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

293. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, January 21, 1972, 8 p.m.–midnight.

PARTICIPANTS

• Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin
• Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

The meeting lasted nearly four hours and was conducted in an atmosphere of effusive cordiality, buttressed by slugs of vodka and cans of caviar.

Dobrynin had just returned from the Soviet Union and had called me for an appointment.

[Omitted here is discussion of issues unrelated to Vietnam.]

Vietnam

I began with Vietnam. I said that as a general matter it had been difficult for us to understand Soviet behavior in the fall. We were extremely unhappy about Soviet actions prior to the India/Pakistan crisis, and we found their behavior on Vietnam also very hard to comprehend. I had talked to the Soviet Foreign Minister about Vietnam at the end of September.² We had transmitted a specific proposal. We had received a reply from the Soviet Foreign Minister³ as well as from the Vietnamese that they were ready to talk. We accepted the Vietnamese date for the meeting and three days before, it was cancelled.⁴ Since then we had not heard from them. If a Communist offensive occurred, I emphasized that we would certainly take the strongest possible action, which in turn would have effects on our relationship. It was clear that the Soviet Union might think it could embarrass us in Peking by encouraging North Vietnamese attacks now, but it paid a heavy price in our goodwill. Certainly if the Vietnam issue were removed, all other areas in our relations would make quick progress.

Dobrynin replied that he wanted me to understand the following: First, the Soviet Union had recommended our plan to Hanoi early in October and had been under the impression that Hanoi would negotiate. Secondly, the Soviet Union had no interest in an offensive by Hanoi, because if the offensive took place now prior to the Peking summit it could be repeated prior to the Moscow summit. The last thing the Soviet Union wanted was a confrontation with the United States in the months before the Moscow summit. Thirdly, the Soviet Union believed that the war should come to an end now. But it was not prepared to bring pressure to this end. I said that, in that case the objective tendency of Soviet policy was to exacerbate the tensions and to encourage Hanoi. I pointed out that the spate of articles in the Soviet press that accompanied Haig’s visit to Peking reinforced this and were taken very ill in Washington.

Dobrynin replied that if we read those articles carefully we would see that they were not directed against the United States but against China. They were placed into the Soviet newspapers on the pages reserved for Chinese affairs, and they represented an opportunity for the Soviet Union to hit back at China with some of the charges China had made against them.

With respect to the North Vietnamese behavior, Dobrynin continued, it was the impression in Moscow that what had really aborted the negotiations in the fall was the Chinese intervention. It was Moscow’s impression that after my visit to Peking the Chinese raised the new U.S. proposal with the North Vietnamese and the North Vietnamese took violent exception to this. They were furious with the Chinese in any event because they believed that the Chinese had aborted their seven-point plan and that the campaign they had planned in support of their plan was destroyed by my visit to Peking, about which Hanoi had not been informed ahead of time and of which Hanoi was informed only 36 hours prior to the announcement.

When the Chinese raised our peace plan with them, Hanoi decided that it was essential that if peace is negotiated it appear as the result of Hanoi’s actions and not of Great Power pressure. They scheduled a visit to Peking and did not receive full assurances. It was Moscow’s impression, however, that recently they had received fuller assurances.

I told Dobrynin that, whatever the convoluted maneuvers of inter-Communist politics, the fact of the matter was that if the Soviet Union had also joined the appeal there would have been peace, so that the objective tendency of Soviet policy was to encourage a continuation of the war even if they never used words to that effect. I also stressed that if the Soviet Union were really as concerned about U.S.-Soviet rapprochement as it professed to be, it should consider that an end of the Vietnam war would remove one of the principal obstacles to it. Dobrynin said he thought this was realized in Moscow, but it was a very difficult situation.⁵

[Omitted here is discussion of issues unrelated to Vietnam.]

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 493, President’s Trip Files, Dobrynin/Kissinger 1972, Vol. IX [Pt. 2]. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. The meeting took place at the Soviet Embassy. Kissinger forwarded the memorandum of conversation to Nixon under a covering memorandum on January 28. Both memoranda have indications that Nixon saw them. The memorandum of conversation and its attachments are printed in full in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XIV, Soviet Union, October 1971–May 1972, Document 39.
2. See Document 263.
3. See, footnote 2, Document 263.
4. See Document 272.
5. Attached is a January 17 letter from Brezhnev to Nixon on U.S.-Soviet relations. On Vietnam, Brezhnev wrote: “I would like—without repeating what we have said earlier—to express once again our confidence that a basis for peaceful settlement in that area does exist. However, the actions by U.S. armed forces, especially lately, raids against the DRV can only push events in the opposite direction. Yet, Mr. President, in all times, and more recent ones included, the peoples duly appreciated not those who started or expanded a war, but those who decisively put an end to it, guided by the highest interests of their people and of peace.”