299. Letter From Secretary of Defense Weinberger to President Reagan1
(S) If I may, being on the other side of the world on the eve of your meeting with General Secretary Gorbachev,2 I would like to summarize briefly the views I have presented to you from time to time. I know this is unsolicited advice, but it is offered only to help serve the ultimate objectives I know we share. I do believe your Reykjavik meeting with Mr. Gorbachev offers an ideal opportunity to advance your vision for reducing the risks of nuclear war. I am glad you intend to stress other issues as well: human rights, the Soviet responsibility for regional conflicts, and, in particular, their continuing warfare against the Afghan people. But in the interest of brevity, I will confine this message to the issue of security and arms reductions.
(S) With your latest, major proposal to Gorbachev on SDI and strategic missiles, you have shown how missile defenses would, in fact, complement and support deep reductions in offensive arms. Until now, [Page 1266] Gorbachev has not seemed to realize the seriousness with which you advanced the proposal, and your determination in securing it.
(S) As you have said, it would be difficult for the Soviets to explain why they are against the elimination of offensive ballistic missiles. That is why I do not think Gorbachev will reject your U.N. proposal out of hand. In fact, Shevardnadze, in his speech following yours in the U.N.,3 pretended that the Soviet Union was proposing the complete elimination of nuclear missiles “whether strategic, medium-range or any other.” Yet, they have, of course, objected to eliminating intermediate range missiles (zero option), and have still not responded to your proposal for eliminating strategic missiles. The record should be clear as to who wants to eliminate missiles, and who insists on keeping them.
(S) Mr. Gorbachev’s arguments against SDI collapse in the face of your proposal: If missiles are eliminated, then our missile defenses could in no way diminish the Soviet deterrent; the defenses would only protect against cheating or third countries. And if, as you propose, we include firm and verifiable guarantees that SDI will never be used to deploy weapons in space that can cause mass destruction on Earth, Mr. Gorbachev’s complaint about “space strike weapons” is answered.
(S) As you know, I think verification is all-important and thus, agreement on real verification should be achieved before we take up numbers of warheads or any other topic. It is too easy for the Soviets to spend all the time on numbers, and then refuse to agree to any real verification, as they did in Stockholm. As we already emphasized in connection with your zero-zero INF proposal, a ban on missiles is far more verifiable than a numeric ceiling. For this reason, your U.N. proposal is more realistic and more achievable than most of the proposals the Soviets have been advancing. At the same time, it shows how to remove the most urgent danger of nuclear war—the continuing confrontation of hair-triggered, unrecallable missile forces—and it would do so in a more fundamental way than all the other arms control proposals combined.
(S) On intermediate range missiles, as well as on our other proposals, I feel that verification is the most important issue. It will be most useful for Mr. Gorbachev to hear from you the reaffirmation that real verification must be settled (including on-site inspection) before anything else can be settled.
(S) Also, as you know, I feel strongly we should not have the Soviets with SS–20s in Asia that are not effectively countered. If Gorbachev does not want to get rid of their SS–20s in Asia, or at least reduce them as much as in Europe on the way to zero, I can see no more effective [Page 1267] negotiating tactic than your idea of hinting that we might have to deploy Pershings in South Korea, or—who knows—even offer them to China. In no event, in my opinion, should we agree to Soviet demands that we not ever keep our missiles in Alaska.
(S) Lastly, on nuclear testing, I hope the Soviets will accept our proposal for new verification measures for the Threshold Test Ban, so that we can ratify that treaty. I also hope Mr. Gorbachev can be disabused of the notion that he could ever push us to give up nuclear testing, as long as we need to rely on nuclear arms. An effective, deployed SDI is the only way we could give up testing. Our test program is now at its minimum effective level.
(S) In the overall balance of arms issues, I recommend that you come back again and again to your fundamental and far-reaching U.N. proposal to eliminate all offensive ballistic missiles and to protect and safeguard this outcome with truly defensive, effective SDI systems, the benefits of which you are prepared to share. These facts and arguments bear repeating, for—as the Russian proverb says—repetition is the mother of learning.
Respectfully yours,
- Source: Reagan Library, Alton Keel Files, Iceland Planning (10/08/1986); NLR–281–2–4–1–2. Secret.↩
- Weinberger was traveling in China, India, and Pakistan. Documentation on his trip is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. XXIX, China, 1984–1988 and Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. XXXIII, South Asia.↩
- See footnote 5, Document 289.↩