177. Memorandum of Conversation1

SUBJECT

  • Secretary’s Talks with Gromyko

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Secretary
  • Chancellor Ludwig Erhard—Federal Republic of Germany

The Chancellor thought it important that the search for solutions to the problems common to the two countries should in no way impair their traditional friendly relations and solidarity.

This solidarity should be emphasized to the public and not just an account given of the matters that were currently pressing. On the other hand one should avoid creating the impression that there were no problems. These should be talked about, but above all it should be made clear that friendship and solidarity remained unshaken.

The Secretary nodded his approval. He said he had been surprised by the atmosphere during his recent conversation with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko in New York. He had expected the usual harsh language and threats. However Gromyko had abstained from the usual invective against the FRG and from accusing the US on Vietnam. Not one angry word had fallen. This contrasted sharply with previous occasions when no opportunity had been missed to denounce the FRG. The Secretary did not attach any particular importance to this but it seemed that Gromyko had been under instructions from Moscow to abstain from violent adjectives.

The Chancellor asked the Secretary how he appraised the outlook for a non-proliferation treaty after his talk with Gromyko.

The Secretary answered that matters stood where they had been before. A treaty that would allow the NATO countries access to nuclear weapons was unacceptable to the Soviets. Because of their insistence on this point, there was no narrowing of the gap between the views of the two sides. He did not know if any importance could be attached to Gromyko’s remark, when the latter’s attention was directed to the Warsaw Pact nations, that we should not try to get involved in political relations between individual countries but rather concentrate on the real issue—the transfer of atomic weapons to non-nuclear nations. In the past, in [Page 432] similar discussions, the Soviets had always brought forward an array of political arguments, especially about individual NATO nations. The Secretary had once told Gromyko the latter sounded as if he was trying to obtain a 16th seat on the NATO Council with veto power.

The Chancellor inquired if the Secretary was worried about any “nuclear power” ever getting involved in the Vietnam conflict. Seen from the perspective of Bonn it seemed that the Soviet Union was paying only lip service to the cause of Hanoi but did not really want to get involved.

The Secretary replied he had had a meeting with Mr. Rapacki just before the talks with Gromyko.2 The Polish Foreign Minister had threatened that the entire communist bloc might get together to come to the aid of Hanoi if the US would continue the war in Vietnam. He had told Rapacki that the US was prepared to face the consequences of such an action.

No such remarks had come from Mr. Gromyko, though the latter and the Polish Foreign Minister, he felt sure, were keeping each other informed.

The Chancellor commented the FRG was always hearing the bitterest language from Poland. They had given the harshest reply to the March Peace Note. This was all the more disappointing as there was much desire for reconciliation in the FRG, and the matter of borders would certainly present no problems in the event of German reunification.

The Secretary remarked it seemed to some people as if there were two blocs in Eastern Europe: a Northern Bloc, with a more frigid attitude, comprising the Soviet Union, Poland and the DDR, and a Southern Bloc, comprising countries like Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, with an attitude more relaxed and open to the West.

The Chancellor replied there was some truth in that theory. However, those three in the “Northern Bloc” surely did not look like natural allies. Poland’s resentments applied to East Germans just about as much as to the West Germans. The relations between Poland and the Soviet Union had historically always been unfriendly. Maybe it was only the power of the Soviet Union that was keeping the three together.

He asserted that there was hardly a German left to whom the revision of the Oder-Neisse Line was sacred. Reasonable borders could be arranged. Some arguments were only retained as a political bargaining position, not out of conviction.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 7 GER W. Secret. Drafted by Obst on September 29. The meeting was held at the Department of State. The source text is marked “Part I of I.”
  2. See Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, vol. XIII, Document 206.