Office of the Historian

207. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, May 31, 1974.

PARTICIPANTS

  • President Nixon
  • Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
  • General Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
  • Major General Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

SUBJECT

  • Report on Secretary Kissinger’s Middle East Trip and President’s Forthcoming
  • Trips to the Middle East and USSR

Kissinger: On SALT, maybe an agreement in principle is possible. On MBFR. …

President: Which would have enormous domestic impact.

Kissinger: … a 5% US-Soviet cut is conceivable.

President: We should lay the groundwork with the Soviet Union.

Kissinger: That could give minor problems with the Europeans. The Soviet Union is waiting to see how CSCE works out. We are holding up CSCE until you get to Moscow.

Maybe you can get something in MBFR for CSCE.

President: We want to show new progress on MBFR to avert unilateral cuts here.

[Omitted here is discussion of matters other than the European security conference or MBFR.]

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1029, MemCons—HAK & Presidential. Secret; Nodis. The conversation took place in the Oval Office. According to the President’s Daily Diary, the meeting was held over breakfast from 8:33 to 10:25 a.m. (Ibid., White House Central Files, President’s Daily Diary)↩