Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXIX, Eastern Europe; Eastern Mediterranean, 1969–1972

45. Memorandum From Helmut Sonnenfeldt of the National Security Council Staff to the Presidentʼs Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)¹

Washington, July 17, 1970.

SUBJECT

• Scheel Visit—Radio Free Europe

Although it is unlikely that this subject will come up, you may want to consider pulling Scheel aside at some point to impress on him the Presidentʼs personal interest in the radios and our strong hope that this will not become a bone of contention between us.

Background

As you know, Fred Valtin of CIA has been in Germany and has had a round of talks with various Germans.

It is very clear that Bahr and Ehmke want to get the radios out. It isnʼt clear yet whether they have talked to Brandt and if so what his view is. But it takes very little imagination to believe that he can be persuaded that over time the existence of the radios is incompatible with his policy of reconciliation with the East.

The fact that Ahlers and Spangenberg (Heinemannʼs chef de cabinet) oppose Bahr and Ehmke gives us little to lean on. Ahlers himself is a very ambivalent character as regards his attitude toward us and Spangenberg is a decent enough but rather opaque type. Heinemann in any case is a superdove. In any event, it is Bahr and Ehmke who sit at the Palais Schaumburg and have direct access to Brandt.

The Foreign Office, whose influence is negligible, except to the extent that Brandt needs Scheel to preserve the viability of his coalition, wants to avoid a confrontation with us. They also accept, as indeed do Bahr and Ehmke, that the radios should not be made a bargaining element between the FRG and the Poles in any explicit way. Duckwitz, although now retired but still in charge of the negotiations with the Poles, recently assured Fessenden that the Germans will not entertain any Polish effort to put RFE on the agenda for the next round of the Polish-German negotiations. Evidently, judging from the attached talk between Ambassador Michalowski and Ted Weintal (Tab A),² the Poles do not intend to do so either. But what they do intend to do is to make removal of RFE a precondition for the next round, after the Oder-Neisse is settled, for a “genuine” normalization of relations.

My hunch is that what Bahr will do is to whisper to his Eastern friends that if they do not raise the question formally, he will take care of it in his own way.

The problem with linking the radios to our troop presence³ is this: in order to maintain the fiction that the radios are private organizations, we gave the Germans the right to license them as private broadcasting institutions on their soil. This happens every June (or maybe July) but with the understanding that three months before, in April, the Germans can notify the radios that the license will not be renewed. This may well be what Ehmke was implying when he told Valtin that there was no immediate hurry in dealing with the radios. Valtin thinks the Germans may be thinking of April 1971 or 1972. (The latter date may be related to Hungarian hints that Eastern participation in the Olympics may be jeopardized if RFE is still in business in 1972. I think this is pure bluff.)

Consequently, any explicit linkage of the radios to the troops is going to undermine the whole elaborate structure we have erected over the years (including private boards of trustees and fund-raising drives) to give the radios private character and, incidentally, greater freedom of operation than the official radios.

Whatever internal re-examination of this entire question you may want to undertake—whether a further independent study of the radiosʼ effectiveness, or exploration of combining them with other existing radios—it seems to me that the most important thing to avoid is a unilateral German decision not to renew the licenses, be it as part of an explicit deal with the Eastern countries or as a gesture of “reconciliation.” If the radios go it should be because we want them to go, whatever our reasons may be. I would strongly warn you against the notion of making their removal a part of some bargain between ourselves and the Eastern countries. We should do it only if (a) we decided the money was no longer worth spending, (b) we concluded that the East had available the sources of information now provided by the radios, i.e., the radios had become an anachronism (about the year 2000), or (c) we cannot afford a crunch with the Germans.

If the matter should be raised with Scheel at all it should be wholly privately and the utmost stress should be placed on the fact that the President personally regards the operations as essential. If Scheel then leaks it to others than Brandt, they will at least know that the President is directly involved. Ultimately, however, I think the matter should be taken up directly with Brandt—and the sooner the better. Once Bahr and Ehmke get his position frozen, his prestige becomes involved and we will get into a first-class confrontation.

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 683, Country Files, Europe, Germany, Vol. V. Secret; Sensitive; Nodis. Urgent; sent for information. A notation on the memorandum indicates that Kissinger saw it. Handwritten markings at the top read: “Scheel Talks—Keep for HAK info” and “Scheel Visit.” Scheel visited the United States from July 17 to 18. No documentation has been found to suggest that Radio Free Europe was discussed during his visit. For documentation on the Scheel visit, see Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XL, Germany and Berlin, 1969–1972, Document 101. Also see Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1970, Vol. II, pp. 1196–98, 1201–02.
2. See Document 43.
3. See Document 39.