“If we leave all the decisions to the bureaucrats, we will never achieve any progress,” I said.
“They would simply bury us in paper!” He laughed heartily and slapped his palm on the table. It seemed to be a good beginning.
About a half hour later we met again for the state dinner in the beautiful fifteenth-century Granovit Hall in the heart of the oldest part of the Kremlin. The parquet floor had been polished to a high gloss, and the vaulted walls were covered with huge icon-like paintings in rich gold and brown tones. Sitting next to each other at the head table, Brezhnev and I looked directly across the room at a several-times life-size mural of Christ and the Apostles at the Last Supper. Brezhnev said, “That was the Politburo of those days.” I responded, “That must mean that the General Secretary and the Pope have much in common.” Brezhnev laughed and reached over and shook my hand.
As usual, the time change made it impossible for me to fall asleep that first night. I finally got up around 4:30 and pulled on slacks and a jacket and decided to go out for a walk around the Kremlin grounds. In Moscow’s northern latitude it was already almost clear daylight. I could hear the boats on the river and the sounds of truck traffic from the streets outside the red brick walls. I paused for a minute to look up at the American flag flying atop our residence amid the gold onion-top domes and red stars of the Kremlin churches and towers.
In the first plenary session at 11 A.M. with Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgorny, Gromyko, and Dobrynin, I decided to establish the straightforward tone I planned to adopt during the entire summit.
“I would like to say something that my Soviet friends may be too polite to say,” I began. “I know that my reputation is one of being a very hard-line, cold-war-oriented, anticommunist.”
Kosygin said dryly, “I had heard this sometime back.”
“It is true that I have a strong belief in our system,” I continued, “but at the same time I respect those who believe just as strongly in their own systems. There must be room in this world for two great nations with different systems to live together and work together. We cannot do this, however, by mushy sentimentality or by glossing over differences which exist.”
All the heads nodded on the other side of the table, but I guessed that in fact they would have much preferred a continuation of the mushy sentimentality that had characterized so much of our approach to the Soviets in the past.
That afternoon Kissinger and I had a two-hour meeting on SALT with Brezhnev and Andrei Aleksandrov, his adviser on U.S.-Soviet affairs. Despite the impatience he affected with the details and numbers, Brezhnev was obviously very well briefed on the subject. He used a red pencil to sketch missiles on the notepad in front of him as we discussed the timing and techniques of control and limitation.
When I said we felt that specific provisions for verifying that each side was fulfilling its obligations would give necessary reassurance to both sides, he turned to me and in an injured tone of voice said, “If we are trying to trick one another, why do we need a piece of paper? We are playing clean on our side. The approach of ‘catching each other out’ is quite inadmissible.”
We held another long meeting that evening to discuss the important and controversial question of how far the new Soviet ABM systems would be situated from Moscow. When we began our discussion, Brezhnev casually cut three hundred kilometers from the figure that had been agreed upon just a few hours earlier. “Regarding the ABM question,” he said, “this now appears to be cleared up. Twelve hundred kilometers is OK with us.”
“Fifteen hundred,” I said.
“You mean we should put it in China?” he said with mock exasperation.
“Well, as the General Secretary will find out, I never nit-pick,” I replied.
“Fifteen hundred kilometers is all right,” he said without missing a beat. “You wanted us to move eastward and so now we agree. It would be easier for us to accept twelve hundred, but fifteen hundred is all right, too, and we won’t speak of it anymore.”
It is a technique of Communist negotiators to introduce some ideal but impractical change in an area where the details have already been agreed upon. When we were wrangling over specific provisions of the SALT proposal, which both sides had agreed would last for five years, Brezhnev suddenly asked, “Why not make it for ten years? Why only five?” Kissinger calmly pointed out that the Soviets themselves had originally wanted the agreement to last for only eighteen months.
“I would consider this interim agreement a great achievement for us and all the world,” I said. “I want to reach a permanent agreement, but my time is limited—less than five years. After then, I am out—swimming in the Pacific. Maybe even before.”
“Don’t go out before that, Mr. President,” Brezhnev said.
Surprise is another favorite technique of Communist negotiators. After the ceremony on Wednesday afternoon when we signed an agreement on cooperation in space exploration, Brezhnev and I walked out of the room together. He began talking about the dinner planned for us at one of the government dachas outside Moscow that evening. As we neared the end of the corridor, he took my arm and said, “Why don’t we go to the country right now so you can see it in the daylight?” He propelled me into an elevator that took us down to the ground floor where one of his limousines was parked.
We climbed into the limousine and were on our way while the Secret Service and the others rushed around trying to find cars and drivers to follow us. The middle lane of all the main streets in Moscow is reserved solely for party officials, and we drove along at a very fast clip.
As soon as we arrived at the dacha, Brezhnev suggested that we go for a boat ride on the Moskva River. This was exactly what Khrushchev had done thirteen years before. But times had changed: he led us not to a motorboat but to a small hydrofoil bobbing gently in the water. The pilot was skilled, and we had a smooth ride. Brezhnev kept pointing to the speedometer, which showed us traveling at ninety kilometers an hour.
We discussed work habits, and he told me he did not use a Dictaphone. I recalled that Churchill had told me that he much preferred to dictate to a pretty young woman. Brezhnev and the others agreed, and Brezhnev jokingly added, “Besides, a secretary is particularly useful when you wake up at night and want to write down a note.” They all laughed uproariously.
Everyone was in a good humor when we got back to the dacha, and Brezhnev suggested that we have a meeting before the dinner, which was scheduled for eight o’clock.
Kissinger and I sat with Winston Lord and John Negroponte of the NSC on one side of the table, facing Brezhnev, Kosygin, Podgorny, and Sukhodrev on the other side. For the next three hours the Soviet leaders pounded me bitterly and emotionally about Vietnam.
I momentarily thought of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when Brezhnev, who had just been laughing and slapping me on the back, started shouting angrily that instead of honestly working to end the war, I was trying to use the Chinese as a means of bringing pressure on the Soviets to intervene with the North Vietnamese. He said that they wondered whether on May 8 I had acted out of thoughtless irritation, because they had no doubt that if I really wanted peace I could get a settlement without any outside assistance. “It’s surely doubtful that all of the American people are unanimously supporting the war in Vietnam,” he continued. “Certainly I doubt that families of those who were killed or maimed or who remain crippled support the war.”
When Brezhnev finally seemed to run out of steam, Kosygin took up the cudgel. He said, “Mr. President, I believe you overestimate the possibility in the present circumstances of resolving problems in Vietnam from a position of strength. There may come a critical moment for the North Vietnamese when they will not refuse to let in forces of other countries to act on their side.”
This was going too far. For the first time I spoke. “That threat doesn’t frighten us a bit,” I said, “but go ahead and make it.”
“Don’t think you are right in thinking what we say is a threat and what you say is not a threat,” Kos
ygin replied coldly. He said, “This is an analysis of what may happen, and that is much more serious than a threat.”
Kosygin seemed to gather force as he concentrated his scorn on President Thieu, to whom he referred as “a mercenary President so-called.” When I continued to show no reaction to this tirade Kosygin’s composure began to break. “You still need to retain the so-called President in South Vietnam, someone you call the President, who had not been chosen by anyone?” he asked.
“Who chose the President of North Vietnam?” I asked him.
“The entire people,” he replied.
“Go ahead,” I said.
When Kosygin concluded, Podgorny came to bat. His tone was more cordial, but his words were just as tough. While Podgorny and Kosygin were taking their turns at trying to hammer me down, Brezhnev got up and paced the floor.
After about twenty minutes, Podgorny suddenly stopped and Brezhnev said a few more words. Then there was silence in the room. By this time it was almost eleven o’clock. I felt that before I could let this conversation end, I had to let them know exactly where I stood.
I pointed out that I had withdrawn over 500,000 men from Vietnam. I had shown the greatest restraint when the North Vietnamese began their massive buildup in March, because I did not want anything to affect the summit. But when the North Vietnamese actually invaded South Vietnam, I had no choice but to react strongly.
“The General Secretary remarked earlier that some people may have wondered whether the action I took last month was because of irritation,” I said. “If that were the case, I would be a very dangerous man in the position I am in. But that is not the case. On the contrary, my decision was taken in cold objectivity. That is the way I always act, having in mind the consequences and the risks.
“Our people want peace. I want it too. But I want the Soviet leaders to know how seriously I view this threat of new North Vietnamese escalation. One of our great Civil War generals, General Sherman, said, ‘War is hell.’ No people knows this better than the Soviet people. And since this new offensive began, 30,000 South Vietnamese civilians, men, women, and children, have been killed by the North Vietnamese using Soviet equipment.
“I would not for one moment suggest that the leaders of the Soviet Union wanted that to happen. What I am simply suggesting is that our goal is the same as yours. We are not trying to impose a settlement or a government on anybody.”
They listened intently to what I said, but none of them made an attempt to respond.
With that we went upstairs, where a lavish dinner was waiting for us. I made my usual joke about not giving Kissinger too many drinks because he had to go back and negotiate with Gromyko. They seemed vastly amused by this and they proceeded in a comic charade to pretend to ply him with vodka and Cognac. There was much laughing and joking and storytelling —as if the acrimonious session downstairs had never happened.
While we were eating, Kosygin remarked that it was a good omen for our future relations that after three hours of the kind of hard-hitting discussions we had just completed, we could still have a relaxed and personally friendly conversation over dinner. I responded that we must recognize our differences and discuss them honestly. He nodded his head vigorously and raised his glass in another toast.
It was after midnight by the time we got back to the Kremlin. Kissinger and Gromyko immediately began a meeting on the critical questions still standing in the way of a SALT agreement.
I was in my room getting a back treatment from Dr. Riland around 1:00 A.M. when Kissinger came in with the news that the Soviets were continuing to hold out for their position, which was unacceptable to us. It was possible that they were hoping that the domestic pressures on me to return home with a SALT agreement would force me to settle for their terms. I had anticipated this possibility before we left Washington, and I was ready to call their bluff.
Kissinger had further news, however, for which I was not prepared. He reported that the Pentagon was in almost open rebellion and the Joint Chiefs were backing away from the SALT position to which they had previously agreed. Kissinger did not have to remind me—although he did so in the most urgent terms—that if word of this split reached the press, or if the Pentagon refused to support a SALT agreement I brought back from the summit, the domestic political consequences would be devastating.
“The hell with the political consequences,” I said. “We are going to make an agreement on our terms regardless of the political consequences if the Pentagon won’t go along.” I determined not to allow either the Pentagon on the right or the Soviets on the left to drive me away from the position I believed was in the best interests of the country.
“Just do the best you can,” I said, “and remember that as far as I’m concerned, we don’t have to settle this week.”
Kissinger spent several more hours that night trying to hammer out an acceptable agreement. The meeting finally broke up in the early morning with the issue still deadlocked.
The next night we went to a gala performance of Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theatre. I sat between Kosygin and Podgorny, with Pat on Kosygin’s right. Protocol did not require Brezhnev to attend, and I welcomed the opportunity to see how his colleagues acted away from his forceful presence.
Between the second and third acts a woman in the audience stood up and, turning toward our box, yelled, “Viva Vietnam!” She was quickly removed. We later learned that she was the wife of an Italian journalist who worked for a pro-Communist newspaper. At the next intermission Kosygin remarked that if we left Vietnam our prestige would grow, rather than suffer the way French prestige did after the defeats at Dien Bien Phu and in Algeria. That was the only mention of substantive issues all evening, and Podgorny immediately moved on to say that his favorite part of the ballet was the dance of the four swans in the second act.
Kissinger resumed his meetings with Gromyko after the ballet. The next morning he reported that they had gone as far as they could with the actual negotiations. Their meeting had broken up without any agreement having been reached.
Later, Kissinger and I were meeting in my apartment when Dobrynin arrived with the news that the Politburo had held a special session and agreed to accept our final position.
Everyone’s spirits were high at the dinner we gave at Spaso House, the ambassador’s residence, that night. Brezhnev was at his most expansive. The pièce de résistance of the meal was a flaming Baked Alaska. When it was brought in, Brezhnev said, “Look! The Americans really are miracle workers! They have found a way to set ice cream on fire!”
Just after eleven that night in the Kremlin, Brezhnev and I signed the ABM treaty and the Interim Offensive Agreement, thereby establishing a temporary freeze on the numbers of ICBMs and submarine-launched missiles that each side could possess until a permanent agreement was negotiated. Pat had asked me if she could attend the historic ceremony. Since none of the other wives would be there, I suggested that she wait until the official party had entered and then slip in and stand behind one of the large columns. She did, and watched the signing.
The next day we flew to Leningrad. We visited the Piskaryev Cemetery, where many of the hundreds of thousands who died during the Nazi siege of the city are buried. We were running late, so the advance man recommended that I cut the scheduled stop at the small museum there. The young girl who was acting as our guide was obviously upset when she heard that I might not complete the itinerary. I said that of course I would visit the museum. I was deeply moved when she showed me the diary of Tanya, a twelve-year-old girl buried in the cemetery. She translated from the entries describing how one after another the members of Tanya’s family died; the final sad entry read: “All are dead. Only Tanya is left.” The girl’s voice choked with emotion as she read these words. “Tanya died too,” she said as she brushed tears from her eyes.
I was asked to sign the visitor’s book before we left. I wrote: “To Tanya and all the heroes of Leningrad.” As I walked away, I said, “I hope it will never be repeated in
all the world.”
We flew back to Moscow, and on the next day, Sunday, we went to services at Moscow’s only Baptist church, the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists. The unaffected singing of the congregation made me think of the early Christians. I was surprised to see such a large number of young people in the congregation. I was told later that many of the older men and women had either been frightened away or displaced by KGB agents.
I spent the rest of the day preparing my television broadcast to the people of the Soviet Union. As in 1959, I felt that this would be a very important opportunity for me to present the American viewpoint on international issues to the Russian people without any editing or control by the Soviet government.
In the speech I discussed the dangers of an unchecked arms race, and I underlined America’s sincere desire for peace. At the end I described my experience the day before at the cemetery in Leningrad and said:
As we work toward a more peaceful world, let us think of Tanya and of the other Tanyas and their brothers and sisters everywhere. Let us do all that we can to ensure that no other children will have to endure what Tanya did and that your children and ours, all the children of the world, can live their full lives together in friendship and in peace.
Brezhnev told me after the broadcast that my conclusion had brought tears to his eyes.
The greatest surprise of the summit came during my next to last meeting with Brezhnev. I went to his office for what was supposed to be a half-hour courtesy call, and we ended up spending two hours talking about Vietnam. Unlike at our meeting at the dacha, however, he was calm and serious.
After some initial skirmishing, he said, “Would you like to have one of our highest Soviet officials go to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the interest of peace?”
I replied that such a visit might make a major contribution to ending the war, and I said that I would suspend bombing during the period the Soviet official was in Hanoi.
As I was leaving, we paused by the door, and I said, “You have my commitment that privately or publicly I will take no steps directed against the interests of the Soviet Union. But you should rely on what I say in the private channel, not on what anyone else tells you. There are not only certain forces in the world, but also representatives of the press, who are not interested in better relations between us.”
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