72. Telegram From Secretary of State Shultz to the White House1
Secto 15017. Department for S/S (Platt). Subject: Memorandum for the President. Memorandum for the President From George P. Shultz. Subject: Meeting With New Soviet Foreign Minister.
The three-hour meeting today with Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze produced no new substance, but there seemed to be a greater willingness to move from polemics to practical work.2 We will have to wait to see whether there is any more flexibility at the negotiating tables and in the upcoming high-level meetings. However, Shevardnadze cast his entire presentation in terms of intensive and positive preparations for your meeting with Gorbachev in November.
Shevardnadze noted that he could already see the ingredients for a minimum positive outcome, and pointed to a number of areas of relatively modest importance where agreement seems quite likely between now and November. But a really successful “summit” in their view requires progress on major security issues, particularly the Geneva arms control talks. [He] stressed three points with regard to your meeting in November. First, the main thing is for you and Gorbachev to have a useful, productive and substantive exchange, and this requires [Page 293] preparation. Second, there are a lot of things we are working on: surely some things can get accomplished, but others will perhaps be more difficult. We should get done what we can get done, but not force matters where they aren’t in our interests. Third, we should try to get out of the meeting in November a sense of the future—it should be forward-looking, establish an agenda and provide political impetus for further work.
It was striking that Shevardnadze adopted our traditional agenda in structuring his own remarks today. He went from arms control to regional issues and on to bilateral matters. The only exception was human rights, which he hasn’t accepted as an item on the agenda, and where he showed no sign of flexibility—just a willingness to counterattack when I hit him first in public with my speech and then raised it again last night and today more directly.3
On arms control he followed the line you have seen so often. They are supposedly ready for real reductions, but SDI stands in the way. I pushed hard for them to stop posturing by presenting “initiatives” to visiting American congressmen and scientists. If they have something serious to say, the place to say it is to our negotiators in Geneva. Shevardnadze did say we need to prepare carefully for the next round of talks there and to try to make some real progress before your meeting with Gorbachev.
He listed a number of other areas of arms control where he thought early steps were possible.4 He stated that the Soviets are willing to agree to a joint public statement on non-proliferation at your meeting in November. He also thought something might be done on chemical weapons, though he did not comment on our specific suggestions. We agreed that our negotiators in the Stockholm talks should get down to drafting, and he pushed for an agreement in the Vienna talks which would involve initial, modest withdrawal of some Soviet and American forces. On nuclear testing we had an entirely predictable exchange—with Shevardnadze pushing their moratorium and Comprehensive Test Ban proposals and my stressing the necessity for improved verification in order to place any limits on testing and thus the merits of your proposal to Gorbachev. I also picked up on his listing of declaratory agreements that they would like to reach and pointed out that we insist on agreements with content that can be verified.
On regional issues we both agreed on the usefulness of exchanges among our experts. We specifically agreed to have talks this fall on [Page 294] East Asia and Central America. I underlined our concern with Soviet conduct in various regions, particularly Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and support for the Vietnamese occupation of Kampuchea. He stressed their concern about the “tension” we are creating around Cuba and Nicaragua. I also stressed our concern about their conduct in Europe, specifically the murder of Major Nicholson and their limitations on the Berlin air corridor.
In the bilateral area, I noted the signing on Monday5 in Tokyo of the Pacific Air Safety Agreement and stated that assuming the implementing discussions on strayed aircraft proceed smoothly, we are prepared to go ahead with negotiation of a new civil aviation agreement leading to resumption of Pan Am and Aeroflot service. He noted that this would allow us to go ahead with opening consulates in Kiev and New York, and said that our new exchanges agreement also should move ahead. We agreed to hold another round of our maritime boundary talks. And finally I handed him the non-paper prepared by the NSC which proposes a new agreement on peaceful space cooperation.6
At the end of the meeting I took Shevardnadze aside to discuss arrangements for the meeting in Geneva. I stressed our desire for an environment in which the two of you could get to know one another and have a productive set of exchanges. I noted our agreement with the Swiss proposal for a single site for the meetings and raised the question about your wives. Shevardnadze noted that the tradition had been for meetings to alternate—“today you host, tomorrow we host.” But he said this whole matter can be explored and that they are not yet ready to give their view. He stressed that Gorbachev is looking forward to his meeting with you, that he is prepared to make his contribution, and that they want to create the right conditions for a successful meeting. I stressed that one thing they could do in coming months is to begin to moderate their anti-American propaganda.
Overall I come away from this meeting conscious of the deep differences that divide us in virtually all areas. But I am also mildly hopeful that we now have a team that is somewhat more willing to work with us even as they present a more skillful challenge. As you will see when Shevardnadze comes to Washington, he is a more agreeable man to deal with than Gromyko. He largely avoided gratuitous polemics, and he seemed eager to get on with a work program leading to your meeting with Gorbachev. But only time will tell whether the new leadership is any more flexible on the key issues or just has a different style.
- Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, [no N number]. Secret; Immediate; Nodis. Sent for information to the Department of State. ↩
- See Document 71. In his memoir, Shultz wrote: “Overall, the substance of the Soviet position was unchanged. But I was struck by Shevardnadze’s tone: it was far less polemical. This might just be a different style, but it might also indicate that the Soviets were taking a new look at themselves. The next day, I heard of an interesting sidelight on the meeting. A member of the Soviet staff told one of our senior foreign service officers that Shevardnadze had wanted to ‘toss out’ all of his prepared papers and just talk to me informally, to ‘wing it,’ as he put it. Dobrynin had nearly gone crazy trying to hold Shevardnadze to his script. I smiled. That was a good sign.” (Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, p. 574) On July 31, Reagan wrote in his diary: “George Shultz called from Helsinki on ‘safe phone.’ He reported an interesting 3 hr. meeting with Shevardnadze—new Soviet Foreign Minister. Before I could reply we lost the connection. I hope he doesn’t think I hung up on him.” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, vol. I: January 1981–October 1985, p. 487)↩
- See footnote 4, Document 71.↩
- During a dinner conversation later that evening, Nitze and Kvitsinskiy discussed the upcoming summit and particulars of arms control. Documentation is in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. XI, START I, Document 111.↩
- July 29.↩
- See footnote 22, Document 71.↩