DEPARTMENT OF STATE OFFICE OF THE HISTORIAN BUREAU OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office ISBN 978-0-16-079136-9 Preface The Foreign Relations of the United States series presents the official documentary historical record of major foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity of the United States Government. The Historian of the Department of State is charged with the responsibility for the preparation of the Foreign Relations series. The staff of the Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, under the direction of the General Editor of the Foreign Relations series, plans, researches, compiles, and edits the volumes in the series. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg first promulgated official regulations codifying specific standards for the selection and editing of documents for the series on March 26, 1925. These regulations, with minor modifications, guided the series through 1991. Public Law 102-138, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, established a new statutory charter for the preparation of the series which was signed by President George H.W. Bush on October 28, 1991. Section 198 of P.L. 102–138 added a new Title IV to the Department of State's Basic Authorities Act of 1956 (22 U.S.C. 4351, et seq.). The statute requires that the Foreign Relations series be a thorough, accurate, and reliable record of major United States foreign policy decisions and significant United States diplomatic activity. The volumes of the series should include all records needed to provide comprehensive documentation of major foreign policy decisions and actions of the United States Government. The statute also confirms the editing principles established by Secretary Kellogg: the Foreign Relations series is guided by the principles of historical objectivity and accuracy; records should not be altered or deletions made without indicating in the published text that a deletion has been made; the published record should omit no facts that were of major importance in reaching a decision; and nothing should be omitted for the purposes of concealing a defect in policy. The statute also requires that the Foreign Relations series be published not more than 30 years after the events recorded. The editor is convinced that this volume meets all regulatory, statutory, and scholarly standards of selection and editing. Structure and Scope of the Foreign Relations Series This volume is part of a subseries of volumes of the Foreign Reiations series that documents the most important issues in the foreign policy of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. This volume documents U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union from October 1970 to October 1971, ending with the announcement of the May 1972 Moscow summit between President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. Focus of Research and Principles of Selection for Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume XIII This volume continues the practice established in the previous Foreign Relations volume on U.S.-Soviet relations and focuses on the relationship in the global context, highlighting the conflicts and collaboration between the two superpowers on foreign policy issues from October 1970 to October 1971. Beginning with the confrontation over the construction of a Soviet military base in Cuba, the volume documents the development of the Nixon administration's policy of détente and the crucial role of the private channel between Henry Kissinger, the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. The backchannel was key to making progress on the most problematic issues in U.S.-Soviet relations: Berlin, the war in Indochina, strategic arms limitation talks, Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, and trade. It also allowed the two nations to avoid conflict and to cooperate on managing crises around the world, such as the Middle East dispute and the IndoPakistani conflict. The Nixon administration's opening to China, beginning with Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing in July 1971 and the subsequent announcement of Nixon's visit to China, was a policy decision that required careful handling in the context of U.S.-Soviet relations. This volume documents the discussions within the administration of the impact on the relationship of the initiative, as well as Kissinger's management of that impact in his discussions with Dobrynin. As Kissinger's prestige and importance to the superpower relationship grew, the Department of State was increasingly sidelined in the formulation and execution of U.S. policy in significant foreign affairs issues. The discussions between Nixon and Kissinger, many captured in Presidential tape recordings, on how to handle Secretary of State William Rogers's attempts to reassert the Department's authority are among the documents in the volume. The volume also includes documentation on the internal and bilateral negotiations for the timing of a visit by Nixon to the Soviet Union and ends with the public announcement in October 1971 of the May 1972 summit between Nixon and Brezhnev, the first U.S.-Soviet summit since 1967. The era of détente and cooperation between the superpowers had begun. Editorial Methodology The documents are presented chronologically according to Washington time. Memoranda of conversation are placed according to the time and date of the conversation, rather than the date the memorandum was drafted. Editorial treatment of the documents published in the Foreign Relations series follows Office style guidelines, supplemented by guidance from the General Editor and the chief technical editor. The documents are reproduced as exactly as possible, including marginalia or other notations, which are described in the footnotes. Texts are transcribed and printed according to accepted conventions for the publication of historical documents within the limitations of modern typography. A heading has been supplied by the editor for each document included in the volume. Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are retained as found in the original text, except that obvious typographical errors are silently corrected. Other mistakes and omissions in the documents are corrected by bracketed insertions: a correction is set in italic type; an addition in roman type. Words or phrases underlined in the source text are printed in italics. Abbreviations and contractions are preserved as found in the original text, and a list of abbreviations is included in the front matter of each volume. Bracketed insertions are also used to indicate omitted text that deals with an unrelated subject (in roman type) or that remains classified after declassification review (in italic type). The amount and, where possible, the nature of the material not declassified has been noted by indicating the number of lines or pages of text that were omitted. Entire documents withheld for declassification purposes have been accounted for and are listed with headings, source notes, and number of pages not declassified in their chronological place. All brackets that appear in the original text are so identified in footnotes. All ellipses are in the original documents. The first footnote to each document indicates the source of the document, original classification, distribution, and drafting information. This note also provides the background of important documents and policies and indicates whether the President or his major policy advisers read the document. Editorial notes and additional annotation summarize pertinent material not printed in the volume, indicate the location of additional documentary sources, provide references to important related documents printed in other volumes, describe key events, and provide summaries of and citations to public statements that supplement and elucidate the printed documents. Information derived from memoirs and other first-hand accounts has been used when appropriate to supplement or explicate the official record. The numbers in the index refer to document numbers rather than to page numbers. |