Office of the Historian

187. Memorandum of Conversation1

SecDel/MC/#12
New York, September 20, 1966, 1 p.m.

SECRETARY’S DELEGATION TO THE TWENTY-FIRST SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

New York, September–October 1966

SUBJECT

  • China

PARTICIPANTS

  • US
    • Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, S/AL
  • Foreign
    • Anatoliy F. Dobrynin, Ambassador to the US

Dobrynin took the initiative in asking how our relations with Communist China were developing. I said that I thought the Chinese had lost [Page 395] their minds. Dobrynin agreed. He asked how I interpreted recent ChiCom actions, particularly the activities of the Red Guards. I said I did not know how the State Department in general regarded this but that my own personal opinion was that one of the greatest factors was Mao’s concern that his successors would not follow his policies. Also, he obviously had been concerned particularly with the problem of the Chinese youth who had not participated in the original revolution, and Mao probably thought their present activities were both good training and a means of dedicating them to his own ideas. Dobrynin said this agreed with his own appraisal.

Dobrynin asked why I thought the Chinese had published their opening statement in the talks with Ambassador Gronouski. I said I thought the Soviets were responsible for this. Dobrynin pointed out that Pravda had not made any comment of its own but had simply published what Ambassador Gronouski had said in an interview. He agreed, however, that others had put an interpretation on this, indicating Chinese collusion with us. He agreed that this was probably the reason for the Chinese action.

In the course of the discussion of this subject, I said I thought the action of the Red Guards and other steps, particularly with respect to education, would compound the Chinese Communist economic difficulties. Dobrynin said that their information was that the Chinese had been rather careful to keep hands off their top scientists, particularly their atomic scientists. I said we also had information to this effect, but I thought that in the last week or two there were some indications that even these people were beginning to be affected.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL CHICOM. Secret; Limdis. Approved by Thompson on September 24. The meeting took place at the Passy Restaurant in New York. The source text is Part V of X.↩