Israeli officials discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis (U.S. blockade of Soviet ships) and say that "Israel’s influence in the current circumstances was limited. Nevertheless, Israel would do whatever it can as a U.N. member to encourage negotiations and avoid military confrontation."

In this July 1969 report to the Politburo, Soviet ambassador to Washington Anatoly Dobrynin recounts a wide-ranging conversation with national security adviser Henry A. Kissinger a half-year into President Richard M. Nixon’s first term. Dobrynin also offers his candid personal evaluation of Kissinger and the secret White House “backchannel” established by Nixon to circumvent the State Department and communicate directly with the Soviet leadership.

Primakov came to hear a concrete offer from Golda on how to push the peace process forward. The Prime Minister was unwilling to go into specifics. Primakov informed Golda that as far as the Soviet Union was concerned there was a linkage between Israeli concessions and immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union. According to Primakov, as long as the Arab-Israeli conflict remained unsettled, the Soviet Union could not be seen as acting against the interests of its Arab allies by allowing unrestricted Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union to Israel.