Office of the Historian

27. Telegram From Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of State0

Geneva, March 26, 1962, midnight.

Secto 113. President and Acting Secretary from the Secretary. No Other Distribution. As I wind up this round of talks with Gromyko on Berlin, I have the following summary reactions prior to full report on my return:

1.
Soviets have not changed their proposals in any significant way since Vienna summit.
2.
Gromyko has carefully avoided threat and bluster on the one side and any temptation to declare an impasse on the other. Bearing in mind your conversation with me just before my departure,1 I presented Gromyko with several opportunities to clarify completely their real intentions, specifically to discover whether they are determined to move to a crisis. He consistently backed away.
3.
Although they can change their minds overnight, they clearly left the impression that they wished to continue talks on a bilateral basis and are flexible as to exact means. Gromyko underlined that we could consider Dobrynin as a fully reliable channel with full confidence Khru-shchev. In doing so, however, he did not rule out any other channel and renewed this most informal invitation to me, for example, to visit Moscow if it should prove convenient.
4.
My associates and I believe that in our talks here, including expert level consultations, we accumulated a great deal of “raw data” which we must carefully review to determine what the most promising line of our next approach might be.
5.
Although Gromyko did not accept our modus vivendi approach in these discussions, his criticisms of our so-called principles were not fundamental and I think some revision of this approach might be a good next step whatever the channel.
6.
Despite preceding paragraph, Soviets are still pressing for major agreement on essence of their proposals and are reluctant to abandon them even tacitly for a modus vivendi. I am more than ever convinced that what we have described as our vital interests in Berlin are just that [Page 92] and that Soviets look upon our attitude as a formidable obstacle and are reluctant to challenge these interests frontally.
7.
Gromyko and I did not reach formal agreement on any point but it is obvious that there are a number of points on which we could agree. Similarly, we did not reach a degree of disagreement on any point which precludes further discussion.

Upon my arrival at airport I plan to make most minimum statement pending full report to you.

Rusk
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 762.00/3–2662. Top Secret; Niact; Eyes Only. Passed to the White House. According to another copy, this telegram was drafted by Rusk. (Ibid., Conference Files: Lot 65 D 533, CF 2060)↩
  2. According to Kennedy’s and Rusk’s Appointment Books, the President, Secretary of State, and their principal advisers had met at the White House from 11 a.m. to noon of March 9, to discuss, inter alia, disarmament and Berlin. No other record of this meeting has been found.↩