Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XIV, Soviet Union

137. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, November 18, 1965.

SUBJECT

• US–USSR Relations

PARTICIPANTS

• Anatoliy F. Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador
• Foy D. Kohler, U.S. Ambassador to the USSR

At his invitation I lunched with Ambassador Dobrynin today, staying at the Embassy from 1:45 p.m. (having been delayed one-half hour by my talk with the President at the White House)² until nearly 4:00 p.m., when Dobrynin had an appointment at the Department. After general initial conversation, including apologies for my tardiness and reference to my leave in Florida and Mrs. Dobrynin’s trip to Cuba with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko, the Ambassador inquired about the President’s health and views on Soviet-American relations. I said I was glad to inform him that the President had made friendly references to him personally. However, the President continued to be disturbed by the hostile nature of Soviet statements about the U.S. including unfriendly references to him personally. The President had never been a communist-baiter and would continue to wish that there were some way to make some progress in our relationship. However, the sustained nature of this hostility had created an atmosphere, especially among members of Congress, which made forward movement difficult.

Dobrynin interrupted to say that he did not know of personal attacks on the President by members of the Soviet leadership and he was particularly certain that none had been made since his conversation with Secretary Rusk³ and his reports on this subject when he was back in Moscow on vacation this summer. I said that except for one reference which I recalled in a Brezhnev speech which mentioned the President by name and which was not exactly friendly, I agreed that it was true that personal references had not been made by members of the leadership. However, such statements did appear in the Soviet press and Soviet propaganda. The effect was about the same since these newspapers were officially controlled in the Soviet Union and the headlines appearing in American newspapers did not make any fine distinctions as to the Soviet source. Dobrynin argued that the Soviet press was not under the strict control that it used to be; since there were no official Soviet statements hostile to the President, the remarks cited by me could only be Soviet press reporting of articles or statements from foreign sources. I repeated that, be this as it might, such fine distinctions were not made by the reporters and the result was the creation of a difficult atmosphere here.

The conversation then turned to a general discussion of Vietnam and Germany with particular reference to nuclear sharing with the Germans along familiar lines with nothing essentially new being said on either side.

Later Dobrynin reverted to bilateral relations saying he hoped we could find some new ideas or proposals to move things forward. I replied that we would like to do this but that Soviet statements about the impossibility of any progress in our relationship so long as “American aggression continued in Vietnam” not only contributed to a worsening of the atmosphere but created the impression that we were in fact up against a brick wall with respect to any new moves. Practically every Soviet leader from Brezhnev to Polyansky made such statements in every public speech touching on international relations. I thought the Soviets had made clear that they would not be receptive to new proposals until Vietnam was settled but I did not see why they had to keep repeating this all the time, especially every time they were jumped on by the Chinese. Indeed, this process was creating increasing difficulty for the President even in connection with moving ahead on such presently pending matters as the ratification of the Consular Convention and conclusion of the Civil Air Agreement as well as East-West trade legislation. Moreover, I thought the Soviets had made a great mistake in canceling “Hello Dolly” performances in Moscow since this had raised again the charge that the Soviets could not be depended upon to respect any agreements that were made with them. Dobrynin immediately replied that this was not a cancellation of a performing arts attraction but only a postponement. I replied that it had only become a postponement after I had gone to Mr. Gromyko and pointed out that the original cancellation was a direct violation of an inter-governmental agreement. The Ambassador did not try to respond to my observation about the incessant repetition of the Soviet line on our bilateral relations. He did, however, expand on the question of the ratification of the Consular Convention. He said this was not regarded as an important matter from a substantive point of view but that failure of ratification had been regarded as an indication of American intentions to freeze our relationship. He recounted at some length his experience on returning to the USSR for leave last summer, when on the basis of assurances from Secretary Rusk he tried to convince Moscow skeptics that the U.S would ratify the Consular Convention. By the time he returned to Moscow from leave in the Crimea he had been proven wrong. He went on to say that he supposed that since the agreement had not been ratified in the last session of Congress it would not be in the new session. I replied that this might depend to a considerable extent on Moscow. I thought it would be useful if the Soviet side would pipe down on its attacks and charges and try to improve the atmosphere before the new session of Congress convenes. Dobrynin said it might be useful if I made some of the observations in Moscow I had just made to him today. I said I intended to do so; I usually had a talk with Foreign Minister Gromyko after my return to Moscow from the United States and would expect to do the same this time.

Finally, I reverted to the question of the “postponement” of “Hello Dolly” and pointed out that we had not, as we might have, in reciprocity “postponed” the visit of the Moscow Philharmonic. They should take note of this and realize that they were already in our debt for one major performing arts attraction.

1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL US–USSR. Secret. Drafted and initialed by Kohler on November 19.
2. See Document 136.
3. See Document 114.