Office of the Historian

189. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, December 21, 1966, 4 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • US–USSR Relations

PARTICIPANTS

  • Sir Patrick Dean, British Ambassador
  • David V. Bendall, Counselor, British Embassy
  • Amb. Kohler, Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs
  • Thomas M. Judd, EUR/BMI

Ambassador Dean asked the Deputy Under Secretary what he thought were the prospects for US–USSR relations.

[Page 444]

Ambassador Kohler replied the Soviets were conducting a holding operation at present. They were trying to keep everything from going down the drain pending a resolution of the Viet Nam conflict. As a result of Viet Nam they did not wish to offer or receive any new bilateral initiatives. They were prepared to make exceptions when any such initiative was considered by them to be overwhelmingly in their self-interest. The bilateral civil air agreement and the outer space agreement were examples. In the case of the latter, the Soviets knew they could not afford an arms race in space with the U.S. and the agreement had a convenient UN cover.

The Soviet attitude on nonproliferation, Ambassador Kohler continued, was changing. This was because it was becoming apparent, due to the attitude of the Swedes and the Indians, that unless something was done quickly, we would never get an agreement. There might be some progress in the nonproliferation field but beyond that nothing until after Viet Nam.

Ambassador Dean inquired as to the Soviet attitude on ABM’s.2 Ambassador Kohler said the Soviets had a strong defensive mentality. They would look at their effort in the ABM field from the point of view of how much they could afford. We did not think they were very far technically advanced in this area. The civilian leadership of the country probably regarded ABM’s as still being in the experimental stage. There had been no decision to go all out. Of course the military, which wanted ABM’s, was in a relatively strong position vis-á-vis the present collective civilian leadership.

  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL US–USSR. Secret. Drafted by Judd and approved in G on January 9. The memorandum is part 3 of 5. The meeting was held in Kohler’s office. Kohler was appointed Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs on October 13 and entered on duty November 29.↩
  2. For documentation on Soviet and U.S. deployment of ABMs, see Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, volumes X and XI.↩