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easier if we are within NATO. We sometimes have a discussion about what position to take, but at the Conference there is usually one country that is designated to speak on each particular topic. Emerging is literally the process. It is the gradual coming out of what these texts are finally going to be.

. Mr. DERWINSKI. In the so-called spirit of seeking a consensus?

Mr. HARTMAN. Seeking a consensus, yes. But all along the NATO countries have had certain basic principles in their mind, things that they would either not accept or very much wanted to make sure were in these documents in order to achieve balance.

Mr. DERWINSKI. For example, if you work out language on the subject of inviolability of frontiers, which is the Soviet phrase, will there be any official U.S. statement attached to the document or formal public statement expressing the fact that that phrase "inviolability of frontiers" does not constitute our recognition of the illegal Soviet seizure of the Baltic States?

Mr. HARTMAN. I am not sure whether we will be making a statement at the Conference but my testimony today is a statement of the official U.S. Government position. We have said in letters to various committees on the Hill what our position is, and if there are doubts when this language comes out, I am sure, we will find a way to express our view as to what this language means.

Mr. FASCELL. Will the gentleman yield at this point?

Mr. DERWINSKI. Yes.

Mr. FASCELL. Without objection, there will be included in the record a letter from Robert J. McCloskey, Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations, to Dr. Thomas E. Morgan, Chairman of the Committee on House Concurrent Resolution 11 and other resolutions. The letter refers to the statement that Mr. Hartman makes.

[The letter follows:]

Hon. THOMAS E. MORGAN,

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, D.C., April 11, 1975.

Chairman, Committee on International Relations,
House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: The Secretary has asked me to reply to your letter of February 26 requesting the Department's comments on H. Con. Res. 3, H. Con. Res. 11, H. Con. Res. 79, H. Con. Res. 105, H. Con. Res. 111, H. Con. Res. 118, H. Con. Res. 122, H. Con. Res. 132, H. Con. Res. 140 and H. Con. Res. 149, expressing the sense of Congress concerning nonrecognition by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe of the Soviet Union's annexation of the Baltic States.

The Department affirms that it remains the policy of the United States not to recognize the forcible annexation of the Baltic States by the USSR.

The Department of State agrees with the resolutions' stipulations that the United States delegation to the Conference should not agree to the recognition by the Conference of the Soviet Union's forcible annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We expect that the Conference will adopt a declaration of principles which will include respect for "frontier inviolability" but in our view this will not involve recognition of the forcible annexation of the Baltic States. At the same time, at the initiative of the Western delegations to the Conference, the declaration of principles will include specific references to the possibility of peaceful border changes, to self-determination, and to respect for human rights.

The Office of Management and Budget advises that from the standpoint of the Administration's program there is no objection to the submission of this report.

Sincerely,

ROBERT J. MCCLOSKEY,

Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations.

Mr. DERWINSKI. My concern is that it is perfectly understandable for the Department of State to be communicating with congressional committees and Members of Congress, but it seems to me that of necessity these should be followed up with a statement either at the Conference or one distributed throughout the diplomatic community making it clear the reservation of the United States as to that phrase or any other questionable phrase in the final document.

Mr. HARTMAN. The other thing that I think I ought to point out is the status of these documents. We are very anxious not to give the impression, because it is certainly not our intent nor the intent of any of the other Western Powers, that these documents have some kind of legal standing which they do not have. These are declarations of intent. I admit they have political weight but they are not and should not be treated as legally binding documents.

Mr. DERWINSKI. Let me raise a question that refers to another delicate matter-this is the basket 1 agenda item. There is a subject "nonintervention in internal affairs." I assume to the Soviet Union this means that something like the Jackson-Vanik amendment is an interference in internal affairs. Again I am assuming since this is not a formal peace treaty and it would not be submitted to the Senate for ratification-that obviously there must be some statement to be made either as part of the discussion or as a full communication to our allies and to the Eastern Powers that this obviously does not constitute any position by the State Department favoring the Soviet interpretation of the position as opposed to the act passed by Congress.

Mr. HARTMAN. Absolutely. We have made very clear, for example, not only under the first item on the agenda but in our discussion of the economic portions under agenda item 2 that while the wish is expressed that trade be conducted on a most-favored-nation basis, there is nothing that commits us to move by any other way of implementation than by our Trade Act.

Mr. DERWINSKI. In the letter Chairman Fascell placed in the record there was a reference to self-determination of peoples and now again this is a positive position that we take.

Mr. HARTMAN. Right.

Mr. DERWINSKI. Is it contemplated that again by a proper and timely public statement that we would place emphasis on this question of self-determination of peoples and that this obviously ought to relate to the Baltic states and the other peoples within the USSR, who as far as we are concerned, are deprived of their rights of selfdetermination?

Mr. HARTMAN. There are some obvious disadvantages in playing up certain principles which the Soviet Union can itself make unilateral statements about, but as you point out there are things in here with respect, for example, to self-determination which are very valuable and weighty on our side, and things that we ought to continue to say, and things that we will point to in the future. If we have had a difference of view between ourselves and the Europeans, I think it has probably been that the Europeans have thought it valuable to repeat many of these principles, to repeat many of the things that we have said in past declarations of human rights and to hold this up as a standard to which we are now going to look for compliance and deeds.

We, too, have thought that this was useful, but I think we have felt that the final result of this Conference would perhaps be less ambitious than some of the European statesmen have thought. Now, as they get closer to the final stages of this Conference, many of our European friends are lowering their sights a bit as to how much they think they are going to be able to get in these documents.

Mr. DERWINSKI. Western European?

Mr. HARTMAN. Western European friends.

Mr. DERWINSKI. If I may, Mr. Chairman, ask one other question then.

One of the things the Western Powers, and I presume the neutral countries of Europe will stress, is the point of family reunification. Mr. HARTMAN. That is correct.

Mr. DERWINSKI. Here, the great stumbling block has been the policies of a few Eastern European countries that has not permitted the free flow of people that this envisions. What progress can we achieve beyond just language?

Mr. HARTMAN. Well, to be sure, there is going to be language. It will not have a legally binding effect, but we think in the text that has been put forward and almost agreed to at this point that we can now see what its final shape will be. Thanks, I must say, to the really very good work by the Canadians and Germans who pursued this particular topic very vigorously. We have a text which provides some standards, provides some specific details of what it means to take action in the field of family reunification.

Now to be sure, it is not a legally binding text but it is another kind of public standard that we can point to and say, "Hey, what about this case; you are not living up to this."

Mr. DERWINSKI. What about the Soviet policy which we, the Members of Congress, have struggled with on behalf of constituents, and that is when one of our constituents marries a Soviet national they have been unusually uncooperative?

Mr. HARTMAN. We have many cases.

Mr. DERWINSKI. I am being diplomatic when I say that; they have been down right ornery. What about that?

Mr. HARTMAN. There is a separate text on assisting and keeping united married people from different states. Again it will be an encouragement, it will be a kind of public admonition that this sort of thing ought to be encouraged and that governments ought to take steps to allow these marriages to go forward and allow parties to choose where they are going to live.

Mr. DERWINSKI. Mr. Chairman, may I just return to one point. Do I understand then, Mr. Hartman, that notwithstanding any interpretation that the Soviets might give to the final language and assuming that perhaps we could induce the State Department to issue a proper public statement as part of the concluding phase of the Conference that it does and will continue to remain the policy of the United States not to recognize the incorporation of the Baltic states into the U.S.S.R.?

Mr. HARTMAN. That is correct.

Mr. DERWINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Buchanan.

53-963-75-3

Mr. BUCHANAN. I note in your statement, pursuing the discussion of the gentleman from Illinois, you indicated that you had officially answered correspondence from Members of Congress to this effect. You are here now making a public statement to this effect?

Mr. HARTMAN. That is correct.

Mr. BUCHANAN. And we will do so at the Conference itself?

Mr. HARTMAN. No, I did not say what we would do at the Conference itself. I said that we have made this an official position of ours. The delegations have not yet registered in the record of the Conference their interpretations because we don't have final texts on these documents. I rather doubt that in the final stages each country will get up and give its own interpretation of every decision that the Conference is taking. However, there will be opportunities in the course of either the acceptance of the final documents or statements that we would put out at the time we accepted the documents for making our position clear on those things where there could be any doubt as to what our position is.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Well, of course I know it was the Soviets who pressed for this thing through the years as your statement indicates and to some extent it appears to me that they have been caught in the trap of their own hypocrisy. Once it got started the Europeans especially seem to have made it a painful experience for the Soviets rather than a happy one. I am very happy that that is the case but I am a little concerned about this basket 1 list of principles and the inclusion therein of nonintervention in internal affairs especially pertaining to what that might be interpreted as including even though it may not be binding in the very important matters such as improved communication, freer travel, emigration policies, human rights within countries and so forth.

Mr. HARTMAN. Right.

Mr. BUCHANAN. We are in a position for all the world to see the policies of the United States and Western Europe and for that to be a continuing pressure on the Soviet Union and those societies that are more closed.

Mr. HARTMAN. Yes.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Now on this nonintervention, can that be interpreted as including Voice of America?

Mr. HARTMAN. No.

Mr. BUCHANAN. And other such activities?

Mr. HARTMAN. No.

Mr. BUCHANAN. British Broadcasting?

Mr. HARTMAN. No. We are specifically dealing with the question of radios. That is one of the questions that is still outstandingtrying to get a commitment in writing that there will be no further jamming.

From our point of view the purpose of all of these documents is to achieve a further opening up. It is really on the basis of that process taking place that people are going to have increasing confidence that something is not going on that they don't like or that the societies are not continuing to exercise a repression that people can't find out about on the outside. We recognize that all of this is not going to happen overnight. There are basic differences that have existed for years between us and between our systems but there are things that we can do in accepting some of these documents and talking more

about these things publicly and getting people to travel more back and forth that over a period of time can lead to a loosening up of the societies in Eastern Europe and indeed in the Soviet Union.

Now this is not a panacea, we don't want to overexaggerate the results that we think can flow from this. I think in Europe there has been a tendency to think that somehow or other this Conference was going to result in major changes overnight. I think they are much more realistic today about that. At the same time these are useful things to say. They do not undercut the more comprehensive statements that have already been made on such things as the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights but they tend to supplement them, to make more specific the things that are particularly concerned in relations between the Eastern European and Soviet Union and Western European and United States relationships-things that are evident in our day-to-day relations.

We mentioned marriage problems. There is not a week that goes by where I don't have a letter from a family or an individual in the United States who has run into difficulties either with marriage or family reunification problems. This is also true in Europe. These things are gradually being negotiated, and some of them in fact are now getting settled without Government intervention which is a hopeful sign. It is going to take time before we achieve the kind of relationship-and we don't know that we will ever achieve it-that we have among the Western European countries, where this kind of thing is not a problem. But we think that, marginally, these statements and the attention that is focused by this Conference on these problems, will be helpful.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Well, I must say, Mr. Hartman, thus far this has seemed a more positive than negative experience, and I am sure our team is a significant part of that.

Mr. HARTMAN. Quite frankly, I think if some of those who suggested this Conference 20-odd years ago were formulating their plans today they probably would not have suggested this kind of conference because it has really devoted a tremendous amount of public attention to themes which I don't think they are all that anxious to have publicly

aired.

Mr. BUCHANAN. One footnote, Mr. Chairman, I was in Europe the spring before the Czechoslovakian incident and at that point all the Europeans were saying that the differences between North and South were greater than the differences between East and West, and what we needed to do was to disarm and join hands in doing something about the developing world, which I think is a great idea, if you can get it done. There was at that point a feeling of great euphoria about the détente that then existed; but then came Czechoslovakia. So it does seem to me that there is a bit of a European habit of being a little overoptimistic about it.

Mr. HARTMAN. Well, it is particularly difficult, I think, when you move away from confrontation with a clear ideological split and military security tensions to a situation which is much more difficult to handle both diplomatically and publicly-of trying to decrease tension while yet quite different systems oppose each other with the potential for conflict still there. How do you keep people interested in maintaining defense? Because without adequate defense there is no way to pursue a détente policy, there is no incentive at all for a

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