Meeting Between Nixon and Dobrynin May 14 1969 22 Memorandum of Conversation USSR 1 Washington May 14 1969 At Kissinger’s invitation I visited him in his office at the White House on the morning of May 14 Kissinger said that as I was aware President Nixon was to deliver a televised address to the nation on Vietnam at 10 p m tonight Nixon had expressed the wish that the text of his speech be provided to the Soviet Ambassador in advance so that it could then be transmitted to Moscow for the Soviet Government … To a question as to what he Kissinger sees as the difference between the position of the current administration and the position of the Johnson Administration on the Vietnam issue he asserted that there is indeed a definite difference He stated that prior to March–April 1968 Johnson had in general believed only in a military solution therefore he had made virtually no effort to think about the substance of the political problems However after he stopped the bombing of the DRV he had rather naively hoped for a fairly quick settlement—as the other side’s response In the face of unyielding tactics by the Vietnamese at the negotiations he was somewhat at a loss and until the end of his presidency he essentially had no clear political views as to what more to do and how to deal with the other side Nixon on the other hand takes a realistic approach according to Kissinger He recognizes de facto Hanoi’s interest in the further development of events in South Vietnam He recognizes the NLF as a reality that exists and operates in South Vietnam He is prepared to accept South Vietnam’s neutrality He is prepared to accept whatever the South Vietnamese themselves agree on In the final analysis he is even prepared to accept any political system in South Vietnam “provided there is a fairly reasonable interval between conclusion of an agreement and the establishment of such a system ” At this point my conversation with Kissinger was interrupted since we were invited to join Nixon upstairs … A Dobrynin _________________ 1 Source AVP RF f 0129 op 53 p 399 d 6 l 44–50 Secret From Dobrynin’s Journal No American record of Dobrynin’s conversation with either Kissinger or Nixon has been found