52. Memorandum of Conversation Between the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Carlucci) and the Soviet Ambassador (Dubinin)1
On May 15 I was seated next to Soviet Ambassador Dubinin at a social occasion. He used it to obtain a reporting cable.
He asked me how I saw US Soviet relations. I said OK, he said best ever. “We can get an agreement.” When will NATO be ready with its answer? I said probably by the Venice Summit2 in the meantime the USSR should work with us on verification. We are also interested in Start. He said we could define “laboratory.” I said nothing doing. We were not going to negotiate an interpretation of the ABM Treaty.
He asked about their proposal to negotiate off a working document instead of a treaty. I said that we were willing to listen if the working [Page 256] document corresponded to the treaty and did not go beyond it. He wondered about our response to their proposal for a meeting of Defense Ministers. I said Cap was always ready to travel.
He pushed hard on Afghanistan. I said there would be no peace till they got out and allowed real self determination. He asked if they could have a “special dialogue” on Afghanistan. I simply said “interesting idea.”