The letter is long and worth more analysis, but at first glance the main
point seems to be that the Soviets will not recognize any right of ours
to depart from the provisions of SALT
II and other arms control agreements by unilateral decision. Most of the
letter is a catalogue, written very much in Gromyko’s style, of things we have done that make them
suspicious that this is our real intention. The steps we have taken give
them every right to break commitments, the letter says, but they have
not done so in the hope that “sober reasoning” and US self-interest would bring more restraint
from us, and this has happened “to a certain, though not to a full,
extent.” By implication, your interim restraint decision reflects such
restraint, but they remain suspicious that they are being asked to agree
we have a right to violate commitments in response to violations they
deny having made. The letter denies in advance that we have any such
right, and says they will wait and see how we act in the future: “It
depends on the American side how things will shape up further, and we
shall make the appropriate conclusions.”
I noted there had been several occasions where we seemed on the verge of
having things get better, and then something happened to throw us off
course—most recently, their shooting of Major Nicholson and their
subsequent handling of the incident. It was a disturbing pattern.
Looking at bilateral issues, we were not specific on any one, but agreed
that with the right atmosphere there were a number of things that could
be resolved easily. On regional issues, we agreed that not much had been
accomplished in our talks, but that those on southern Africa had perhaps
been more constructive than before. I was interested that he thought
Afghanistan issues might well be pursued further. Perhaps things
Rajiv Gandhi said here have
registered in the Soviet Union.3 In connection with the Middle East, I brought
up the hostage problem and called attention to the importance of Syria’s
role in Lebanon. He had nothing to say on Syria, but remarked that
hijacking and hostage taking were outside the bounds of civilized
behavior. I suggested that his government might say so.
In conclusion, we also discussed the upcoming meetings in Helsinki and
the possibility of meetings here with Gromyko in the fall, as opportunities to move things
along. He will be going back to Moscow for his summer leave next week,
and I may have another conversation with him before that.
Attachment
Letter From Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev to President
Reagan4
Moscow, June 22, 1985
Dear Mr. President:
In connection with your letter of June 10, in which you outline the
U.S. Government’s decision on the SALT II Treaty made public the same day, I deem it
necessary to express the viewpoint of the Soviet leadership on this
matter.
I shall start by stating that your version of the past and present
state of affairs in the key areas of Soviet-American relations, that
of the limitation and reduction of strategic arms, cannot withstand
comparison with the actual facts. Evidently, it was not by chance
that you chose 1982 as your point of reference, the year when the
American side declared its readiness to comply with the main
provisions of the SALT II Treaty,
unratified by the United States. Unfortunately, however, it was not
this that determined the general course of your administration’s
policy and its practical actions with regard to strategic
armaments.
It is hard to avoid the thought that a choice of a different kind had
been made earlier, when it was stated outright that you did not
consider yourself bound by the obligations assumed by your
predecessors under agreements with the Soviet Union. This was
perceived by others, and in the United States too, as repudiation of
the arms limitations process and the search for agreements.
This was confirmed in practice: an intensive nuclear arms race was
initiated in the United States. Precisely through this race, it
would seem, and began to see and continues to see to this day the
main means for achieving “prevailing” positions in the world under
the guise of assuring U.S. national security.
In this sense, the few steps of the American side that you mentioned
that went in a different direction and took account of the realities
of today’s world, are they not just temporary, “interim?”
It is not for the sake of polemics, but in order to restore the full
picture of what has occurred, that I would like to return briefly to
what has been done by the United States with regard to the current
regime for strategic stability.
[Page 165]
One cannot dispute the fact that the American side created an
ambiguous situation whereby the SALT II Treaty, one of the pillars of our relationship
in the security sphere, was turned into a semi-functioning document
that the U.S., moreover, is now threatening to nullify step by step.
How can one then talk about predictability of conduct and assess
with sufficient confidence the other side’s intentions?
It is difficult to evaluate the damage done to our relationship and
to international stability as a whole by your administration’s
decision to break off a process of negotiations that the USSR and the U.S. assumed a legal
obligation to conduct. Such an obligation is contained in the very
text of the SALT II Treaty, as
well as in the accompanying “Joint Statement of Principles and Basic
Guidelines for Subsequent Negotiations on the Limitation of
Strategic Arms.”5
The chain ensuring the viability of the process of curbing the arms
race, put together through great effort, was consciously broken.
Today it is especially clear that this caused many promising
opportunities to slip by, while some substantial elements of our
relationship in this area were squandered.
The United States crossed a dangerous threshold when it preferred to
cast aside the Protocol to the SALT II Treaty instead of immediately taking up, as was
envisaged, the resolution of these issues which were dealt with in
the Protocol. Those issues are of cardinal importance—the limitation
and prohibition of entire classes of arms. It is no secret as to
what guided the American side in taking this step: it wanted to gain
an advantage by deploying long-range cruise missiles. As a result,
already today one has to deal with thousands of such missiles. The
U.S. sought to sharply tilt in its favor the fine-tuned balance of
interests underlying the agreement. Now you see, I believe, that it
did not work out this way. We too are deploying cruise missiles,
which we had proposed to ban. But even now we are prepared to come
to an agreement on such a ban, should the U.S., taking a realistic
position, agree to take such an important step.
The deployment in Western Europe of new nuclear systems designed to
perform strategic missions was a clear circumvention, that is
non-compliance, by the American side with regard to the SALT II Treaty. In this, Mr.
President, we see an attempt by the United States, taking advantage
of geographic factors, to gain a virtual monopoly on the use of
weapons in a situation for which our country has no analogue. I know
that on your side the need for some regional balance is some
[Page 166]
times cited. But even in
that case it is incomprehensible why the U.S. refuses to resolve
this issue in a manner which would establish in the zone of Europe a
balance of medium-range missiles, whereby the USSR would not have more missiles and
warheads on them than are currently in the possession of England and
France. Such a formula would not infringe upon anyone’s interests,
whereas the distortion caused by the American missiles in Europe is
not a balance at all.
In broader terms, all these violations by the United States of the
regime for strategic stability have one common denominator:
departure from the principle of equality and equal security. This
and nothing else is the reason for the lack of progress in limiting
and reducing nuclear arms over the past 4–5 years.
However, I would like you to have a clear understanding of the fact
that, in practice, strategic parity between our countries will be
maintained. We cannot envisage nor can we permit a different
situation. The question, however, is at what level parity will be
maintained—at a decreasing or an increasing one. We are for the
former, for the reduction in the level of strategic confrontation.
Your government, by all indications, favors the latter, evidently
hoping that at some stage the U.S. will ultimately succeed in
getting ahead. This is the essence of the current situation.
Should one be surprised, then, that we are conducting negotiations,
yet the process of practical arms limitation remains suspended? It
would probably not be too great a misfortune if this process simply
remained frozen. But even that is not the case. The “star wars”
program—I must tell you this, Mr. President—already at this stage is
seriously undermining stability. We strongly advise you to halt this
sharply destabilizing and dangerous program while things have not
gone too far. If the situation in this area is not corrected, we
shall have no choice but to take steps required by our security and
that of our allies.
We are in favor, as you say, of making the best use of the chance
offered by the Geneva negotiations on nuclear and space arms. Our
main objective at those negotiations should be to reestablish the
suspended process of limiting the arms race and to prevent its
spread into new spheres.
The SALT-II Treaty is an important
element of the strategic equilibrium, and one should clearly
understand its role as well as the fact that, according to the
well-known expression, one cannot have one’s pie and eat it too.
Your approach is determined by the fact that the strategic programs
being carried out by the United States are about to collide with the
limitations established by the SALT II Treaty, and the choice is being made not in
favor of the Treaty, but in favor of these programs. And this cannot
be disavowed or concealed, to put it bluntly, by unseemly
[Page 167]
attempts to accuse the
Soviet Union of all mortal sins. It is, moreover, completely
inappropriate in relations between our two countries for one to set
forth conditions for the other as is done in your letter with regard
to the Soviet Union.
I am saying all this frankly and unequivocally, as we have
agreed.
One certainly cannot agree that the provisions of the SALT II Treaty remain in force
allegedly as the result of restraint on the part of the United
States. Entirely the contrary. The general attitude toward the
Treaty shown by the American side and its practical actions to
undermine it have given us every reason to draw appropriate
conclusions and to take practical steps. We did have and continue to
have moral, legal and political grounds for that.
We did not, however, give way to emotions; we showed patience,
realizing the seriousness of the consequences of the path onto which
we were being pushed. We hoped also that sober reasoning, as well as
the self-interest of the U.S., would make the American side take a
more restrained position. That was what in fact happened to a
certain, though not to a full, extent. And we have treated this in
businesslike fashion. Without ignoring what has been done by the
American side contrary to the SALT
II Treaty, we nevertheless at no time have been the initiators of
politico-propagandistic campaigns of charges and accusations. We
have striven to discuss seriously within the framework of the SCC the well-founded concerns we have
had. We also have given exhaustive answers there to questions raised
by the American side.
Unfortunately, the behavior of the other side was and continues to be
utterly different. All those endless reports on imaginary Soviet
violations and their publication did not and cannot serve any useful
purpose, if one is guided by the task of preserving and continuing
the process of arms limitation. Why mince words, the objective is
quite different: to cast aspersions on the policy of the Soviet
Union in general, to sow distrust toward it and to create an
artificial pretext for an accelerated and uncontrolled arms race.
All this became evident to us already long ago.
One has to note that your present decision, if it were to be
implemented, would be a logical continuation of that course. We
would like you, Mr. President, to think all this over once
again.
In any event, we shall regard the decision that you announced in the
entirety of its mutually-exclusive elements which, along with the
usual measures required by the Treaty, include also a claim to some
“right” to violate provisions of the Treaty as the American side
chooses. Neither side has such a right. I do not consider it
necessary to go into specifics here, a lot has been said about it,
and your military experts are well aware of the actual, rather than
distorted, state of affairs.
[Page 168]
One should not count on the fact that we will be able to come to
terms with you with respect to destroying the SALT II Treaty through joint efforts.
How things will develop further depends on the American side, and we
shall draw the appropriate conclusions.
The question of the approach to arms limitation has been, is, and
will be the central issue both in our relations and as far as the
further development of the overall international situation is
concerned. It is precisely here, above all, that the special
responsibility borne by our two countries is manifested, as well as
how each of them approaches that responsibility.
In more specific terms, it is a question of intentions with regard to
one other. No matter what is being done in other spheres of our
relationship, in the final analysis, whether or not it is going to
be constructive and stable depends above all on whether we are going
to find a solution to the central issues of security on the basis of
equality and equal security.
I would like to reaffirm that, for our part, we are full of resolve
to strive to find such a solution. This determines both our attitude
toward those initial limitations which were arrived at earlier
through painstaking joint labor, and our approach to the
negotiations currently underway in Geneva and elsewhere.
I wish to say this in conclusion: one would certainly like to feel
tangibly the same attitude on the part of the United States. At any
rate, as I have already had a chance to note, we took seriously the
thought reiterated by you in our correspondence with regard to a
joint search for ways to improve Soviet-American relations and to
strengthen the foundations of peace.
Sincerely,
