Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume IV, Soviet Union, January 1983–March 1985

285. Telegram From Secretary of State Shultz to the White House¹

New York, September 27, 1984, 0105Z

Secto 11010. Subject: Memorandum to the President on Meeting With Gromyko.

1. S—Entire text.

2. Begin text:

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: George P. Shultz

SUBJECT: My Meeting With Gromyko

—As I told you over the phone,² my three hours with Gromyko were relatively free of polemics, but did not surface anything new on the Soviets’ part. Gromyko blamed us for all the problems in the relationship, and said that our behavior had to change before things could improve. The message, thus, was unyielding, although the tone was calm and even philosophical. It seemed that Gromyko wanted to concentrate more on where the overall relationship was heading than on specific issues.

—This emphasis on what Gromyko called the “principles’ for US-Soviet relations may foreshadow Gromyko’s approach to his meeting with you on Friday.³ If so, this would dovetail nicely with your plans to take a similarly philosophical approach.⁴ Of course, Gromyko’s attitude may also indicate that he simply has nothing concrete to say, and that Soviet policy toward the U.S. remains on automatic pilot, with the leadership either unwilling or unable to make the decisions needed to move forward. In this regard, Gromyko’s responses on most issues seemed unusually stale, involving largely canned language.

Highlights of the Conversation

—I opened the meeting by reviewing the modest progress we had made since our Stockholm meeting⁵ on a range of bilateral issues, along with the areas where progress had been disappointingly slow or non-existent. I stressed that what was now needed was to move forward on the larger questions, such as arms reductions, and that this was what you planned to focus on in your Friday meeting. I also emphasized at the outset the significance of human rights to the overall relationship, noting that you would want to explain why this was important to the American people. I cited the difficulties created by the many backward steps the Soviets have taken in this area, including their treatment of Sakharov and Shcharanskiy, and urged Gromyko to consider positive action in a number of human rights categories.

—Gromyko’s opening remarks focused on what he termed the “question of questions”—whether we want to lead the world toward peace or toward war—and on the equally important question of whether we will be able to control nuclear weapons. He repeated familiar charges that the U.S. was preparing for war and unwilling to accord the Soviets “equality.” He effectively dismissed the significance of the many small steps forward we have taken on bilateral issues, alleging that we were bent on destroying everything positive that has been accomplished in our relations. Echoing Soviet propaganda, he said relations were at their lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1933, and asked whether the U.S. wanted to “bury them still deeper” or to make a “turn for the better.”

—Turning to the question of the agenda for the rest of the meeting, Gromyko stressed that human rights was one subject that he was not prepared to discuss. I told him I hoped he would nevertheless listen carefully to your explanation of why this was so important to us, and reiterated the point that human rights can have a major bearing on the course of our relations.

—After an exchange on the allegedly aggressive character of U.S. and NATO policy, we turned to arms control. Gromyko agreed with me that there was no more urgent task than reducing nuclear arms. He paraphrased Einstein in arguing that mankind needed to get rid of all nuclear weapons—to which I responded that you have many times stated the very same thing; Gromyko replied by suggesting that the U.S. approach—piling up nuclear weapons—was incompatible with this goal. He said he was not prepared to go into the specifics of negotiating positions. I suggested that we try to use political-level exchanges to get the process moving again, but Gromyko did not respond.

—Gromyko went on at length about the need to “prevent” the militarization of outer space, and repeated the claim that we had rejected their June 29 offer by linking space weapons to offensive nuclear systems. He accused us of planning to deploy a space-based ABM system and even space-based nuclear weapons. I told him that we had no plans to deploy nuclear weapons in space, and that the SDI was strictly a research program at this stage and, in fact, less intensive than Soviet efforts in the ABM area. I also pointed out that it was the Soviets, with an operational ASAT, who had already “militarized” space.

—Gromyko’s bottom line on the Vienna talks was that the U.S. would have to change its “negative” position before talks could take place. Interestingly, however, he did not mention the question of an ASAT moratorium, and he repeated Chernenko’s formulation that progress on space could make it easier to move on other arms control subjects.

—We discussed other arms control issues only briefly. Gromyko was sharply critical of Western confidence-building proposals in the CDE, which he termed a plan for “legalized espionage” with respect to Warsaw Pact military activities. I expressed our disappointment at their failure to respond to your offer of a trade-off between non-use of force and concrete CBMs, which was a direct response to the views expressed by Chernenko in his letters to you. I closed the arms control discussion by underscoring the need to find new procedural mechanisms to give momentum to our negotiating efforts—the broader “umbrella” to which you referred in your speech.⁶ On this as on the rest of your UNGA initiatives, Gromyko did not respond.

—We did not have sufficient time to cover regional issues in much detail. Gromyko did not pick up on our call for expanded consultations on regional problems, and made the expected pitch for the Soviets’ warmed-over Middle East conference proposal. He said that while Moscow supports the Arab position because it was “just,” the Soviets were firmly committed to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. (It is interesting to note that he spent some two hours with Shamir.)⁷

—For my part, I reiterated our warning that provision of jet fighter aircraft to Nicaragua would be unacceptable, and affirmed our support for Pakistan in the face of increasingly threatening Soviet tactics along the Afghan-Pakistani border. I told Gromyko we continued to see no promise in the idea of a Mideast conference, but reiterated our readiness to hold more detailed bilateral exchanges on that region as well as on Southern Africa.

—Time ran out before we could get into questions of bilateral cooperation. Gromyko indicated that he had more to say on several other subjects and, intriguingly, he mentioned international terrorism as an item on his list. As the meeting broke up, I told Gromyko that we might want to consider a second meeting on Saturday,⁸ prior to Gromyko’s departure for Moscow. But we will want to wait and see how your meeting goes before making a decision.

End text.

Shultz

1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, N840011–0169. Secret; Immediate; Nodis. Sent for information to the Department of State. Repeated as telegram 293390 to Moscow, October 2. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, N840011–0327)
2. No record of this telephone conversation was found. Reagan spent most of the day on September 26 campaigning in Ohio and Wisconsin. (Reagan Library, President’s Daily Diary)
3. September 28.
4. See Document 277.
5. See Document 159.
6. See footnote 7, Document 267. For Reagan’s September 24 speech, see Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, Document 206.
7. Shultz and Israeli Foreign Minister Shamir met on October 1 in New York. During their meeting, the two men discussed their respective meetings with Gromyko. Shultz reported to Reagan: “Shamir said Gromyko’s manner seemed slightly more moderate in their bilateral, although his pitch to Israel to accept a peace conference and his stonewalling on Soviet Jewry were entirely negative in substance.” (Telegram Secto 11041 from New York, October 2; Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, N840011–0296)
8. September 29. See Document 288.