Office of the Historian

282. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, December 18, 1967, 1 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Recent NATO Meeting

PARTICIPANTS

  • Ambassador Dobrynin—USSR
  • Mr. Eugene V. Rostow—M

In the course of a long talk at his initiative about the Middle East and NATO at a reception last week, Ambassador Dobrynin proposed that we have lunch soon, to carry the discussion forward. The lunch took place today.

Recent NATO Meeting.

Dobrynin asked what I thought the NATO Ministerial meeting had accomplished. I replied that in our view it was a step towards peace—towards further efforts to improve political relations in Europe. He smiled and said, “Yes, but how?”

I went on that as we saw it, the Allies wanted to take initiatives towards detente, both in the political field, and, if possible, in the field of arms control and disarmament. I recalled that the President had suggested mutual and balanced force reductions in October 1966. Dobrynin said that had been noted. Why didn’t we go back to the idea of our taking a step, which they might then follow. We had had such an understanding earlier about military budgets. Then, after several reductions, we had increased our budget without telling them. This had left a bad impression. But he thought that if we reduced forces, that could lead to something. They had no objections to our forces in Europe, but they thought they were unnecessarily large. Why did we think six divisions were necessary? I replied that all sorts of things could happen, as they had in the past. We thought a strong conventional troop presence reduced the risk of nuclear confrontation. Dobrynin remarked that that was appreciated.

“Was the NATO decision,” he asked, “an operational decision or a statement of intent? Are we expected to respond now?” I replied that a positive response on their part would be welcomed at any time, but on the whole we regarded the Resolution as a statement of policy, which would be followed up in due course by a number of specific proposals.

Turning to the military side, Dobrynin asked why we thought a new combined naval force was necessary at this time. It had unpleasant [Page 654] associations with MLF in their minds, although he knew this was not now a nuclear force. I responded that we always preferred Alliance action to action alone, and that all the Allies were concerned about the possible implications of Soviet naval activities in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, NATO 3. Secret; Exdis. Drafted by Rostow. The conversation was held in Rostow’s office during lunch.↩