Office of the Historian

133. Memorandum of Conversation0

Washington, February 22, 1962.

SUBJECT

  • Disarmament

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Acting Secretary
  • Mikhail Smirnovsky, Soviet Chargé d’Affaires
  • Oleg Sokolov, Employee, Soviet Embassy
  • John C. Guthrie, Director, SOV

Mr. Smirnovsky called under instructions to deliver the text of a letter from Chairman Khrushchev to the President.1 The letter was in reply to the President’s letter of February 14 on the subject of disarmament and [Page 325] the forthcoming meeting of the 18-Nation Disarmament Committee in Geneva.2 Mr. Smirnovsky noted that Khrushchev in his letter expresses disappointment with the negative attitude of the President toward the proposal that the 18-nation meeting be opened by Heads of State.3 The letter, Mr. Smirnovsky said, argues for the Soviet proposal and explains why the USSR cannot agree with the President’s arguments in support of the U.S. proposal. The letter deals, he said, with the control problem and the nuclear test question. In conclusion the letter expresses a strong belief that the Geneva meeting should be opened by Heads of Government and expresses the hope that the President has not yet said his final word on the subject. Mr. Smirnovsky said a similar message was being sent to Prime Minister Macmillan and that the text of the letter to the President would be published.

The Acting Secretary said that the President would give full consideration to Mr. Khrushchev’s letter.4

  1. Source: Department of State, Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 65 D 330. Official Use Only. Drafted by Guthrie and approved in U on February 23.↩
  2. Apparent reference to a letter dated February 21; for text, see vol. VI, Document 36, or Documents on Disarmament, 1962, vol. I, pp. 49-57.↩
  3. In his letter, Kennedy maintained that attendance by the Heads of Government at the forthcoming Geneva Conference might be useful, but not until progress had been made on substantive disarmament issues. For text, see vol. VI, Document 32, or Documents on Disarmament, 1962, vol. I, pp. 36-38.↩
  4. Khrushchev made this proposal in a February 10 letter to Kennedy and Macmillan; for text, see vol. VI, Document 31, or Documents on Disarmament, 1962, vol. I, pp. 32-36.↩
  5. Kennedy’s February 25 reply again argued against attendance by the Heads of Government at the beginning of the conference; for text, see vol. VI, Document 37, or Documents on Disarmament, 1962, vol. I, pp. 61-63. Extensive documentation on the U.S. replies to the Soviet Union in these exchanges, including consultation among the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy (the “Western Five”) at the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Committee, is in Department of State, Central File 600.0012 and ibid., Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 65 D 330 for January and February 1962.↩