In this message, Secretary Rusk reported to President Johnson that the Soviet non-transfer principle, which ruled out MLF-type arrangements but left open other alternatives, was a “good formulation” that would be “acceptable” to the incipient West German “Grand Coalition” government.

In the U.S. Ambassador to NATO Harlen Cleveland's notes on his meeting with Secretary Rusk, Cleveland details Rusk's thoughts about Soviet interest in the NPT. According to the Secretary, the “Soviets should have no real difficulty in finding a common interest with us in signing a treaty which enshrines [the] two self-denying provisions” of no-transfer to non-nuclear weapons states and “no relinquishment of control by the US over US warheads.”

In this report, ACDA Deputy Director Adrian Fisher summarizes Moscow's growing interest in reaching a final agreement on an NPT, in part because of its recognition of “pressures growing in third countries for development of nuclear capabilities.”

In this meeting between members of the Policy Planning Staff's board of consultants, the participants discussed their policy preferences towards European nuclear arrangements.
Recognizing “bitter” French and Soviet objections to a collective nuclear force, the consultants believed that over time it might be possible to “get both the force and the agreement.”

In this conversation, Chancellor Adenauer and Secretary McNamara discussed the West Germans signing the U.S. proposed Limited Test Ban Treaty, which Adenauer felt would be a "success" for the Soviets. Adenauer worried that signing the same documents as the Soviets would recognize the Soviet Occupied Zone.

In this proposed agreement, Secretary of State Rusk asked the White House for authorization to approach the Soviets. Rusk had two central goals in mind: to determine if the Soviets would state whether its allies, such as China, would agree to a nonproliferation agreement and to give Moscow a “somewhat more precise indication of what we have in mind concerning the obligation not to transfer nuclear weapons.”