Date

Aug 4, 1975

Description

Kissinger had not made up his mind whether to oppose the French-Korean deal and top State Department officials wondered whether he "may have felt that our proposed approach [in the early July memorandum] entailed applying undue pressure on an already uncertain ally." They did not believe that because "the resolution of the nuclear issue involved is a key factor in ensuring both the stability of the region and our relationship with the ROK." To make the point even clearer they revised the proposed instructions to Ambassador Sneider in which he would "convey our serious concerns about Korea's moving in [the] direction" of establishing an independent reprocessing capability.

State Department officials saw a "good possibility that the ROK can be influenced to abandon its present plans for a national reprocessing capability." For example, key allies with Korean interests were cooperative: the French would have no problem with cancellation as long as they received "a reasonable financial compensation" and the Canadians "have broached their reprocessing concerns" and "strongly support a parallel US approach." Moreover, Washington was in the process of nailing down its interpretation of the nuclear cooperation agreement with Seoul: that the United States had a "veto over reprocessing of spent fuel from U.S. reactors supplied to Korea." Within a few weeks, Seoul had accepted the U.S. interpretation, which would have the effect of limiting the supply of spent fuel available for producing plutonium.

Source

RG 59, Records of Policy Planning Staff, Directors Files 1969-1977 (Winston Lord), box 368, WL Sensitive Non-China '75

Document published in following posting(s):

Stopping Korea from Going Nuclear, Part I

Mar 22, 2017