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enchantment with the USSR proposals among the agencies, OEP and CIEP. It would seem quite possible that the energy message may be drafted in language which while perhaps not precluding Soviet gas deals will make them even more difficult to realize-should the President wish to have such deals considered sympathetically for reasons broader than U.S. energy considerations alone. I recommend that you advise Peter Flanigan that you would like to review the energy policy message as soon as it is in draft form." (Ibid.) Kissinger signed an attached memorandum to Flanigan, dated December 23, asking "to review a draft of the proposed Presidential message on energy policy, as well as any other related draft documents planned for release with the message."

Additional documentation on U.S. involvement in the Yakutsk and North Star Projects is in Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, volume XXXVI, Energy Crisis, 1969-1974.

Summit Preparations; Jackson-Vanik
Amendment; Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons,
December 1972-April 1973

70.

Memorandum From Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the National
Security Council Staff to the President's Assistant for
National Security Affairs (Kissinger)1

Washington, December 15, 1972.

SUBJECT

Your Next Meeting with Dobrynin

SALT

The talks are to recess next week. There is an ad referendum agreement to resume February 27 but this awaits your approval.

The only concrete result will be a memorandum on the Standing Consultative Committee (SCC). This also awaits your approval. (Smith has wired you separately on it.)2 Guidelines for regulations governing the operations of the SCC are hung up with the agencies here but we hope to get this straightened out before the recess. If not, the memorandum alone could be signed. There also will be a broadly-phrased work program.

Substantively, the talks are really deadlocked over our insistence that we concentrate on equal aggregates in central systems (including throw weight) and Soviet insistence that we in effect not tamper with the interim agreement but add on to it a series of measures affecting FBS, submarine operations and aircraft armaments.

The Soviets have talked to Smith about the possibility of some additional interim agreement(s) for the next summit but it is not clear

1 Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 67, Country Files-Europe-USSR, Map Room, Aug. 1972-May 1973 [1 of 3]. Confidential; Sensitive; Eyes Only. A handwritten note at the top of the memorandum reads: “Map Room, Breakfast, Dec. 16, 1972, 8:30 a.m." According to Kissinger's Record of Schedule, he met with Dobrynin in the Map Room from 8:42 to 9:50 a.m. on December 16. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 438, Miscellany, 1967-76) No other record of Kissinger's conversation with Dobrynin has been found.

2 Smith's backchannel messages to Kissinger regarding the SCC, SALT 56 and 58, December 14 and 15, are in the National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 427, Backchannel, SALT, 1972. The draft memorandum of understanding establishing the SCC, transmitted in telegram 65 from the SALT II delegation, is ibid., Box 888, SALT TWO I—(Geneva), November 21, 1972–March 1973.

what measures they have in mind other than those with clearly detrimental effects for us.

The Soviets, I believe, owe you a reaction to your written response to the paper Dobrynin gave you some weeks ago,3 and the contents of which they have since put on the table in Geneva.

There has been some probing by Soviet delegates on qualitative restraints (MIRVs) but no initiative-indeed, the inference has been left that we should make the proposals.

It seems to me that since you have already left the message that there may be some bargaining room on matters of Soviet concern if they show flexibility on what bothers us, you should stand pat for now. I would judge that the Soviets feel some pressure to come up with potential deals for the Brezhnev visit (whenever that may in fact occur) and that we should be relaxed in this regard for now. Our message on central systems should stand undiluted as the Soviet leaders gather for their anniversary celebration.1

Other Arms Control

You should have a separate memo on the list of possible agreements that you have previously discussed. None look immediately promising to me except something on chemical weapons. But we have put on a work program to reexamine all the items. If Dobrynin refers to these matters, you may want to tell him that we are looking at them very carefully and hope they are doing so also and that the area of chemical weapons may be more promising than the others.

CSCE

The preparatory meeting in Helsinki recessed today for a month. There has been much fencing about whether discussion of an agenda for the conference should come before settling the date, place and mo

3 The Soviet note on SALT, handed to Kissinger by Dobrynin on October 24, outlined the Soviets' understanding of the goals that the Americans and Soviets hoped to achieve through SALT. Kissinger's response, handed to Dobrynin on November 14, provided an overview of Soviet and American goals to be discussed in the forthcoming SALT negotiations. Both notes are ibid., Box 495, President's Trip Files, Dobrynin/Kissinger, Vol. 14.

* On December 21, the leaders of the Warsaw Pact gathered in Moscow to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the USSR.

5 On December 15, Philip Odeen of the NSC Staff forwarded Kissinger a memorandum on "arms control and the summit." It addressed SALT issues, specifically ABM deferral and offensive restraints, additional bilateral issues, and multilateral issues, including nuclear test bans and limits on chemical weapons. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 67, Country Files-Europe USSR, Map Room, Aug. 1972-May 1973 [2 of 3])

dalities of a conference. The Soviets want the latter done first; NATO the former. The Soviets have played up to our delegation to some extent but right now there is no special US-Soviet problem. A progress report is at Tab A.6

MBFR

The Soviets owe the Western countries a reply to their invitations for the January preliminary talks' and it is assumed that this will be forthcoming after the Communist summit in Moscow next week. There may be some haggling over participants (we have the formula concerning rotating flank participation) but otherwise the January talks seem to be on the rails. The Soviets did recently approach the State Department with a request for some of our MBFR studies to help them in theirs. State will reject this. It is of course tricky because of the enormous Allied sensitivities about US-Soviet deals. It will be interesting to see if you get an echo from Dobrynin on this point. If you do, we might actually consider giving Vorontsov a general feel for some of our work, perhaps after the January talks.

Bilateral Issues

(Note: If you have not been in touch with Peterson today, you may want to get a fill-in on his meeting with Dobrynin on Dec. 14.)9

1) US-USSR Trade Policy. With the President's replacement of Peter Peterson and promotion of Jim Lynn, the Soviets are watching closely for any changes in US trade policy toward the USSR. We have told State to advise Embassy Moscow that should Patolichev or any other member of the Soviet hierarchy raise the subject they should be told that no change in US policy is anticipated and that US Chairmanship of the Joint Trade Commission after Secretary Peterson leaves will be subject to Presidential determination.

Dobrynin may want your views on the mood of the Congress and the President's plans with regard to MFN for the USSR. (Kosygin, as you know, raised this with Senator Humphrey, and in discussing MFN with Patolichev and Arbatov, Humphrey said that the Jackson Amend

6 Attached but not printed is a December 14 memorandum from Eliot to Kissinger.

7

On November 15, Beam presented the U.S. invitation to the Soviet Union for MBFR talks, based on a common text approved by the North Atlantic Council, to begin on January 31, 1973. (Telegram 4701 from the USNATO, November 10; National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, DEF 6 EUR) For more on the invitation, see Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, volume XXXIX, European Security, Document 119.

8 The request was not found.

9 No record of the meeting was found.

ment reflecting concern over the issue of Jewish Exit Fees was not an electoral issue that would go away.)10

-You should say that the President still plans to submit MFN legislation early in the new session of the Congress.

-Add that the Exit Fee issue is taken very seriously on the Hill, that anything the Soviets can do to ease the concerns of the Congress in this regard can only be expected to help the prospects for MFN passage.

2) Natural Gas. You have my memoranda of December 12 & 14 on the status of the US-USSR natural gas proposals and the problems being encountered." We have told the USSR that we hope to complete the deliberations of our interagency task force on Soviet gas projects by the end of January 1973. Accordingly, Dobrynin may inquire as to the current US position. (Again, this is an issue which Kosygin raised with Humphrey.)

--Tell Dobrynin that the issue is still under consideration; because of the complexities involved you would not want to commit yourself to a specific deadline.

-Say that the Administration is currently reviewing the overall energy policy of the United States and that this involves many considerations in addition to those directly related to the US-USSR gas proposals, further complicating the picture.

-(Note: I do not think you should be overly optimistic at this point about an early, favorable governmental decision with regard to billions of dollars of monetary backing for the US companies interested in developing Soviet gas resources.)

3) Grain Deal. Four US ships loaded with wheat are currently enroute to Odessa. Dobrynin may remind you of the private understanding with regard to the Maritime Agreement12—i.e., that we would be ready to reconsider the question of Soviet ships being permitted to call at Cuba before coming to the United States to pick up wheat.13 Should he do so, attempt to discourage early action on this.

-Say that the maritime agreement is just in the process of being implemented, that it might be a mistake to consider the possibilities of

10 On October 4, Senator Jackson introduced an amendment that would block implementation of key portions of the U.S. Soviet trade agreement unless the Soviet Union rescinded the high exit fees imposed on Jewish emigrants. See "Senate Plan Bars Credits if Soviet Retains Exit Fees," The New York Times, October 5, 1972, p. 97. Senator Humphrey and a Congressional delegation visited Moscow at the end of November to explore Soviet-American trade. See "Kosygin Turns Down Appeal on Emigration Tax by Humphrey Group in Moscow," ibid., December 2, 1972, p. 14.

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