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

332. Telegram From the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson in Texas¹

Washington, December 14, 1968, 1611Z.

CAP 82396. Herewith a letter from John McCloy to the President and a memorandum to the President urging strongly that we not enter into missile talks with the Russians at this time.

John McCloy called me about this and said that no one except his secretary, the President, and me would see the memorandum.

The memorandum arose, he said, from a conversation with Clark Clifford in which Clark indicated such talks as a possibility.² I shall, of course, make no distribution of this unless you so direct.

December 12, 1968

Dear. Mr. President:

I have felt impelled to prepare the enclosed memorandum which I would very much like to have you read before you or anyone else undertakes to open up talks at this particular point in history with the Soviet Union on the missiles issue.

I have not sought to refine the language of this memorandum as I would if I had not felt that it was important to bring it to your attention as promptly as possible.

Respectfully yours, John McCloy

Enclosure

Memorandum to—the President

From what I can gather from the accounts of the press interviews and rumors that I hear, the government still has under serious consideration the initiation during the last days of this administration of talks with the Soviet Union dealing with the matter of reduction or control of nuclear missile weapons.

As you know, I am Chairman of the General Advisory Committee created by an act of Congress and in accordance with the provisions of the act that committee’s responsibility is to advise the President, the Secretary of State and the Director of the Agency on all matters pertaining to arms control and disarmament. I have held this position since the original committee was appointed. I was also asked by President Kennedy to set up the Agency for Arms Control and Disarmament and took over its direction until it was prepared to function under the act and under a new director. It is not, however, as Chairman of that committee that I feel I should express my views regarding the contemplated meeting with the Soviets, but as an individual and former government official who has had long association with matters affecting the security of the country. That association has included problems of armament, both conventional and nuclear, as well as policies in respect of arms control and disarmament. It has also involved extensive negotiations with representatives of the Soviet Union.

I have a very strong feeling that it is inadvisable to open these talks now at any level and certainly not at the top level. I hold these views for the following reasons:

(1) The main priority at the present moment is the repair and reinvigoration of the Alliance not the inception of a dialogue with the Soviet Union. Any efforts at this time to alter this priority will have, in my judgment, most serious effects on the Alliance. It is a gesture toward the Alliance which is needed at this time not a gesture toward Moscow.

(2) Sufficient weight, in my judgment, has not yet been given to the effects of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the announcement of the so-called Brezhnev doctrine³ and the threats against West Germany. Nor has sufficient weight been given to the altered security position of Europe and the United States which new developments have brought about.

(3) No matter how tentative or general the form of the initial approach to the Soviet Union may take by instituting it we shall be implicitly accepting a principle of no superiority, or expressed in a different form, of parity. No amount of semantics with the use of different words can alter that fact. The minute we touch our foot down in the meeting room this principle is implicit. This involves a major step in the development of both our strategy and our public opinion. The present administration and its predecessors have constantly insisted that we have always been in a position of massive superiority in the nuclear field and that we intend to maintain this position. I have seen the papers which outlined the position of the United States on this matter of missiles which were prepared prior to the Czech invasion. There was no question in my mind nor in the mind of agency representatives that it did embody this principle, although it was implicit rather than expressed. I am not suggesting that we should continue to insist upon superiority, although I have questioned the assumption that parity is necessarily a more stable form of defense than that of superiority. My position is that the assumption of parity in whatever form of words it is stated should be understood by the new administration and clarified with the Congress, the country and the allies to a much greater degree than it has been before the United States enters upon meetings which commit us to it.

(4) It was a serious mistake, in my judgment, when in connection with the origination of the non-proliferation agreement, we first cleared a draft with the Soviet Union before we approached some of our most important allies and certainly the one which was most deeply concerned. The avidity to reach an agreement, almost any agreement, with the Soviet Union made us lose sight of the significant priorities. I fear we may be on the verge of making the same mistake again. The best way to avoid a fragmentation of Europe, the further erosion of the Alliance and a constructive modus vivendi with the Soviet Union is the maintenance of a thoroughly convincing and cohesive Allied security policy.

I am aware that there have been general expressions on the part of the Allies including the NATO ministers as well as resolutions in the United Nations regarding the advisability of our opening negotiations with the Soviet Union leading to the reduction of nuclear armaments, but I believe these expressions only reflect the general pressure for such reductions without taking into necessary account the implications of the Czech affair, the alteration in the power balance (which certainly has taken place) or the character of reduction or control of armaments which the general security situation now justifies. It is much more than a matter of comparison of the number of warheads of the United States and the Soviet Union or the general comparison of the Soviet-United States position. It is now a matter of the whole allied deterrent. The studies made before the Czech invasion are, in my judgment, not up to date and no temporarily comforting assurances on the part of Moscow in regard to Berlin, Rumania, Yugoslavia, etc., alter the fundamental fact of the deployment of Soviet troops further west and in greater quantity than was the case even during the war. The Czech invasion demonstrated a mobility speed and capacity to reinforce on the part of the Soviets which we, with all our vaunted airlift possibilities, cannot now remotely duplicate.

The Czech invasion, together with the greatly increased nuclear and conventional potential of the Soviets and the emergence of the Soviets and Soviet influence into the Mediterranean, constitute a new situation of which we should take advantage in dealing with our allies. The next meeting, in my judgment, should be in this country with the allies and there the matter of determining together what is the overall need in the light of the new developments should be dealt with before any further overtures are made to the Soviets. If this procedure and priority is not followed, I very much fear we shall only be encouraging our European Allies to rely more heavily on the so-called détente and the United States ultimate strategic deterrent without doing their share to maintain the immediate and probably more convincing deterrent of well trained and well supported forces in the field. A joint and serious review of the whole security position will tend to recreate the cooperative spirit of the Alliance which is so greatly needed at this time.

The Soviets are bound to exploit with their allies and their potential satellites any hasty meeting with us as an acquiescence in the consequences of the Czech invasion. In spite of all The New York Times’ editorializing, there is no need for haste. If the program has merit for us and the Soviets, its advantages will not disappear overnight. The value of the program to the Soviet Union is very great and will extend into at least 1969. It will be just as important to them in 1969 as in 1968 to reduce our nuclear potential and it will be just as important to them to have us enter into a non-proliferation treaty which consolidates their near monopoly of nuclear weapons and forever excludes Germany, one of our allies, from having them. It is no argument to contend that the Joint Chiefs of Staff may withdraw their support to a reduction in the course of another administration due to a possible change in Joint Chiefs of Staff personnel. Such an argument merely confirms the fact that there exists a tendency to preclude the new administration from entire freedom of action in a matter that will deeply concern the country and for with the new administration is bound to have to assume the ultimate responsibility.

I know that there has been sustained and thoughtful work done on this problem in the preparation for the meeting with the Soviet Union. Though most of it was done before the Czech affair occurred, I am sure considerable thought has been given it since then but these studies will be available for the new administration to review and to some degree for the allies to review before a meeting with the Soviets takes place. The problem is, as I happen to know, most complex and practically impossible for the new administration to grasp with all its implications between now and the time which I guess is contemplated for the initiation of the talks. I really do not understand how any group of people, including those just designated by Mr. Nixon to become his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, can be expected to have a knowledgeable attitude on this vital issue and yet I feel certain that the issue is so great and so significant, one can be quite certain the new administration is going to have to give thorough, sincere and prompt thought to it. This opportunity should, in my judgment, be afforded them free of any pressure which an immediate meeting with the Soviet representatives would entail.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Rostow Files, Strategic Missile Talks. Secret; Literally Eyes Only. The President flew to his Texas ranch December 13 and returned to Washington December 15.
2. In a December 2 memorandum to the President, Clifford made a strong case for moving forward with the missile talks beginning at the head of government level to be followed by working level talks. For text, see Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, vol. XI, Document 295.
3. Originally propounded by Soviet Communist Party spokesman Sergei Kovalev in an article entitled “Sovereignty and International Responsibility of Socialist Countries” in Pravda, September 16, 1968. A translation is printed in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, October 16, 1968, and in Robin Alison Remington, ed., Winter in Prague: Documents on Czechoslovak Communism in Crisis (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1969), pp. 412–416.