136. Memorandum From Secretary of State Shultz to President Reagan1
SUBJECT
- Shevardnadze’s Second Day
Colin Powell and I met with Shevardnadze for four and a half hours today, and tonight I hosted an informal buffet supper and film. Working groups met on the full range of arms control topics, and Mike Armacost spent the day with one of Shevardnadze’s deputies (Adamishin) talking about Afghanistan. Because Adamishin doubles for human rights, that working group (and a group on bilateral issues) will engage only tomorrow.
Shevardnadze and I spent most of our morning meeting on human rights. He began by complaining about U.S. practices, but he also described some changes in Soviet law and practice regarding issues we have raised with them. In particular, he said they intend “to meet more fully” the needs of religious believers and to set a time-limit on the duration of exit refusals for possession of state secrets. He said they have just enacted a law making deliberate psychiatric confinement [Page 842] punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment, and are working on guidelines concerning psychiatric assistance. He said that at our next meeting they would provide detailed data on people we consider political and religious prisoners; we will give a list. The working group will go into all these issues, and discussion will continue in a round table including experts from the private sector, after Shevardnadze leaves.
We spent the rest of the day on START and Defense and Space issues, with some attention to nuclear testing and conventional stability talks.
On START, we reviewed the remaining issues. Shevardnadze said the Soviets could accept our 7-year reduction timetable for strategic offensive weapons, provided the period of non-withdrawal from the ABM Treaty were 9–10 years and we resolved other differences on Defense and Space. On mobile ICBM’s he proposed a limit of 800 missiles, but had no warhead figure to offer when I pressed him. On other sublimits, he proposed an alternative: either 3300 for ICBM’s and SLBM’s and 1100 for ALCM’s and other heavy bomber weapons, or complete freedom to mix between ICBM’s and SLBM’s under the 4900 ballistic missile warhead limit we agreed to last time. He did say they could drop their demand for an ALCM sublimit of 1100 if we could agree on an ALCM counting rule, but proposed very high numbers based on maximum bomber capacity for that, and did not respond when I proposed we ascribe a more realistic 10 ALCM’s to each ALCM-capable bomber. Finally, he suggested adding some new verification measures, some quite elaborate, to what they have already proposed concerning mobile ICBM’s and SLCM’s, including the joint verification experiment for SLCM’s which Defense Minister Yazov proposed to Frank Carlucci in Bern last week. I said we would study these ideas, without holding out much hope they would be acceptable.
On Defense and Space, Shevardnadze strongly resisted the clarification of the Washington Summit language we think is necessary to avoid ambiguity. But we had a good discussion of various ideas for enhancing predictability during the period of non-withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. I made a strong point that we will insist on a supreme national interest clause in the separate agreement now envisaged by both sides, since we have it in all treaties of this sort.
On nuclear testing, discussions in the working group and my exchanges with Shevardnadze ran in parallel toward agreement that we should work hard to develop a joint verification experiment and to get as far as we can on verification protocols to the two unratified treaties, and take stock in May on where we are in relation to the Summit.
On conventional stability talks, Shevardnadze pushed hard to complete the mandate under discussion in Vienna. (In the process he laid down an ominous marker that they are serious about getting talks underway on naval limitations.) I pushed equally hard on the need for a balanced Vienna outcome including human rights, and stressed [Page 843] we were ready to stay as long as necessary to get it. On the Moscow human rights conference, he said they were ready to hold it after the French and British have their meetings, and urged rather plaintively that we consider it in that context. I reiterated that we are ready to accept it, but only if the conditions are right.
Mike Armacost and Adamishin spent the day discussing two alternatives on Afghanistan. The Soviet suggestion was that we achieve symmetry on arms supplies by agreeing privately that nothing in the Geneva instruments prevents either side from continuing. However, this would not be public, and they would criticize the Pakistanis for violating the agreements if they continued. By contrast we proposed that both sides declare a moratorium of several years, as a logical way of contributing to a settlement. So far neither side is interested in the other’s proposal.
All in all, it was a day of hard slogging. Shevardnadze did not have much to offer, and firmness from you tomorrow will do no harm at all. When he proposed a joint statement this morning, I said we could agree to one if there was anything to say, but that we would have to see.
- Source: Reagan Library, Ledsky Files, Soviet Union [1988 Memos—Letters]. Secret; Sensitive. Reagan initialed the top right-hand corner of the memorandum.↩