From a December 17, 1975, memorandum of conversation recording a meeting in Paris between U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Sadun Hammadi. The meeting is believed to have been the first high-level diplomatic contact between the two nations since Iraq severed ties with Washington over the Six-Day War in 1967, one year before the Baath Party took power in a coup d’etat. The document is part of a 28,000-page collection of Kissinger’s memoranda of conversations released last May by the National Security Archive.

henry a. kissinger: Our two countries…