Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986

43. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, June 17, 1985, 6 p.m.

SUBJECT

• Meeting with Ambassador Dobrynin

PARTICIPANTS

• US

  • The Secretary
  • National Security Advisor, Robert McFarlane
  • Ambassador Paul Nitze
  • Assistant Secretary Richard Burt

• Soviet

  • Ambassador Anatoliy Dobrynin
  • Minister-Counselor Oleg Sokolov

The Secretary opened the meeting by saying that he had a two-part agenda. The first part concerned our response to the last discussion we had had on a summit meeting.² The President would have a response to Mr. Gorbachev’s latest letter,³ but we wanted to respond on the question of a summit venue now. We are disappointed with Gorbachev’s reply on venue. We continue to think two great powers like the United States and the Soviet Union should be able to meet in their respective capitals, but so be it. We will accept the Soviet suggestion that we meet in a third country and thus the most obvious place is Geneva.

Ambassador Dobrynin then asked “you don’t like Helsinki?” In an aside he admitted that a November summit in Helsinki would be cold; that Helsinki is nicer in the summer. He then stated that he would pass our suggestion on to Gorbachev.

The Secretary said that on the question of broader substantive issues, President Reagan had written to Gorbachev a long letter, and Gorbachev had sent a lengthy reply. That reply seems to us to involve a misunderstanding about what the President is trying to say. One approach would be to continue this back and forth. But maybe a more hopeful way would be to sidestep some of the lesser issues and try to come to the heart of the nuclear arms control problem, recognizing of course that other issues are still very important and that we should be able to make progress on some of them.

On nuclear arms control, from our review of Soviet positions and statements, we don’t see much evidence that Moscow wants to get anywhere. The sooner we know that, the better. On the other hand, we recognized that Dobrynin was going to return to Moscow in the near future. So the Secretary wanted to explore with him whether it was possible to create a better political environment for progress in Geneva.

Dobrynin interjected that their approach proceeds from the January common understanding; in their view, the U.S. negotiators are trying to re-write the mandate agreed to in January during the Shultz-Gromyko talks.⁴ Dobrynin noted that on the Secretary’s earlier point, with regard to Moscow not wanting to get anywhere in Geneva, this was definitely not the case.

The Secretary said we have no new proposals to offer. To do so would be premature and not helpful. But we are prepared to indicate a general approach which should make it possible for both sides to move forward in Geneva. The Secretary then made four points:

—As we see it, the key to resolving the current arms control puzzle is in the interrelationship of the offense to the defense, in particular, the potential effectiveness of each to that of the other.

—Radical reductions in the power of the offense, in particular, its capability effectively to weaken the retaliatory power of the other side, can undoubtedly have a major impact on the defensive needs of the other side. If we could reach agreement that that capability was reduced to tolerable levels, the need for compensatory defenses would be diminished.

—Absent such reductions, we have no choice but to compensate for Soviet advantages in offense through the deployment of effective defenses.

—The central idea, which we believe could be the key to a more constructive approach to the arms control questions before us, is seriously and discretely to address the proper relationship between the offensive and the defensive potential of the two sides.

The Secretary then handed Dobrynin a non-paper covering these points.⁵

Dobrynin (read the points and) commented that basically this is what has been said in Geneva. What the US seems to be suggesting now is a backchannel to discuss these issues.

The Secretary said that the problem is that the Geneva negotiations aren’t really going anywhere. Dobrynin asked whether the Secretary was suggesting that we should broaden the Shultz-Gromyko understanding. The Secretary then said perhaps Bud McFarlane or Paul Nitze would like to comment.

McFarlane said that the US can not tolerate what appears to be a foundation principle of the Soviet side in the negotiations; that is that the Soviets have a first strike capability while the United does not. The United States can not tolerate such an imbalance. Given this imbalance, the United States must look at defensive options. It has been left with no alternative. However, we could have a stable transition to an effective mix of offense and defense.

The Secretary then noted that what we are saying is that if we can agree on less offensive forces then our defense requirements would be less.

Nitze then noted that the four short paragraphs we had provided to Dobrynin are inherently important. He was struck by Akhromeyev’s statement on the offensive/defensive relationship. Nitze thought this was very rational.⁶

Dobrynin said that he wanted to disagree with McFarlane’s suggestion of a massive Soviet offense build-up. The United States also was building up its offensive forces. McFarlane responded that this was not really true. The Soviet Union could simply not expect a situation where only the Soviet Union would have a first strike capability. Dobrynin retorted that the United States has one too. McFarlane said that this was not the case. Only the Soviet Union has that capability. Dobrynin then noted that maybe we should not debate this point here, but instead focus on Secretary Shultz’ approach.

The Secretary said that what we should aim for is a situation in which neither side has a first strike capability.

Dobrynin said that he would report this conversation to his government and try to get back to the Secretary this week. Perhaps Friday. The Secretary noted that this would be good as he plans to be away part of next week.

1. Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S, Top Secret/Secret Sensitive Memorandum, Lot 91D257, Eggplant I, June, July, August 1985 NP. Secret; Super Sensitive. The meeting took place in Shultz’s office. No drafting information appears on the memorandum of conversation. In his memoir, Dobrynin recalled this meeting: “Finally on June 17 I had a meeting with Shultz that showed we were heading into the final stages of a summit arrangement. With McFarlane and Paul Nitze present, Shultz said the president reluctantly accepted Gorbachev’s proposal to meet in a third country, and suggested Geneva. Then he read from a text which boiled down to the idea that the United States was ready to slow its Star Wars program in exchange for a Soviet agreement to make sizeable cuts in its strategic missiles. The rationale for this was that if the Soviet force of offensive missiles were reduced, the United States could then justify slowing down SDI, which it regarded as a defensive project. This was really a sort of compromise within the administration between Shultz and Weinberger rather than a compromise with us, because Weinberger had started out by refusing to accept any limits at all on SDI. We of course had always assumed that the size of missile forces would be on the table in negotiations.” (Dobrynin, In Confidence, p. 573)
2. See Document 41.
3. Printed as an attachment to Document 41.
4. See footnote 2, Document 4. Documentation on the talks is in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. IV, Soviet Union, January 1983–March 1985, Documents 355–363.
5. Attached but not printed. A handwritten note on the non-paper reads: “Given Dobrynin by the Secretary 17 June 1985.” The non-paper repeated these four points verbatim.
6. Presumably a reference to Akhromeyev’s June 4 article in Pravda. In telegram 7398 from Moscow, June 4, the Embassy explained that Akhromeyev stated that the ABM Treaty is “the cornerstone of East/West détente and strategic stability.” It continued: “This carefully crafted article responds to U.S. claims that SDI is consistent with the ABM Treaty, as well as to U.S. charges of Soviet non-compliance.” (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D850391–0768) For the text of the article, see Documents of Disarmament, 1985, pp. 327–330.