Office of the Historian

288. Telegram From Secretary of State Kissinger to the Mission in Geneva1

Bonn, May 20, 1975, 2030Z.

Secto 1053. Subject: CSCE discussion with Gromyko. For Sherer from Secretary.

1.
Hartman gave you an account of yesterday’s discussion.2 Today I told Gromyko3 that our delegations should be in touch in Geneva to discuss the whole package. I said that our delegation would not [Page 845] negotiate until the Soviets had commented on both human contacts and information aspects. (They gave us Soviet redraft on journalists4 but I requested that this be presented in Geneva along with comments on other parts of proposal.) I stressed that speed depended on the Soviets showing maximum flexibility since Allies had made major effort to meet Soviet concerns.
2.
In fact the text on journalists as re-drafted completely guts the proposal as presented by the Allies. The text drops the wider definition of “journalists,” paragraph 5 drops wider travel and limits provisions to those journalists in country of residence; paragraph 6 drops implied positive response; paragraph 7 limits direct contact to organizations and official institutions; paragraph 8 drops specificity on imports; paragraph 9 waters down free transmission and further restricts it by providing that it must be done through official channels; paragraph 10 as you predicted calls only for telling a journalist why he has been expelled.
3.
You should send us the full translation of the Soviet comments and suggested changes when received and give us your analysis of these and recommendations for next steps in the negotiation.
4.
You should inform your British colleague that the Soviets will be commenting on the whole of the “global initiative,” that we do not wish to become the negotiators but will try to play a helpful behind-the-scenes role. When the comments have been received, we should have a full discussion in the NATO caucus.
5.
For your information only, I indicated to Gromyko that we would be prepared to foresee summit in the week of July 21st but that this could only be achieved if the Soviets showed sufficient flexibility to enable a balanced result to be agreed. You should see that your Soviet colleagues understand this.
6.
On CBMs, Gromyko came up to 18 days, but remained at 150 KMs and 30,000 men. We said that we would try this out on Allies and neutrals but that depth looked thin and numbers of men, fairly high. After discussing with British and others, I want your assessment of whether this is adequate and, if not, what alternative we should try to push for.
Kissinger
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy Files. Secret; Immediate; Nodis. Repeated to Washington. Kissinger was in Bonn for talks with Schmidt.↩
  2. See Document 284.↩
  3. See Document 287.↩
  4. Not found. Regarding the revised Soviet proposal at CSCE on journalists, see Document 290.↩