r EUR I SCAN EKl Draf1ing Office a --SUBJECT I enov c b _ ____ S E C R E T __ Ju I uMDu u I S ___ __ er DEPARTMENT OF STATE nut i i e do nc nt c on r t •••• Memorandum ol Conversatio • t r • l o f • ccpie- i - i sp_ DATE January 24 1968 Greenland Overflights e -0 PARTICIPANTS - Torben R¢nne Ambassador of Denmark r- 0 John M Leddy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs i Wal er J St essel Jr Deputy Assistant Secretary David H McKillop Country Director EUR SCAN Eugene Klebenov Desk Officer EUR SCAN COPIES TO EUR G EUR SCAN Amembassy Copenhagen 1 7 PART I OF II Ambassador R¢nne opened the discussion by stating that his Government was pleased with the January 24 press release that had been issued by the Department of Defense He said that he had telephoned Copenhagen on the question of a U S statement on Air Force overflight routes which he had raised at his January 23 meeting with Mr Leddy He said that since there was now only a caretaker government in Denmark he did not have any firm instructions Dr Fischer the Secretary General of the Foreign Office had said that the Danish Government had taken note of the U S position on this matter and may raise the matter in the future Ambassador R¢nne said that Dr Fischer had asked him to raise several questions The first question concerned the purposes of the various U S flights in the area Specifically he asked if the plane that crashed at Thule had had any surveillance function apart from its nuclear alert function He said that there was considerable public discussion in Copenhagen regarding the two t ypes L of flights -1 @ M DS-1254 - SECRET I LIMDIS - - DECLASSIFIED Authority ill b9 X' J --- J I SECRET LIMDIS - 2 - Mr Leddy said that it was clear that the B-52 that crashed at Thule was an alert plane but whether it also might have had another role he could not say He agreed to see whether information on this could be provided The second more definite question that the Ambassador had been asked to raise concerned the report of the Landshandsformand Chairman of the locally elected party in Thule to the effect that in the days since the crash B-52 1 s had continued to be sighted over Thule The Chairman had asked whether he could be assured the B-52's did not carry atomic or hydrogen weapons Ambassador R nne asked if we could specify the role of these planes He wondered whether they might for example be supporting the rescue operations which would account for an increase in air activity Mr Leddy said that in general and the Danes at Thule are aware however that in the case of the few days we would check out the both the Danish Government of our alert system He said B-52 1 s sighted in the last question with Defense SECRET LIMDIS