This memo outlines the process that the French said they would take in order to reach a decision regarding their participation in the nuclear suppliers' group conference. These steps include France presenting a paper on their position, the U.S. responding, and then more bilateral talks before a final decision is reached.

Memo of suggested issues to be discussed at meeting regarding nuclear suppliers' conference, specifically what to say to other suppliers regarding recent bilateral talks between France and the U.S. and further instructions for the French-U.S. bilateral talks regarding France's participation in the nuclear suppliers' conference.

With an approach to the Soviets already in the works, Kissinger’s top advisers emphasized the importance of a parallel approach to the French, given their centrality to the prospects for a suppliers’ group. While no one could be sure whether the French would abandon their “case-by-case” approach to nuclear exports, the advisers believed that the French disliked nuclear proliferation and wished to remain the only nuclear weapons state in Western Europe.

To help Kissinger prepare for a follow-up discussion, ACDA and State Department officials prepared a "Non-Proliferation: Strategy and Action Program” to help guide policy. A key proposal was for “high level political approaches to key exporting countries to enlist their support for safeguarding transfers of nuclear materials.” While Washington had to approach a number of nuclear exporters, consultations with France “constitute the most crucial and urgent step to be taken.”

An interagency NSC sub-committee was exploring the problem of safeguards for sensitive nuclear exports. The problem was that an existing group, the Zangger Committee based on NPT membership, did not have a broad enough membership or scope to manage the problem and that France did not belong to the Zanggger Committee.. Under Secretaries Committee proposed “talks with other suppliers of technology and equipment in the reprocessing and enrichment fields on desirable new constraints or guidelines that should be followed.”

The French nuclear program had been of great concern to US presidents during the 1960s because Paris had defied US pressure and was also suspected of supporting proliferation by aiding the Israeli nuclear program. This recently declassified estimate, prepared at the close of the Johnson administration, gives a picture of a program that was slowing down because of internal financial and economic problems, in part by the impact of the May 1968 student and worker uprising.