Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XI, Arms Control and Disarmament

68. Message From Chairman Kosygin to President Johnson¹

Moscow, February 1, 1965.

Your personal message of January 14 of this year² has been attentively studied by us. On that same confidential basis we should like to inform you of the point of view of the Soviet Government both regarding the questions raised by you and also regarding several other international questions.

We received with satisfaction the response, which we found in your message, to the ideas of the Soviet Government, which were transmitted to you on November 3, 1964³, regarding the necessity to resolve ripened problems by means of discussions and regarding the importance of honorable observance by both sides of agreements already reached between our governments.

We agree with the statement contained in your message that measures to prevent the dissemination of nuclear weapons would answer the interests of our two peoples and all of humanity. In this connection, it goes without saying that there should not be left a single chink (for access) to them by states not now possessing such weapons—direct or indirect. However, what is now happening in the West is, unfortunately, going in the opposite direction.

You know what a negative attitude is called forth in the Soviet Union and in countries who are our friends and allies by plans to establish NATO nuclear forces in any of their variations—“multilateral” or “Atlantic.” These plans likewise are plans to disseminate nuclear weapons, and in the most dangerous region of the world. Giving Western Germany access to nuclear weapons, in whatever form it might be planned, we cannot regard as other than a step directed against the interests of the security of the Soviet Union and of the countries united in the Warsaw Pact organization, as a step strengthening the threat of war.

We know that you have a different point of view. You say that between the Governments of the USSR and the USA there exists a “misunderstanding” in this regard. In our view the case is much more complicated. The Soviet people has its own experience—an experience costing millions of lives—with the treachery and aggression of the German militarists, whose well-known pretensions, as is widely recognized even in the West, mainly stimulate the development of plans for the dissemination of nuclear weapons, for example under the flag of NATO nuclear forces.

We should like with all frankness to tell you of our serious concern that in several regions of the world and first of all in Southeast Asia there continue to take place cases of breaking international agreements and even military actions against the democratic republic of Vietnam. Such actions cannot fail to call forth a corresponding answering reaction among us and among our friends and allies. We are convinced that realism in policy demands elimination of the dangerous tension which has arisen in Southeast Asia especially in Vietnam and Laos, and that the way out lies in unbending observance of the principle of respect for the sovereign rights of peoples and for valid international agreements.

The Soviet Government considers that at the present moment it would be appropriate to separate out from the group of problems which were the subject of an exchange of opinions between the Governments of the USSR and the USA those problems with regard to which it would be possible to reach an understanding. We have been successful in reaching an understanding without formal agreement, for example, on the question of reducing military budgets. In your message you state that the Government of the USA intends to reduce somewhat military expenditures for the 1965 fiscal year, as we have also done with regard to the Soviet budget. Our views both with regard to the usefulness of this measure as well as with regard to its limited significance, obviously coincide.

The Soviet Government takes as a point of departure the fact that it is now important to develop such concrete and realistic measures as would narrow the scope of the arms race and would lay a path toward the resolution of the basic questions of disarmament, toward general and complete disarmament. Soviet proposals, which in our opinion serve this goal, were presented for the consideration of the XIX Session of the UN General Assembly.⁴ The Government of the USA promised to study them. We await the results of this study.

Some questions concerning the problem of disarmament are touched upon in your New Year’s message.⁵ You mentioned, in particular, an inspected world-wide all-inclusive prohibition on nuclear weapon testing, a combination of a cut-off in the production of fissionable materials for military purposes with measures assuring the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and an inspected freeze on strategic delivery systems. The American proposals on these questions have already been discussed in detail, as is known, at the disarmament negotiations in Geneva, and the positions of the parties on these questions have been fully determined. If it is a question of concepts which have been in the field of view earlier, then we are prepared to consider them with full attention.

[Here follows discussion of European security and a German peace settlement, the U.N. financial situation, bilateral matters, and the possibility of a personal meeting between the two leaders.]⁶

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, Arms Control Messages Exchanged Between President Johnson and Chairman, USSR—Vol. 1, Box 11. No classification marking. The source text contains no salutation. The February 1 date is the day Dobrynin delivered it to Thompson. (Memorandum from Thompson to Bundy, February 1; ibid., National Security File, Head of State Correspondence File, Pen Pal Correspondence, Kosygin, Box 8)
2. Document 61.
3. See footnote 3, Document 61.
4. Presumably a reference to the Soviet Union’s memorandum of December 7, 1964. See footnote 4, Document 54.
5. See footnote 4, Document 61.
6. Printed from an unsigned copy.