48. Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Kissinger and the Soviet Ambassador (Dobrynin)1

D: Hello!

K: Anatol.

D: Oh, good morning, Henry.

K: Anatol, it was good to see you yesterday.2

D: It was really nice to see you, Henry, because you are spending so lot of time. Is it true you met 75 minutes in Paris somewhere?

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K: [Laughter] I don’t know whether it is true—it is such a ridiculous statement.

D: Yeh, I know. It is like a notorious play in chess.

K: That’s right.

D: . . . sitting with a whole row of foreign ministers . . . and you just going from one to another.

K: Well, on the Greek side you know I could do a little bit. We can’t do serious work in New York.

D: I understand.

K: Anatol, we have some problem with grain purchases you are making.

D: What kind of purchases?

K: The problem we have is that it is probably our people’s fault in that they have triggered you into doing something.

D: Yeh.

K: And what I wanted to point out is this: we are having a great difficulty with corn and I understand that your people have placed an order for a million tons.

D: For how many?

K: A million.

D: One million?

K: Yes.

D: Yes, but I also . . . one million.

K: Yes, but with frost and with the new difficulties. Our people think that 500 thousand is really the maximum we can handle. And we wondered—you see otherwise if you go through with it and if this gets announced then we have to do something about restricting exports which we don’t want to do.

D: I don’t know whether Butz reported to you or whether he was doing everything on his own. I already discussed with him3 and with Moscow authority and everything and it remained on a high order.

K: I am absolutely positive, Anatol, that it is our fault. I am positive that you responded to us.

D: Everything he asked me—so the last time he was with me—about five days ago—if it is not more than one million, okay, but not more than one million, so I said to Moscow all right. So now it’s changed in the past three days. He came to the Embassy and said exactly not more than a million.

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K: I haven’t the foggiest idea since—it is the last time he will come to your Embassy without permission—believe me.

D: Yes. I don’t complain he came to me.

K: I am telling you he is not coming to your Embassy again without permission. Or we may have a new Secretary of Agriculture.

D: [laughter] Really he asked me several things and on all exchanges it was a positive answer. So I reported everything this way. Now he is telling me a different kind of thing.

K: Another thing he also placed for a million tons of wheat—was that also arranged with Butz?

D: He said about one million—we didn’t discuss exactly with . . .

K: Well a million we can probably handle on wheat if you don’t go above a million.

D: So what is your . . .

K: Oh, you have already ordered two?

D: I don’t know. I don’t know.

K: Well on wheat we can handle a million altogether. On corn we can handle 500 thousand.

D: You mean by the end of this year or before the elections?

K: Before the election there shouldn’t really be anything.

D: They didn’t discuss it really—it was a question where it was announced.

K: Well, it is going to be announced very soon and if this isn’t—if we can’t get some understanding on it. Well let me get back to you within an hour. Let me check with the Agriculture Department.

D: Please give me what is your explanation because I am a little bit confused now.

K: Okay.

D: Okay, Henry.

K: Right.4

  1. Source: Department of State, Electronic Reading Room, Kissinger Transcripts of Telephone Conversations. No classification marking. Brackets are in the original.
  2. No record of a meeting between Kissinger and Dobrynin on October 3 has been found. According to his Record of Schedule, Kissinger returned to Washington from New York that afternoon. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 439, Miscellany, 1968–76)
  3. No records of the meetings between Butz and Dobrynin have been found.
  4. As soon as he hung up with Dobrynin, Kissinger called Sonnenfeldt to discuss how to proceed: “I’ve got guys running around like chickens without heads—after all it is all in the same country—we are all speaking English. Can somebody find out what the hell happened before we put the lid on it. Dobrynin says—and I didn’t volunteer it with DobryninDobrynin told me his assessment—that he doesn’t know what it is all about. That Butz personally called on him without asking—without being asked to come.” Sonnenfeldt agreed to “try and find out” what happened. (Department of State, Electronic Reading Room, Kissinger Transcripts of Telephone Conversations) According to his Record of Schedule, Kissinger called Dobrynin twice that afternoon. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 439, Miscellany, 1968–76) No substantive record of either conversation has been found.