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

138. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, November 18, 1965.

SUBJECT

• The “Penkovsky Papers”

PARTICIPANTS

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

I made the following oral statement to Dobrynin:

“With reference to your statement to me on November fifteenth² with regard to the ‘Penkovsky Papers,’ The United States Government was not responsible for their publication. As the Ambassador is aware, our newspapers and publishing houses are free to print what they please. The responsibility is theirs and theirs alone.

“In view of this, no comment on your other statements is necessary. I should like, however, to reject in particular the charge that the publication of the ‘Penkovsky Papers’ is a ‘premeditated action in direct contradiction of repeated pronouncements by the Government of the USA about striving for improvement of Soviet-American relations.’ There can be no question about the sincerity of the statements by the President, the Secretary of State and others expressing their hope for improved relations with the Soviet Union. We will continue to do what we can to further this objective, but obviously this is a two-way street and progress depends not on us alone.”

He said he would, of course, inform his Government, but then he commented saying he was speaking personally. He said: “Of course you understand, and I understand, somebody in an American agency was responsible for writing these papers.” He noted that my statement referred to the President and the Secretary of State and said that he had not suggested that this had been done at the top levels of the American Government.

I said I could only repeat what I had told him before, which was that I had checked with the CIA which had denied any involvement. The Ambassador again indicated, as in his original oral statement, that the accusation that the Soviets had considered preventive war had particularly disturbed his Government.

1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL 29 USSR. Confidential. Drafted and initialed by Thompson and approved in S/AL on November 18.
2. Document 135.