Tab A
Washington, December 22,
1969.
Memorandum of Conversation Between the President’s
Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) and the Soviet
Ambassador (Dobrynin)4
SUBJECT
- Conversation with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin
After an exchange of pleasantries, Dobrynin opened the conversation by saying that he
wanted to speak to me on a frank and open basis. He had missed the
opportunity to talk to me for a long time, and he hoped that our
meetings would be more frequent. I said that it was always a
pleasure to talk to him.
Dobrynin said that when he
had met with the President,5 the President had
indicated that the Middle East and other issues could be settled
only on the highest level. With this, the Soviet Government agreed.
On the other hand, the President had also indicated that there could
be no contact on any level except the diplomatic level until Vietnam
was settled. Did this mean that we did not believe that there could
be any progress in our relations with the Soviet Union? I asked
Dobrynin why he raised
this issue now, since I thought we had explained to him at great
length what our position was and that nothing had really changed.
Vietnam was an important problem to us, and he knew how we related
it to other issues.
U.S. Domestic Scene
Dobrynin said he wanted to be
frank. He had made a careful analysis of the American domestic
situation, and he had communicated it to Moscow as follows:
The President was almost certain of re-election in 1972. He had only
begun to tap the right-wing votes and he could always expand his
base in that direction. There was, therefore, no prospect of
anyone’s unseating him in 1972. If anyone wanted to wait him out,
they had to be ready to wait for seven more years. This was too long
for the Soviet Union, and it should also be too long for Hanoi. He
therefore wanted to ask me again whether I saw any prospect for
improving Soviet/American relations.
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I repeated the President’s statement at the October 20th meeting that
he hoped to have his Administration go down in history as one that
did bring about a substantial improvement in Soviet/American
relations but we wanted to proceed by concrete steps. And, of
course, it was a difficult problem while the Vietnam war went
on.
Vietnam
Dobrynin then turned to the
war in Vietnam. He said, “You have to understand that we tried to do
something last April and May, but Hanoi told us that there was no
sense having a private channel unless the United States agreed in
advance to negotiate about a coalition government. We cannot tell
them how to fight in their own country. This is a real problem to
us, and we thought it was best not to return a negative reply.” I
said it would have been better to return some sort of a reply, but
there was no sense talking about the past.
Dobrynin then asked me how I
saw the future. I said that I really had not come to discuss
Vietnam, but to sum it up in a few words, we were very confident.
For the first time in my experience with Vietnam, I now was certain
that time was working on our side. It seemed to me that Hanoi had
only two choices—to negotiate or to see its structure in South
Vietnam erode. He said, “Isn’t there even a slight chance that the
South Vietnam Government might collapse?” I said that we were
confident that we were on the right course. Maybe Hanoi would start
an offensive but then, as the President had repeatedly pointed out
publicly, it would have to draw the consequences. Dobrynin said, “Of course, if you
start bombing the North again, or if you hit Haiphong, you realize
what would happen.” I expected him to say the Soviet Union would
come in. But instead, he said, “What would happen is the Chinese
would send in engineer battalions, and you don’t want to increase
Chinese influence in Hanoi.” I said, “If you can live with it, we
can,” and in any event, our problem was to end the war in South
Vietnam.
Dobrynin said that he did not
think that Hanoi had anything new to say for the next few months. I
told him that they knew what channels were available and that we
would be glad to listen to them if they did. We would be flexible
and conciliatory in negotiations. We had no intention to humiliate
Hanoi, but we would not pay an additional price to enter the
negotiations. Dobrynin asked
me whether we were ever going to send a senior Ambassador to the
negotiations. I said it depended in part on the negotiations, but I
had no doubt that ultimately it would be done. He said he had to
admit that nothing was going on at the negotiations now, but that he
thought they were an important symbol.
I said in conclusion that if Hanoi had something to say to us it
should do so explicitly, and not get us involved in detective
stories in
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which various
self-appointed or second-level emissaries were dropping oblique
hints. Dobrynin laughed and
said he would be sure to get this point across. He thought Hanoi had
nothing to say at the moment.
The major point about the Vietnam part was the complete absence of
contentiousness on Dobrynin’s
part. There was no challenge to my assertion that our policy was
working out, and there was a conspicuous effort by Dobrynin to disassociate himself
from the Vietnamese war.
Tour d’Horizon
Dobrynin asked how we looked
at Southeast Asia as a whole. I referred to the Nixon Doctrine and regional
groupings, etc. I asked him how the Russians saw their own interests
in the area. Surprisingly, he said, “We don’t have real interests
there. We were drawn in in 1964 on the basis of a
misunderstanding.”6
Dobrynin then turned to other
issues. He began with a familiar catalogue. He said that the Soviet
Government was approaching relations with the United States with an
open mind and with good will, but a number of very strange things
had happened. They had made a formal proposal to Secretary Rogers about European security.
They had never received a reply; instead, the Secretary had made a
very anti-Soviet speech in Brussels.
On the trade bill, the Administration had not liberalized trade
as7 many in Congress had wanted.
While the SALT talks were going on,
there were newspaper stories that the United States was pushing its
ABM development and its MIRV development in the Defense
Program Review Committee under my chairmanship.8
The Middle East negotiations9 were stalled.
Deputy Foreign Minister Macovescu of Romania was received at the
White House while Gromyko was
not.
I had to remember that in the Soviet Union, decisions were not made
by one man as in the United States, but by eleven;10 and all these signals put together created a
very bad impression. I shouldn’t tell him that something had slipped
in our big bureaucracy—such reports were not believed in Moscow.
“Our people take orders,” he said.
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We managed to convey the idea that we were making everything
conditional on something else.11 For example, we were
asking them to show their good intentions in Berlin before we agreed
to a European Security Conference.
With respect to summits, we gave the impression that they were
pleading with us where, in fact, they had not—though they were, of
course, certainly willing to consider it in principle. There was one
place on which one could make quick progress and that was at the
summit, but we didn’t seem to be interested in it. And therefore he
wanted to know how I visualized the possibility of progress.12
I told Dobrynin that we
remained interested in good relations with the Soviet Union. We were
the two great powers, and we had to avoid conflict; we should speak
while we were still in a position to make definitive decisions. At
the same time, as the President had repeatedly pointed out, we
wanted to have concrete, detailed negotiations. Until he told me
just what he was aiming at, it was very hard for me to comment on
his points, since I did not know what he understood by progress. For
example, we had heard a great deal about the European Security
Conference, but I did not know just exactly what the Soviet Union
hoped to achieve there. Dobrynin said, “Well, why don’t you ask us. We would
be glad to tell you at any level.” I said, “Well, maybe we should
ask you, but why don’t you tell me now.” Dobrynin said, “We want existing frontiers
recognized.” I said, “No one is challenging the existing frontiers.”
Dobrynin said that he had
the impression we were challenging the status quo in Germany. I told
him we were not challenging the status quo in Germany, but there was
a big difference between challenging it and giving juridical
recognition to East Germany.
Dobrynin then asked about
China. He said, “What exactly are you up to. Are you trying to annoy
the Soviet Union?” He also asked how we visualized relations with
China developing. I said the President had often pointed out that
the 800,000,000 Chinese were a fact of international life which we
had to take seriously and from which we couldn’t foreclose
ourselves. We were not childish, and we did not believe that we
could end all the distrust immediately or have a very huge
negotiation immediately. But we did want to establish some sort of
relationship. Dobrynin said,
“How can you do it as long as you have Taiwan?” I told him that this
was essentially our problem, and that we thought we could explore
possibilities. Dobrynin said,
“Well, you made
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a rather
clever move getting Japan involved in the defense of Taiwan and at
the same time opening negotiations with Communist China.”13 I did not make any direct response to
this. I said we had no intention of playing for small stakes with
Communist China, and needling the Soviet Union was an unhistoric and
not worthwhile effort. Dobrynin asked why we don’t recognize Mongolia. He
said that the Soviet Union would welcome it.
Dobrynin then said that he
thought the Mid-Eastern negotiation could not go anywhere. Sisco was ingenious in coming up
with formulae, but they always moved around in a circle and they did
not take into account the power realities. He thought that the
Middle East had to be settled at the highest level.
One result of the distrust between Washington and Moscow, Dobrynin said, was that a number of
other countries could attempt to maneuver between us. For example,
the British were always going to the Soviet Union and telling them
that the United States was preventing a European Security
Conference, but the Soviet Union knew the British game.14 The British thought they had to keep the Soviet
Union and the United States apart so that they could maneuver—that
if the United States and the Soviet Union were together, Britain was
nothing. I said that I did not know to which statements he referred,
but that the British and we were in rather close accord.
Finally, I said to Dobrynin it
was not very fruitful to discuss these issues in the abstract. It
would be much better if we discussed them at least on a hypothetical
basis, issue by issue. Dobrynin said that as a matter of fact, he was going
to make exactly this proposal to me. He said that his government was
aware of the fact that the President might not wish to have
comprehensive solutions while the war in Vietnam was going on, but
they saw no harm in exploring what such solutions might look
like.15 At least, we would both understand each other
better then. He therefore wanted to suggest that after I came back
from California, he and I meet at regular intervals and set aside
each session for one particular topic. We could then decide after
the topic was completed and after this had been discussed with the
President whether any action was necessary—whether instructions
would be given or it should be taken to another level. I told him
that I would have to take this matter up with the President, but
that, in principle, it was possible that we might proceed this
way.
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Dobrynin then made another
effusive statement of the need for Soviet/American cooperation and
of the good faith of his government and earnestness in trying to
seek it. He said a good example was the rapidity with which they had
agreed to the President’s preference on the site for the SALT talks. He said, “You know
Smith had tried for two
weeks but when the President requested Geneva, we gave him Vienna
even though he had not asked for it. This is what could happen in
other areas if we understand each other.” I told him that he could
be sure I would report this fully to the President, and that I would
be in touch with him after we returned from the West Coast.
