128. Letter From President Reagan to Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev1
This is in reply to your letter of October 12, 1985, concerning the possibility of a confidential exchange of opinions on a non-official basis. My reasons for mentioning this possibility to Foreign Minister Shevardnadze were twofold.
First, it seemed that there could be some intrinsic value in exchanging opinions informally and privately without the constraints imposed by official formality. But I also wished to resolve certain ambiguities in how we communicate. From time to time in recent months Soviet officials have approached American officials or private citizens who are in touch with senior officials in our government and have offered comments which, they suggest, represent your views. Naturally, I have paid close attention to these comments since I take your opinions very seriously and wish to do the utmost to understand them with full clarity. However, the comments received in this manner have not always been consistent and thus I have difficulty determining to what degree they in fact represent your views. It therefore seemed worthwhile to seek a clarification.
I judge from your reply that you consider established channels adequate for communication between us. That is agreeable to me. Consequently Secretary Shultz will continue to look forward to receiving Ambassador Dobrynin at the State Department. Similarly, we will expect that Ambassador Hartmann will enjoy corresponding access to you in Moscow.
I hope that the meetings Secretary Shultz has in Moscow will lay the groundwork for a productive meeting between us in Geneva. I am very much looking forward to meeting you there and continue to hope [Page 529] that we will succeed in setting relations between our two countries on a more constructive course.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, U.S.S.R.: General Secretary Gorbachev (8591143, 8591239). No classification marking. McKinley, signing for Platt, sent a draft of the letter to McFarlane under an October 31 covering memorandum, explaining: “The Soviets have responded to our suggestion of a special channel of communications between the President and General Secretary Gorbachev by nominating Ambassador Dobrynin. Gorbachev’s letter of October 12 is attached at Tab 2. The Department believes that we should respond symmetrically by nominating Ambassador Hartman as our Moscow point of contact. The draft Presidential response at Tab 1 makes the point that Secretary Shultz and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze should be part of the process.” McFarlane wrote in the right-hand margin: “I put a draft on PROFs which is a pro-forma assertion that since they don’t want a private channel we will deal in normal channels.” An NSC routing slip indicates Reagan signed the letter on November 1. For Gorbachev’s letter, see Document 115.↩