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

86. Notes of a Meeting¹

Washington, September 13, 1985

McFarlane opened the meeting by saying that President Reagan would have the first meeting in six years between the leader of the West and the leader of the Soviet Union.² During those six years, the Soviet Union had attained strategic superiority by building more than we had, and that there is little hope of change in Soviet purposes. Their position had been reduced, however, by our recovery and national will to compete and resist Soviet expansion. We do this from a strong position, the best economic and political systems, a willingness to commit 6% of GNP to defense,³ a strong alliance and a leader who, having directed this revival and commanding 49 states in the popular election, is the leading political figure on the globe.

Gorbachev is proclaimed as something new, a new force, yet there is nothing new about their approach to building arms, human rights, Afghanistan, sinking economy, declining mortality. Gorbachev has heavy debts in the military and KGB.

We need to enter into the forthcoming discussions soberly with our powder dry. We need to recognize that the main thing the Soviets have is military power which threatens us and gives them their clout. We need to balance this to achieve long-term stability. For 20 years we had military superiority. For the last ten years or so there has been something which loosely can be described as parity or strategic equivalence. We are now coming back to strengthening and modernization of our military capability.

Deterrence has worked so far. We must recognize that the basis for offensive deterrence is eroding. New systems coming on call deterrence into question because we will increasingly know less about the what and where of their new military systems, mobile missiles, cruise missiles, etc.

The magnitude of the Soviet effort to build defensive systems also calls into question deterrence.

We must ask ourselves, will deterrence work in the year 2000? If there is a question about this, how do we handle it? The answer is continued modernization, rely on deterrence over the short term, go on with developing our defensive systems, practice diplomacy to negotiate to a safer situation. The net is that we have a defensive balance which may be eroding and we have a decreasing ability to verify. To offset this, we need defense to weaken, complicate and offset the offense. The United States has the leverage—offensive modernization and defense element is under way in a program backed by the President’s popularity and our superior technology.

If we are to scrap SDI in return for a reduction in offensive missiles, it would be to the Soviet advantage because they could continue with much of their defensive efforts and could succeed in offsetting reductions in offensive weapons through concealment, mobility and developing greater accuracy.

Suppose Gorbachev were to accept our START proposal and agree to bring their INF down to a level equal to ours? McFarlane said if we rejected that the press would say, did you not make this proposal in your speech at Eureka, Illinois?⁴ The answer is at that time you did not have the -24 or -25. Also, the agreement for the ABM was obtained by agreeing not to build offensive missiles.

The Secretary of State generally agreed with McFarlane’s position. He said we should try to develop a formula where we could continue testing, and we had to be careful not to give anybody a veto power over deployment if the testing works out. He did say that large reductions would make us safer and we should work to see what we can give to get large reductions.

Secretary Weinberger developed more fully that there is no change under Gorbachev, that they continue to design and test new weapons, and that we have a moral duty to continue with SDI, etc.

I generally agreed with what McFarlane, Weinberger and Shultz had said, but expressed greater skepticism than Shultz about the value of reductions. Of course we should seek any mutual reduction of offensive missiles which is in our interest and which we can get. But we must remember reductions can be offset by the greater accuracy of new missiles and that a reduction which retains first-strike capability will not make us much safer.⁵ Defense offers the best hope in negotiating reduction and we can’t justify it to our people or through posterity by accepting an invitation which would weaken this prospect of finding our way to a safer world. I said we should bear in mind that there is more to a summit meeting than strategic arms or arms control. We should remember that the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba followed the Eisenhower Summit with Khrushchev, that the invasion of Czechoslovakia followed the Johnson Summit at Glassboro, that the final offensive in Vietnam and the invasion of Angola, South Yemen, and Ethiopia followed the Nixon Summit, and Afghanistan followed the Carter Summit and SALT II. We must remember that the primary value of the Soviet nuclear arsenal may be their intimidating effect in weakening resistance to the Soviet style of aggressive subversion in so many countries around the world.

I closed by saying that the major problem in the necessary policy of not yielding on SDI is that of making that position fully acceptable to the public. We should rely on the moral obligation to preserve and explore and develop the ability to defend against the nuclear horror, and perhaps the best way to do this would be to be willing to share our defensive capability with other nations when we make defense sufficiently effective.

Work on this will be tasked to the senior group of Armacost, Gates, Ikle, and Moreau.⁶ We should get our best thinking going on the problems and probable methods and procedures which might make a commitment to develop a defensive capability available to the other side. Similarly, we should think about how to articulate and implement a willingness to make a developed defensive capability available to the other side. The big problem I see on this is how that would leave the defense of Europe against conventional attack and we still need to search for a way to handle that.⁷

1. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, Job 88B00443R: Policy Files (1980–1986), Box 18, Folder 435: DCI Memo Chrono (1–30 Sep ‘85). Secret; Sensitive. Casey prepared the meeting notes. In a September 11 memorandum forwarding papers and preparatory materials to McFarlane, Linhard wrote: “Given the sensitivity of the meeting, we have not framed this as an NSC meeting, but rather a special meeting of selected Presidential advisors.” He continued: “The memorandum to the President recommends limiting attendance to the Vice President, Secretaries Shultz and Weinberger, Director Casey, General Vessey, Admiral Crowe if available, Ken Adelman, Mr. Regan and yourself.” (Reagan Library, Robert Linhard Files, Arms Control Chron, Presidential Meeting on Arms Control—09/13/1985; NLR–334–6–47–1–2) According to the President’s Daily Diary, the group met in the Situation Room from 11:03 a.m. until 12:04 p.m. on September 13. (Reagan Library, President’s Daily Diary)
2. In a September 17 covering note to various addressees, Casey explained: “Here are some notes on a recent meeting and also some suggestions which Ken Adelman developed out of that meeting. The most important to come out of the meeting, as I see it, are these: 1. Don Regan’s call for a ‘surprise’ initiative makes sense from our standpoint to blunt and counter the Soviet anti-SDI thrust. 2. Ideas for the President’s notion to develop a free hand while offering assurances that a working missile defense system would be made available to other countries.” Adelman’s suggestions are in a September 13 memorandum addressed to McFarlane, attached but not printed. (Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director of Central Intelligence, Job 88B00443R: Policy Files (1980–1986), Box 18, Folder 435: DCI Memo Chrono (1–30 Sep ‘85))
3. An unknown hand inserted “6% of GNP” in a blank space between “commit” and “to.”
4. On May 9, 1982, Reagan gave the commencement address at his alma mater, Eureka College, and stated: “In Geneva, we have since proposed limits on U.S. and Soviet intermediate-range missiles, including the complete elimination of the most threatening systems on both sides.” For the full text, see Public Papers: Reagan, 1982, Book I, pp. 580–586; see also Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, Document 99.
5. An unknown hand wrote in the right-hand margin: “40% more RV on SS–15.”
6. Admiral Arthur S. Moreau, Jr., Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
7. An unknown hand inserted “conventional” and “we” and then “need to search for.”