Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume VII, Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972

133. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, February 22, 1971, 7:15–8:25 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

• Dr. Kissinger
• Ambassador Dobrynin

I asked Dobrynin to call on me at the White House in order to get the conversation started. I behaved in a deliberately aloof but correct manner.

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to Vietnam.]

Vietnam

Dobrynin finally turned to a message he had from Hanoi. He said he had transmitted my comments of January 9² to Hanoi in the form of thinking out loud but not as an official position. Hanoi had made the following reply:

1. —To judge whether there was any possibility of making an agreement separately on military questions, they would have to know what date of withdrawal we were thinking of.

2. —Our recent actions in Indochina made them question whether we were interested in a political solution and whether we still did not seek a military solution.

3. —They were prepared to resume conversations with me in Paris.

[I had told Dobrynin on January 9 that at some point, if Hanoi were willing to separate military from political issues, we might be prepared to set a target date for our withdrawal, provided there was a ceasefire that lasted through 1972 at least and provided that there were serious talks. In that connection, I had told Dobrynin that I was astonished that in my talks with the North Vietnamese they had treated me like any other American negotiator and had given me exactly the same speeches that they had given other American negotiators.]³

Dobrynin offered to transmit any reply that I might care to make to Hanoi, which is the first time to my knowledge that the Soviet Union has made such an offer. I told him we would have to think about his proposition and I would have to report it in detail to the President.⁴

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 490, President’s Trip Files, Dobrynin/Kissinger, 1971, Vol. 4 [Part 2]. Top Secret; Sensitive; Eyes Only. The meeting was held in the Map Room at the White House. The time of the meeting is taken from Kissinger’s Record of Schedule. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 438, Miscellany, 1968–76) Kissinger forwarded the memorandum of conversation to Nixon under a covering memorandum, February 27. The full text is in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XIII, Soviet Union, October 1970–October 1971, Document 121.
2. See Document 101.
3. Brackets in the original.
4. According to a memorandum of conversation prepared by Kissinger of a March 5 meeting with the Soviet Ambassador, Dobrynin asked Kissinger for his response to Hanoi’s message, and Kissinger replied that he would be available to meet if they had something specific to discuss. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 490, President’s Trip Files, Dobrynin/Kissinger, 1971, Vol. 4 [Part 2]) It is printed in full in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XIII, Soviet Union, October 1970–October 1971, Document 133.