259. Memorandum of Conversation1
SUBJECT
- Viet-Nam
PARTICIPANTS
- Ambassador Anatoliy F. Dobrynin, USSR
- Llewellyn E. Thompson, Ambassador-at-Large, Department of State
I made the following oral statement to Dobrynin:
[Here follows the identical text of the statement that Rusk gave to Radvanyi; see the attachment to Document 258.]
Dobrynin said he would, of course, promptly inform his Government but he wished it understood that he was not undertaking to pass this information to Hanoi. He asked if we were taking any steps to inform Hanoi, to which I replied that we were informing the Hungarian Government and possibly some other Governments and assumed that the information would reach them. In any event, they would be aware that the bombing had been suspended.
Dobrynin said that, speaking quite off the record, his Hungarian colleague had obtained the impression from the Secretary that as of yesterday the Secretary had thought that the bombing might be resumed any day, including possibly today. He asked me if I could tell him for his own information whether the Hungarian had misunderstood or whether something had happened between yesterday and today.
I replied by drawing his attention to the fact that the President was in Texas and said that my guess was that the Secretary was simply being cautious in order not to mislead the Hungarian the other way.
Dobrynin asked me what the words “could extend beyond New Year’s” meant. When I said I hesitated to make any interpretation of these words as I wished to be very careful not to mislead him, he said that he would assume that the stand-down would probably go for a few days beyond New Year’s. I said I thought this was probably a reasonable interpretation.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 VIET S. Secret; Exdis. Drafted by Thompson and approved in S/AL.↩