Titled “A/S Gordon’s meeting with policy makers in Paris,” the cable summarizes a Sept. 16, 2009 get-together between Philip Gordon, then assistant U.S. Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and French diplomats Jean-David Levitte, Damien Loras, and Francois Richier. Gordon is currently a special assistant to President Obama on the Middle East.

While the bulk of the cable covers an exchange of views concerning Iran, the second to last item is entitled “NATO’s enlargement and strategic concept.” At this point Levitte, former French ambassador to the US from 2002 to 2007, interjects that “[French] President [Nicholas] Sarkozy was ‘convinced’ that Ukraine would one day be a member of NATO, but that there was no point in rushing the process and antagonizing Russia, particularly if the Ukrainian public was largely against membership.” Gordon goes on to paraphrase Levitte’s opinion that, “the Bucharest summit declaration was very clear that NATO had an open door and Ukraine and Georgia have a vocation in NATO.”