Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–9, Part 2, Documents on the Middle East Region, 1973–1976

111. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, June 6, 1974, 11:30 a.m.

SUBJECT

• United States-Saudi Arabian Cooperation

PARTICIPANTS

• The Secretary
• Treasury Secretary Simon
• Commerce Secretary Dent
• Deputy Defense Secretary Clements
• Under Secretary for Political Affairs Sisco
• Under Secretary of Treasury Bennett
• Treasury Assistant Secretary Parsky
• Assistant Secretary Atherton, NEA
• Ambassador James Akins
• Assistant Secretary Enders, EB
• Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for ISA Jordan
• Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Noyes
• Harold Saunders, NSC
• Samuel Hoskinson, National Intelligence Officer
• Country Director for Arabian Peninsula Affairs Dickman
• Isa Sabbagh, Interpreter
• His Royal Highness Prince Fahd bin Abd al-Aziz
• Ambassador Ibrahim Sowayel
• Ahmad Zaki Yamani, Petroleum Minister
• Muhammad Aba al Khail, Minister of State for Financial Affairs
• Hisham Nazer, Planning Minister
• Muhammad Mas’ud, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
• Ghazi al Kosaibi, Legal Advisor
• Dr. Ibrahim Obaid, Advisor to Minister Yamani
• Mr. Mansour Badr, Advisor to Minister Nazer
• Mr. Mahmoud Malhas, Advisor to Prince Fahd
• Mr. Mohamed Hujaili, Advisor
• Mr. Hamad Sayari, Advisor to Minister Aba al Khayl

Kissinger: Your Royal Highness, it is a great satisfaction for me and my colleagues to welcome you here and to have this first working session on Saudi-United States cooperation. I have had the privilege of visiting Saudi Arabia four times. One cannot visit your country without developing a deep personal affection and without becoming convinced of the feeling of friendship which we want to reciprocate. We believe the last six months have marked a turning point in United States relations in the Middle East. We have taken seriously the advice of our friends which was offered for many years. We recognize that the United States has special responsibilities to contribute to peace in the area. We believe that an important first step has been taken but we want to assure His Royal Highness and His Majesty, King Faisal, that we will continue this course of action.

In this context, we believe there is a need for a new relationship between the United States and Arab states that will go beyond the Arab-Israel problem. This relationship should concern itself with how to maintain peace in the area and set an example for other countries in the area. For this reason, all my colleagues and I and the President consider it appropriate that we start with Saudi Arabia in view of the long and friendly relations which we have had with your country. This new relationship can be significant because the principles and practices that we develop together can set examples for similar commissions we set up in other Arab nations.

As Your Royal Highness knows, we have announced that we are going to have a joint commission with Egypt and we are discussing one with Algeria and Syria. We look forward to a new era of cooperation with the Arab nations and the United States. We are therefore happy that the first detailed discussion for joint cooperation should take place between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Now before moving to more concrete topics, I wonder if His Royal Highness has any comments.

Fahd: I want to thank Dr. Kissinger for his apt remarks and full explanation of the purposes of this cooperation. I want to echo his remarks of our desire for close relations with the United States. It is particularly apt that a new chapter in relations is being envisioned between the United States and the Arab world. It should be a shining and glorious one.

With reference to relations between the United States and the Arab world over the last few years, being marked with stagnation, this has not been true as far as bilateral United States-Saudi relations are concerned. We were following amical and sound relations with the United States before. We believe the whole Arab world will come to realize that Saudi Arabia was moving in the right direction and that it will come to recognize that this policy will have realized a good purpose.

We greatly appreciate your untiring efforts which you have spent in bringing about a disengagement between Egypt and Israel and Syria and Israel. We believe the untiring efforts of Dr. Kissinger will be proven in history to have been of great benefit to the entire world and for peace in general. Although we appreciate the fact that from here on, there are bound to be difficulties in achieving further progress, we do not think these will be insurmountable if wisdom and patience is applied.

As to the invitation to come to the United States and meet with the President and the Secretary of State, I would like to express my appreciation and to say that we come with the spirit of wanting to develop our relations in a way that will be beneficial to both our countries. I consider our meeting today not as an ordinary meeting for negotiation—not the kind of adversary relationship the Secretary is used to and where he has to pull here and pull there—(laughter) but where we come in the spirit of friendship.

Kissinger: I appreciate your kind remarks about the progress of negotiations but I would like to point out that the road to Syria was opened by His Majesty’s government during my first visit to Saudi Arabia and during my discussions with the Syrians, I could detect the quiet and subtle influence of His Majesty’s government on these discussions.

The spirit of friendship that His Royal Highness described has animated our attitude. We are approaching a common problem. We will seek a common solution. As the President said to His Royal Highness this morning, if projects tend to be stifled by bureaucracy, the President hopes that His Highness will deal directly with him or with me. I would like to tell His Royal Highness that in coming from a much more ancient civilization than our own, that he will have to be patient with our peculiarities. One of these peculiarities is that each agency of the United States government has a small Political Science Department (laughter) dedicated to the proposition that the only ones who know what is better for others are Americans (more laughter).

We have attempted to eliminate these political science discussions from the Department—but if you run into officials who think they know Saudi Arabia’s interests better than you do, please let us know and we will try to straighten this out.

You will be meeting separately with the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Treasury on security and economic cooperation. Do not let the Defense Department sell you an aircraft carrier (laughter). With your permission, we might discuss our general approach and the details we would like to take up at these two meetings. With respect to defense cooperation, we have had the privilege of an exchange of views on a number of occasions. The basic attitude of the United States is that we consider the security of Saudi Arabia as central to the security of the Middle East and especially of the Persian Gulf area. The United States considers that a strong Saudi Arabia presents a threat to no one but can be of benefit to area stability. Therefore, I am confident that you will find great receptivity in responding to what is needed for your internal security as well as defense.

We believe that a strong Saudi Arabia can exercise a beneficial influence on the small principalities in the Persian Gulf. We will be prepared to present to Your Royal Highness a strategic analysis of the threats which we may both face in the area during your visit and during the President’s visit. The United States will certainly never be indifferent to pressure that may be exerted on the Kingdom from the north or the south. I would like to repeat what I already had the opportunity to say in Riyadh and yesterday to His Royal Highness. We would be prepared to concert our policies for countries like South Yemen and Iraq.

With respect to the economic dimension, in the past, this has been dominated by the oil front. But as the President pointed out today, the purpose of His Royal Highness’ visit is not primarily to discuss oil policy but an era of cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia which means we must emphasize those interests of primary concern to Saudi Arabia.

As the special session of the General Assembly recently made clear, we are moving into a new economic relationship. We are struck by Minister Yamani’s speech there on the use of gas to help meet the world’s fertilizer production. This is a project which the United States would be prepared to support and perhaps begin by a survey of fertilizer needs and production capabilities and what might be provided in the way of technical help.

We understand that a serious obstacle in development is the shortage of manpower with the requisite technical skills. To help Saudi Arabia meet its immediate needs, we have prepared a draft technical cooperation agreement between our two countries. Specifically, in our economic discussions we could consider:

—cooperation in the development and industrialization of Saudi Arabia;

—cooperation in international investment and finance;

—cooperation in techniques of agricultural production;

—cooperation in technology education and transfer and in scientific research and development.

In the industrialization field, in addition to the Joint Commission, we could consider joint working groups between our two countries, a government sponsored economic council with top-level private U.S. participants to work with Saudi participants on facilitating cooperation, and perhaps a Saudi-United States Development Council that could get engaged in a more detailed review of economic proposals. We will make specific proposals in the foreign investment area and in the agricultural area.

In the energy area, we have no specific proposals but will be prepared to exchange information on future demand and supply, but we will do that with the attitude that we will require technical assistance from Minister Yamani (laughter).

In the scientific field, we will again suggest various approaches that have occurred to us in which we might assist in the development of Saudi technical manpower, in the development of Saudi educational and technical institutions, in strengthening the Saudi government’s capabilities for managing technical and scientific institutions, and in the selection of major industrialization projects that might be implemented in the future.

It is obvious that there will not be time during this visit to agree on these projects. We are putting them forward to show our attitude and to indicate our approach. What might emerge is setting up working groups for each area that His Royal Highness thinks cooperative endeavors might be possible which might be given fairly short deadlines. Secretary Simon will be in charge of the Economic and Technical Commission and we are thinking that Mr. Ellsworth might be head of the Defense Commission. Of course, I will maintain my overall interest. Having had the privilege of visiting Saudi Arabia on four occasions, I will not let any of my colleagues get ahead of me (laughter). This then is our general approach and I wonder if Your Royal Highness feels this is the right approach or if you have a different method of proceeding.

Fahd: If I were to speak, I could not have done it a shade better than Dr. Kissinger. It appears that he read my thoughts before I opened my mouth. His explanation was very adequate and his suggestion to set up working groups a wise one. With the knowledge that Dr. Kissinger and I will help keep a watchful eye, we will see that the work is done. The key responsible Saudi officials have heard Dr. Kissinger’s explanations and I have no doubt that we will all agree to press on to start work in earnest. We can only discuss in generalities at this time and we are looking forward to seeing results.

Kissinger: Then if it is agreeable, there will be a detailed discussion on defense in the Pentagon.

Fahd: Yes, this is certainly indicated and we look forward to the discussions this afternoon.

Kissinger: I have reviewed these proposals. Tomorrow, Secretary Simon will present a detailed review on subjects which I have sketched. We will be prepared, however, if His Royal Highness wishes, to have a preliminary discussion with our economic and scientific people—we leave this up to you but the discussions could start this afternoon.

Fahd: That would be very useful.

Kissinger: Then Secretary Simon could be in touch with your officials. I do not think we can cover all the subjects in two or three hours tomorrow. You will have to be careful with him. He was our energy czar for a while during which time he insisted we call him “His Majesty” (laughter). You may wish to indicate who should talk to Secretary Simon.

Fahd: It should be Ministers Yamani, Nazer and Aba al Khail.

Kissinger: With Yamani alone, we will need at least three on our side. You could start at 4:30 in Secretary Simon’s office and discuss scientific and technological subjects tomorrow.

Fahd: Agreed, I think the next thing to think about is the need to issue some kind of statement. We would like to discuss a statement.

Kissinger: Our thinking is on the identical track. Would you want to publish it at the end of the visit.

Fahd: Yes.

Kissinger: We believe the statement should be in some detail so that others can see the scope of this cooperation. Would Your Royal Highness wish to designate who would do this, who could work with some of my colleagues.

Fahd: Yes. This could be done after the meeting on security, perhaps this evening.

Kissinger: Mr. Atherton could represent our side. We should also have a representative from Treasury and Defense.

Fahd: Deputy Foreign Minister Mas’ud and Legal Advisor Kosaibi will be detailed to discuss this this evening.

Kissinger: Roy, will you take the initiative to do this? Since we have to get ready to go to the White House, are there any other topics you would like to discuss?

Fahd: I am putting my script back into my pocket because you have covered everything.

Kissinger: This shows how good our intelligence is (laughter).

Fahd: That would be true if I had prepared the script yesterday but I did it today (more laughter) but the proof is that we have come here on the same wave length, we have compatibility.

Kissinger: Yes, and we have had the opportunity to discuss this before. On behalf of my colleagues, I want to thank you. I believe we may be contributing to a historic evolution of relations between nations.

Fahd: I want to thank you on behalf of my colleagues for your warm cordiality and the understanding shown by the United States for Saudi interests and to let you know that we too are conscious of what is best for United States interests. I would like to go back to what I said at the outset—that we see this as a meeting among friends and this short meeting has shown that this is truly so. And with your permission, I would like to say genuinely how we all feel about your Ambassador, Mr. Akins, in whom we have the highest regard. He is the best kind of representative you could have sent there. It would have been better to say this without having him in the room but I wanted to say this.

Kissinger: We are very pleased you feel this way. He gets to be a nuisance at times because he fights for Saudi concerns with a fanatical intensity (laughter) but the results are there. Thank you.

1. Summary: Kissinger, Simon, Clements, and others met with Fahd, Yamani, and Nazir to discuss the need for a new relationship between the United States and Arab states beyond the Arab-Israeli dispute.

   Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box CL 208, Geopolitical File, Saudi Arabia, June 6–August 9, 1974. Secret; Sensitive. Drafted by Dickman. The meeting took place in the Secretary’s conference room at the Department of State.