Office of the Historian

303. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, April 30, 1968, 4:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Mutual Force Reduction (Part VIII of IX)

PARTICIPANTS

  • US
    • The Secretary
    • Rufus Z. Smith, Country Director for Canada
  • Canada
    • Mitchell Sharp, Secretary of State for External Affairs
    • A.E. Ritchie, Ambassador
    • Marcel Cadieux, Under-Secretary, Department of External Affairs
    • Basil Robinson, Deputy Under-Secretary, Department of External Affairs

Mr. Sharp mentioned that the June NATO Ministerial Meeting at Reykjavik will coincide with the Canadian elections, and he feared that he would be unable to attend since his absence from the country at the time would be regarded in Canada, he thought, as “supreme arrogance.”

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The Secretary turned the discussion to the possibilities of mutual force reductions in Europe. If both sides could come to see the desirability of reduction of military forces in Central Europe, a premise would exist for progress along these lines. If there is a chance of this kind, then it would help us in holding the line against pressures here to withdraw US forces from Europe. If there could be real signs of hope at the Reykjavik meeting, then the new President might not find himself confronted with over-whelming pressure on the issue.

The Secretary went on to comment that with 650,000 men deployed in Vietnam, with the 7th Fleet, and in near-by areas, it was a near miracle that we had been able to resist pressures for substantial withdrawal from Europe. He therefore hoped that as the Canadian Government reviewed its own situation it would bear in mind that Canadian actions might well have a “multiplier effect” in the US. Even a move toward reduction by Luxembourg complicated our problem.

The Secretary volunteered that he was not too hopeful that the Soviet Union could go very far toward mutual force reduction under present circumstances. He thought the Russians were very much concerned about what could happen in Eastern Europe. The Soviets also would have a political problem in taking steps which would appear to release US forces for action in Vietnam.

Mr. Sharp inquired as to how deep the Russian concern is about Eastern Europe, and the Secretary responded that he thought their concern was very real, for example, with respect to Czechoslovakia. He suspected they were also under some pressure from Ulbricht.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 6 EUR. Secret; Exdis. Drafted by Smith and approved in S on May 6. The conversation was held in Rusk’s office.↩