Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XVII, Part 3, North Africa

249. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Algiers, November 2, 1979

PARTICIPANTS

• Spanish Government:

  • Mr. José Pedro Perez-Llorca y Rodrigo, Minister of the Presidency
  • Mr. Pedro Lopez Aguirrebengoa—Director General of African and Continental Asian Affairs in Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • Ambassador José Maria Ullrich y Rojac, Spanish Ambassador to Algeria
  • Mr. Joachim Ortega, Chief of Cabinet of Minister of the Presidency

• U.S. Government:

  • Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
  • Ambassador Ulric Haynes, Jr., Ambassador to Algeria
  • Mr. Robert Gates, NSC Staff
  • Mr. Alec Toumayan, State Department interpreter

SUBJECT

• Western Sahara and Spanish-Cuban Relations

On November 2, 1979, Dr. Brzezinski, accompanied by Ambassador Haynes, Mr. Gates and Mr. Toumayan, met at the residence of the Spanish Ambassador to Algeria for one hour of talk over breakfast with the Spanish Minister of the Presidency, Mr. José Pedro Perez-Llorca y Rodrigo, at the latter’s request. In setting up the meeting, the Spanish Ambassador explained to Ambassador Haynes that the Minister, who was heading up Spain’s delegation to the Algerian 25th anniversary celebration of the revolution, wanted to take advantage of his presence in the same place with Dr. Brzezinski to discuss, in particular, the problem of the Western Sahara. In opening his remarks, the Minister explained to Dr. Brzezinski that he wanted to talk about Spain’s concern for this region as he thought it would be helpful to have such a preliminary discussion in preparation for future meetings in Madrid.²

The Minister explained that Spain was concerned about the state of Morocco’s military preparedness and about the present political situation in the region posed by the warfare in the Sahara. He said that it was the Spanish view that the U.S. global interests required us to be interested in the current problems in North Africa, but that Spain has a very direct regional interest in North African developments because of the problems it is having with the liberation movement for the Canary Islands and the constant threat that Morocco will one day swallow up the Spanish enclaves in its territory. In addition, he said that any intensification in the Sahara situation inevitably affects Spain, citing as one example of such an effect the fact that Spain is in the same position as the United States as a big purchaser of Algerian oil and gas.

Spain, he said, has observed an apparent change in U.S. policy in North Africa. He felt that Spain would agree with the United States that Morocco must be stabilized, but was not sure that he understood the subtle shades of the changed U.S. policy. Therefore, he specifically asked Dr. Brzezinski whether the U.S. has an outline of what it thought might be a peaceful solution to the Sahara crisis.

In replying, Dr. Brzezinski said that the U.S. does not have a specific view of the nature of a settlement. He expressed the opinion that the nature of any eventual settlement was probably unclear even to the actual participants in the Sahara conflict themselves. However, the U.S. judgment is that neither side has the ability to impose a military solution on the other without engaging in a mutually destructive war. The United States does feel, Dr. Brzezinski said, that in time there will be movement toward a political solution through means of indirect approaches of third parties. It must be understood that the U.S. does not intend to become a mediator in this dispute, preferring to leave that to the Arab countries, the OAU and ultimately to Algeria and Morocco themselves. Nevertheless, Dr. Brzezinski emphasized, it is the U.S. concern not to have a military solution imposed on a friend of the U.S. and it is important that anyone with any ideas of imposing such a solution see this clearly. He added that as long as one side or the other feels that it can prevail militarily, there will be no impetus to negotiate.

Dr. Brzezinski continued that the U.S. is counting on common sense in Algeria and Morocco to create the conditions for a solution. Just when or how those conditions will be created, no one knows at this time. At the same time, we cannot ignore the growth in Algerian military strength which is readily explained by virtue of the fact that Algeria won its liberation struggle with arms.

The Minister agreed with Dr. Brzezinski’s view that the Algerians were building up militarily and compared them to the old-time Prussians. Dr. Brzezinski felt they were more like the old-time Polish nationalists with whom they shared a revolutionary mystique with a sometimes inflated sense of their strength, but ultimately quite realistic. He told the Minister that he was moderately optimistic that Algeria would not ultimately seek a military solution.

The Minister then asked Dr. Brzezinski whether it was the political aim of the United States to keep the conflict and the expectations of people in that conflict as low as possible. He continued by asking for Dr. Brzezinski’s assessment of the situation which saw Morocco’s isolation increasing in the world community at the same time that support for the Algerian position was growing. Dr. Brzezinski replied that it was, indeed, this phenomenon of isolation which made it essential for the Moroccans to find a formula that would give the people of the Western Sahara an opportunity to express their desire for self-determination.

The Minister then asked Dr. Brzezinski if the United States saw this conflict in the Sahara becoming part of the East-West struggle. Dr. Brzezinski replied that so long as this conflict does not escalate, it will remain outside of the East-West struggle. However, if the conflict escalates, Dr. Brzezinski felt there was a good chance that it could become a new element in the East-West struggle. The Minister then asked whether the U.S. felt that furnishing arms was one way to prevent escalation of the conflict. Dr. Brzezinski replied that he felt that this action of the U.S. would keep King Hassan from lashing out in frantic anxiety. He then asked the Minister how Spain assessed the situation.

In reply, the Minister said that Spain felt that there was a sense of frustration in the Moroccan army and in certain of the internal political forces in Morocco. Frustration, he said, tends to radicalize positions. Therefore, Spain would certainly share the U.S. view that King Hassan will need a state of tranquility in order to make the right decisions.

At this point Director General Aguirrebengoa expressed the opinion that, beginning about a year ago King Hassan abandoned long-range planning in favor of conducting his war effort on a day-to-day basis. The Director General felt that Hassan had to do so in order to give himself the flexibility to restrain his army and certain other forces in his country from acting out of desperation. Dr. Brzezinski then asked the Director General whether he felt that our decision on arms supply to Morocco would be helpful. The Director General replied that such a decision would only be helpful if it does not escalate the war; but, he felt that there was a great danger that escalation could result from the decision.

The Minister said that our common objective is to prevent the destabilization of Morocco. Should the King lose his throne, a successor government that was characterized by either a left-wing or a highly nationalistic regime would pose serious problems to Spain and within Spain and could have a serious impact on Spain’s internal politics.

Dr. Brzezinski then asked the Minister whether the Spanish had any expectations that the current situation would result when they handed over the Spanish Sahara to the joint administration of Morocco and Mauritania. The Minister replied that none of his generation in the Spanish Government had been involved in those events at that time. He said that Franco’s politicians had several alternative choices to face up to in giving up the Spanish Sahara: (a) allow a war to be waged for control of the territory, (b) seek a provisional arrangement which would allow Spain to get out of its colonial administration peacefully, or (c) get out altogether without any arrangement and risk a clash inevitably between Morocco and Algeria. All the current generation can do at this stage is wonder what it would have done at that time under the same circumstances.

Turning to the question of population in the former Spanish Sahara, the Minister said that he felt it was a complete mystery. It was clear, however, that the people who inhabit the territory from time to time were nomadic tribes, often with some connection or relationship to each other, who did not acknowledge colonial or national frontiers. At about the time that Spain gave up its administration, Spanish authorities were trying to count and to settle the population. On this basis, the official figure that the Spanish arrived at for a referendum in 1974 was 73,563. He said that Algeria’s claim that the population is 1,000,000 is pure nonsense. Dr. Brzezinski said that it would certainly be helpful if the Spanish could turn over their population records to some impartial authority. The Director General said that they had already given sixty pounds of such documents to the United Nations in January 1978 and that those documents included such specific information as names, numbers in family and literacy. The Spanish estimate that they may have missed at the most 8,000 or 10,000 of the nomadic occupants of the territory in their census.

Dr. Brzezinski asserted that, because of the Spanish experience in the Western Sahara, they were perhaps best able to say what in fact were the basic desires of the people of the territory. The Director General replied that, in the past, none of the people of the territory had any notion of nationalism, but that since 1975 a definite spirit of nationalism had developed, particularly in the refugee camps in the Tindouf area. As a result, he said, now one has to consider all of the related tribal peoples of the Sahara who have been politicized and who have acquired a sense of nationalism, and he would consider this number something closer to 200,000.

The Minister was quick to point out that if this number of politicized nomadic and tribal peoples prevail in their struggle to control the Western Sahara, a destabilizing situation will be created in which all of the areas over which they roam will be placed in dispute. This, he said, could include southern Morocco and all of Mauritania.

The Director General, returning to the subject, expressed the opinion that the problem was no longer one of decolonization. He said that the politicized Sahraoui are clearly more than the 73,000 in the last Spanish census and that they are a reality with which we must deal. As such, they represent a real danger to Morocco and Mauritania. If the Sahara conflict is not resolved in a way that gives them some homeland, the problem is sure to expand. Unfortunately, Spain has not only lost time, but has also lost control, in working toward such a solution. The Minister continued that if there is a bad solution to the Sahara conflict, Spain will be a principal loser. In this connection, he emphasized that Spain does not want to see a triumphant hegemonic Morocco any more than it wants to see such an Algeria.

Referring to possible solutions, Dr. Brzezinski indicated that King Hassan was toying with the idea of turning Mauritania into a sovereign Sahraoui state. The Director General responded that, in the past, this might have been a logical and natural solution and that all of Mauritania and the Tiris El Gharbia might have been reconstituted into a Sahraoui state. But, now it is too late.

The Minister said that it would now be impossible to return to a status quo ante in which the inhabitants of the Western Sahara could be led peacefully to vote on whether they wanted their freedom or wanted to be associated with Morocco.

Ambassador Haynes asked the Spanish present whether they felt that the Polisario could be identified with any particular political ideology. The Director General replied that, at the start of this conflict, the Polisario was attempting to indoctrinate the people in a socialist ideology in the manner of Algeria’s FLN. However, as far as their possible Communist orientation was concerned, the Director General was of the opinion that Communism would not find a fertile ground among the Sahraoui because of certain firmly entrenched religious and cultural traditions. The Minister added that, in any scenario in which the Polisario succeeds in obtaining some territory with which to create a state, that state could only be organized in the radical socialist mode. The problem would then become who would be that state’s “big brother”: Algeria or some Eastern Bloc power? But such a scenario would definitely destabilize Morocco because it would then be surrounded on all sides by incompatible regimes.

The Spanish Ambassador asked Dr. Brzezinski what had happened in his meeting yesterday with Algerian Foreign Minister Benyahia.³ Dr. Brzezinski replied that he had told the Foreign Minister that he did not expect Algeria to “approve” the USG decision, but did feel it was important that he “understand” it. In this connection, Dr. Brzezinski told the Foreign Minister that the U.S. aim was (a) to seek a political settlement, (b) to provide the basis for the parties to the conflict to think in political terms, and (c) to let the Algerians know that the USG stands behind its friends. Dr. Brzezinski said that, after having had several contacts with Algerian leaders, he was convinced that they were fairly realistic. He did not have the impression that they were eager to intensify the conflict. Thinking out loud, the Minister responded to this latter point by asking, “But, what if Morocco resorts to ‛hot pursuit’?”

Dr. Brzezinski said that he is sure that all parties feel a “political solution” would mean an outcome that they desire. However, he said that he had impressed upon the Algerian Foreign Minister the fact that a political solution will mean that neither the Algerians nor the Moroccans will achieve their optimum objectives.

He concluded the discussion of the Western Sahara by saying that he was impressed with the realism of the Algerian leadership whose stands were not emotional. Dr. Brzezinski said that the U.S. desires to keep bilateral channels of communication open to them. He said that it was essential that this struggle not grow into one that changes Algeria from a realistic, independent, radical power into one that is ideologically aligned. To do so would only internationalize the problem.

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to the Western Sahara.]

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject File, Box 34, Memcons, Brzezinski: 9–12/79. Secret. Drafted by Haynes. The meeting took place at the Spanish Ambassador’s residence. Brzezinski led the U.S. delegation to the 25th anniversary celebration of the Algerian revolution.
2. See Document 255.
3. See Document 75. Brzezinski also met with President Benjedid later on November 2; see Document 76.