the Soviet leadership. But the price he had to pay for his
indispensability was the rationalization of ambiguity. To
those who were obliged to deal with Gromyko, he appeared
unflappable, almost mechanical, well-prepared and sin-
gle-minded. But the Appendix of these memoirs dealing with
Stalin shows that reality was more complex. Even if one
grants that it was written in the Gorbachev period, the
chapter contains too much detail to represent simply an
opportunistic bow to orthodoxy - all the more so as these
memoirs were written after Gromyko had been deprived of all
offices.

The Appendix recounts not only a staggering statistical
list of atrocities, but gives them concreteness by casting
them as human vignettes over a period of thirty years. They
are, in fact. the prelude to questions that go to the core
of the legitimacy of the Communist system: was there an
objective need for the Soviet Union and its political system

to develop along the lines chosen by Stalin? How was it
possible to twist the country onto a path of the cult of a
single individual whom nobody had ever invested with that
power?

Gromyko does not answer these questions; he simply
multiplies the tale of monstrosities. But posing them
constitutes its own commentary. For, in truth these are
unanswerable challenges. The Communist system, lacking
legitimacy, rewards the most ruthless, those who, uncon-
strained by traditions, legal forms or the need for periodic
elections, emerge with free reign to consolidate their power
essentially arbitrarily. This in fact is the essential
challenge to Soviet reformers.

Gromyko, undoubtedly a devout believer in Marxist
ideology, never resolved the contradiction he himself
raised. Similarly, Gromyko, a dedicated Russian nationalist,
always left me with the impression that his dogged

-5-

persistence was due at least in part to his desire to obscure the weaknesses of the state he represented. Despite the intransigence of his rhetoric, Gromyko's tendency was to stay far away from anything that might provoke physical confrontation. His top priority was relations with the United States. He gave nothing away; but he seemed also careful to avoid showdowns in so far as he had the discretion to do so.

These dichotomies give an intriguing and ambivalent aspect to Gromyko's memoirs. He quotes a whole series of statements he made to foreign leaders from Popes to Presidents and in each case he reports that they met with the approval of his interlocutor. But what he reports himself as saying is so hackneyed and the purported agreement so improbable that Gromyko - a highly intelligent man - is either striking a pose or - possibly - has his tongue in cheek.

Some events could not have happened as Gromyko describes them. For example, he quotes me as advocating the division of Cyprus into a Greek and Turkish state during a meeting in Cyprus in May 1974. But the meeting concerned Middle East diplomacy entirely. Cyprus was neither on the agenda nor at that time at a crisis point - this is why Nicosia was chosen as the meeting site in the first place. And one would have to be worse than incompetent to raise the issue of partitioning a host country in a meeting room supplied by the alleged victim.

Similarly, someone seems to have softened the section of the transcript of my last conversation with Gromyko concerning Berlin in January 1989. To begin with, it is interesting that a transcript exists at all of a meeting held in the Presidential suite of the Kremlin. I asked about Stalin's aims in the Berlin blockade of 1948, specifically why the Soviets ran such risks so soon after suffering huge

casualties in World War II. I remember Gromyko saying that
Stalin was convinced the United States would not resort
to nuclear war over Berlin (despite our atomic monopoly),
that an attempt to relieve Berlin would have been resisted,
but that Stalin was determined to avoid a general war. The
transcript of the conversation weakens these points somewhat
and gives the Soviet Union credit for ending the crisis by
withdrawing tanks from a confrontation with American armor.
But that event occurred in 1961, eight years after Stalin's
death and at the time of the building of the Berlin wall. It
had nothing to do with the Berlin blockade.

Still, Gromyko's memoirs convey a good sense of the
ways Soviet leaders wanted their country to be perceived.
They exhibit the various strands dominating Soviet thinking
before Gorbachev, the main elements of which must still to
some extent remain, among many of the leaders: the belief in
objective factors rather than personal relations; the

-8-

insistence that Soviet motives are peaceful by definition;
and, the latent inferiority feeling masking as truculence.

Recognizing all these tendencies, I rather liked
Gromyko. We worked closely together for eight years. Often
the butt of heavy-handed joshing by his leaders, he never-
theless dominated the Soviet side of every discussion with
his competence. Normally Gromyko knew every detail of a
subject. It was suicidal to negotiate with him without
mastering the record or the issues. He was extraordinarily
skillful in accumulating marginal points; he cleverly sought
to trade what should never have been raised for something
really significant. Mirroring the history of his country which had
expanded from the area around Moscow to the Pacific and the
center of Europe not by bold strokes but by relentless
pressure, Gromyko relied on the impatience of his
interlocutors to extract opportunities. Western negotiators
are uncomfortable with deadlocks; they seek to break every

stalemate with new ideas. Against unwary interlocutors this
enabled Gromyko to harvest concessions through protracted
stalemates. Most likely he needed the stalemates for domes-
tic reasons as well. For he could not have convinced his
suspicious superiors that he had in fact squeezed the lemon
dry without prolonged deadlock.

Gromyko's dour demeanor made it hard to believe that in
fact he had a fine if understated sense of humor. I met him
for the first time during the 1969 session of the UN General
Assembly in New York. He walked up to me at a reception and
said, "You look just like Henry Kissinger." I replied, "And
you look a lot like Richard Nixon." He gave me a wary look
and then his face creased with a smile as he nudged me with
his elbow. The next year, I was arranging for him to come to
the White House to see President Nixon. Gromyko said: "Don't
bother to tell me which gate to use. I'll pick the gate and
the guard is bound to salute."

-10-

In his memoirs, Gromyko states that I gave the impres-
sion in my own writings that I had outmaneuvered him. That
was not my intention; it is not my view. Statesmen of major
countries cannot be outmaneuvered, for one meets them over
and over again. Those charged with the responsibility for
conducting or designing foreign policy must never leave the
territory of analysis for that of mere maneuver. They will
be judged in the end not by their cleverness but by their
grasp of reality. And this is why - even with one distortion
- our mellow last conversation in these memoirs reflects the
mutual respect of two men whose duties had made them adver-
saries.

Gromyko was one of the ablest diplomats whom I have
met. He did not embody a great vision or put forward a
compelling model of a world order. But neither did the
system he represented. As the spokesman of a country that
had never prevailed except by raw power, he felt obliged to

-11-

test his mettle in every encounter. But he protected his
country amidst turbulence and confusion; he masked its
weakness by persistence; he acheived important objectives by
his skill. Rare is the Foreign Minister to whom one can pay
such a tribute.

KISSINGER INTRODUCTION - GROMYKO MEMOIRS

9/12/89

Andrei Gromyko served his country for fifty years as ambassador, Deputy Foreign Minister, Foreign Minister and President. His tenure of [some] thirty years as Foreign Minister - from 1957 to 1985 - is without parallel in any major country in this century. Having served every head of state in the Soviet Communist party after Lenin, Gromyko was relieved of his job by Mikhail Gorbachev whom he had nominated for the office of General Secretary of the Communist party of the Soviet Union four years previously, stating that his candidate had a pleasant smile but teeth of iron. Gromyko died 18 months after leaving office. No major Soviet figure

-2-

attended his funeral. Soviet politics is such a brutal art. Leaders emerge from an internecine struggle between chieftains of various factions of the Communist party or of the nomenclatura of the governing bureaucratic apparatus. But these chieftains have gained in power no other legitimacy than victory in previous internecine struggles. In the absence of elections or other recognized forms of legitimacy, the winners are bound to feel their precariously precarious position as precarious. They can trust only their personal retainers. Every new rule therefore begins with a purge and ends in stagnation. Until now, the Soviet method of government has been more akin to a feudal regime than to a modern bureaucracy - not to speak of a modern democratic state.

It was a tribute to Gromyko's technical mastery that he rendered himself through the turn-over in the was found indispensable during five changes of Soviet leadership. But the price he had to pay for his indispensability was the rationalization of ambiguity. To those who were obliged to deal with Gromyko, he appeared unflappable,

-3-

almost mechanical, well-prepared and single-minded. But the
*Appendix of these memoirs on Stalin* shows that the reality
was more complex. Even if one grants that it is written in the
Gorbachev period, the chapter makes a bow to the new
*anti-Stalinist orthodoxy*, it contains too much detail to
represent simply an opportunistic gesture-- all the more so
as these memoirs were written after Gromyko had been de-
prived of all offices.

The Appendix on Stalin recounts not only a staggering
statistical list of atrocities, but gives them concreteness
by casting them as human vignettes over a period of thirty
years. These are the prelude to questions that go to the
core of the very legitimacy of the Communist system: Was
there an objective need for the Soviet Union and its politi-
cal system to develop along the lines chosen by Stalin? How
was it possible to turn the country inside out on a path of the cult

-4-

of a single individual ~~to~~ whom nobody had ever given that
power?

Gromyko does not answer these questions; he simply
multiplies the tale of monstrosities. But posing them
constitutes its own commentary. For, in truth ~~they are~~
~~challengers!~~
unanswerable. The Communist system, lacking legitimacy,
rewards internecine power struggles which inevitably go ~~to~~
~~the most ruthless~~ who ~~is unconstrained by traditions, legal~~
~~emerge with full~~ forms or the need for periodic elections ~~and has full reign~~
~~unstabilize this!~~
to solidify his power essentially arbitrarily. This in fact
is the essential challenge to Soviet reformers.

The author of the Appendix on Stalin must have viscer-
ally felt this. On the other hand, Gromyko was undoubtedly a
devout believer in Marxist ideology. And he never resolved
to ~~the~~ himself, said
that contradiction. Similarly, Gromyko was a dedicated
Russian nationalist. And yet I always had the impression
that his dogged persistence was due at least in part to his

-6-

Some events could not have happened as he described them. For example, he quotes me as advocating a meeting in Cyprus in May 1974 the division of Cyprus into a Greek and Turkish state. But the meeting concerned Middle East diplomacy entirely. Cyprus was neither on the agenda nor at that time an international problem - this is why Nicosia was chosen as the meeting site. And one would have to be worse than an incompetent amateur to raise the issue of partitioning a host country in a meeting room supplied by the alleged victim. Similarly, someone seems to have softened the section of the transcript of my last conversation with Gromyko concerning Berlin in January of this year. To begin with, it is interesting that a transcript exists at all of a meeting held in the Presidential suite of the Kremlin. In response to my question of what Stalin had in mind with the Berlin blockade of 1948 and personally why the Soviets ran such risks, I remember Gromyko saying that Stalin was convinced that the United States would not

-8-

Recognizing all these tendencies, I rather liked Gromyko. It worked closely with him for eight years. Often the butt of heavy-handed joshing by his leaders, he nevertheless dominated the Soviet side of each discussion with his competence. Normally Gromyko knew every detail of a subject. It was suicidal to negotiate with him without mastering the record or the issues. He was extraordinarily skillful in accumulating marginal points; he cleverly sought to trade what should never have been raised for something significant. Mirroring the history of his country which had expanded from the area around Moscow to the Pacific and the center of Europe not by bold strokes but by relentless pressure, he relied on the impatience of his interlocutors to extract an opportunity for Western negotiators. He is uncomfortable with deadlocks; they seek to break every stalemate with new ideas. Against unwary interlocutors this enabled Gromyko to harvest concessions through protracted stalemates. And

probably ~~he needed the stalemates also~~ for domestic reasons as well.

For he could not <u>convince</u> his suspicious superiors that he
had in fact squeezed the lemon dry without a prolonged
deadlock.

Gromyko's dour demeanor made it hard to believe that in
fact he had a fine if understated sense of humor. I met him
for the first time during the 1969 session of the UN General
Assembly in New York. He walked up to me at a reception and
said, "You look just like Henry Kissinger." I replied, "And
you look a lot like Richard Nixon." He gave me a wary look
and then his face creased with a smile and he gave me a
nudge with his elbow. The next year, I was arranging for him
to come to the White House to see President Nixon. Gromyko
said: "Don't bother to tell me which gate to use. I'll pick
the gate and the guard is bound to salute."

Gromyko was one of the ablest diplomats whom I have
met. He did not embody a great vision or put forward a
compelling model of a world order. But neither did the
system he represented. As the spokesman of a country that
had never prevailed except by raw power, he felt obliged to
test his mettle in every encounter. But he protected his
country amidst turbulence and confusion; he masked its

9/12/89

Andrei Gromyko served his country for fifty years as ambassador, Deputy Foreign Minister, Foreign Minister and President. His tenure of [some] thirty years as foreign minister - from 1957 to 1985 - is without parallel in any major country in this century. Having served every head of the Soviet Communist party after Lenin, Gromyko was relieved of his job by Mikhail Gorbachev whom he had nominated for the office of General Secretary of the Communist party of the Soviet Union four years previously, stating that his candidate had a pleasant smile but teeth of iron. Gromyko died 18 months after leaving office. No major Soviet figure

-2-

attended his funeral. Soviet politics is such. Riches emerge
from an internecine struggle between chieftains of various
factions of the Communist party or of the nomenclature - the
governing bureaucratic apparatus. But these chieftains have
no other legitimacy than victory in previous internecine
struggles. In the absence of elections or other recognized
forms of legitimacy, the winners are bound to feel their
position as precarious. They can trust only their personal
retainers. Every new rule therefore begins with a purge and
ends in stagnation. Until now, the Soviet method of govern-
ment has been more akin to a feudal regime than to a modern
bureaucracy - not to speak of a modern democratic state.

It was a tribute to Gromyko's technical mastery that he
was found indispensable during five changes of Soviet
leadership. But the price he had to pay for his indispens-
ability was the rationalization of ambiguity. To those who
were obliged to deal with Gromyko, he appeared unflappable,

almost mechanical, well-prepared and single-minded. But the
appendix of these memoirs on Stalin shows that the reality
was more complex. Even if one grants that, written in the
Gorbachev period, the chapter makes a --- to the new
anti-Stalinist orthodoxy, it contains too much detail to
represent simply an opportunistic gesture - all the more so
as these memoirs were written after Gromyko had been de-
prived of all offices.

The Appendix on Stalin recounts not only a staggering
statistical list of atrocities, it gives them *concluseness* by
casting them as human vignettes over a period of thirty
years. These are the prelude to questions that go to the
core of the very legitimacy of the Communist system: Was
there an objective need for the Soviet Union and its politi-
cal system to develop along the lines chosen by Stalin? How
was it possible to turn the country along a path of the cult

of a single individual to whom nobody had ever given that
power?

Gromyko does not answer these questions; he simply
multiplies the tale of _monstrosities_.
its own commentary. For in truth, they are unanswerable. The
Communist system, lacking legitimacy, rewards internecine
power struggles which inevitably go to the most ruthless who
are unconstrained by traditions, legal forms or the need for
periodic elections ... has full reign to solidify his power
essentially arbitrarily. This in fact is the essential
challenge to Soviet reformers.

The author of the Appendix on Stalin must have viscer-
ally felt this. On the other hand, Gromyko was undoubtedly
a devout believer in Marxist ideology. And he never resolved
that contradiction. Similarly, Gromyko was a dedicated
Russian nationalist. And yet I always had the impression
that his dogged persistence was due at least in part to his

desire to obscure the weaknesses of the state he represent-
ed. Despite the intransigence of his rhetoric, he always
stayed far away from what might provoke confrontation. His
top priority was relations with the United States. He would
give away nothing; but he seemed also careful to avoid
showdowns in so far as he had discretion to do so.

These ambivalences give an intriguing character to
Gromyko's memoirs. They do not contain flashing insights.
But they reveal a good deal of the world in which he operat-
ed. He quotes a whole series of statements he made to
foreign leaders from Popes to Presidents and in each case he
reports that they met with the approval of his interlocutor.
But what he repeats himself as saying is so hackneyed and
the agreement of his opposite member so unlikely that Gromyko
- a highly intelligent man - is either striking a pose or -
possibly - has his tongue in cheek.

Some events could not have happened as he described them. For example, he quotes me as advocating at a meeting in Cyprus in May 1974 the division of Cyprus with a Greek and Turkish state. But the meeting concerned Middle East diplomacy entirely. Cyprus was neither on the agenda nor at that time an international problem - this is why Nicosia was the meeting site. And one would have to be worse than an amateur to raise the issue of partitioning a host country in a meeting room supplied by the alleged victim. Similarly, someone seems to have softened the section of the transcript concerning Berlin of my last conversation with Gromyko in January of this year. To begin with, it is interesting that a transcript exists at all of a meeting held in the Presidential suite of the Kremlin. In response to my question of what Stalin had in mind with the Berlin blockade of 1948 and why the Soviet ran such risks, I remember Gromyko saying that Stalin was convinced that the United States would not

go to nuclear war over Berlin (despite our atomic monopoly),
that an attempt to relieve Berlin would have been resisted,
but that Stalin was determined to avoid a general war. The
transcript of the conversation weakens these points somewhat
and gives the Soviet Union credit for ending the crisis by
withdrawing tanks from a confrontation with American armor.
But that event occurred in 1961, at the time of the building
of the Berlin wall when Stalin had been dead for eight
years. It had nothing to do with the Berlin blockade.

Still, Gromyko's memoirs convey the way a Soviet leader
wanted his country to be perceived. They exhibit the strands
that dominated Soviet thinking at least before Gorbachev and
whose main elements must still remain among many of the
leaders: the belief in objective factors rather than person-
al relations; the emphasis that Soviet motives were peaceful
by definition; the latent inferiority feeling masking as
truculence
t---ence.

Recognizing all these tendencies, I rather liked Gromyko. I worked closely with him for eight years. Often the butt of heavy-handed joshing by his leaders, he nevertheless dominated the Soviet side of each discussion with his competence. Normally Gromyko knew every detail of a subject. It was suicidal to negotiate with him without mastering m---ring? the record or the issues. He was extraordinarily skillful in accumulating marginal points; he cleverly sought to trade what should never have been raised for something important. Mirroring the history of his country which had expanded from the area around Moscow to the Pacific and the center of Europe not by bold strokes but by relentless pressure, he relied on the impatience of his interlocutor to give him an opportunity. Western negotiators are uncomfortable with deadlocks; they seek to break every stalemate with new ideas. Against unwary interlocutors this enabled Gromyko to harvest concessions through protracted <u>stalemate</u>s. And

probably he needed the stalemates also for domestic reasons.

For he could not convince his suspicious superiors that he

deadlock.

said, "you look just like Henry Kissinger." I replied, "and

In his memoirs, Gromyko states that I gave the impres-
sion in my own *meetings* that I had outmanoeuvered him. That

-10-

was not my intention; it is not my view. Statesmen of major
~~ countries cannot be outmaneuvered~~ for one meets them over
and over again. Those charged with the responsibility for
conducting or designing foreign policy must never leave the
territory of analysis for that of mere maneuver. They will
be judged in the end not by their cleverness but by their
grasp of reality. And this is why - even with one distortion
- our mellow last conversation in these memoirs reflects the
~~ mutual aspect of two men whose ~~ respect for ~~ their duties had made them adversarial.~~

Gromyko was one of the ablest diplomats whom I have
met. He did not embody a great vision of put forward a
compelling model of a world order. But neither did the
system he represented. As the spokesman of a country that
had never prevailed except by raw power, he felt obliged to
test his mettle in every encounter. But he protected his
country amidst turbulence and confusion; he masked its

BANTAM D-DAY DELL INTL

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212 492 9597 Jul 11.89 14:54

Appendix
Preface to US edition

Recalling the past

Kissinger: I'm very glad to meet you again, Mr Gromyko. It's quite a while since we last met, the winter of 1987, I think. I'm reminded of your love of the double negative. I imagine that now you're retired you don't use it any more.

Gromyko: Well, it's not for me to judge. Yes, it's true it's some time since we met – so many summers and so many winters, as we say. By the way, I am familiar with your memoirs and I must say I think the book is full of interest.

Kissinger: There's just one passage in my book that I now regret, and that is where I describe some of your leaders.

Gromyko: I don't know which passage you have in mind, but all in all there is a lot that is positive in the book. I might even say it contains a number of observations that are different from your earlier views. But that said, I must add that one thing is clear; it is a book by a man of experience.

I may mention that I am often asked what I think of Henry Kissinger, not only by Soviet people, but by foreigners, too, especially journalists. I tell them: 'You know, Mr Kissinger is an extremely talented man.' I would like to take the opportunity of this meeting to repeat this opinion. As you know, I am not given to scattering kind words around, like so many peas. I don't

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212 492 9597 Jul 11.89 12:59

P.03

2

like that sort of thing at all, but that is my opinion of you.

Kissinger: Over the ten years that I've known you, it's true that you haven't scattered kind words around. Now here I am in Moscow and I remember our relations with warmth. I recall how stubbornly you defended your country's interests, which didn't always coincide with our point of view, but you always had our great respect. I have told many people that I have the deepest regard for Mr Gromyko. I was once asked on US television - and this was at a time when our relations were at a difficult stage - what I thought about Gromyko. I replied: 'God may punish me for saying so, but I like Mr Gromyko.' Some time later I happened to be dining with the son of King Feisal and when I told him that I had established the best possible relations with his father, he replied: 'There, you see, God has already punished you.' What are you doing with yourself now?

Gromyko: I'm reading and writing a lot. I go for walks in the evening. I walk three, five, even six miles a day. I must say I always feel better after a walk. My wife jokes. 'Everyone else gets tired from walking, but you're just the opposite - you relax.'

Kissinger: If you come to the US, you must visit me. I have a house outside the city and I also love to go for walks.

Gromyko: To be serious, I don't know if you find this is true of your own way of life now, but I devote a lot of time to literary and semi-literary activity. Recently I also gave an interview to a British television company. And I write a bit, mostly on past foreign policy. There's a good market for it, as they say in the western business world. I'm finding outlets for my energy. I talk with my comrades from time to time. So, that's how I keep myself busy now. It suits me. After all, I was the one who raised the question of my retirement, you know. I had spent about fifty years in state service.

I am glad that relations between our countries have taken a turn for genuine improvement. It would be nice to think things will continue in the same direction.

Kissinger: I think the new American administration will do its best to see to it. I wonder, is your book going to be published in English?

Gromyko: Yes it will. I have to say that a big part in improving relations between our countries has been played by our present leadership and M.S. Gorbachev. His own role has been enormous in this. You know that perfectly well. This has been chown in particular in the excellent way he made recently at the UN General Assembly. What did you think of it? What do you think of it now, Lietuvia, the most immediate outlook?

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212 492 9597 Jul 11, 89 13:00 P.05

Kissinger: I know Bush well. We've worked together. I also know Scowcroft and Eagleburger and other colleagues. What Rush wants is to conduct affairs so as to come to a basic mutual political understanding with the Soviet Union, and not only in the field of arms control, but also in improving the political situation in many regions of the world. In my opinion, that's what he's going to try to do. As for the outlook, I take an optimistic view.

Gromyko: I'm glad to hear all that.

Kissinger: I spoke with Mr Gorbachev this morning. There's going to be an appropriate press release. I think the Soviet leader shares my positive assessment.

Gromyko: Yes, the Soviet government and Gorbachev - and I know this and can say it with assurance - want to follow the course that has been currently laid down. I think you in the USA will not be mistaken if you also take the view that for our part we intend to hold to the principios we have laid down. But it's also desirable that there should be no unpleasant surprises. Don't you agree? After all, success must be assured not only in disarmament and arms control, but also in the sphere of political and economic relations in general. That's what we're in favour of.

Kissinger: As far as I know, from what some prominent figures

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212 492 9597 Jul 11,89 13:01 P.06

5

have said, the USA will not cause any unpleasant surprises. We
also hope they will be avoided by other sides. If any should in
fact arise, then any hidden dangers must be contained.

Gromyko: Sound thinking. You know, there's no more pressing and
important problem at present than the total elimination of
nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth. Otherwise, mankind
could be overcome by a catastrophe. There is of course the danger
that people have become so used to the expression 'catastrophe',
that they no longer react to it as acutely as they should. It's
been talked about so often.

They have been told about the catastrophe that Threatens them
but it hasn't happened up to now. A catastrophe is a catastrophe
precisely because it's not something that happens very often. But
it has to be averted and the threat of it completely eliminated.
If mankind does not bury nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons will
bury mankind and that will be the end of us all. Once, just once,
I had the occasion to meet Albert Einstein in America. He said to
me we had to do everything possible to eliminate nuclear weapons.
Otherwise they would destroy everyone in this 'round ship' that
we will sail in. They were wise words from a wise man. He was true
to that idea to the end of his life.

Kissinger: I would like to be sure that if we are both going to
destroy our nuclear weapons, someone else won't conceal theirs
and then start blackmailing us.

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212 492 9597 Jul 11.89 13:01 P.07

Gromyko: That would be impermissible.

Kissinger: War must never be allowed to break out. Looking at the situation in the world, it seems to me that neither the USA nor the USSR can gain anything from each other by war. We would only weaken each other to the advantage of others, if we were to be drawn into a conflict.

In the eight years of working with you, Mr Gromyko, you rarely used the expression 'absolutely true'. You sometimes said 'that is not correct'. And you were famous for your double negatives. I warmly recall those double negatives of yours.

Mr Gromyko, I would like to ask you a question of an historical nature about an event which took place a long time ago, if you will allow me, since you are one of the few people still living from those times and can give a complete answer to my question. Some friends and I were once discussing the Berlin blockade of 1948. We wondered why Stalin was prepared to risk war for the sake an insignificant advantage. I myself have wondered what it was he was trying to achieve? And if we had gone to war on that occasion, then what would his aim have been? I don't ask this in a spirit of criticism, but rather in the context of analysis of something that troubled people's minds.

Gromyko: I'd like to answer your question backwards. I believe

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212 492 9597 Jul 11.89 13:02

P.08

that Stalin - of course nobody actually asked him directly - embarked on that affair in the certain knowledge that the conflict would not lead to nuclear war. That's the first thing. He reckoned that the American administration was not run by frivolous people who would start a nuclear war over such a t situation. That's the explanation of the first point.

Kissinger: But surely even a war with conventional weapons would have been dangerous for the Soviet Union?

Gromyko: As for other, so-called conventional weapons, the Soviet side - and Stalin personally - reckoned on having to respond to any action by the USA. That's the second point. Unilateral concessions by the Soviet Union were not on the agenda. And finally the third point. At the first sign that the USA was prepared to disengage peacefully - and bear in mind that Soviet and American tanks were a matter of a few metres from each other - as soon as there were such signs, we acted in the same spirit. It was Stalin's view, too, that we should disengage. I have to tell you now that Stalin showed great foresight in this connection and he was sure that things would go as they did. And that was the decision that was eventually taken, the only correct decision. We disengaged. Figuratively speaking, it was as if a mighty voice had resounded from below the earth, expressing both countries' serious interests and saying to both of us: 'What are you thinking of? Stop and take stock of the situation!' It was

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212 492 9597 Jul 11,89 13:02 P.09

that voice which prompted both sides to see the need to disengage peacefully. If I were a creative writer, that's precisely how I would describe it. Of course this wasn't an issue over which to risk the danger of plunging both our countries into the fires of war.

Kissinger: I'm looking forward with great interest to reading your book in English. I want to say that I look back with pleasure on the time when I had dealings with you as foreign minister and head of state. You were a stubborn and persistent negotiator. But still we managed to conclude a number of agreements which turned out to be extremely firm.

Gromyko: Do you remember the time in Vladivostok with President Ford when we got stuck on two issues? One concerned the forward American bases, a question which we tabled, while you stumbled over the Soviet heavy missiles, the SS-18s. We had to unravel both these issues simultaneously before we could make any further progress. Brezhnev and I moved to the side of the room where the talks were actually taking place and sat down in a corner by the phone. Brezhnev telephoned two or three members of the Soviet leadership in Moscow to let them know how we proposed to resolve these two questions in Vladivostok. We told Ford and yourself about this. And at that point we found agreement. They were the two main issues that had needed to be resolved. And then we got the green light to come to an understanding, even though it would

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be another five years before a treaty was actually signed.

Kissinger: I well remember the time, here in Moscow in 1972, when you and I were negotiating over a period of several days and nights. Then one morning a shift began to take shape and by that evening we were ready to sign. We sent identical instructions to our delegations in Helsinki on the anti-ballistic missiles treaty and SALT-1.

Gromyko: Yes, I remember how we reached agreement, but the instructions we sent to our delegations weren't precisely identical, though they did follow a common line.

Kissinger: We had reached the last day of the negotiations and it was already eleven in the morning, and the agreement had to be signed by nine that evening. But there were still a number of outstanding technical issues to be settled.

Gromyko: I was asked precisely about this when I was interviewed on British television. I said we had agreed on the general tenor of our instructions, though they weren't absolutely identical. I think on that occasion you and I made a contribution towards securing major progress in the talks.

Kissinger: I agree with that. Unfortunately, my time is up, but I want to repeat how pleased I am to have seen you again. Please

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10
give your wife kind regards from Mrs Kissinger. Do you have any
plans to visit the USA, or are you restricting your activities to
Soviet territory?

Gromyko: I have no reason to make a trip at the moment, but as for the future, I won't rule it out. One should always keep one's options open. If you ever get lost in New York or Washington, you can always ask me and I'll help you find the street you're looking for.

Kissinger: You really know our country well. Still, if you do decide to visit the USA, I hope you'll call on me. I have a house in the suburbs outside New York where I take a daily walk. We could go for a walk together. Or we could have dinner in my apartment in the city.

Gromyko: I also walk from three to six miles a day. But what are you doing with yourself nowadays?

Kissinger: Mostly private business, though not very actively, to tell the truth. Making money is actually boring, even if it is necessary.

Gromyko: I remember meeting Bernard Baruch on one occasion. He

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was no longer occupying any official position. He asked me if I'd
read his book *How I Became A Millionaire*. I told him I had read
it with great interest, but I hadn't followed his advice. Please
give Mrs Kissinger kind regards from myself and my wife.

Moscow, The Kremlin, 17 January 1989.

P.S. This text must be approved by Dr Kissinger.

Doubleday

JUL. 10 1989

BY MESSENGER...

July 7, 1989

Dr. Henry Kissinger
KISSINGER ASSOCIATES
350 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Dear Henry:

We will be publishing Andrei Gromyko's memoirs next April in an edition for America and Canada which includes a new chapter on Stalin's domestic policy written expressly for us not long before Gromyko died. I am enclosing a copy of this text, as well as the British edition of the book.

I think you will agree that this chapter is not only a valuable historical document but constitutes a sober commentary on the residual poisons of Stalinism which Gorbachev is trying to flush out of the system. Gromyko's observations confirm the enormous pressures he was under as a negotiator which you describe so well in *White House Years*, particularly pp. 790-93. Further interesting reflections by Gromyko on the evolution of Soviet policy were contained in your interview with Gromyko on January 17, 1989, which I have just received.

Given your professional relationship with Gromyko and indeed your affection for him, we thought of you right away as the best possible person to write a brief preface to the American edition of the book. We would need to obtain permission from his executors, presumably his wife and son Anatoly, but before approaching them I wanted to sound out your own reaction to the idea. We would propose an honorarium of $1,000.

When you have looked over these materials, please let me know your response. If you are willing to do this, we would like to make reference to it in the Winter/Spring catalogue just going off to the printers, so I should greatly appreciate hearing from you upon your return to the office July 10.

With warm regards,

HI/meb
Enc. as stated

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