Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
"5. Continuing his account of prior events, Rapacki said that on the afternoon of Dec 3, at a fourth meeting between Lodge and Lewandowski, Lodge, on the basis of the President's instructions, read a statement as follows:
A. The President will instruct the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw to contact the North Vietnamese Ambassador in Warsaw on Dec 6 or as soon as possible thereafter.
B. The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw will be in a position on Dec 6 to confirm to the North Vietnamese Ambassador that the Lewandowski Dec 1 resume of the Lodge-Lewandowski conversations broadly reflects the position of the USG.
C. 'We must add that several specific points are subject to important differences of interpretation."
"6. Rapacki said that Lodge was unable at the Dec 3 meeting to precisely say which points were subject to differences of interpretation and what the nature of these differences of interpretation might be.
"7. Rapacki then stated that question of interpretation put in doubt whole basis on which contact with North Vietnamese Ambassador in Warsaw was to have taken place. He expressed grave concern as to how equivocation will be read by Hanoi. He added that Poles must transmit USG position to NVN Govt.; and that rather than a general reference to differences of interpretation it would be better if position transmitted contained statement defining differences of interpretation we have in mind. He said such a statement might have a significant effect on Hanoi's attitude toward both a meeting in Warsaw and the whole problem.
"8. Rapacki then asked what can be the position of Poland in its role as intermediary if after all the conversations which were held and statements made there still remains this doubt? He asked again how this reservation will be read by Hanoi, particularly with intensification of bombing near Hanoi subsequent to the Lodge-Lewandowski conversations? He said these questions had already been raised by Lewandowaki during his Dec 3 conversation with Lodge."
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