Office of the Historian

161. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, October 14, 1966, 1 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Nuclear Sharing; Non-Proliferation

PARTICIPANTS

  • UK
    • George Brown, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
    • Sir Patrick Dean, British Ambassador
    • Sir Michael Stewart, British Minister
    • Lord Hood, Deputy Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office
    • Denis A. Greenhill, Assistant Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office
  • US
    • Dean Rusk, Secretary of State
    • Eugene Rostow, Under Secretary-designate for Political Affairs
    • John M. Leddy, Assistant Secretary for European Affairs
    • David K.E. Bruce, Ambassador to the United Kingdom
    • Francis Bator, Special Assistant to the President
    • M.D. Goldstein, Acting Country Director, EUR/BMI

Secretary Rusk gave the Foreign Secretary a copy of the latest draft of US thinking on nuclear sharing.2 The Secretary said that the US would try out the new language on the Russians. The Foreign Secretary indicated that he was persuaded that the Russians were now interested in concluding a non-proliferation treaty. He said that he hoped to have British reactions to the new US draft text in a short time.3

In discussing the principal points of Soviet interest in a non-proliferation agreement, Secretary Rusk mentioned the concern of the Russians [Page 394] about the possibility of a change in US attitudes. Secretary Rusk said that, when he referred to existing US law on nuclear matters and to Congressional resistance to change in this area, he was met with the argument that Congress might change the law in the future. Secretary Rusk observed to the Foreign Secretary that, under our constitutional system, one Congress cannot bind another against changing the law; thus, the Russians must find their protection in the withdrawal clause of the agreement.

Secretary Rusk also said that it seemed clear on both sides that there should be no direct or indirect (through an alliance) transfer of nuclear weapons to a non-nuclear state. Gromyko was troubled, however, by the idea of transferring nuclear weapons to an alliance. Gromyko seemed to be involved in a metaphysical question; he seemed to think of an alliance as something separate from its members.

The Foreign Secretary stated that Gromyko did not seem to be concerned about NATO consultation arrangements on nuclear matters, whether old or new. Secretary Rusk observed that certain things were cleared away in the US talks with Gromyko: Gromyko would not raise questions on NATO consultations and was not interested in what the arrangements would be in time of war or how the Allies might decide to go to war.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, DEF 12 NATO. Secret; Exdis. Drafted by Mortimer D. Goldstein (EUR/BMI) and approved in S, October 28. The source text is labeled “Part 2 of 7.” The conversation was held in the James Madison Room of the Department of State. Foreign Secretary Brown was in New York in early October to attend meetings of the U.N. General Assembly and visited Washington to confer with U.S. officials.↩
  2. Reference presumably is to Rusk’s October 13 draft of Article 1 of the draft Nonproliferation Treaty. See Tab A to Document 162.↩
  3. Sir Michael Stewart, Minister of the British Embassy, told Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Walter J. Stoessel, Jr., on October 19 that “he had been instructed to inform us that the UK thought it very unlikely that the Russians would like the proposed treaty language. The UK nevertheless thought it would be a good thing to do to give them the language to keep the ball rolling. The Foreign Office had requested that he ask the US to tell the UK when we were thinking of giving the language to the Russians and would also like to be informed of their response.” (Department of State, Central Files, DEF 18-6)↩