Office of the Historian

80. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to the President’s File1

Washington, March 8, 1973, 1–1:10 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • The President’s Meeting with Soviet Ambassador Anatoliy F. Dobrynin

PARTICIPANTS

  • The President
  • Ambassador Anatoliy F. Dobrynin
  • Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

Ambassador Dobrynin had just returned from consultations in Moscow.

The President greeted him and said he was very pleased that General Secretary Brezhnev had now given us his answer on the proposed date for the Summit meeting. [The Soviets now wanted June.]2 The President expressed his determination that the Summit meeting must succeed.

Ambassador Dobrynin agreed, and then raised various matters with respect to the General Secretary’s visit. Brezhnev deeply appreciated receptions and formal protocol. The details of what to arrange and how to arrange it were, of course, up to the President.

Brezhnev’s approach to the Summit could be summed up as follows, the Ambassador continued: This particular meeting could set a new line for both countries in the direction of a deeper relationship, both state-to-state and President-to-General Secretary. The results of this meeting, Brezhnev hoped, would be such that next year the President could visit the Soviet Union again and this time travel widely around the country with the General Secretary and meet the Russian people directly. This would have a great symbolic significance about our relationship.

Brezhnev also believed that Summit meetings should be well-prepared, and they should become more regular. Their purpose should be to neutralize those forces which were attempting to undermine our agreements and our policies of rapprochement.

Ambassador Dobrynin concluded by citing the issues which Brezhnev regarded as the highest priority for the Summit—the nuclear treaty and the Middle East.

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 495, President’s Trip Files, Dobrynin/Kissinger, Vol. 15. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. Brackets are in the original.↩
  2. See Document 78.↩