RESTRICTED
China. He was a bit out of touch with latest developments but thought that the Senate would need to make a judgement in June (in practice, they had 45 days from 3 June). This was one area where the President had difficulty also with his own party, and he might have underestimated the degree of opposition overall. Nonetheless, Biden's judgement was that the President should be able to prevail.
SOVIET UNION
CC:
(£)
The Secretary of State brought him up to date on the question of Soviet attendance at the Economic Summit. Biden commented that, as yet, he had seen nothing that added up to a proper economic development plan for the Soviet Union - this despite having spent five hours with the Harvard Group and Jablinsky. Even that plan would not inspire US companies to invest in the Soviet Union a year or so down the road. Indeed, Biden said that, as Jablinsky was leaving, his parting shot from the taxi was "I am not sure that I completely trust Gorbachev"! The
Harvard-Jablinsky plan was also different from the message which Primakov would be bringing. The problem was that the Russians just did not know how to put together a plan.
Mr Prentice, Private Office
Heads:
Soviet Dept
Yours ever,
Что
Jand
D A Burns
NB4AAL
Chanceries:
NPDD
FED
HKD
News Dept
SIC, NIO
Dublin
Peking Moscow
RESTRICTED