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December 18, 1974

Notes on a Conversation with the Head of the FRG's Delegation, Dr. Blech, During Lunch on 18 December 1974

Attachment

Notes
on a conversation with the head of the FRG's delegation,
Dr. Blech [2], during lunch on 18 December 1974


The lunch took place on invitation by Dr. Blech; it was the first meeting of this kind. As an introduction the conversation was about Blech's career and his job in the Foreign Office.
[...]

In the further course of the conversation, I [3] elaborated on a few questions about the conference and explained our positions. B. himself made the following remarks about the conference:


- Schmidt [4] set out the FRG's position about the sentence concerning the mutually agreed change of frontiers both in Moscow and in Washington. Agreement had been reached with Kissinger [5] that the USA should take over responsibility for this issue in order to reach a settlement with the SU [6]. To move Kissinger to accept this function had been easier than the FRG had hitherto expected. In the near future, when talking to the Soviet Union, Kissinger would throw up this question. If he had not done it yet, it was only because he was preoccupied with other tasks. Therefore, the FRG would not continue its talks with the head of the Soviet delegation in Geneva on this issue. My remark that this sentence was basically only a matter of [interest to] the FRG and that the USA had no interest in changes concerning the frontiers in central Europe or concerning the frontiers within the EEC, provoked B's answer that they were pretty conscious about that, but that the USA would at least have a big interest in not straining their relations with their allies, especially with the FRG. Therefore Bonn assumed that the USA would insist on the formulation of the sentence. [...]

Endnotes

[1] Copyright: Project 'CSCE and the Transformation of Europe', University of Mannheim and the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center. All rights reserved. The “CSCE and the Transformation of Europe” Project is funded by the VolkswagenStiftung. If cited, quoted, translated, or reproduced, acknowledgement of any document's origin must be made as follows: "Oliver Bange/Stephan Kieninger (eds): “Negotiating one's own demise? The GDR's Foreign Ministry and the CSCE negotiations - Plans, preparations, tactics and presumptions,” CWIHP e-Dossier Nr. 17, on behalf of the Project 'CSCE and the Transformation of Europe', University of Mannheim 2008 (http://www.CSCE-1975.net
)".

[2] Dr. Klaus Blech (*1928) headed the FRG's delegation to the CSCE from November 1974 onwards. From 1974 to 1977, he headed the Policy Planning Staff of the Auswaertiges Amt.

[3] This was Siegfried Bock, the head of the GDR's CSCE delegation. The fact that file C 398/78 is about "assessments and memoranda of conversation" of the 'Hauptabteilung fuer Grundsatzfragen und Planung', the department under Bock's aegis, provides circumstantial evidence. Siegfried Bock confirmed this in a letter to the editors from 13 August 2007.

[4] Helmut Schmidt (SPD) was the FRG's Chancellor from 1974 to 1982, continuing the coalition with the liberals (FDP) from October 1969.

[5] Henry A. Kissinger held both the posts as US Secretary of State and as National Security Advisor to President Gerald R. Ford. For Kissinger's account on the CSCE, see Kissinger: Years of Renewal, New York 1999, pp. 635-663. For Ford's account of the Helsinki Final Act see Gerald R. Ford: A Time to Heal – The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford, New York 1979, pp. 298ff.

[6] SU is an abbreviation for Soviet Union.

A memorandum of a conversation between Klaus Blech and Siegfried Bock, regarding the recognition of frontiers component of the CSCE negotiations.

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PA AA: MfAA C 398/78

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Original Uploaded Date

2011-11-20

Type

Memorandum of Conversation

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Record ID

111009