Office of the Historian

165. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, March 25, 1971, 5–6:50 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

  • Ambassador Anatoliy Dobrynin
  • Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to Vietnam.]

Vietnam

Dobrynin then asked me whether I had any communication to make to him for Hanoi. He said he was doing this entirely on his own because he knew he would meet the top Hanoi leaders. I replied I had nothing to add to what I had already told him. Dobrynin said, “are you sure you have nothing to say?” I replied, “I have told you once before that if Hanoi wants to talk seriously, I’m ready.” Dobrynin said, “but is that really all you want me to tell them?” I said, “yes, there’s nothing to add to what I have already told you.” Dobrynin continued, “do you recognize this is a unique chance to talk to the top leadership?” I responded, “I have given you some of my private ideas early in January. We have always been ready to talk to Hanoi, but Hanoi’s [Page 502] representatives have never said anything in their conversations with me that differed in the slightest from what they had already said in Paris publicly. Under those conditions, unless I know there’s something really to talk about I cannot go beyond what I told you on January 8.”2 Dobrynin said he would communicate this but that he thought the Soviet government was prepared to carry messages if we wanted it to. I told him I would keep that in mind.

  1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 491, President’s Trip Files, Dobrynin/Kissinger, 1971, Vol. 5, Part 1. Top Secret; Sensitive; Nodis. The meeting was held in the Map Room of the White House. The ending time of the meeting is taken from Kissinger’s Record of Schedule. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 438, Miscellany, 1968–76) The memorandum of conversation was forwarded to Nixon under a March 30 covering memorandum in which Kissinger wrote, “Dobrynin pressed me repeatedly on March 25 for a possible communication for him to carry to the North Vietnamese leaders who would be in Moscow for the Party Congress.” Kissinger added that he refused to provide a specific message that exceeded the January 9 terms, namely “that a separation of political and military issues was a possible negotiating approach.” Both memoranda are printed in full in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XIII, Soviet Union, October 1970–October 1971, Documents 154 and 164.↩
  2. Reference should be to the January 9 meeting; see Document 101.↩