Republished with permission of National Security ArchiveThen-national security adviser Henry A. Kissinger colluded with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to keep the U.S. Secretary of State in the dark about ongoing secret discussions between the Soviets and the Nixon White House, according to newly released Soviet-era documents, released last week by the Department of State.
In February 1972, with the Moscow summit approaching, Kissinger met with Soviet ambassador Dobrynin, who was scheduled to meet with Secretary of State William Rogers, to talk about what the Secretary knew and did not know about “the state of U.S.-Soviet relations.”
Commenting on the meeting in his memorandum of conversation forwarded to Moscow, Dobrynin observed that it was a “unique situation when the Special Assistant to the President secretly informs a foreign ambassador about what the Secretary of State knows and does not know.” This memorandum appears for the first time in an extraordinary State Department collection of U.S. and Soviet documents on the Dobrynin-Kissinger meetings, produced through a U.S.-Russian cooperative effort, with selections posted on-line today by the National Security Archive.
The following documents are available for viewing
Document 8: Their First “One-on-One”: Dobrynin’s record of meeting with Kissinger, 21 February 1969, pp. 20-25
Document 22: “A Reasonable Interval”: Dobrynin record of meeting with Kissinger and Nixon, 14 May 1969, pp. 59-62
Documents 31-34: “The War in Vietnam is the Main Obstacle”: Dobrynin and Kissinger records of meeting with Nixon, 20 October 1969, pp. 90-97
Documents 82-84: “A Turning Point in their Relationship”: Kissinger and Dobrynin records of meetings, 25 September 1970, pp. 191-197
Documents 104 and 105: “Get Beyond the Immediate Irritations”: Kissinger and Dobrynin records of meeting, 22 December 1970, pp. 241-248
Documents 106 and 107: “All the More Fitting to Receive Senator Muskie in Moscow”: Kissinger and Dobrynin records of telephone conversation, 24 December 1970, pp. 248-251
Documents 109 and 110: “All that Realistically Remains is Just 1971”: Kissinger and Dobrynin records of meeting, 9 January 1971, pp. 257-263
Document 122: “The State Department has … Been Generally Sidelined”: Telegram from Dobrynin to Soviet Foreign Ministry, 14 February 1971, pp. 293-296
Documents 177-180: “The Americans and the Chinese Will Intensify their Game”: Dobrynin cable on U.S.-China rapprochement and Kissinger and Dobrynin records of meeting, 19 July 1971, pp. 401-414
Documents 227-228: Another “Watershed in Our Relations”: Kissinger and Vorontsov records of meeting, 5 December 1971, pp. 529-532
Document 257: “A Unique Situation”: Dobrynin record of meeting with Kissinger, 4 February 1972, pp. 580-581
Document 279: “Yet Another Crisis”: Dobrynin record of meeting with Kissinger, 3 April 1972, pp. 638-641
Document 323: “A Restraining Influence”: Dobrynin record of meeting with Kissinger, 5 May 1972, pp. 796-797
Descriptions of the above documents can be read here
