President Lyndon B. Johnson Writes His Ambassador to the USSR With His Assessment of the Crucial U.S./Soviet Union Summit, Characterizing the Soviets

One of a few letters we have ever seen of a President characterizing the nature of his Soviet counterparts; The Glassboro summit was the first positive personal interaction between leaders of the two nations, and led to breakthroughs in reducing Cold War tensions

The Six Day War between Israel and Syria, Jordan, and Egypt in June 1967, with the resulting tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, provides the backdrop for this letter. Believing that the Arab countries were poised to join forces against it, Israel attacked Egyptʼs troops in the Sinai Peninsula and virtually destroyed the air forces of all three countries in a massive coordinated operation on June 5.  By June 9, Israeli troops had reached the Suez Canal and surrounded Egyptian forces on Sinai, captured East Jerusalem and the west bank of the Jordan River, as well as the Golan Heights. Just two days later the war ended with the Israelis successful on all fronts. The United States tilted toward Israel in the conflict, while the Soviet Union was an ally of the Arab states. While the war was ongoing, the Soviets warned that unless the U.S. influenced Israel to stop its advances, it would take military action if necessary.  In response, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the U.S. Sixth Fleet from Sicily to the eastern Mediterranean. But the unsettling Soviet action also caused him to send Israel a “clear signal” of American concern.  Since Israel had conquered the territory it wanted, it agreed to a cease fire.  The Soviets, however, sent armaments to the Arab countries, raising speculation about a possible Arab counter-offensive against Israel.

The opportunity for Johnson to meet personally with Soviet Premier Alexi Kosygin arose when the Soviets announced that Kosygin would appear before a special session of the U.N. General Assembly to seek a resolution demanding that Israel withdraw from the Arab territories.  Johnson had not met with the Soviet leadership as President.  Kosygin, concerned about a possible provocative deal between the United States and China over Vietnam, wanted to see Johnson.  U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Lewellyn E. Thompson supported the potential summit, although he downplayed expectations. He thought that a meeting could “start the process of moving toward an understanding with the Soviets,” though doubting that “a meeting will result in any specific agreement on any specific question.” Moreover, Soviet input on peace talks with North Vietnam could be beneficial to the U.S., Thompson said, and “the effect of the President’s personality on Kosygin” would give him something with which to “influence his colleagues in a better direction.” Johnson relied heavily on Thompson’s views and agreed to the summit.

The place for the meeting, though, was a sticking point.  Kosygin rejected Johnson’s invitation to meet in Washington, D.C., out of concern that if he appeared in Johnson’s venue as a U.S. government guest, it would taint Soviet relationships with Middle Eastern countries and North Vietnam.  Johnson rejected Kosyginʼs suggestion that they meet in New York for fear that a meeting there would attract large numbers of anti-war protesters.  Kosygin saw Johnson’s counterproposal that they meet at Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey as an attempt to intimidate the Soviets by meeting in a military setting.  Ultimately, the leaders agreed to meet at Hollybush Mansion, the home of the president of Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in Glassboro, New Jersey, just south of Philadelphia and about halfway between New York and Washington.

As Thompson predicted, the meeting, which lasted three days, June 23-25, resulted in no large scale agreements.  However, the atmospherics were excellent as the antagonists Johnson and Kosygin appeared together in a non-threatening way and expressed their mutual desire for peace. Kosygin later noted that “a great many difficulties and differences arose” with respect to how to solve specific problems. Moreover, although Kosygin was “friendly, jolly, and warm,” he could make no agreements without approval of the Politburo, so his power to deal was constrained, and Johnson saw him as “an extremely disciplined Communist leader” who adhered to “existing Soviet positions hard” and refused to deal.  On Vietnam, Johnson said, Kosygin’s position “was rigid and familiar:  we should stop the bombing and get out of Vietnam.”  The sides did make some progress on nuclear nonproliferation, and the first treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons would be signed on July 1, 1968. Johnson proposed that he and Kosygin meet once a year, and Kosygin suggested that they stay in touch over the hotline that had been installed in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Despite the difficulties, overall the meeting was seen as a positive one that improved relations between the two nations.  Its generally friendly atmosphere was termed the “spirit of Glassboro.”

Although bringing no instant solutions to global issues, ultimately this summit would lead to President Nixon’s visit to Moscow in 1972, and a lessening in tensions between the two nations. It was thus crucial to future events.

The very day after the summit ended, Johnson wrote to Thompson to thank him for his efforts. Typed Letter Signed, on White House letterhead, Washington, June 26, 1967, to Thompson, expressing his exasperation with the Soviets and desire for peace. “Dear Tommy:  I wish you to know how greatly I valued your experience, wisdom, and help in arranging and seeing through our meetings with Kosygin at Hollybush.  It was a comfort to have you at my side; and it is a comfort that you are there in Moscow to assess what we can and cannot do with these somewhat difficult people to bring a little more peace to the world.  Please tell Jane I regret having interrupted your plans, and convey warm greeting from Mrs. Johnson and myself.” The original envelope is still present, and was evidently delivered by diplomatic pouch, has as it has not been sealed and bears no postal markings.  

Thompsonʼs file copy of his reply to Johnson accompanies this letter.  He wrote: “I greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness in sending me the photographs of our meeting and your very kind letter.  I was delighted with the way in which you handled the meeting with Kosygin, and it was this that I was counting on in urging it.  It may be some time before we have any real pay off, but I am sure it was worthwhile for Kosygin to learn what you and your policies are really like for I am afraid these people tend to be influenced by their own propaganda.  The leadership here is in trouble as a result of their recent failures, but I am hopeful that Kosygin will be able to ride it out.  It would be a pity to lose the result of your fine work on him.”

Lewellyn E. Thompson was one of the most important American diplomats of the 20th Century.  He was the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, serving two separate tours in the administrations of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and then acting as advisor to Richard M. Nixon. Thompson’s diplomatic skills were legendary and stemmed from his philosophy, as he said, of being “a great believer in quiet diplomacy.  I think that in the long run it gives a better chance for finding successful solutions to our problems.”  His friendliness and willingness to talk enabled him to become well acquainted with the Soviet hierarchy, including Soviet Premiers Nikita Khrushchev and Kosygin.  Few Ambassadors faced as many crises as Thompson did in Moscow – the shooting down of a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over Russia, the great confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet Union over Berlin and the building of the Berlin Wall, very difficult summits between Soviet Premier Khruschev and Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, the August 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and tensions over the Vietnam War. Thompson ended his first tour in Moscow in 1962, when President Kennedy brought him home to Washington to become his Ambassador-at-Large, as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, advising the President on Soviet affairs. Shortly after returning to Washington, Thompson provided Kennedy with advice that was crucial to avoiding nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Johnson reappointed him to the ambassadorship to Moscow in 1967, and he served until 1969.  He came out of retirement to advise President Nixon on the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) negotiations with the Soviet Union and represented the United States in the SALT talks from 1969 until his death in 1972.

Kosygin, however, did not last in power.  From the beginning, after the ouster of Nikita Khrushchev, he shared power with the ambitious Leonid Brezhnev. Kosygin was Premier, but Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Communist Party, a more visible position typically synonymous with that of the leader of the Soviet Union.  Kosygin insisted that, as the head of state, he should handle foreign relations, and during the 1960s he did so, as his summit with Johnson evidences.  Brezhnev was jealous of Kosygin, however, and planned to unseat him. By 1967 the joint Kosygin-Brezhnev leadership system was becoming to fray, as Thompson alluded to in his letter to Johnson. By the early 1970s, Brezhnev had become the de facto leader by transferring some of Kosyginʼs powers to others and then consolidating them to himself.  When Kosygin resigned after he became ill in 1980, he had already been effectively squeezed out of office. Persona non grata by this point, members of the Politburo, his aides, and even security guards ignored him.

This letter comes from the Thompson descendants.  One of a few letters we have ever seen of a President characterizing the nature of his Soviet counterparts.