Office of the Historian

289. Memorandum of Conversation1

SecDel/MC/16
New York, October 6, 1968, 7:30–10:45 p.m.

SECRETARY’S DELEGATION TO THE
TWENTY-THIRD SESSION OF THE
UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

New York, September-October 1968

SUBJECT

  • NPT
[Page 729]

PARTICIPANTS

  • U.S.
    • The Secretary
    • Deputy Under Secretary Charles E. Bohlen
    • Ambassador J.R. Wiggins
    • Wm. D. Krimer, Interpreter
  • USSR
    • Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko
    • Ambassador Ya. Malik
    • Ambassador A. Dobrynin
    • V. Sukhodrev, Interpreter

Ambassador Malik inquired as to the prospects of Japan, Brazil and Argentina signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Secretary Rusk replied that it was his opinion that Japan would sign the Treaty; it would take some time, but he thought Japan would sign before the end of the current year. As for Brazil, he wanted to say in strictest confidence that it was really a matter of their Foreign Minister having some strange ideas to the effect that Brazil needed to retain the right of developing its own nuclear capability for the purpose of carrying out peaceful nuclear explosions. But, in the end, he was confident that the Foreign Minister would not present any obstacles to Brazil’s signing the NPT. The main problem, though, was that Brazil’s delay created problems for its neighbor, Argentina, and Argentina’s delay, in turn, created problems for Chile; it was in the nature of a chain reaction. Ambassador Malik said the situation resembled that of India and Pakistan. The Secretary agreed and said the Foreign Minister of Pakistan had told him he could not sign unless India signed as well. He hoped that the Soviet Union would influence India in the direction of signing the Treaty. To Mr. Gromyko’s question as to when the US Senate could be expected to take up the ratification of the NPT, the Secretary replied that he hoped it would be this week. We had a count on the Democratic Senators in this respect and had no problem here. Tomorrow morning he was going to see Mr. Nixon and hoped that he could persuade him privately to press Republican Senators for ratification now. In reply to Mr. Gromyko’s question the Secretary said that he hoped Mr. Nixon would approach the problem with proper understanding.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 18-6. Secret; Exdis. Drafted by Krimer and approved in S on October 17. The source text is labeled “Part V of VIII.” The meeting took place at the Waldorf Towers.↩