Office of the Historian

331. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, February 15, 1968.

SUBJECT

  • Laos

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Secretary
  • Deputy Under Secretary Charles E. Bohlen
  • Soviet Ambassador Anatoliy Dobrynin

During an hour and a half’s luncheon conversation the following point was touched on:

The Secretary said that our recent information showed that there were North Vietnamese battalions around the town of Saravane in southern Laos and that if, as was possible, the North Vietnamese launched an attack on the city, the U.S. would become militarily involved. Dobrynin made a note of the name Saravane, obviously for the purpose of informing Moscow. The Secretary said that he thought the U.K. and the Soviet Union as co-chairmen of the 1962 Laos arrangement had certain duties, pointing out to Dobrynin that this agreement had been made quite independently of events in Viet-Nam. Dobrynin agreed.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27 LAOS. Secret; Exdis. Drafted by Bohlen and approved in S on February 19. The source text is Part II of VI.↩