[tape fades in] . . . other than that [unclear] he continues—his wife was the one that’s—but she’s crippled.

Yeah.

And after the breakup of the Summit in Paris [in 1960], she rushed down to the airport when Khrushchev was leaving and presented him with a big bunch of roses.

Yeah, that’s right.

But [unclear] . . . that is assuming he wants to talk to [unclear] but at least I would [unclear] that part of it. [Unclear.]

And this letter, Chip says, is—

This letter is clearly an appeal [unclear] to a meeting, perhaps. This letter . . . I don’t know if this . . . [unclear] is worse.

Oh, it’s not worse. It’s just the transparency of it is less [unclear] are the Russians. Well, I’d like to have him be a little less . . . [reading aloud from the most recent letter from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev] “I would like to note with satisfaction that you now seem to agree in principle that along with the conclusion of the treaty with . . . a moratorium.”[note 3] The exact line runs: “I would like to note with satisfaction that now you seem to agree in principle that along with the conclusion of a treaty on the ban of nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water a moratorium with regard to underground explosions be accepted” (Nikita S. Khrushchev to John F. Kennedy, 28 September 1962, FRUS, 6: 152–61).

We had never agreed to that, at all.

That’s right. [continuing to read] “If this is so, then it opens certain prospects.”

Do you think that’s anything that Bobby might have told him?

No, but Bobby would. . . . Well, I think Bobby did—[note 4] Robert Kennedy met with Anatoly Dobrynin on 18 September 1962.

Did say something.

Bobby did say maybe for a period of six months—

Yeah.

—but not an indefinite one. It seemed to me there was nothing wrong with . . . just not quite in that form. In a legal thing . . . that there should be no unlimited moratorium. . . . Yeah, I [unclear] to say something. But we never put the question that way. We are not proposing [unclear] unlimited, we [unclear] just for a certain period of time. Of course I always knew they would do that the first time it’s needed for . . . But then it seems to me we could follow that up quickly.

Yes, if it . . . what he’s saying is that after the period of moratorium, he proposes five years, which is nonsense, of course, but . . . He says that if at the end of that time you haven’t reached an agreement on a treaty for [the] underground thing, then you agree to reexamine the whole thing. In other words, any treaty that you might sign for the atmosphere or something like that, would be conditional.

Well, I think Bobby used the six-months phrase; obviously five years . . .

What is your judgment as to why they won’t take an atmospheric test?[note 5] Atmospheric test ban. Because they can’t underground . . . they can’t test underground as well as we can? Is that the reason?

This might be the reason; but I also think there probably is some element of principle in their, in the . . . Tommy, would you? . . . They may fear that we’ve got some tricks or scientific gimmick that’s going to increase our . . . He says it, in essence, he’s not going to make a [unclear].

[reading] “If, however, even during that term . . . then the whole question of a ban will have to be reconsidered anew. And if . . . insists . . . I want to say this already now and in plain terms—the Soviet Union will consider itself free from . . . ”

I think they’d agree to a three-year moratorium; but not much . . . and I doubt if you could get anything less than a two and a half period. [Unclear] The others that could support five, that’s a bargaining—

But I don’t see much advantage to us. We propose six months; they propose five years. I don’t see much advantage to us in that proposition. It would be an unpoliced moratorium for three years.

Well, if this included those automatic stations—?

Well, he mentioned these automatic stations in here. Tommy, is this the first time he has ever come forward with—?

As far as I’m—

Yeah. And I don’t know whether—

He says it’s national. Isn’t this in line with his traditional position? That if he—

Well, if you had a radio readout out on those stations, that you are constantly monitoring—if they ceased to work, then you’d obviously have—the whole thing would be up in the air. I don’t know how effective they’d be; but I—

[Unclear] we look at this part of it? I was wondering what [unclear] at Pugwash—

Seems to me this is up to you. But there would be added assurance because we would get reports from other stations that know if they weren’t—if this thing wasn’t working or wasn’t reporting.

Yeah, but the difference between this and the on-site inspection is that I gather that there is absolutely no way no matter what readings you get where you can tell the difference between certain kinds of natural explosion and a nuclear one. And then the idea was that when you got readings of this kind, you would go to the spot to measure. [Pause.]

Well, Mr. President, I think this letter gives you a vehicle to make a response, speaking now of the Berlin section of it, which can I say, I feel quite strongly is necessary in some form or other. Now, there are three or four different ways that you can get this over that the regularity with which he [Khrushchev] has been telling everybody that the United States is too liberal, et cetera, et cetera, to fight.[note 6] On Khrushchev’s statement, see the editors’ introduction, 10 September 1962. And I must say the general feeling, I think is that, among the demonologists, is chances are he believes this. And now the question is how can you convey—

Why would he say it? What is the argument for his saying it?

Well, he believes—if you take it from his own military point of view—that the local military situation [that] makes the correlation of forces is all in their favor and he probably thinks that in view of public opinion and [unclear] of the horrors of a nuclear war that the United States would not . . . would back away from that point. Therefore he’s got a situation with all the advantage on his side where he can proceed. And there’ll be a great whooping and yelling around but that nothing will happen. But the thing he’s interested in, which is the only thing you worry about, is a nuclear war. And this is cockeyed, I think. Although, I don’t know, if you read some of Joe’s articles, [unclear] old Alsop’s articles about de Gaulle’s view and all this other stuff.

But de Gaulle . . . that’s why I think de Gaulle . . . I think de Gaulle would like to start to get out of Berlin and [unclear] blame the United States. Because, if they could only get Berlin eliminated, then they could really have a . . . Europe which would be in pretty good shape.

Well, I’m not so sure. But I think that de Gaulle’s basic feeling, and I’ve talked to Joe about this, and I’ve told him [that] whoever his informant was, who I believe was [French foreign minister] Couve de Murville.

[Unclear question.] Well, he said it was [French diplomat Jean] Laloy; he talked to Laloy.

Laloy?

Yeah. Apparently de Gaulle asked about contingency planning. Then de Gaulle said, “Why, my dear fellow, don’t worry—the Americans aren’t going to fight anyway. [Unclear.] Don’t worry about it.”

This is de Gaulle’s, sort of, method of presentation. But I think de Gaulle’s thought runs differently. I don’t believe that he thinks there’s going to be a real crisis over Berlin, or what Joe would call a crunch, in other words.

Hopefully.

And he thinks that the thing is going to—the French have always thought that Berlin was going to die on the vine. Couve de Murville told me that last June.

Yeah.

He just said . . .

They don’t really care, do they?

“[Unclear] just stay away” and that they don’t give a damn. No. Because if they don’t . . . they want Germany divided which is essentially their whole policy.

And I think that de Gaulle’s chief mistake about the Russian thing is that he attributes the present structure of Russian power to be identical with the time of Stalin. And he never can forget that he stood up to Stalin and said, “Nuts to you,” and Stalin came around. And he doesn’t realize that this guy, and I think Tommy would—I’d like to know what Tommy thinks about this—operates in a very different power circumstance from Stalin.[note 7] Referring to Khrushchev. Stalin could change anything like that himself, whereas this guy has pressures and tendencies that he has to take cognizance of, if he . . . and this limits his personal sphere of maneuver.

But the question is, Mr. President, and this obviously is a subject we’re not supposed to ask you. [He laughs.] But . . . this is your business and not ours. That it seems to me very important to halt this sort of progress that the Russians are doing in Berlin, building up this enormous record of saying that the West is not going to do it. You and Macmillan and de Gaulle really agree with him that Adenauer gets the big picture. And it’s very difficult to know why he’s doing it, unless it’s in preparation for another dialogue which he talks about—

That’s what I think is the—

But I think this is the likelihood; but on the other hand—

The other thing it might be is that—

—what in God’s name—?

The other reason why he might make these remarks is that he wants to, he wants to—

To show those to some of the others.

Yeah, to provoke us into a strong reply, which he can use to ease [unclear] policy. In either case it would argue for going back at him.

I mean for us to, for us to—do you want some orange juice?

No, thanks.

For us to . . . for him to tell Americans and other people that the Americans aren’t going to fight . . . that doesn’t seem to me to . . . what would be the log[ic] . . . as you say unless he wants us to, [unclear] first [unclear] to fight but I don’t ever—if that’s his opinion you don’t really announce it, because that’s really rubbing our face in it. Do you think therefore—it could be—He doesn’t have to have a reason for everything. If he’s telling what he actually thinks—

Yeah.

Agreed.

He’s capable of doing it.

The trouble is, that this circulates, and it’s already circulating around Western Europe and you’re getting a sense of panic [unclear] European countries. De Gaulle doesn’t necessarily help it at all, you know.

[Unclear.] Are you saying this keeps downgrading our changes?

Yeah. Definitely.

I don’t know, I think—

There are three or four different ways in which this particular aspect of the problem can be [unclear]. One, by you being direct. I think you’ve seen that draft of the—

Yeah, I saw yours and then Bundy did another one.

Yeah.

Bundy’s was satisfactory . . . [unclear] be yours or [unclear].

[speaks over the President] Well, it seems to me that this, in a sense . . . part of this could be tacked on, if you’re proposing to answer this letter of his. Some of this stuff in this draft could be a [unclear].

That would be one way of doing it, the other way would be by a public statement, which I think everybody believes would not be either convincing or very desirable at this time.

The third way would be to use a diplomatic channel, possibly you to [Anatoly] Dobrynin or Foy [Kohler] right to Khrushchev.[note 8] Anatoly Dobrynin was the Soviet ambassador to the United States. My feeling about this is negotiating a substance as serious as this, I really think that the direct communication thing would carry more conviction, if you did it to Dobrynin, you had no certainty how he would—

Yeah. I don’t see these . . . anybody . . . these fellows having any more of these conversations for a while. I’ll try to—

And I think that also if you sent your ambassador in Moscow to talk to Khrushchev along these lines, we’re still working on the same thing.

Maybe we should get just a . . . get awfully belligerent to Kohler.

And the third way, Mr. President, is one that I must say that I’ve always been inclining to [unclear] is in the field of action. These fellows have been buzzing our planes in the corridors—running these MiGs within 2[00] or 300 yards of a passenger-loaded Pan Am plane, which just contains all the ingredients of an accident. Because these things go so fast, you know, 2[00] or 300 yards is just nothing. And that if you would consider with your allies the possibility of the next time they do this, of putting in fighter escorts for these planes and running them until they seem to be calling it off and then call it off and then be prepared to start again. I have a feeling that the Russians in situations of this kind pay much more attention to action than they do to words.

[to Thompson] So what would you think of that?

Yeah. As I was saying earlier, I think this may . . . buzzing may be related to their annoyance at our buzzing their ships.[note 9] In his 28 September letter, Khrushchev makes direct reference to a conversation he had with Llewellyn Thompson where he had complained to the U.S. ambassador about the buzzing of Soviet ships on the high seas. It’s the prestige factor [unclear].

But you have a decided difference in there, is that the buzzing of the planes in the corridor could at any point produce a terrible accident, whereas the buzzing of a ship has got very little chances to bring about that.

We . . . How much [of the] buzzing has there been? Remember last year there was . . . [in the] spring there was a big argument with [Lucius] Clay wanting us to put in fighters and [General Lauris] Norstad against it. And I thought Norstad’s judgment was right. Because fighting . . . well, it just struck me . . I would think you ought to wait on fighters. That is one of the things we can do without [unclear] shooting . . . put fighters in there. And I . . . It seems to me we ought to wait until this thing gets a little higher before we do that?

Well—

So they’re doing [unclear] we did say we’d knock it down, then . . . at least then they’ve taken an action which is . . .

Yeah. But then you’ll have an accident which will create an enormous amount of excitement in this country and you will have the loss of life with the passengers on the plane. And I think this will force your hand into action which will be a little beyond what should be proposed to do now.

Now the other possibility of action, which perhaps might be put in this letter as a, sort of, a warning, but one which, I think, many of us in the Department of State have been thinking of for a long time. And that is the question of making West Berlin a Land of the Federal Republic. This would mean complete recognition that you were through with East Berlin. Well, we are de facto. But you will have a hell of a time, I think, with the French in getting any agreement and the British to include that, and it would require that agreement. I don’t know what the West German attitude would be.

They’d be for it.

They’d be for it, I think. And the West Berliners would surely be for it. It would have the advantage of—you’d have to have a whole series of new agreements. That is to say, you’d have the West German government requesting the presence of the Western troops with the agreement of the Federal Republic. The only problem would be how this would affect your right of access through their territory.

I just have a very strong feeling that the trend is being manipulated by Khrushchev very much to our detriment.

You’d certainly have to study that one carefully because on your access . . . one of our main points now is [that] we hold the Soviets responsible. I mean . . . they haven’t recorded that . . . but once you make . . . do it just by agreement, the Soviets say, “Well, we have nothing to do with this agreement; why talk to us?” You get a—

Yeah.

Well, you might even do it in a too [unclear] sort of way but you would leave your occupation rights there completely, but that you’d also just change the status of the . . . West Berlin as a Land of the Republic.

Going back to the buzzing, it seems the one thing you could do is to put in some rather vague language in the reply, just raising this problem instead of [unclear] our planes. [Unclear] could be coming at it rather than just doing it.

A great deal of the language he uses on Cuba could be [unclear] directly to Berlin because he’s talking about disregarding the normal conventions, [unclear]—assigning to ourselves the right to this, that, and the other, and this is exactly what he’s trying to do in Berlin.

[reading aloud from Khrushchev’s letter] “[Unclear] this occupation is here to stay . . . [unclear] . . . put it to the U.N.”

Did you get a report on Grewe’s last conversation with me before he left,[note 10] Wilheim Grewe was West German ambassador to the United States until September 1962. His resignation came about because the Kennedy administration lost confidence in his effectiveness as a liaison after Rusk accused him of leaking to the press in April 1962 a Department of State draft of an allied agreement on Berlin. about how he thinks the Hallstein Doctrine is dated and that they’re going to [unclear]?[note 11] This doctrine, named for Adenauer’s foreign policy adviser, Walter Hallstein, held that Bonn would refuse to maintain diplomatic relations with all countries, excluding the Soviet Union, that recognized the German Democratic Republic.

We picked up some [unclear] when we were in Bonn this June. . . . But, it hasn’t got . . . a lot of the private interests in Germany are very keen to have the Hallstein Doctrine eliminated and some of the people in the Foreign Office. But I think old Adenauer is clearly hooked on it. He did something recently that . . . well, the reaffirmation of the Hallstein Doctrine.

[reading aloud] “We haven’t done anything to give you a pretext for that.”[Kennedy jumps ahead in the text.] “I must tell you straightforward [ly] . . . that your statement with threats against Cuba is just an inconceivable step.” Straightforward? He doesn’t say whether existing . . .

[Kennedy resumes reading aloud] “Your request for an authority . . . by the way is a step . . . apt to get red hot . . . pour oil in the flame . . . to extinguish that red-hot glow.”[note 12] Kennedy is paraphrasing as he reads. The sentence goes: “Under present circumstances, when there exist thermonuclear weapons, your request to the Congress for an authority to call up 150,000 reservists is not only a step making the atmosphere red-hot, it is already a dangerous sign that you want to pour oil in the flame, to extinguish that red-hot glow by mobilizing new military contingents.” His metaphors are a little mixed in that. Why would he blame someone who wants to pour oil on the flames to extinguish that red-hot glow? [Laughter.]

[Unclear.]

Who writes these damn things for him?

Does Foy know about this thing?[note 13] Foy Kohler was the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.

I don’t think so. This only came in yesterday, didn’t it?

I assume Foy will be seeing . . . calling on Khrushchev [unclear].

[reading from Khrushchev’s letter, sometimes mumbling] “to qualify . . . to remind you of the norms . . . naturally . . . would not say anything on West Berlin. . . . For example, what is going on, for example, in the U.S. [Congress]?”[note 14]

FRUS, 6: 159. The full quote reads:

That is what made us to come out with the TASS statement and later at the session of the UN General Assembly to qualify your act, to remind of the norms of international law and to say about West Berlin.

If there were no statement by you on Cuba, we, naturally, as Ambassador Thompson and Mr. Udall were told, would not say anything on West Berlin. Your statement forced us to do so.

We regret that this dangerous line is being continued in the United States now. What is going on, for example, in the U.S. Congress?

These are all such—

What?

—stilted translations from the Russian. If you can see what the Russians said, this [unclear]—

[reading aloud] “How can one, for example, fail to notice the decision of the House [of Representatives] to stop giving U.S. aid to anybody that trades with Cuba. . . . Isn’t that an act of impermissible arbitrariness against freedom of, freedom of [movement]?”

They have the resolution. [He continues reading.] “Very serious consequences may have the resolution adopted by the U.S. Senate . . . ready to assume responsibility for unleashing [thermo]nuclear war.”

What do you think is the reason that they are going ahead with Cuba in this massive way? They must know that it . . . I thought one reason why they [unclear] Berlin because we’d take a reprisal against Cuba . . . they want to make it as difficult as possible. What other reason can there be? Because they began this buildup in June. In late June there was no indication of an invasion by the United States at this time, so [unclear].

Well, I would suspect that Castro is nervous about what might be going on and the pressure has been pretty—

Sorry?

—within the bloc, the Communist bloc, this is a good step for him; he’s helping this country defend itself against U.S. imperialism and . . .

This is the satellite bond that you get. The Poles and stuff like that . . .

Yeah.

They think that Castro was planning it. They sent a guy over there, Che Guevara, you know, to try and persuade the Russians to let them join the Warsaw Pact, to give them formal coverage and Soviet protection.[note 15] One of Fidel Castro’s closest associates, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, visited moscow in August to discuss the conclusion of a Soviet-Cuban defense agreement. Khrushchev, however, refused to sign the proposed agreement. And the Russians refused to do this. And then this is what they did. And also, as Tommy mentioned, he said from the point of view of the Communist world, it is very important for him to be out in front, showing that he is militant, pushing for the great cause.

Why do you think they refused to put him in the Warsaw Pact?

Oh, because this is too much for the Russians because then they’re not sure what the United States might do—

Right.

—and they don’t want to be committed to go to war over Cuba, [Kennedy mumbles assent] if there is an American attack. Oh, I think this has been very clear all the way going back to ’60 when he first began to rattle the rockets about Cuba, then he made a statement before anyone would call him on that thing, he made a statement saying, “It’s just symbolic.” And they haven’t gone beyond that and this latest one, which he refers to here; the September 11th one seems to me to have been primarily issued in order to tack on the rider about not doing anything about Berlin.

I think, in general, he’s, he has very much in mind that meeting you and that, I think, if he can settle Berlin, then—

Well this is what bothers me . . . the hell out of me. He’s coming over here in the end of November and this letter is really pitched to the . . . twice he refers to the resumption of the dialogue . . . and then in the last paragraph he talks about the: “Of great importance for finding the ways to solve both this problem . . . are personal contacts of statesmen on the highest level.” Well that means between you and him. But, the question is: What in God’s name could be the best solution to the Berlin thing if you did meet?

[Unclear] I don’t—unless he wants to demonstrate that he’s doing every possible—

Well, I mean, this still leaves the situation as it was. I think, from your point of view, [unclear] don’t see that [there’s] anything very much to negotiate about as long as he is insisting on the removal of certain troops.

Well, I think, Chip [Bohlen], that if he, I think he’s, first of all, that he is in a position where he has . . . he feels he has got to go ahead and sign this treaty.

Yes, I think everybody—

And I don’t think he wants to play Russian roulette with that and just toss a coin and see whether there’s war or not. If he wants to . . . he could get us to accept the East German . . . Solution C approach, where we would accept East Germans deployed at the checkpoint.[note 16] Solution C was a term thrown around during the Kennedy administration as it tried to devise a negotiating position on the German and Berlin problems. Solution C was to seek negotiations aimed toward an informal, interim agreement to preserve the status quo in Berlin despite a G.D.R.-U.S.S.R. peace treaty. It appeared to offer the most likely chance of success with the least fuss. It was a view favored by State’s old Berlin hands. Each of us maintain a [unclear] position [unclear] would be acceptable [unclear] his treaty.

What’s that again? That sounded [unclear].

Well, each of us would say, we would say, we would still hold the Russians responsible but in a practical way we will let the . . . accept [the] East Germans on the checkpoints as long as they don’t interfere with our access. And they would make the statement that they were treated as was a sovereign country. But, in fact, they are not.

Then he could go ahead and sign his treaty, and you wouldn’t be then gambling on whether there’s war or not. And, I think, that’s about the most that you could hope to come out with. He would hope for more, and try for more, but in the end might settle for something like that. As long as he can sign his treaty and then maintain the position that East Germany is sovereign. We say it’s not. They, in the meantime, practically control the access but don’t interfere.

Wouldn’t that be buying an awful lot of future trouble with that sort of a solution because of the East Germans’ not being bound by any agreement, anything like that; wouldn’t they go in for the harassment that the Russians are now, sort of, semidoing in a much more intensive [unclear]?

[Unclear] would be very dangerous, I think. But if the Russians say then they’re out of it except that they are allies of East Germany. The East Germans start doing something and we take some forceful action. . . . Then, we’ve always got the sanctions against them, of cutting off trade and all that sort of thing. So for the immediate period, a few years, I should think that it probably would buckle them in pretty quietly.

In the meantime they would be pressuring others to recognize East Germany and gradually, I think, time would solve the thing, which in a way, it might. It might not be too bad. Certainly, it’s going to go along the way it is for a long time. There could be no solution—

Could he claim that he had solved this problem by this means?

I think so. I think he’s off the hook then. And once he’s signed this treaty, that’s the main thing.

Why don’t you think he signed it before? On that basis he could have signed at any time in the last two years. Why don’t you think he signed it?

Well, we’ve never let him know that we’d accept [the] East Germans on the checkpoints. That’s the thing that would make the issue.

Well, then that international authority just is tantamount to saying that it would be international, whether the East Germans would be in it. We’ve never presented them a formal draft of that thing. I think that they could . . .

I think it’s a . . . He’s coming over here . . . [Someone sighs.]

He said, didn’t he? I mean, he just writes that he’s coming, doesn’t he? [Kennedy reads] “After the election, especially in the second half of November, it would be necessary . . . to continue the dialogue.”

Yeah. He says that twice in there; there’s another. [Unclear interjection by Kennedy.] That and coupled with the last point makes it perfectly clear that his idea of a dialogue is between you and him.

Of course that’s not very advantageous to us, is it? Just to have he [and I] . . . And then no matter what happens it looks like . . . we become even more obvious as the chief defender of Berlin. Which is just what de Gaulle wants to do to us. Because he doesn’t want to fight a war; he wants to make it all [unclear].

A sellout.

Yes.

And I don’t know what the British attitude would be on this sort of thing. I think [that] this will cause a great deal of ruckus and furor.

What . . . de Gaulle and [unclear]?

A meeting between you and Khrushchev. I mean, I think, the British and the Germans . . .

Why would the British care? They’ve mucked it up—[unclear].

Well, the British wouldn’t mind, I mean if they thought that . . . they could be worried that the thing would come to a deadlock and a big impasse and that you would be nearer the danger of war than you were before. And the West Germans, I think, they’d probably follow more or less the line of the French and be ready to fill the air with denunciations of duty.

And the weakness of the . . .

Of course this question as to why the Russians are pushing this thing so hard is one that I have [unclear] almost four years and I don’t think that anybody [is] clear why. . . . And de Gaulle may not care if the United States takes the blame for any sort of a sellout, or whatever you want to call it, in Berlin.

But on the other hand most of the fellows in the French Foreign Office particularly feel that Khrushchev is doing this because of the whole effect on West Germany and on the alliance. In other words, he is seeking larger aims than just Berlin.

I must say, I don’t think that. I think that Berlin is a . . . these are the kind of repercussions and results [on] which he would naturally capitalize if they happened. But I don’t think he’s playing these moves on Berlin with this in view. I don’t know what you feel about the alliance.

Well, I think he’s hooked personally on . . . He’s always boasted that this was his solution that he dreamed this whole thing up.

Yeah.

He got way out and he’s gotten further out since.

Well, what I mean is that [unclear] Berlin as a thing in itself. That if he settled this, would he then quiet down? And consider that Europe is all tidied up? Or would it be just a move to disrupt the Alliance, to stop progress—?

I think it’s mainly the former. I think he—

I think so, too, myself; but on the other hand you can’t separate the fact that these might be the consequences which he would then immediately try and exploit.

He can exploit any of the—

Well, the thing that mystifies me about this thing is that he himself nearly has a success on his terms which would be an enormous humiliation and defeat for us, which I don’t think is going to happen, but assuming that it does, still if he knows anything about history, this is the way of bringing war very much sooner—

—because you don’t inflict what would be a very humiliating defeat upon a power like the United States when you don’t affect his power 1 inch by. . . . Berlin wouldn’t affect our power at all.

Right.

And almost all throughout history a Munich has sort of been followed by—

Yeah

—the war.

Right.

So, I can’t see that if he is thinking straight, and in historical terms, that he could have very much happiness out of either result of this thing.

Well, why would they build up Cuba? Why would . . . I mean he must . . . if he calculates correctly, he must realize that what’s happened in Cuba this summer makes it much more difficult for us to accept any, to engage ourselves now to have a deal over Berlin. I mean, that’s just not been—

[Unclear.] This is one thing that I’m convinced of, is that the Russian mind does not have the foggiest comprehension of the American political process. They really believe that you are sort of the dictator of the United States and can do any damn thing you want, and that . . . This just comes through the doctrine. You see, they consider that the capitalist system, that democracy in a capitalist system is just a part of flimflam and [is] a disguise for the control by Wall Street and all this other . . . Look at the way he keeps talking about Dean Rusk being a tool of the Rockefellers because he was head of the thing.[note 17] Dean Rusk was president of the Rockefeller Foundation. I think he genuinely believes in it. So that all this stuff that you—

The Pentagon and Wall Street. [Unclear.]

Yeah. It’s a very complicated sort of process. But I think the conclusion that they reach is that public opinion doesn’t—

Really count.

—really have any real effect and [unclear] enormous pressure this can put on a presidency.

And I suppose we don’t . . . we over . . . we underestimate the pressures that go on him, not from public opinion but from other [unclear].

Well, I think you can describe public opinion in the Soviet Union the same way that a good general pays great attention to the morale of his troops. In other words, he doesn’t let troop morale dictate his course of action, because then he wouldn’t be worth a damn as a general. He is very conscious of the fact that they rely on the morale. I mean this just . . . but this doesn’t mean any—

But you don’t think that he would calculate what they’re doing in Cuba as a broad sort of traditional position and so on would [unclear] really intensify the feeling here greatly, and make it much more difficult to do anything about Berlin?

No, sir, I think this is probably something that’s just a complete blank page in his mind. I think that—what Tommy said—I think he did Berlin because here it was something they had engaged in about this regime, and then the Cubans got very scared and panicky for fear there was going to be another, sort of, Bay of Pigs, something like this. Which they would probably have lost.

[Comments indistinctly.]

And went to the Russians and said, “My goodness, my goodness, you’ve got to help us.” Their first idea was to put them in a treaty, and then the Russians put these arms in there; and then also the effect of his standing in the Communist world because the Chinese have been constantly attacking Khrushchev from the left, which is the first time in Bolshevik history that this has ever happened. Heretofore they have always been the extreme left—denouncing yellow Soviet so-and-so as the opportunist and everything like it. The Chinese now come and say, “You are scared of the thing.” Now there is one factor that underlies [unclear] that I don’t know anything about. Tommy may have some ideas about it.

History [unclear] points their way [unclear] move is to keep the Chinese from doing it—

This is what I mean.

—[taking] the Chinese with it.

Well, the Chinese are not in much shape to give very much help.

[Unclear] I think it doesn’t.

Yeah, I think it is more in the psychological field, of his leadership in there, [Thompson murmurs assent] the other factor may be in there. But the one question that perhaps may underlie this is that we know now that all this flap about the missile gap is just for the birds because they didn’t put their main effort on ICBMs and our estimate now of the correlation of military forces is heavily in our favor [someone mumbles assent] and not in their[s]. Now, if you go back to the history of the Sino-Soviet dispute, you will see the Chinese undoubtedly believe, completely literally, the Soviet claims which they were making in ’57 and ’58 of having . . . the balance having shifted in their . . . point. And I just wonder whether or not in the Soviet hierarchy how much real understanding there is of the actual correlation of military force or whether they are not operating on their previous, sort of, at least, announced estimate that they had sort of passed us. And their policy would be much more intelligible if they believed that; because if they believed that they had the nuclear, sort of, equality, or even superiority, then their lines of action would be quite continuous, I mean, quite consistent. But it is not consistent if it’s viewed in the light of what our estimate of the two forces are.

We are taking a look at a contingency plan for sort of building up a staging area in Florida for . . . in case we ever have to go into Cuba. This would be impossible, I suppose, to keep this completely—we’ll look at this next week—to keep it completely submerged. But obviously there is no sense in having about a four months’ gap between the time we’ve decided to do something about Cuba and have to wait. So, we want to begin to build up down there. Now, I suppose that will surface. . . . What effect does that have?

Well, they’ll pick it up with all of this stuff, [unclear] calling up this . . . Getting the authorization to call up 150,000 reservists and state this in Congress. They’ll make a big thing out of it. And I think this inevitably will . . .

Do you see any reason not to do it?

I don’t. Although the question is—I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. President, that I do think is that if you ever come to do any action against Cuba, it would almost have to be on the basis of a declaration of war. I mean serious action, that is—

Yeah.

—U.S. forces and all. Because this will give you the legal basis for a blockade and everything of this kind. If you try a blockade without a declaration of war, then I think you get into a mess of complications with your friends and allies, as well as with the Russians. Now, if the Cubans would make some move that would establish a reasonable justification for a declaration of war, I think this is the only way you could do it, if you are going to use United States forces. I don’t know what’s being done in the sense of infiltration of people into Cuba—

Well, we’ve warned them that we’ve been trying to do that. . . . We’ve been doing that for nine months—

Yeah.

—under General [Edward] Lansdale but he hasn’t had much success. We’ve got these intelligence teams in there. But, I saw the Washington Post suggested that we’d given up on internal revolt. You [unclear] that editorial this morning?

I saw that. But that’s very curious [unclear]—

It sounds like some guy got in there late at night, and he wrote . . . [unclear] from the Pentagon staff.

[Unclear.]

What?

That has not been the Washington Post’s general line—

Oh, no.

—on the Cuban thing at all this year.

Suddenly, a complete [unclear] operation.

Some guy must have gotten a bright idea and sold it to Phil Graham.[note 18] Philip Graham was the publisher of the Washington Post.

Yes, you’re probably [right].

But the . . .

I think . . . I had the impression, that at the start of the Cuban thing, that the Russians thought it wasn’t going to last and they were very reluctant to get too committed, to put too much in there.

Of course, if we had gone in a year ago—and it was much easier in April after the Bay of Pigs—and you had that become the regular United States invasion . . . I have always thought that they would—of course you can’t tell what they would do, a year ago. Now . . . but it always seemed to me they would just grab West Berlin, don’t you think?

Well, they might have, Mr. President, and this might have led to general war. But I think the situation is getting to the point where there are so many places, there are many instances where if we take certain kinds of forcible actions, the Russians can retaliate. I think we tend [unclear] to let the Berlin situation dominate our whole action [unclear]. But this is what the Russians are clearly trying to do. [Unclear.]

I would have thought a move against Iran would have been more likely than for Berlin.

Except they could grab Berlin in two hours. Iran, they would have to really—

Yeah, but any one of these things [unclear]—

Grabbing would have meant direct fighting with U.S. troops—

What? What?

Grabbing Berlin. And that’s, I think, much more dangerous than a move in Iran.

Their play is . . . the Russian game has always traditionally been this way with the non-Communist power . . . is to push, pull, to feel around and then judge, make their next move based upon their estimate of the reaction to what people do. There is a phrase of Lenin in which he said there are certain situations which you control with bayonets: if you run into mush, you go forward; if you run into steel, you withdraw. And since anything that Lenin said is enshrined in letters—

That’s right.

—in gold and scarlet, I still think that Khrushchev’s attitude on Berlin is in one sense to test us. Now, I don’t know; but Joe Alsop wrote about this . . . saw him the other day and I think you saw him, didn’t you?

Yeah, I saw him.

Joe has a new theory about the [Berlin] Wall, did he tell you that?

This was to cover up the . . .

This was to . . . The Wall was not to stop the refugees but to provide the necessary circumstances where they could make a major buildup of East German forces. And I said, “Well, I think that these issues are one of the consequences but not necessarily the cause”—but you know Joe when he gets on an idea—

Then he’s got the idea that the solution to the strategy is that the United States [unclear] our contingency planning, he knows that the allies won’t do anything and therefore—

Yeah.

—it [unclear] the United States to indicate it’s going ahead.

Well, I must say, Mr. President, it depends on how your analysis of this whole situation is. But, I think, that if we are going to do anything, we’re going to have to do it—

Quickly.

—unilaterally.

Yeah. I just yesterday, or the day before, sent a memorandum over to the Pentagon to ask them how long it takes to move in. You remember that time we sent up that battle group into West Berlin; then it turned out it took 28 hours to reach the autobahn. Well, so now I asked whether they’ve got. . . . They’re still a long way away from the autobahn, so we’ve got a camp there that they can make into a barracks. So I asked them to—

McNamara was very much impressed with the state of training and the morale of the forces that he saw—

Yeah.

—in Germany [in] the last two or three days. I don’t think the strategy is worth a damn; but at least [he chuckles] the troops are in good shape.

Yeah.

But . . . because you might have an awful lot of pulling and hauling with your allies, you see. For instance, suppose Khrushchev when he signs the treaty does the following things: that he just turns over to the East Germans the access rights to the military on the road and the [East] Germans say, “Well, we haven’t got any agreement with you; they can’t go through,” leaving the air alone, because the air is a place where we have much more freedom of maneuver. Then what’ll you do? You will have consultations with your allies. The British, undoubtedly, will call for a conference, [Thompson or Kennedy laughs] and the French will just sort of stay out of it totally. [Bohlen chuckles.] You know them. And [unclear]. So you could lose an awful lot of time on this thing.

If they’re foolish enough to announce that the air corridors are closed, then, I think, you have a very clearly indicated action which is to send your fighters in. [President Kennedy speaks indistinctly.] But send them in, in force. Anything you do on a subject like that, the danger is that you send in too few forces and that this doesn’t create the impression. You ought to send in double the number of fighters that people think would be adequate for the purpose.

And in the air, I think, this is the place where the thing is going to come to a real . . . the crunch will happen there. Wouldn’t you think so, Tommy?

Generally speaking, I think, Khrushchev has felt, at least up until recently, that things are going his way and he needn’t take any risks, that he is playing for the big stakes and not the small. In places like Iran and others, where he could have done a lot of things, but if he did, he’d [unclear] make it more difficult to spread further later on. And he’s been . . . in Laos the same way and there are other complicating factors there, but. . . . In general, I don’t think he wants to really run a real risk of war at this time.

I wouldn’t think so.

[Unclear.]

But then you come back to what is their estimate of the general correlation of military forces?

Well, it certainly isn’t something that can be deliberately calculated in this period. A wise thing to do . . .

Whatever happened to this idea that at one point was being kicked around [unclear] of showing Khrushchev some—

Pictures?

Pictures. It was leaked, I mean, it was deliberately let out of NATO. And I think that [unclear] the probability is that they’ve got it. The only question is do they realize to what extent we cover their installations and therefore we know what ICBM rockets they have and what we have, which is growing every month here, I think?

I think he thinks they’ve got enough to cause such damage to us, that we wouldn’t want to accept that damage unless the provocation was extreme. But, of course, those are all calculations he has to make about what we are going to do, and what the French will do and what the British will do. And I suppose it just comes back to what you . . . we were originally saying, that it’s just a question of how do we convince him that the risk is there. And that raises whether we ought to go with this letter or not. Or whether we just choose to ignore this and just let this thing drop until he comes over here in November. So McNamara had some statement this morning about the [unclear]—

Yes, I saw that. In fact, that got the headlines in all the papers about the fact that we had nuclear weapons there and that in certain circumstances we were prepared to use them.

Whether we ought to let it drop at that or whether these words get to be, as you suggested . . . They begin to have less and less effect. Because I don’t know whether [unclear].

And the one thing about this channel, Mr. President, so far, thank God, is it [has been] kept completely confidential—

Yes.

—thoroughly. One of the few things—

Yeah.

—in the United States government operations which there is not the slightest leak on. And this fact, I think, would lend a little more weight to the words which you send back on it. The danger of not answering this and letting him come over here would be he’d come over with some positions which had obviously been agreed to in the hierarchy of the Soviet government and that they may be completely based on a miscalculation, on a misjudgment of the whole situation. And then he comes over here and you meet, and you have just a complete confrontation with no formal agreement, or anything like this, and this sets off its own chain of events. What would you think, Tommy?

Oh, I think, if . . . if by chance, he is, he did say these things in order to get a positive response from us that he could use with his colleagues, or with the East Germans . . . then it would be too bad, if we didn’t . . .

Well, let’s put it this way. What would you lose by having in the Berlin part of this letter, something along this line, which you take to be daring?[note 19] Bohlen seems to be referring to a draft response from President Kennedy. The actual response, as sent from Washington on 8 October 1962 did not include any reference to the Berlin question (see Kennedy to Khrushchev, 8 October 1962, FRUS, 6: 163–64). I can’t see that you would lose anything. The only danger that it might involve would be that it would bring it to a head; but I don’t think the way this is worded it would have very much of this, if it’s sufficiently general. And if he doesn’t believe it, well, you’ve wasted some time in writing a letter, but I don’t think the consequences would be any worse than they are. I am very much afraid of his coming over here filled with these impressions, that our silence in the face of his—there were four occasions now, one to [Secretary of the Interior Stewart] Udall, one to [poet Robert] Frost—did he say it to you, Tommy, too, that we’re not fighting on the . . . ?[note 20] The Udall and Frost discussions on 6 and 7 September are described in the editors’ introduction, 10 September 1962.

No.

No. And [to] the Belgian and the Finn. And he has repeated the same damn thing to them. And he hasn’t had any reaction whatsoever. Now that—

It’s another . . . I don’t know whether I ought to do anything about Frost about supposedly this secret Frost [unclear], Macmillan sent these up . . . a civilized remark. But . . . I was just wondering whether there’s . . . have you talked to Frost?

No. And I haven’t been near the [State] department, so I don’t know . . . for the last two months, so I [unclear] . . . uninformed [unclear].

I’ll call [unclear] on the phone so he can’t say he wasn’t asked.

What about this? Would you go along with this thought about responding to this letter and in it, including in it . . . ?

I agree with Chip. I think, if the letter is to have a . . .

Would you get that letter you [unclear]?

Yes.

I think it’s in your [unclear].

I think it’s [on] the chair.

I think now . . . You cut it down a bit, Chip.

Yeah.

[Unclear.] [Rustling of paper, then silence.]

You’ve got to change the first [clears his throat]. [Silence while they read.]

I think when he says that people over here agree with him, I think he may in that case be meaning just the division of Western Germany, which everybody does agree with him on in Europe. Not this question of our rights and troops in West Berlin, because he’s been told that so many times. He knows we don’t agree with that. But I think he knows that de Gaulle and Macmillan and, possibly, I don’t really care about the unification of Germany.

Yeah, well, except that in one of these things, I think it was to the Belgian, he was more explicit than that, in which he said that President Kennedy and Macmillan and de Gaulle really agree with my solution to the Berlin thing, and it’s only Adenauer who just wants trouble, pulling the spokes from the wheel. I don’t know which is—

Of course that may be just a way to [unclear] to Germany and . . . but . . . I wish if the Germans were ever going to do anything about the division of Germany or recognition of East Germany . . . what kind of [unclear], they would go ahead and do it and not try to do it when it becomes useless as a . . . when they can’t sell that position for anything.

Actually that last conversation that Adenauer had with Norstad and [NATO general secretary Dirk] Stikker, I don’t . . . he didn’t even mention Berlin. [Unclear] George Ball, et cetera. But he doesn’t get around to Berlin when he talks. I don’t think he wants to see Germany reunified.

Hell, no.

So what are we all doing?

Khrushchev—

[Unclear] with the Germans [unclear] nothing in the German ethos because one of the things that you always run into is this deeply felt thing, blah, blah, blah [unclear] take any action [unclear], is put off, you’ll really disrupt Germany. I must say I never totally believed it because Germany is a [unclear] country. And I think also—

We don’t want any—

—that the French fear of the Germans turning East, under the present circumstances, is very illusory because Khrushchev cannot give them Eastern Germany. He told me this and I am sure he said it to you, but he used to use one expression to me in the last two months: “I was there but you must understand that we are not in a position to make any agreement with you affecting East Germany.” What he meant by that was that they were hooked with this Soviet invasion of East Germany, and, therefore, the only bait that he could offer to the West Germans would be the reunification of the country in return for their neutrality. Well if you had that possibility, my God, we would have had that out on the table informally years ago. Don’t you think so, Tommy?

Uh, huh. Since we’ve got the bigger half, the bigger part, any unification even in neutrality would eventually be [unclear]—

Yes, I mean, that is why I think that this would have been if he had not Sovietized, if the Russians had not Sovietized Eastern Germany, they would have an enormous diplomatic card that they could play to wreck NATO, wreck the German involvement in it. But since this is not one that they could play, I don’t really see much real danger of the Germans turning to the East, particularly as this process with France and the Common Market is going [Kennedy can be heard indistinctly] very far now.

Well, Chip, what do you think is the . . . how pleased with . . . I suppose anything that the West Germans did about East Germany now would be regarded as indicating that Khrushchev was right, and we really don’t care about West Berlin. West Berlin seems to have less and less importance once you, if you give up the idea of unification. And then . . . what are we doing then in West Berlin . . . except for the people that are involved—

Well, you’ve got two and a half million people—

[Unclear.]

The symbol and [unclear].

What’s the symbol got—?

They’ll never give up the idea that eventually reunion will be the case. It’s one thing [unclear].

But, of course, one of the, I think, major arguments against doing anything formally such as recognition of East Germany is that it’s extremely doubtful as to whether that East Germany setup is a viable thing. I think that Khrushchev’s attitude may be primarily motivated by a desire to do something which will increase the viability of East Germany. He may have thought that this Wall was going to do it and this hasn’t done it. He may think that if you could get his arrangement on Berlin this would fix Ulbricht up. For God’s sake, all of this seems to be very much founded on wishful thinking.

Yeah. Perhaps on the basis that the other solution would be to go in with a lot of money and build up East Germany to where it would be viable and as [first deputy Soviet foreign minister Vasiliy] Kuznetsov once told somebody, he said, “We can’t do that because that would mean that the Germans would live better than we do and—”

Yes, and this is a factor, but another thing is—

—“and that would be immoral,” he said.

Being a divided country, and given the temperament of the Germans while they haven’t been unified for so damn long historically, they nevertheless, which is a great thing for them, and I just don’t think that even building it up would necessarily make it into a satellite country comparable to say Poland or [unclear interjection by Thompson] Czechoslovakia because it’s [unclear]. These other ones that are divided such as North Korea and Vietnam are new countries which haven’t got any tradition of unity.

What do you think about this letter of Chip’s?

I think that the line is sound. I think it could be . . . you know, this would be a long thing anyway, given the testing, if this could be maybe boiled down a little more, not quite so—

And you could add this part onto the thing. Of course you’ll want to discuss this with the Secretary.

Yes.

When he is coming back?

He’s coming back this Wednesday, isn’t he? Coming back Tuesday [unclear]?

Mac gets back on Wednesday, doesn’t he?

Yeah. So why don’t we see what, on this [unclear] come Wednesday?

Yeah.

But I have. . . . Why don’t we get somebody working on a draft response to this?

On the Cuban [part]?

To the whole thing.

All right, sir. Now the only question is [that] there are very few people in the Department who know about this correspondence at all [Kennedy is mumbling in the background], and I don’t know if, for example, that anybody who is knowledgeable on the Cuban thing would be . . . is in on the general knowledge of—

Actually what we say on Cuba, I think, almost anybody would know more or less the general position on Cuba as to—

What would you want to say on that, then?

Well, I think we ought to say that this decision of the Soviet Union to so greatly increase the military power of the . . . of Cuba constitutes, I don’t know, an unfriendly act or whatever the diplomatic term is and that had increased tensions and made . . . reaching an accord on matters of Berlin far more difficult and that because of the many treaties of the United States in this hemisphere and the special position, the historic position of the relationship of the United States with countries surrounding it, this represents a very serious assault on our position—something like that. Without sort of saying that we would [unclear]—

[Unclear] get in something about the two things that concern us about the buildup in Cuba is: one, our own vital interest; and the other is the possible use of Cuba as a threat to other countries in this hemisphere.

And you might point out, if you want to mark a difference between let’s say our assistance to Iran, where we have no bases, of course—we just concluded an arrangement—is that Cuba was a member of the American defense establishment. It is just as though, it would be more comparable if the United States had acted in the case of Hungary—

[Unclear.]

—to give military support to the Hungarian government which declared its—to the Soviet Union—its neutrality from the Warsaw Pact. We can do that and what about—

What about saying [that] a Cuba friendly to the hemisphere is as significant to [us] . . . that we believe, inasmuch as you had believed that a Hungary friendly to the Soviet Union is in your vital interest? So that he doesn’t get off on Turkey and Iran.

Yeah.

Then on the testing, we’re pretty . . . We know—

And our position—

—We just can’t buy . . . on the other hand, it seems to me, we just ought to say, “Well, in this case there’s just no . . .” I mean he’s offering us five years and then if there is not an agreement by then, that’s just unpoliced.

I think we ought to, I’ll get Jerry Wiesner. I’ll have to give Jerry Wiesner these two pages and tell him that this is . . . and see if there is anything he can do about them. Let me tap Wiesner. I think this ought to be just paraphrased. And I can give this . . . these two pages to Wiesner and ask him for comments at least and [unclear] [Sir Edward] Bullard and [Sir William] Penney, et cetera. What it is they did say that is significant, whether he is accurately restating it.[note 21] In his letter of 28 September, Khrushchev alleged that Sir William Penney, the chairman of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, and Sir Edward Bullard had argued at the tenth Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, held in London 3 to 7 September 1962, that unmanned seismic stations would suffice to verify a comprehensive test ban.

Of course a great deal depends on what [unclear].

Oh, hi Jerry.

Hello, Jerry.

Hi.

What the value of these—

Could you just take this down? I’ll give you this notation, if you have a piece of paper. “The Russian scientists have said that according to the British scientists Bullard and Penney, at Pugwash concerning the use of automatic seismic stations.” [Unclear.]

Actually I have the statement that they issued. I don’t know whether you want to read it.

What exactly did they say? Who are Bullard and Penney? Are they very good?

Yeah, they are two top British scientists.

What did they say?

Thursday’s statement . . . the group . . . this doesn’t quote either Bullard or Penney. That’s the group that signed the document but apparently Bullard and Penney and a number of other people worked on it. What they’re proposing are some unmanned seismic stations in undefined number, including—

Two or three, he said.

Oh, it has to be hundreds. It has to be large numbers.

Would it? Have they [unclear]?

They don’t say that. They say “enough.” Actually I have had a study going since I got this document to try to find out just what the right number is without us shooting past—

He mentions two or three in this letter.

Oh, that won’t do any good.

Right.

Other than that we ought to . . . I’ll tell you what we ought to do: just take these points down then you could respond to them like we’re going to write a letter to these scientists.

Oh. Who is this letter from?

Oh, this is from one of their people that came to us.

Uh, huh [possibly skeptical].

[reading from the secret letter from Khrushchev] “As we understood the idea, the suggestion is that automatic seismic stations help with their records to determine what is the cause of this or that underground tremor—underground nuclear blasts or ordinary earthquakes. It would be sort of a mechanical control without men. After thinking this suggestion over we came to the conclusion that it can be accepted if this would make it easier to reach [an] agreement. In this case, it could be provided in a treaty banning all nuclear weapons tests that automatic seismic stations be set up both near the borders of the nuclear state and two to three such stations directly on the territory of the states possessing nuclear weapons—in the areas most frequently subjected to earthquaking. The Soviet government agrees to this . . . agrees to this perhaps only because it seeks a mutually acceptable basis for an agreement.”

Uh, huh.

Well, I think that that sort of violates the agreement, but we also want to . . . And then it says that [he resumes reading from the text] “The American scientists who took part in the Pugwash Conference . . . approved of the suggestion about the use of automatic seismic stations for the purposes of control. Soviet scientists approved the suggestion . . . so, it appears the scientists were already in agreement and there’s a possibility to move ahead . . . ”

I think we ought to move [unclear].

What they say is in the document that I have given you, is that in principle they think this should work and it should be considered by the governments and—

[reading] “They need to be sealed in such a way that they cannot be tampered with; they may be self-contained. The instruments would be installed by the host government and periodically returned to the international commission for inspection, replacement and repair, and such.”[note 22] Once again President Kennedy appears to be reading from a text, although these sentences do not appear in the 28 September letter from Khrushchev. See . . .

My basic reaction is that I would like these things to have regular communication. I’m not sure it’s necessary, and I don’t want to insist on it until I can prove it because [unclear].

[reading further] “All the records would be turned over to the Commission for analysis.”

Could they bug these instruments?

It would be pretty hard because you have, see if you have your external seismic stations, which we still would have, you can get calibrations on this signal.

How long do you [unclear]?

You could—

But Jerry, what would happen if you had an explosion that was suspicious, you weren’t sure?

Well, here’s what you’re hoping for—

Are these things are so good that they can detect the difference between an earthquake and a nuclear explosion?

Well, the thing you want, Chip, is a large number of seismic stations so that some of them are always close to the events. If they’re close, you can usually tell the difference.

Hmmm.

I don’t believe that any such system would get us out of the necessity for some mandatory inspection of the seismic areas. It would reduce . . . Anything of this kind that you do reduces the number. But it’s technically—

I’ll tell you what you do. Would you then prepare for the . . . by Tuesday or so a response to this argument that it needs only two or three—

Yeah.

—agreed upon at Pugwash by first going back to what they really said at Pugwash and the subsequent . . .

OK.

. . . and then say what the seismic—

Can I get your reaction to one other idea—

Fine.

—that I have been playing with . . . that I have actually been trying to understand this to prepare a memo? As you know, I have been impressed for the last year with the fact that the earthquakes—now I think I have talked to both of you about this—[muttered assent] in the Soviet Union occur in a very few remote places.

Yes.

And here are some maps that I’ve had made [unclear].

This is 1957. They’re in there. They’re in here and they’re down here, an occasional one out there. They’re in the same place down here. In fact, I’ve drawn an area in which I can’t find any record of seismic—

[Unclear.]

Maybe one a year in here. So, I’ve been wondering whether if we went into this direction we would be willing to do another trick; and that is to say, we’d accept [unclear], we would accept invitational inspections in a defined a seismic area [Bohlen mumbling in the background] and mandatory in the seismic areas and this would probably be mandatory in a quarter—

The only trouble is that these areas of where they are, they have the big complexes.

I know [unclear] but one. But they’re not where your missile bases are. These are [unclear] complexes [unclear].

Yeah but your [unclear] bases are all in here.

Now where is this . . . Where is . . . this place, Semipalatinsk in all of this?

Semipalatinsk is in here. It’s [unclear].

[Unclear] for all that testing area—

All their testing and all their missile bases, with the exception of their Kamchatka—

Yeah.

—Terminal. Now I’ve talked to a Russian about this in Geneva and he said, “Well, the only trouble is that these are on the borders where our intelligence complexes are.” And I said—

Yeah.

—“Sure but who cares about that anyway.” You see. Hey, 60 percent of them are out here underwater on these damn Kuril Isles. So when you finally find out about these things, I’m ready to concede that they probably have some basis for their suspicions of what we are trying to do, but two or three stations would make no difference. There was a very thorough study that was made of this a couple of years ago: if they were willing to put in 100 or 200 of them, or maybe 50 I am not sure what the number is, it would make a very substantial difference because what would happen—I think you’d then go in the following way, Chip: you’d first . . . Your external system would say there was something in here that can’t be resolved. The next thing you’d do is call for these unmanned stations. Either that or look at your radio records. I would suspect in a large fraction of the cases, the unmanned stations would then give you enough data so you could resolve it and say, “This was probably an earthquake.” There is no question that there would always be a residue—

Well, the only things you’re really interested in are precisely the ones which would not be resolved by mechanical [unclear] . . . In other words—

Yeah. But suppose you start with the assumption that they are not going to cheat.

Yeah.

You just . . . and then what you are looking for in both cases is a system of assurance. Because if they’re going to cheat, I think they can always cheat. I could always cheat on one or two [unclear] explosions and get away with it. I don’t think they could cheat on a large test series. . . . In fact, at present, they’ve never gotten away with it now. We know when they’re testing—

Listen Jerry, tell me one thing: how valuable are underground explosions?

I don’t think they are terribly valuable. And I think this is the boss’s impression.[note 23] President Kennedy. But the fact is that we’ve got a political problem here at home—

Yeah.

—but I think the Russians have got one, too, now, because . . . What I’d like to see is whether you could invent a system in which [Door closes. Kennedy comes back in the room?] we made a compromise, in which we accepted invitation in the aseismic area and mandatory inspection in the seismic area.

Yeah.

Do you think we would get in trouble politically, Mr. President, with a—

What?

—proposal that said that we would accept invitational inspection in that part of the Soviet Union where there normally aren’t earthquakes if they would accept mandatory inspection in the seismic area? Here’s a map, a series of maps that show what’s going on. This is year by year and you see it. Most of—

[Unclear.]

—that great big bulk of the Soviet Union probably doesn’t have an earthquake a year.

[Unclear] that?

And [unclear] here [pointing to map] 60 percent are over here in the Kuril Islands. So, we have been asking, you see, for the right to—of course if they were smart, they would say, “Well, if there are no earthquakes, you can’t go there, because there’s no record.” But they say, “We’ll fake them.”

What?

But they . . . when we say, “Well if there’s no earthquake, we won’t go because we won’t have a basis for going.” They say, “Well, you can fake the record.” So that they worry about the other side of . . . [points out places on the map]. You see, all of their factories and missile bases, and so on, are in this part of the country there. There is a little bit over here: at Kamchatka the terminal guidance for their ballistic missile tests is there. But I think—

Well, I think if there was a chance that they [unclear], we might try—

You see, I think they’ve got . . . Khrushchev’s got [unclear interjection by Kennedy] the clear advantage of your political problem by now. People are saying you don’t want it, if you [unclear] . . .

I think this is one of the things . . . that Khrushchev has the most distorted picture of the way American democracy or any democracy operates. I think this is one of the great inefficiencies in his whole complex.

Do you think that Khrushchev says all this business about him finding inexplicable congressional action and the de jure power and all the rest because he really does . . . astonished at that or is it because this is this . . . What?

He probably thinks in the bottom of his heart that you put them up to it.

Put the Congress . . . ? [Laughter.]

Well, I’m kidding—actually, I’ve always . . . Well, you see, up to very recently, I don’t know whether it’s changed so much now, no Soviet Embassy in this town even bothered to read the Constitution of the United States. I’ve talked to some of them, and they said, “We don’t want [unclear] to read that.” And they literally didn’t understand anything about the operation of our own system and any democratic system because of the main thesis that this is just a flimflam to delude the people.

Or they’ll say a different thing. I’ve argued with a lot of them and they’ll say, “Well, the President can’t help with these pressures on him; they’ll force him to do things, even if he doesn’t want to.” So that you get both these images [unclear]—

Yeah, I have simplified it a lot in there. [Thompson agrees.] And it may be with a man like Dobrynin, that they are getting a little more understanding of how the thing works because some of his . . . except for . . . on the basis of the fundamental Bolshevik thought, some of this stuff, you see, that he says in public speeches and all this sort of stuff is just a lot of nonsense.

How long do you think it will be before we get our first cable from you suggesting we give atomic weapons to France? [Laughter.]

Mr. President, I think it will probably take at least—

Two weeks. [More laughter.]

Two years. Three years. [Unclear] two years.[note 25] Bohlen is being flippant because he had received stern written and oral instructions from the Secretary of State to pursue the official administration line of opposing nuclear sharing.

That’s all it takes?

Now I have been through all that drill, and I think the arguments are very solid on this. [Unclear exchange.]

[Gilpatric] was told by [unclear] that this Brosio has just bought the French position completely and that he’s followed—[note 26] Manlio Brosio was the Italian ambassador to France. From 17 to 19 September, Gilpatric met with Italian defense minister Giulio Andreotti in Rome to discuss defense cooperation and Italian contributions for offsetting U.S. military expenditures. Brosio had apparently reported to his government that de Gaulle sought greater Franco-Italian defense collaboration.

It seems to have a . . . Paris is a very seductive town—

Is it?

—Mr. President. [Chuckles.][note 27] The Kennedy administration had adopted what former secretary-general of NATO Paul-Henri Spaak said was a running joke among the West Europeans: “Italy is always looking for a compromise. Italy’s position is to say yes to France, no to the U.K., and do what the U.S. tells her to do.”

I often thought that we may be of a lot of help to them with nuclear submarines because—

Well, my God. [Chuckles again.][note 28] He is laughing at Wiesner’s heretical suggestion to provide some form of nuclear aid to France. There had been acrimonious debate throughout the spring and summer over the issue.

But [unclear].

Listen, we could [unclear].

Come in [unclear] construction. As we—

The only thing they’d settle for—our technology.

I understand that.

The technology.

After two years of being sore at us because we wouldn’t help them build one. Now you’re going to sell them one! [Laughs.]

[Unclear] sell you one, don’t you think?

Oh yeah. I think so. The French . . . to hell with the . . . the French strategy with its . . . is not exactly the most generous [unclear].[note 29] Reference to their perception that both France’s force de frappe and conventional forces were for the defense of France. De Gaulle had declared that a force de frappe would not be integrated with NATO’s nuclear forces.

Well, look, I don’t know how much this—

This nuclear submarine thing, I hope to God that this goes through.[note 30] Reference to its going through the Joint Atomic Energy Committee.

Where is it now?

Well, I don’t know. Gilpatric told me yesterday that he talked to Scoop Jackson and he talked to [Admiral George W.] Anderson.

And they bullied?

Thought that there would be a considerable amount of concern at the Department of State. Gilpatric went over there and sort of made a conditional offer and this has produced a great sort of feeling in the French: “Oh, boy, here the logjam is broken and this is wonderful” and they’ve all expressed great pleasure and delight. But the only thing is, if there’s a hitch in the congressional thing and we have to call it off, then . . . [Unclear exchange.]

Oh no, I thought Anderson had that?

Did you see that letter from Jim Gavin to the Secretary [of State]?

A letter, no.[note 31] No record of this letter has been found.

On this subject?

No. Maybe you can send it over to me? But I think that, as I recall Anderson was in favor, or maybe Jackson, I think, was in favor of our doing something with the French.

I don’t think so.

What? You know giving them some—

Yeah.

—nuclear assistance—some of them were . . .

I always thought we were making a mistake in not helping them with things that weren’t bombs. Because this made them particularly bitter. They’d say, well this is not nuclear explosives, and confront us on . . .

Well, I think it is possible that we’ll just have to . . . The fact is the Soviet Union in all these things recognizes France as a nuclear power, so that it wouldn’t be a question of diffusing anymore.[note 32] This was a concern because of President Kennedy’s hope for a test ban treaty.

Now, this is one of the things in this diffusion angle that has really bothered me.

But at the bottom of this is the faster you . . . the more you help the French, the more incentive you give other people to get to that stage, too, you see. So, I think you have to be very careful on the bomb.

As I’ve always understood, Mr. President, your thought on the things you told Malraux,[note 33] André Malraux, French minister of state for cultural affairs, visited the United States from 10 to 16 May 1962 at President Kennedy’s personal invitation. was that this is surely, but in particular when Adenauer leaves, is going to produce a comparable German effort to get one.

Uh, huh.

And I would say that this is one of the places where I think de Gaulle shuts his mind and is focusing on his needs, ready to bring Germany into the European Community. He doesn’t seem to be paying very much attention to the old talk about the WEU treaties.[note 34] Western European Union.

And you recall what Adenauer said to Rusk when we were there in June; he talked about the atomic [unclear]. He said, “Well, of course [unclear] when we signed the WEU agreement because it is based on the doctrine of rebus sic standibus.[note 35] Rebus sic standibus is the legal doctrine that treaties can be terminated on the ground of a change in circumstances that defeats the treaty’s purpose. Bohlen is telling the President that Adenauer admits to relying on this document as a possible escape hatch from the WEU agreement that bars West Germany from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Yeah. Yeah.

—which gives the impression which was [unclear] rebus sic standibus is a hell of a lot and that the situation is quite different than it was then. I think the main thing on this thing is whether or not the French— de Gaulle—really believes that this independent nuclear capability . . .

[to Evelyn Lincoln] Is he calling me? Jackson’s calling?

[to gentlemen in room] Jackson’s calling me. So [unclear].

[to Evelyn Lincoln] Can I get Senator Jackson please?

[to gentlemen] Yeah, let’s put that away for a little . . . [unclear] and then let’s come back to it.

Uh, huh.

[to Wiesner] Well, would you see if you can get me a response [to Khrushchev’s test ban letter]?

Well, who’s this to? Can’t you . . .

I just want a paper.

You want a paper?

—a paper with an explanation of it.

All right.

I just want to know what the Pugwash scientists did say and what, particularly about this question, of their being quoted—

Right.

—as having only said two or three.

Hello. Can you get Senator Jackson?

Hello, Scoop, how are you? Good.

I’ll see if I can’t find out about [unclear].

Yeah, fine, then why don’t you come and see— why don’t you come down next week, Monday or Tuesday?

All right.

Can I . . . I’ll call your office Monday morning and then—

I’ll be in a meeting [unclear].

Good. Did Ros Gilpatric talk to you about— Yeah, what is the feeling up there?

On the [unclear], I think [unclear] used to be [unclear]. In the meantime, [unclear].

Oh. It seems to me that he accepted.

[Unclear.]

Yeah . . . right. I think. Go on. Yeah but that; but do they think there is some stuff there that the other people don’t have? Oh, I see. Good. OK.

[Unclear.]

I would say, West Berlin. I’m not sure we’re done.

[Unclear] consider very carefully. This is the . . . sort of an amendment to the original resolution [unclear] much more. But it is, as you notice, he speaks of the continued exercise of their rights in Berlin which means, in effect, West Berlin.

Oh, I see, I see. I understand what you mean. Well, I’ll talk to you about it next, the first part of the week. Have you told all this to Gilpatric? Right, to Gilpatric. Look, I’ll see you Monday or Tuesday.[note 36] On Wednesday, 3 October, Senator Jackson met with the President at the White House from 11:10 to 11:30 a.m.

I’ll brief him.

Thank you.

He says [unclear] the Soviets—evidently there’s some material there, information there, [which] could be valuable to the Soviets.[note 37] Summarizing his telephone conversation with Jackson, Kennedy tells them that there is fear of compromising U.S. nuclear reactor technology by allowing the possibility of secrets passing to the Soviets by sharing the Skipjack submarine with the French.

This is Rickover’s position.[note 38] Admiral Hyman G. Rickover.

That’s Rickover. And he says the suggestion, therefore, is that the training program might be adjusted so that this information could be available at the very end. By that time the information would not be useful—evidently they assume the Russians will have it by then.

The main thing I’ll be interested in, and Gavin in this letter said to me, if this is called off after Gilpatric’s thing. He said this would make it very difficult for Ambassador Bohlen. In other words, this is the kind of thing the French would consider we did.

[Unclear.]

—double-crossed them.

Oh, I think we can—we’ll just indicate that we’ll stay at it. I think we might as well . . .

Again, I see no objection to the thing, this resort, to the question of this leakage of secrecy that it be handled that way. That’s all right. I think the feeling is that in the French scientific community there are some people who are very doubtful as to their former connection to the Soviet Union, apart from their actual connections. But I think that if this could do it, then . . . But first, there’s one thing, you know this business of the nuclear diffusion that the Secretary has been talking to [Soviet foreign minister Andrei] Gromyko about, that . . . If you put France in the category, as the agreement does, as a nuclear possessing power—

I am very reluctant [unclear].

—then you really—

That’s right.

—just knock the ground out from under your feet about helping them, except on the grounds of unfriendliness to France. Now, I’ve told this to the Secretary, and I think he is well aware of it. And it’ll be worth it if you really have a good tight nuclear diffusion agreement; but if you don’t . . . That’s why I was worried about sending it on to the allies to consider and you ought to have a lot more clarity with the Russians as to whether they’d really need—[reference to conflict between a nuclear nonproliferation or nondiffusion agreement and any U.S. nuclear assistance to France].

That’s what I thought. We don’t want to go through one of these terrible allied [unclear]—

—allied performances on a hypothetical situation.

Right.

And, Mr. President, one more thing, you know this resolution on Berlin?

Yeah.

—that Zablocki has sponsored.[note 39] Clement J. Zablocki (D-Wisconsin) was on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Yeah.

Well, I’m going up there on Monday at ten—

OK.

—to talk to him. And you’ve seen this draft?

And I asked him to take out this question of German . . . The government . . . the conclusion, the final. Secondly—

And that isn’t accurate either because the agreements don’t provide for that.

That’s right.

I mean, the agreements are not based on until—

I think that I see no particular disadvantage. [reading text] I don’t see any advantage of it, I don’t see it’s a great disadvantage.

No, it’s just that we’ve been trying to get Zablocki to lay off it, but he’s just hot on it. You know, he feels that since we’ve asked [unclear] reservists, he asked that you mention Cuba and Berlin that . . .

Yeah, but I think . . . I just think—

If you have one on Cuba, you ought to have one on Berlin. He really wants to pick up some political capital for being the—

With the Germans?

No, with his election cam—[note 40] Zablocki was up for reelection in November 1962.

What [unclear] is German?