52. Memorandum of Conversation1 2
Subject:
- Law of the Sea: Preparation for May 1977 Session
PARTICIPANTS:
- The Secretary
- Deputy Secretary Charles W. Robinson
- Mr. Rutherford Poats (D)
- Assistant Secretary Julius Katz (EB)
- Deputy Legal Advisor George Aldrich (L)
- Assistant Secretary Frederick Irving (OES)
- Ambassador T. Vincent Learson (S/AL)
- Mr. Winston Lord (S/P)
- Mr. Nicholas Veliotes (S/P)
- Mr. Harry Blaney (S/P)
- Mr. Carlyle Maw (Consultant)
- Mr. Samuel Goldberg (H)
- Ambassador Robert C. Brewster (D/LOS)
- Mr. William Newlin (notetaker) (D/LOS)
The Secretary: I wanted to have a meeting on the Law of the Sea. I’ve come to a definite conclusion on how to proceed. I went up to New York twice and have come to the conclusion that the way we are doing it now is impossible. There is no way that we can work with these delegations at the Conference. We are just beating our heads against a wall. There is nothing but a bunch of experts up there who know all about Law of the Sea, but are out of touch with their governments. They have got their egos involved.
For example, take Tunisia. I saw their Foreign Minister this afternoon. He knows nothing about the LOS, but we [Page 2] can get what we need out of him. We can’t get that from their representatives at the Conference. Our strategy is all wrong. Our experts are just beating their heads against their experts. What we have to do is:
- 1.
- We have to have clear policy direction in this building. Chuck is going to take over Maw’s Law of the Sea responsibilities.
- 2.
- We have a lot of work to do which must be completed well before the next session.
- 3.
- We need political-level decisions that can’t be made by a bunch of experts. We have to first very quickly develop strategy which will let us get what we want.
What was done for me prior to the New York meeting would have been very sensible if it had been done at least four months earlier and at the political level. For example, that egregious guy from India. I don’t want to have to fight a bunch of third-level guys up there. You can’t get anywhere with a guy like Jagota. We have to move this whole operation out of the hands of these experts. We also have to redo our own Delegation. I know that they’ve got a lot of expertise in their field, but they can’t do the job we need now. You all know who I mean. They think all I did up in New York was to get in the way. We have to get them under tight control. They have been meeting now for three years and they are making permanent industry out of this thing. I think if we are to succeed the next time around we will have to go an alternate route that is referred to in this paper. It says that in Committee I one of our options is to move closer towards the position of the Group of 77. I don’t think that’s right. We’ve gone now as far as Congress would be able to swallow.
We have a legal right to go ahead and mine the seabeds. The law now is that the seas are common to mankind. We are prepared to give up half of the mine sites to the rest of the world. We are prepared to finance our competition. We are prepared to pay dues on the outer margin of the continental shelf. That’s as far as we have to go.
Mr. Robinson: We agree. This option of moving further towards the positions of the Group of 77 was just thrown in so you would be able to look at all the options.
The Secretary: Very many of the foreign ministers that I saw at the United Nations said that they now got the [Page 3] message and realized that we had gone as far as we could. We need now to define our own position and then work out a strategy. By this time next month we’ve got to have this done. Then we can go to governments. I talked to the Mexican Foreign Minister. I know he won’t be in office next session, but I’m convinced that they won’t fight us.
Mr. Katz: We got an interesting report from the EC yesterday in our regular semi-annual consultations. They say that the ACP countries have come to them with positions that are much more reasonable than the Group of 77’s.
The Secretary: Who are the ACP’s?
MR. Katz: They are a bunch of LDC’s associated with the community. The Lome Convention, and all that. The position they took was a significant departure from the standard G–77 line.
The Secretary: I talked to the Tunisian. I accused him of not being helpful in New York. He didn’t know anything about it, but I’m sure that we can bring Bourguiba around. As I said, all we’ve got up there are delegations made up of experts who don’t reflect their countries’ positions. All the Tunisians want is to solve their continental shelf problems. If they get that then they’ll give us no problems on the rest of it. So we need to get on with this and look at what we have to do with each important country.
Mr. Robinson: We are doing that. If you look at page 6, #2 on this paper, you’ll see that we’re getting the resources of the Department moving.
The Secretary: The more you do in the Department the worse you get. I had a briefing paper for a meeting with Rumsfeld which had 18 clearances on it. Now I’m sure that one reasonably intelligent man could have done the whole thing. We know the issues by now. What we need is a strategy.
Mr. Robinson: We agree on that, and as you see at 4 and 5 on page 7 of this paper, we will have a paper up to you in a week or two which will define our policies. We’ll have a strategy paper up to you by November 8. We can then begin to work with key countries on an individual basis. We want to get the moderates in the Group of 77 broken away from the extremists. INR is now working on identifying the key countries.
We also plan to get our ambassadors working on this issue [Page 4] in the field.
The Secretary: What if we could get the Mexicans to agree to be helpful? But they don’t know what we want. We’ve got to be in a position to tell them. All we’ve got up in New York is a bunch of technical guys.
Amb. Learson: In New York the Mexicans have been very difficult.
The Secretary: What we have to do is to go to Lopez Portillo. We can go around Castaneda. We’ve got to line up a group of core countries and really work on them. If they won’t play, we can tell them to shove it. We can go ahead on our own.
Mr. Robinson: We’ve got to begin to use our leverage.
The Secretary: I don’t know about this Nigerian plan that Ratiner likes. Jules tells me that if you go along with that, before long you’ll have the Enterprise running everything.
Mr. Katz: We have to get over this idea that we are to be tolerated on the deep seabeds for some 20–25 years.
The Secretary: It’s a basic fact that in the absence of a Treaty we can go ahead and mine the seabed on our own. Yet we’re prepared to make major sacrifices to them.
Mr. Katz: The heritage of mankind concept doesn’t mean that we can’t mine the seabeds.
Amb. Learson: We don’t need to argue the logic now. We all agree that we can go ahead.
The Secretary: I don’t see that this is anything new. In all my talks with the foreign ministers I told them that, and I also spelled it out pretty clearly in my speech.
Mr. Katz: we can’t approach this like another UNCTAD resolution. We’ve got to find countries who agree with us and build from there.
The Secretary: We’ve got to do this in a determined manner. For example Australia is with us.
Is the deep seabed issue our only problem? Is the question of the high sea status of the zone okay now?
[Page 5]Amb. Learson: That will be resolved before we go up to New York.
The Secretary: Well that isn’t going to be soon enough. We can’t leave these things hanging until just before the sessions.
Amb. Learson: What I mean is that in one month we will have resolved how to deal with the high sea status of the zone with DOD. I think to do that, however, we may have to have your help.
The Secretary: I’m willing to help, but I don’t want to be called in only when there is a complete deadlock. By the end of November, I want us to have a Government position.
Mr. Robinson: The program outlined in this paper does that.
The Secretary: We’ve got to have one big last shot at wrapping this thing up. If we don’t succeed then we can go ahead alone. I tell you those meetings I had in New York with those groups were a big education to me. Even though it was clear that it is too late to turn things around, those visits were not wasted. And I think they had an effect on the atmosphere at the close of the Conference. There isn’t anything I could have brought up there at the time that would have gotten us an agreed text. But at least I learned what the hell is going on up there.
Mr. Lord: We’re examining now with INR and CIA to see just where we would have some leverage and where we might really be able to exert some influence.
The Secretary: Above all, we’ve really got to begin thinking about using our leverage.
Amb. Learson: We’ve never done that before but now we are getting down to it.
The Secretary: We couldn’t have, done it before now. Maybe it would have had some effect before the last session but probably not. Carl, what do you think?
Mr. Maw: I agree. We’ve now narrowed the issues to a point where we can talk about them at the political level. Before there was too much underbrush to really make any sense out of it. Now there are just a few identifiable problems in each of the committees. I think we should go ahead now and prepare our own legislation. Then if we can’t sell our [Page 6] version of the treaty we will have a viable alternative.
Mr. Goldberg: They’re preparing legislation up on the Hill now.
Mr. Maw: What we have to avoid is another 200-mile bill.
Amb. Learson: We’ve got to marshal the resources of all the genres and get them working together.
The Secretary: Marshal the agencies? We dont have much time left. This time I refuse to accept a lot of fluff. All the issues are now comprehensible. We’ve got to get together a piece of paper that sets out our position and really spells out where we have disagreements. Then we can put it to the President and have him settle it. The party is over.
Amb. Learson: In State, we’ll have a position paper ready by November 15.
The Secretary: By the 15th of November we all may be working for somebody else.
Amb. Learson: The NSC is going to ask the Under Secretaries’ Committee to get them a position paper by December 1.
The Secretary: Who’s behind this paper? You?
Amb. Learson: No. It’s their idea.
The Secretary: It’s got to be earlier than December 1.
Mr. Robinson: We’ll be having meetings of this group every Friday. It would be really helpful if you could join us.
The Secretary: I won’t come to every one. Just when you’ve really got something. Carl can come, however, when he can.
Mr. Robinson: Carl, just let us know when you’re in town.
Mr. Maw: I’ll do that.
Mr. Robinson: What we’re doing now is really mobilizing resources on the Department.
The Secretary: I can help with that. Chuck, if you and I know what’s going on then we can really get our ideas to [Page 7] prevail around here. The problem is that everything is left too amorphous. There are always too many escape clauses.
Mr. Robinson: By mid-November we will provide an interagency position and get a paper to you and the President. The first step is to get an interagency position. We need that before we can go out and begin to work on the international and diplomatic levels.
The Secretary: That’s right. What are the interagency differences now? Is the high sea status of the zone the only problem?
Amb. Learson: Interior has a problem with scientific research. They will win this one.
The Secretary: What’s their problem?
Amb. Learson: They want a consent regime.
The Secretary: What about the military problem?
Amb. Learson: That can be taken care of by other clauses in the Treaty. I think we can get Defense to soften their position on this one.
Mr. Lord: What about the scientific community? Do they really care about this? Do they have any power?
Amb. Learson: They’ll be coming in next week when the Advisory Committee meets. I plan to try to turn the tables on them. They usually bitch that we’re not doing enough for them. I’m going to tell them this time that they’ve got to get out there and begin to help us.
The Secretary: What are we going to end up with on consent?
Amb. Learson: Consent will be required for resource-related research. For the rest, the exceptions will be spelled out in detail in the treaty.
The Secretary: What exceptions?
Amb. Learson: The current text is too broad.
The Secretary: As I understand it, consent is now required for resource-related research but it is automatic for the rest. Where do we really stand?
[Page 8]Amb. Learson: Consent is required but it can’t be withheld unless it is related to resources or requires drilling, the placement of an instrument, or the use of explosives and things like that, or where it affects the economic interests of the coastal States. That economic interest business is what gives us the most problem and we’re rewriting it.
Mr. Robinson: What we want to work toward is to move it around to where it’s almost only notification.
Amb. Learson: We want to get it down to what is essentially in effect now. Now we go out and ask the consent to do research in an area. But we make sure to define the area so it includes both the territorial sea and further out. That’s how we get around it. In fact, almost all the research we do now requires consent.
The Secretary: That doesn’t mean it’s a great idea.
Amb. Learson: Right. But we’re almost alone on this one.
The Secretary: What you’re talking about now is not what we asked for before. Before, we wanted all non-resource related research to be free.
Amb. Learson: That’s right. But now we are almost completely isolated on this one.
The Secretary: Chuck, that’s the kind of thing I feel as strongly about. This is the kind of issue that delegations cannot deal with. We need to apply pressure before the Conference so that at the Conference the delegation simply drafts the texts and doesn’t get involved in dealing with conceptual problems.
Mr. Robinson: I agree. First we have to get agreed interagency positions.
The Secretary: There are some smart guys in the other agencies. They try to put in whatever they want.
Amb. Learson: We were okay before the last session except for Defense.
Mr. Robinson: Our positions weren’t really defined clearly enough.
The Secretary: We certainly didn’t get deep seabed mining [Page 9] settled until the very last minute.
Amb. Learson: Right. That was new.
The Secretary: We brought it up at a time that even if the others had had the best will in the world we couldn’t have gotten it through. At least we got rid of John Norton Moore.
Amb. Learson: Did you see that he was back in the press?
Mr. Robinson: No. What did he say?
Amb. Learson: He said that we were all a bunch of duds.
The Secretary: Well what we have is a problem in Committee II on the high seas issue and in Committee III on the scientific research problem. So the big unresolved problem is Committee I.
Amb. Learson: There, what we need is a good access provision and decent provisions on the Council but that will be hard to get.
The Secretary: Your judgment of what we will or won’t be able to sell is based on your talks with your madmen colleagues.
Mr. Robinson: INR is working now to see who can buy what.
The Secretary: I saw these guys up in New York and they are just not in touch with their governments. I tell you, Kenyatta won’t fight us on the Law of the Sea. He himself won’t understand these issues, but he is in a position to lay down the law. What I have got to have are clear-cut positions to put to him. It’s not enough for me to just tell him that we want his delegation to support our delegation. Win, don’t you agree?
Mr. Lord: Yes. Compared to Kenyatta’s other problems, these are small.
The Secretary: We’ve got Kenya, Tunis.
Mr. Veliotes: Saudi Arabia.
The Secretary: I don’t know about that.
Mr. Maw: Peru also. De la Puente would like to talk.
[Page 10]The Secretary: Chuck, tell Shlaudeman to tell De la Puente to come up here.
Amb. Learson: I’d like to send Peru’s man in New York to Siberia.
Mr. Katz: He’s gone to CIBC. That’s even worse. He replaced De la Puente as co-chairman. That’s a stepping stone to being foreign minister.
Mr. Robinson: This meeting has been helpful. We will get a paper ready before next Friday which will recommend the next stops. (To the Secretary) It would be helpful if you could be there but we will keep you informed in any event.