Office of the Historian

320. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson1

Washington, November 20, 1968, 12:30 p.m.

Mr. President:

You asked me to develop a plan to get the missile talks started at the highest level.

1.

Problems

  • —Czechoslovakia.

    The military situation is that the Soviets appear to be down to three divisions plus some headquarters troops. That is probably rock bottom. They have pulled their forces away from the German frontier and are not, therefore, in a tactically threatening position with respect to NATO. My judgment about Soviet troops is that we have that issue in [Page 758] about as good shape as we can get it. It should not be a barrier to strategic missile talks.

    With respect to Czech politics, the situation is less clear. Obviously, Czech liberals and Soviet–backed conservatives are still struggling with the conservatives, making progress, but not winning. The students and the unions seem to have made effective common cause. I would say that unless we get demonstrations and strikes with bloody repression, we could probably live with the Czech domestic political situation.

  • —In making the case to our people for going ahead with strategic missile talks, however, we would have to acknowledge that the whole intervention was tragic. We could not gloss it over. We could say something that is true: It is in the interest of the Czechs as well as all humanity that we proceed with the strategic missile talks.

  • —Berlin.

    Recent alarums proved false. My guess is that Berlin would be quiet if we went ahead.

  • —The text of the Joint Communiqué on Missiles.

    I re–read what the Soviets added. One of their paragraphs talks about “equal security should be assured for both sides.” If this is interpreted to mean that each side should be left with an assured second strike capability, we could buy it. We would have to make sure, however, that the Soviets did not read this as meaning that we were going for equal numbers in all categories. This we could not buy.

  • —More generally, I think we would have to come back to the Soviets with our own redraft of the present combination of their points and our points before we could be confident that the result would be acceptable. Bob Murphy could work with Secretary Rusk on this once the President and Mr. Nixon had agreed in principle that we should go forward.
  • —The major problem is Nixon and his willingness either to support an early meeting on missiles at the highest level, or not to oppose it. I repeat the paragraph from my previous memo:2

“With respect to a rationale for Nixon, these are key points:

  • —we xhave been working on this since January 1964, and working intensively since the Glassboro sessions;
  • —we start with a position which is fully acceptable to the JCS and all civilian authorities in the government;
  • —any modifications and negotiations from that position will lie in the hands of the next Administration;
  • —a coming to grips with this matter at an early date would make it easier to get the NPT through the Senate in January;
  • —equally important, if Nixon encourages the President to go forward with this, it will virtually guarantee Soviet restraint on Berlin and Eastern Europe in the first phase of his Administration because once the talks are started, the Soviet Union will have a major interest in not creating circumstances which would require that they be broken off. We have been clear with them about both Berlin and Czechoslovakia.”

2.
In retrospect, I think that last point could be made very strongly to him. In general, my somewhat amateur political advice would be this:
  • —Tell Nixon you have decided to go ahead if you can get agreement along the lines of the principles already built into the U.S. national position;
  • —Give him the option of coming along, like Attlee with Churchill to Potsdam;
  • —Give him the option also of having Murphy come along;
  • —Before seeing Nixon, however, make sure we have an agreed redraft of the principles we would put to Moscow cleared by the JCS. That is the first preliminary technical job. I would suggest that Sect. Rusk be asked by you to take it in hand promptly.
3.
Your case for doing it before January is exceedingly strong because:
  • —You have put almost five years’ work into it, including intensive work in the last year and a half;
  • —The opening of these talks could ease the NPT problem enormously.
Walt
  1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Rostow Files, Strategic Missile Talks. Top Secret; Sensitive; Literally Eyes Only.↩
  2. Document 318.↩