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TELECON Murray Marder 8/4/71 5:57 p. .m. M: I need a little guidance; how literally should we take the President's timetable K: I'd be a little loose about it. M: The question was whether to literally rule out a visit to Moscow or agreement on Berlin, SALT, the Middle East sequence K: No, wait a minute. As agreement is not contingent on willingness to have a summit. There will be a Berlin agreement whenever we have it regardless of where we stand with Peking. The same is true of SALT. What he meant to indicate is that its is highly improbable that we will go to Moscow before Peking. M: Right. Another thought in here, he said that to speculate that we are going to get that done before going to Peking is ill-advised. He didn't mean it literally did he? K: Absolutely not. We are moving at the fastest rate possible on both. They are totally separable from whenever we go to Moscow or have a summit wherever that would be. M: Does this rule out participation in meetings with the Soviets before going to Moscow on one of these other factors? K: The prospect is that we will have summits, if they are summits, in the order in which they are announced. If the SALT agreement is already finished there will be no need to have a meeting. If there is a summit, it's because progress in other talks has made major steps in other fields possible. I dont believe timing is all that consistent. Berlin is a different issue -- that's four powers and I don't see that the pace of SALT after we have agreement in principle, drafting may take several months. I don't interpret this press conference as meaning that we are going to hold up negotiations to make room for a summit or that we are going to speed them up for a summit. M: One more thing. The statement from Peking -- did that jar anyone today? K: About the UN? M: Yes, aimed primarily at what Rogers said, but sideswiping at the President. K: haven't read the full text. M: But it was not generally upsetting?