This document includes accounts of several conversations between Soviet officials and US diplomats, including Andrei Gromyko for the Soviets, and Dean Rusk and Arthur Goldberg for the Americans. The most pressing topic discussed during these meetings was figuring out mutually acceptable language to mollify Soviet demands that the NPT contain explicit prohibitions on the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear countries not just directly but through a military alliance, namely, NATO, remembering previous US attempts to nuclearize NATO through the Multilateral Force (MLF). Some attention is paid to fears not just of the Soviet Union but the US and other NATO allies as well about the FRG acquiring nuclear weapons. In addition to the focus on the semantic differences in the Soviet and American drafts of the NPT, the document emphasizes that one key area of common ground between the Soviets and Americans is the importance that an agreement be reached sooner rather than later before more countries acquire nuclear capabilities.

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.”