strongest possible guarantee of your and the British and the French position is our wording "does not affect the question of."

Dr. Kissinger: The real difference is that our version says, “does not affect the rights." Your version says, "does not affect the question of the rights."

FM Gromyko: The difference is that ours does not imply anything

about substance.

Dr. Kissinger: I would say just the opposite. To affirm the rights is not to detract from them. The implication of yours is that the question is still open. So sometime in the future or someone-for example your German allies-could take advantage of this. If you affirm that it does not affect the rights and the responsibilities, then the only question open is what are these rights. The answer is in the Berlin Agreement.

FM Gromyko: But we are saying that the question can never be raised. In connection with UN membership. The phrase “does not affect [nye zatragivayetsa] is in the sense of is" not involved."

Dr. Kissinger: What is your objection to the other language? FM Gromyko: It means that we are discussing the question of rights and admit the possibility of changing them.

Dr. Kissinger: I understand. It is an interesting point. Let me think. Now if we agreed to drop this clause about a peace settlement and if we agreed to add the phrase "the question of," would you agree to add the phrase about practices and procedures?

Ambassador Dobrynin: Why do you need that? What does it

mean?

Dr. Kissinger: If it is not affected, what difference does it make? Of course, this whole thing has already been discussed with our allies and we will have to discuss it again. Now if we take your phrase we are

saying that the whole complex of the Berlin machinery is not affected. Is that right?

FM Gromyko: The whole question is not affected.

Dr. Kissinger: That I am willing to concede. But we will place great stress on this phrase with respect to what has developed in the body of arrangements on Berlin. I can understand that you don't want to affirm them individually, but we need some reference to the whole body.

FM Gromyko: But which "procedures"? Several questions arise from this phrase. Do you mean multilateral, bilateral?

Dr. Kissinger: But all we are saying is that they cannot be challenged on the basis of UN membership. We are not codifying them for all eternity. Our concern is not to create new pressures as a result of voting for UN membership.

FM Gromyko: Maybe we will give thought to it.

Dr. Kissinger: We will give thought to it. We ought to handle it like the Berlin thing. I understand your point exactly, and I think you understand mine. I'll talk to Stoessel. We will give you a document which you won't find acceptable, but we will agree ahead of time on how it will come out.

FM Gromyko: When can we get a final result?

Dr. Kissinger: What I have given you is what the allies want. We will try to nudge them in the direction of what you want. Would you consider something like "procedures, decisions and practices?"—we'll leave out "procedures"-if we dropped out the clause about peace settlement and added "the question of"?

FM Gromyko: It creates difficulties for us.

13

Dr. Kissinger: What I am proposing will create difficulties for me too. Home13 came to me and you told him that you didn't think any declaration at all was required. Or so he thought you meant. He said to me Britain would not go along unless there was some declaration that rights and responsibilities were not affected. I will talk to Stoessel tonight and tell him what we want. I wanted it to develop more slowly, but let's get it done. I don't think we can do less than what I have told you. We can insert the phrase "question of," but we need "decisions and practices."

FM Gromyko: What decisions? Joint decisions?

Dr. Kissinger: Yes.

FM Gromyko: Decisions of the four parties?

13

Sir Alec Douglas-Home, British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

Dr. Kissinger: That's right. You will still get a document that looks a bit different. Then we will handle it like the Berlin negotiation. You make a counter proposal.

FM Gromyko: Not unilateral decisions, just multilateral decisions.
Dr. Kissinger: Right.

FM Gromyko: Why do you want to lay yourselves at a future time open to some review?

Dr. Kissinger: I don't. All I am doing is to describe the body that cannot be reviewed, if we put in "question of."

FM Gromyko: Then it is "the question of the rights, responsibilities, agreements, decisions and practices is not involved."

Dr. Kissinger: Right.

FM Gromyko: Please think it over.

Jackson Amendment

Dr. Kissinger: Ziegler made a statement today about the Jackson Amendment.14 I will send it to you. The question we had asked was, does the President's signing of the Jackson Resolution mean it is now obligatory? He said, no. The obligatory part is the treaty signed by the President and General-Secretary Brezhnev. The Jackson Amendment is advisory, but of course we will take it very seriously. [Ziegler text at Tab C]15

Ambassador Dobrynin: This was a lot of trouble. Why do you think Jackson did it?

Dr. Kissinger: Well, because he wants to be a candidate in 1976. And also he had a commitment to parts of the ABM.

Nuclear Understanding

FM Gromyko: Now the nuclear.

Dr. Kissinger: I told Anatoliy that your allies in Asia are unhappy with your UN initiative.16 They will like this even less. I haven't asked their opinion.

14

4 On September 25, the Senate approved the Interim Agreement on SALT, along with a revised version of the Jackson Amendment (see footnote 2, Document 23). The White House endorsed Jackson's amendment after he modified it by omitting the provision permitting U.S. abrogation of the agreement if any Soviet action threatened the U.S. nuclear deterrent. The White House and Jackson agreed to a substitute provision that if a U.S.-Soviet treaty on offensive nuclear arms was not negotiated by 1977, the United States could repudiate the Interim Agreement—a position that the administration had previously supported. (Congress and the Nation, Vol. III., 1969–1972, p. 897)

15 Attached but not printed is the transcript of Ron Ziegler's October 2 White House press conference. Ziegler stated: "The Jackson Amendment, as you know, and as we have discussed here before, is advisory in nature and will be, of course, taken into account seriously in the U.S. preparation of the SALT II phase, but it does not become a part of the interim agreement which was signed by the President."

16 See Document 52.