88. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Kissinger)
to President Nixon1
Washington, September 29, 1969.
SUBJECT
- The US Role in Soviet Maneuvering Against China
In the last two months, the increase in Sino-Soviet tensions has led the
Soviets to sound out numerous American contacts on their attitude toward
a possible Soviet air strike against China’s nuclear/missile facilities
or toward other Soviet military actions. These probes have varied in
character from point-blank questioning of our reaction to provocative
musings by Soviets over what they might be forced to do against the
Chinese, including the use of nuclear weapons. Some of these contacts
have featured adamant denials that the Soviets were planning any
military moves—thereby keeping the entire issue alive. (Secretary
Rogers’ Memorandum on this
subject is at Tab A.)
[Page 267]
Our contingency planning for major Sino-Soviet hostilities is well along,
and NSC consideration of a basic policy
paper on the Sino-Soviet dispute is scheduled for October 8.2
Meanwhile, I am concerned about our response to these probes. The Soviets
may be quite uncertain over their China policy, and our reactions could
figure in their calculations. Second, the Soviets may be using us to
generate an impression in China and the world that we are being
consulted in secret and would look with equanimity on their military
actions.
A related issue is the shifting Soviet attitude on Chinese representation
in the UN. We have had two indications that the Soviets, in an effort to
keep the Chinese Communists out of the UN through indirection, are
dangling the prospect before us of cooperation on the representation
issue. Gromyko, in his UN speech,
of course failed to mention Peking’s admission for the first time.3
I believe we should make clear that we are not playing along with these
tactics, in pursuance of your policy of avoiding the appearance of
siding with the Soviets.
The principal gain in making our position clear would be in our stance
with respect to China. The benefits would be long rather than
short-term, but they may be none the less real. Behavior of Chinese
Communist diplomats in recent months strongly suggests the existence of
a body of opinion, presently submerged by Mao’s doctrinal views, which
might wish to put US/Chinese relations on a more rational and less
ideological basis than has been true for the past two decades.
Recommendation:
That you authorize me to ask the Department of State to prepare
instructions to the field setting forth guidance to be used with the
USSR and others, deploring reports
of a Soviet plan to make a preemptive military strike against Communist
China.4
[Page 268]
Tab A
Washington, September 10,
1969.
Memorandum From Secretary of State Rogers to President Nixon
SUBJECT
- The Possibility of a Soviet Strike Against Chinese Nuclear
Facilities
Soviet Embassy Second Secretary Davydov brought up the idea of a
Soviet attack on Chinese nuclear facilities in a Washington luncheon
conversation with a Department officer on August 18. I am enclosing
the memorandum of conversation5 which details the rationale for such a
move which he adduced in asking what the United States reaction
might be.
Davydov’s conversation was unusual for the length of the argument
that he presented for such a Soviet course of action. None of the
other occasional references to the idea in talks with Soviets which
have come to our attention have spelled out such a
justification.
- —In late March or early April Kosygin’s son-in-law Gvishiani and Professor
Artsimovich who were visiting in Boston reportedly said that the
USSR would have to destroy
Communist China’s nuclear arsenal. They seemed to be soliciting
the reaction of the American to whom they were speaking.
- —Italian Communist Rossana Rossanda has claimed that, in July,
the Italian Communist leadership received a message from Moscow
asking how the Italians would react if, in self-defense, the
Soviet Union were forced to make a preventive strike against
Chinese missile and atomic installations. On the basis of past
experience, Rossanda is not to be taken too literally as a
reporter, and a more accurate version of her information may be
contained in a Finnish Communist account of the consultations in
Moscow at the World Communist Conference in June. According to
this report, a Soviet leader then asserted that the USSR had a capability to deal
China an immediate mortal blow (presumably more than just a
strike at nuclear facilities), but did not wish to do something
so “un-Leninist,” except as an extreme defensive measure.
- —In June the science editor of Izvestia’s Sunday supplement asked an American Embassy
officer in Moscow what the American reaction
[Page 269]
to a possible Soviet attack
(nature of the blow not specified) on China might be. The same
Russian has avoided the subject more recently, and in response
to the American’s latest query two weeks ago, the editor merely
said that the USSR was trying
to better its relations with China. In July Sidney Liu of Newsweek was asked by Delyusin of the
Soviet Institute of Asian and African Affairs what he thought
the Chinese popular reaction would be to a major Soviet attack
on China (the nature of the attack was not otherwise defined in
the report).
- —A Soviet communication to foreign Communist parties in early
August left an impression of great concern over the future of
Sino-Soviet relations, but neither of the two accounts of the
message that we have indicates that it discussed such specific
courses of action as a strike against Chinese nuclear
facilities.
- —Finally, the most recent Soviet statement on the subject was
by Southeast Asia Chief Kapitsa of the Foreign Ministry who
insisted to a Canadian newsman that a Soviet strike against
Chinese nuclear targets was “unthinkable” and that the very idea
was an invention of the Western press.
It is extremely unlikely that Davydov would be privy to top-level
Soviet discussions on this matter, much less any decisions taken.
Rather, it is likely that he has been given the job of getting as
much information as he can on American attitudes on the China issue,
and his questioning about the strike hypothesis was in the context
of trying to elicit discussion of American views of Sino-Soviet
relations. The idea of a strike against Chinese nuclear targets is
one which has been mentioned in the United States press and talked
about among diplomats and newsmen in Washington. Moreover, Davydov
had been asked—at a meeting with Congressional interns a few days
before the above cited luncheon—what he thought the United States
attitude ought to be in the event of a Sino-Soviet war, and thus
would have had occasion to have thought through some of the
argumentation he used in the memorandum.
What emerges clearly from the foregoing evidence—as well as from
Soviet leaders’ speeches, from Moscow’s propaganda, and from
clandestine source reports on Soviet diplomatic anxieties—is an
obvious sense of Soviet concern over troubles with China and of
great interest in how others view Sino-Soviet tensions. What remains
doubtful is whether the Soviets have ordered their officials
systematically to canvass for reactions to a specific potential
course of action—attack on Chinese nuclear targets. Nevertheless,
the Department has considered the possibility that Davydov’s
conversation might have been the first move in such a probing
operation, and, with that in view, has alerted key American posts
abroad to be certain to report analogous conversations. The only
response so far was from the American Embassy in
[Page 270]
Rome. A Soviet First Secretary told
Italian officials he foresaw new and more serious incidents; he was
not reported to have sought reactions and there was no reference in
the report to the idea of a strike against Chinese nuclear
facilities.
In the absence of a cluster of such reports in a relatively short
time, it would appear that Davydov’s recent conversation, as well as
the remarks in Boston five months ago, are curiosities rather than
signals. It is certain that Moscow remains preoccupied with its
Chinese problem, and the Kremlin is probably reviewing all of its
options. Thus the possibility of a Soviet strike at Chinese nuclear
facilities cannot be ruled out. Nevertheless, my advisers and I do
not believe such a move to be probable. The Soviets would have to
weigh the risk of triggering an all-out war with China, a war for
which the Soviets are not likely to believe themselves yet well
prepared despite their buildup since 1965. Moreover, they would not
be sure of getting the entire inventory of Chinese bombs, and would
in any case face the prospect that the Chinese would most likely
rebuild their nuclear arsenal with renewed determination.
The National Intelligence Estimate of August 12, 19696 on the Sino-Soviet
dispute notes that a conventional air strike aimed at destroying
China’s missile and nuclear facilities might be the most attractive
military option available to Moscow, if the Soviets believed that
they could do this without getting involved in a prolonged and
full-scale war. The National Intelligence Estimate did not think it
likely that the Kremlin would reach this conclusion, but felt that
there was some chance that it would. Considering all of the
military, political, economic, foreign policy, and ideological
implications of any such Soviet attack, the Department’s analysts
judge that the chances of this particular course of action are still
substantially less than fifty-fifty and that Sino-Soviet conflict,
if it does occur, might more likely result from escalation of border
clashes. That assessment seems reasonable to me.
