Office of the Historian

127. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, September 26, 1965.

SUBJECT

  • Special Channel Communications

PARTICIPANTS

  • Ambassador Anatoliy F. Dobrynin, USSR
  • Llewellyn E. Thompson, Ambassador-at-Large, Department of State

Ambassador Dobrynin asked me to lunch with him alone yesterday. Dobrynin said that several times the Soviet leaders had discussed the possibility of sending a personal message to the President but they had decided that since their last two communications to the President had not been answered, it was up to the United States to reopen this channel. Dobrynin said he thought it would be helpful to reopen this personal contact. I asked to whom these messages would be addressed. He first said he thought they might be addressed to both Brezhnev and Kosygin, but then said that if I could let him know a couple of days in advance of an actual message, he would find out for me how it should be addressed. He said he did not want to raise this question with Moscow unless there was actually going to be a message.

In the course of this discussion, he made clear to me that Brezhnev was the more important of the two so far as policy decision making was concerned. He also told me that while there would be some changesannounced at the Supreme Soviet meeting which opens on October first, that these changes would not be startling, and indicated that they would not affect Brezhnev or Kosygin.2

  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, USSR, Dobrynin/Thompson Memcons, Vol. I. Secret; Exdis. Drafted by Thompson and approved in S/AL on September 27. Also discussed were the cultural exchanges agreement, leadership problems in the Soviet Union, the location of the new Soviet Embassy, non-proliferation, Pravda and Izvestia, Arthur Schlesinger’s articles on Secretary of State Rusk, the Soviet economy, and Vietnam. A memorandum of the discussion on Vietnam is printed in Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, vol. III, Document 154. Memoranda of the other conversations are in Department of State, S/S-I Files: Lot 73 D 154, S/AL Memcons.↩
  2. In a September 3 Intelligence Note, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research commented on the “persistent rumors for the past several months of top-level changes in the Soviet hierarchy” and speculated that important personnel changes might be in the offing. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL 15–1 USSR) In a September 9 memorandum for the President’s evening reading, Under Secretary Mann noted that there had been “a spate of rumors, some from Communist sources, about an impending major shake-up of the top leadership,” and while “such rumors are virtually impossible to confirm,” there were “numerous signs of fluidity and jockeying.” (Ibid., S/S Files: Lot 74 D 164) Thompson told French Ambassador Alphand on September 15, however, that while there would be some changes next spring if not sooner, “we do not expect anything big.” (Memorandum of conversation; ibid., Central Files 1964–66, POL EUR)↩