22. Editorial Note

On February 28, 1987, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev announced he would no longer link an INF Treaty to other arms negotiations. On March 3, President Ronald Reagan hailed Gorbachev’s decision in a 3:30 p.m. appearance before reporters assembled in the White House Briefing Room: “This removes a serious obstacle to progress toward INF reductions and is consistent with the understanding which Mr. Gorbachev and I reached at our 1985 Geneva summit meeting: that we would indeed seek a separate agreement in this important [Page 88] area. I want to congratulate our allies for their firmness on this issue. Obviously, our strength of purpose has led to progress. To seize this new opportunity, I have instructed our negotiators to begin the presentation of our draft INF treaty text in Geneva tomorrow. I hope that the Soviet Union will then proceed with us to serious discussion of the details which are essential to translate areas of agreement in principle into a concrete agreement. And I want to stress that of the important issues which remain to be resolved none is more important than verification. Because we’re committed to genuine and lasting arms reductions and to ensuring full compliance, we will continue to insist that any agreement must be effectively verifiable.” Reagan went on to announce he was recalling Ambassadors Max Kampelman, Mike Glitman, and Ron Lehman, to meet with him in Washington. (Public Papers: Reagan, 1987, Book I, pp. 191–192)

In a personal diary entry for March 10, Reagan recalled “a very brief N.S.C. meeting—talked about tone I should take if we do a Foreign Policy speech soon. We have to tread a narrow path—acknowledging the Soviet arms proposal etc. but at same time pointing out their intransigence in Afghanistan etc.” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, Volume II, November 1985–January 1989, p. 698)