Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts

1. THE CREATION OF THE KISSINGER TELCONS

The purpose of the telcons was to follow-up on promises that Dr. Kissinger made and understandings he reached. He also incorporated the conversations into memoranda to the President and to other government officials, memoranda of conversations with people to whom he spoke, and other records. As he stated in a television interview in 2003, Dr. Kissinger believed this process was easier than writing thirty to forty memoranda of conversation per day.

Dr. Kissinger’s secretaries transcribed his telephone conversations as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State. The original transcripts were never edited at the time they were typed. Initially, secretaries listened in on calls using a “dead key” extension on the phone system and prepared summaries of conversations. This practice was later refined and resulted in verbatim transcripts transcribed from secretarial shorthand notes. While most of the conversations were recorded by secretaries listening in on “dead keys,” many conversations were recorded mechanically with tapes that were immediately transcribed and then destroyed, according to Dr. Kissinger’s 1999 letter to the editor of Foreign Affairs. It is not known what became of the secretarial notes upon which the telcons were based. Nor is it known how the conversations were recorded (e.g., what types of machinery and tapes were used, and whether different types of machines were used for different locations). While it is not usually possible to determine which telcons were prepared from secretaries listening in on a “dead key” and which were prepared from tape recordings, some telcons contain a notation such as “(tape)” or “end of tape.” Many telcons contain the initials of the following secretaries, who presumably prepared the transcripts:

MLH—Muriel L. Hartley
LDS—Lora D. Simkus
WGH—Wilma G. Hall
FEG—Florence E. Gwyer
MS—Mary D. Stifflemire
JLJ—Judith L. Johnson
JM—Jane Mossellum
SDD—unknown

Not all of the conversations in this collection are between Dr. Kissinger and another party. Participants other than Dr. Kissinger include Alexander M. Haig, Brent Scowcroft, Col. Richard T. Kennedy, and Lawrence S. Eagleburger.

The telcons are arranged in four series: Chronological file (boxes 1-26), Anatoli Dobrynin file (boxes 27-28), Home file (box 29), and Jordan file (box 30). It is not known why these separate series were created or how they were used. Nor is it known how these files were stored or who was responsible for maintaining them. There are many other unknowns regarding the disposition of these files: who had access to them during the Nixon and Ford administrations; where the original transcripts are currently located; and how many duplicate sets exist. As for the filing system, it is not known if secretaries created multiple copies (e.g., “onion paper” or ribbon copies); how the copies were used and filed; whether copies were disseminated; where the transcripts were kept originally or how they were filed. Some copies of the telcons appear in the National Security Council (NSC) Files at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and in Department of State records, Record Group 59.

Some of the transcripts have handwritten annotations on them. Who made these annotations, when they were made, and why, is unknown. Some transcripts have blank spaces or underlined blank spaces. Others have a typed notation (e.g., “the rest of the conversation is personal”) indicating that a personal, untranscribed portion follows. In some cases, portions of the telcons were sanitized by Lawrence Eagleburger and others. In these instances, Eagleburger believed it important to redact the names of people in the telcons to protect their privacy. Dr. Kissinger, when editing relevant telcons for publication in Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises, also selectively submitted parts of the transcripts for declassification review. For further explanation about the transcripts that Dr. Kissinger submitted for his book, see PROCESSING THE KISSINGER TELCONS: TELCONS RELATING TO CRISIS... below.

Scattered throughout the telcons are transmittal sheets (some of which are marked “Eyes Only”) and administrative notes, such as those about Dr. Kissinger’s schedule that explain chronological gaps.

2. THE DISPOSITION OF THE KISSINGER TELCONS AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Just before leaving government service in 1977, Dr. Kissinger had these telcons, the telcons he generated during the Ford Administration, and other personal records moved from his office at the State Department to a vault at David Rockefeller’s estate in New York. They remained there briefly until they were given to the Library of Congress (LC) under the terms of a deed of gift with the provision that public access to them be restricted until five years after his death. After that time, the records could be read by the public as long as the individuals with whom Dr. Kissinger was speaking had also died or had approved of their release.

In the late 1970s, a reporter and two organizations sued to gain access to the telcons under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The federal district court and the US court of appeals both ruled that the documents were government records because they were prepared on government time by government employees. These lower courts stated that the State Department telcons should be returned to the State Department and reviewed for release under FOIA. In 1980, the Supreme Court, in Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136 (1980), reversed the decision, ruling that the FOIA did not apply to the telcons because they were outside of the Executive branch. The Court noted, however, that the Federal Records Act (FRA) provided authority for the Archivist of the United States, the agency head, and the Attorney General to recover improperly removed records. Accordingly, at the National Archives’s behest, then Secretary of State Edmund Muskie agreed in 1980 to re-review the telcons at the LC for possible return to State. However, that review never took place. In 2001, Dr. Kissinger, upon request from NARA and the State Department following inquiries from researchers, gave both agencies copies of the transcripts held at LC. NARA photocopied the collection held at LC and began processing it for public release. The State Department is reviewing its collection and will release it at a later time.

3. PROCESSING THE KISSINGER TELCONS

The then-Nixon Presidential Materials Project (NLNS) archivally processed and reviewed the telcons for public access under the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act (PRMPA) of 1974 and its implementing regulations. The archivists reviewed the telcons according to eight restriction categories defined by the PRMPA regulations, and restricted content if release of the information would:

violate a Federal statute or agency policy (restriction category “A”)
reveal national security information (restriction category “B”)
violate an individual’s rights (pending) (restriction category “C”)
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy or libel of a living person (restriction category “D”)
disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or financial information (restriction category “E”)
disclose investigatory/law enforcement information (restriction category “F”)
disclose purely private and personal information, or deals strictly with politics, as defined by the PRMPA (restriction category “G”)
disclose non-historical material (restriction category “H”).

If the telcon did not violate any of the above restriction categories, and if it contained information that pertained to Dr. Kissinger’s official duties as defined by the PRMPA, it was released in full.

A very small number of the telcons were withheld from public access. In some cases, the archivists determined that a telcon needed to be withheld in full. In other cases, the archivists were able to redact the restricted information by sanitizing the document and releasing it in part. During the course of their review, the archivists restricted telcons for “A” (violation of a Federal statute or agency policy), “B” (national security information), “D” (clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy or libel of a living person), and “G” (purely private and personal information, or deals strictly with politics). For each withdrawn or sanitized telcon, archivists placed a salmon-colored Document Withdrawal Record (NA Form 14021) in the front of the folder from which the telcon came; the form lists the document by number, type (“telcon”), description (e.g., HAK and Haig), number of pages, date, and restriction category. Another form, a yellow-colored “Document Control Record” (NLN Form 101), has been put in place of each withdrawn document in the folder. It is numbered, and each number corresponds to the number listed on the Document Withdrawal Record.

NLNS sanitized only those “A” and “B” telcons for which it had received redaction instructions from other Federal agencies or departments. NLNS sanitized “D” telcons, as well, removing portions of them that constituted clearly unwarranted invasions of privacy or libel of a living person. Attached to the front of each sanitized telcon is a yellow document control record, which contains the document number and is stamped “Sanitized.” Those documents are listed on the salmon colored document withdrawal record, and a “Sanitized” stamp appears next to or below that telcon.

Those telcons that contain no information relating to Dr. Kissinger’s official or statutory duties as defined by the PRMPA and its implementing regulations, or those that deal strictly with politics, were removed in full from the collection for return to Dr. Kissinger. They, too, have been replaced in the file by yellow-colored Document Control Records and have been listed and described on the salmon-colored Document Withdrawal Records.

In processing the telcons for public access, NARA archivists implemented Executive Order 12958, as amended, which mandates declassification of materials more than twenty-five years old. The archivists processed this collection by using agency guidelines, detailed reference information, and textual records from the Nixon Presidential Materials Project. In addition, the archivists also worked closely with declassification specialists from other agencies.

NARA made its copies from those at the Library of Congress (LC), Manuscript Division(MSS DIV). The Library of Congress archivists identified some telcons as containing national security information. They withdrew these documents and placed “classified items removed” forms in place of them in the file. In the course of its review, NARA archivists subsequently refiled these documents in their original folders, and then reviewed them according to the PRMPA and Executive Order 12958, as amended. Copies that the Library of Congress archivists believed to contain classified information may be identified in the open file by their stamp “MSS DIV LIB CONG” and by a classification stamp.

TELCONS RELATING TO CRISIS: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises

In preparation for publishing a book (Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises), Dr. Kissinger compiled many telcons relating to three foreign policy crises: the 1973 Middle East War, the 1974 Cyprus crisis, and the fall of Saigon in 1975; he submitted these documents to the National Security Council (NSC) for declassification review. In many cases, Dr. Kissinger edited the documents and only submitted portions of them for review. These edits appeared in the telcons as gaps or omissions. For example, the NSC may have received only page one (or part of page one) of a three page telcon, or it may have received all three pages, but words, sentences, or paragraphs were absent from the text. Therefore, the NSC’s review of these sanitized copies was based only on the often incomplete in formation it had received.

Early in its review of materials that Dr. Kissinger had submitted to the NSC for Crisis, NLNS staff, thinking that the gaps or omissions that appeared in some copies of documents were redactions that the NSC had made, mistakenly stamped these documents “Sanitized.” When it was discovered that these gaps were attributable to Dr. Kissinger, and not the NSC, the staff went back, and on each document that it had stamped, crossed out the “Sanitized” marking and noted, “stamped in error by NLNS staff,” next to the cross-outs. The staff discovered its error when it found that NSC redactions appeared on the telcons as black-outs, not gaps, and that NSC sanitizations were accompanied by a “Partially Declassified” stamp.

For telcons that the NSC received only in part—the remainder of which remains classified—NLNS noted on the yellow-colored Document Control Records attached to the front of each telcon that it was “released in part. Only a portion of this document was submitted for declassification review. The rest of the document (pages given) remains closed.” If that same telcon was also sanitized by the NSC, the yellow-colored Document Control Record is stamped “sanitized.” The salmon-colored Document Withdrawal Record that lists the document in the front of the folder also is stamped “sanitized.”

4. DESCRIPTION

The telcons contain Dr. Kissinger’s often candid comments on a wide variety of issues, including the Vietnam War, the People’s Republic of China initiative, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), the 1972 Presidential election, the 1973 Middle East War, press and media relations, and social events. Many of the conversations are fragmentary or episodic in nature, but they provide a uniquely personal and intimate perspective to the events of the day in which Dr. Kissinger was involved. Dr. Kissinger’s personality (e.g., his sense of humor and occasionally his anger) comes through in the telcons, which show the importance of personal relations and personality in his diplomacy and national security relations. The telcons flesh out the already rich documentary record of foreign policy during the Nixon administration, complementing other research materials, especially the Nixon Library’s NSC Files, its NSC Institutional Files, and the Nixon White House tapes. For example, the telcons contain conversations between President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger before, during, and after the taping system operated in the Nixon White House (February 1971-July 1973). There are Nixon tape recordings of some of the conversations transcribed in the telcons.