Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXX, China

54. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, September 25, 1964, 1–3:30 p.m.

Memorandum of conversation with Ambassador Dobrynin, Friday, September 25, 1964, 1:00–3:30 p.m.

I had a long and cordial lunch with Ambassador Dobrynin in which we touched lightly on a large number of topics of only casual interest. The points of principal importance are as follows:

[Here follows discussion not related to China.]

3. My own principal effort was to direct the Ambassador’s attention to the problem of Communist Chinese nuclear weapons. I made it very plain that in our judgment the Chinese nuclear weapons would be real dissemination, while the MLF was nothing of the sort. I also made it plain that we would be ready for private and serious talk on what to do about this problem if there were any interest in the Soviet Government. The Ambassador gave no direct reply, but he gave me clearly to understand that in the thinking of the Soviet Government the Chinese nuclear capability was already, in effect, taken for granted. He argued that Chinese nuclear weapons had no importance against the Soviet Union or against the U.S., and that therefore they had only a psychological impact in Asia, and he implied that this impact had no importance for his government.

4. On China in general, the Ambassador admitted and indeed emphasized the depth and strength of the existing split between Moscow and Peking, but he took the view that the primary cause of this split was the personal megalomania of Mao. He said that Stalin at his worst had never insisted upon the kind of personal worship which was now accorded to Mao. He said that while in the Soviet Union younger men (like himself) were coming into positions of responsibility, and were able to argue openly and honestly with Khrushchev, in Communist China the older generation and, above all, Mao himself, were still in full charge and were inaccessible to reasonable argument. He told me at some length of the dismal experience of Soviet advisers trying to warn against the technological nonsense of the Great Leap Forward. But he asserted calmly, but strongly, his conviction that in the long run there would be a restoration of harmony between the two countries. And at one point, in discussion of our American differences with Communist China, he gently remarked on the continued existence of the treaty between the USSR and the ChiComs.

[Here follows discussion of an unrelated subject.]

McG. B.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, USSR, Dobrynin Conversations, 11/63–4/68, Vol. I. Secret.