97. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Carlucci) to President
Reagan1
Washington, November 20, 1987
SUBJECT
- Scope Paper on December US-Soviet
Summit
This memorandum is an overview of the purposes and the tactics of the
summit.
Gorbachev comes to Washington
appearing to share our agenda: To reduce nuclear arms, to promote a more
secure world, and to enhance US-Soviet
cooperation. But the two sides’ underlying aims are still far apart.
We seek accommodation that enhances Western security and solidarity,
constrains Soviet ability to expand, and increases prospects for freedom
throughout the world, including within the USSR. While engaged diplomatically with the USSR, we want to safeguard our ability to
compete unilaterally as needed.
Gorbachev, on the other hand, wants
an accommodation that buys a breathing space from competition on our side
while he revives the communist system at home, enhances its ability to
project power (including military power) in the long run, preserves past
Soviet gains as a superpower, and continues to allow expansion of Soviet
influence at low cost. He wants to undermine the competitiveness of the
US and its allies by creating a new
detente environment. At one time or another, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and
Brezhnev all sought detente with the West to consolidate and ultimately
advance Soviet power.
It’s like the marriage of the wealthy Hollywood producer and the young
starlet—they both go to the altar, he for matrimony, but she for
alimony.
Despite its formidable military power and resourceful political leadership,
however, the Soviet empire is in deep trouble at home, in East Europe, and
around the world. It can only get out of that trouble with far-reaching
reforms and, even then, only with Western help. This gives us the
opportunity and obligation to demand a high price on behalf of peace,
stability, and freedom.
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Our Objectives at the Summit
Your major objectives at the summit have been outlined in your NSDD 288.2
They are:
To sign a stabilizing and verifiable INF
Treaty that is ratifiable.
To move forward toward a stabilizing and verifiable START agreement with 50% reductions, and a
Defense and Space Agreement which protects SDI.
To explore possibilities for a 1988 summit, avoiding counterproductive
pressure on START, Defense and Space, and
other issues.
To pressure the Soviets for more constructive behavior on regional conflicts,
especially Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq war, on human rights, and on
contentious bilateral issues such as our embassy.
To describe a fundamentally better relationship with the Soviets and our
conditions for it, namely progress in reducing dangerous military
imbalances, expansionist Soviet behavior, and Soviet oppression of its own
population and neighbors.
To maintain your policies of strength, realism, and dialogue that have
already made East-West relations more stable and safe, which means avoiding
illusions and euphoria.
To display the political realism and competence that reassures our friends
and allies.
Gorbachev’s Objectives
Gorbachev’s objectives are in varying
degrees antithetical to ours:
He appears ready for an INF agreement that
achieves nuclear reductions under intrusive verification. His larger goals
are denuclearization of NATO and detente
at the expense of Western strength and solidarity.
He seems ready to move ahead on START, but
how ready to complete agreement remains to be seen. He still is bent on
blocking SDI, but has relaxed his
conditions as he has grown more confident that US domestic politics and budget difficulties will help him. Now
he sees some agreement in principle on the ABM Treaty and a rush to a START treaty in 1988 as his best tactics.
He wants to reduce pressure on regional issues and human rights by talking
civilly and making modest moves in our direction that don’t hurt Soviet
regional interests or domestic control. We don’t rule out the possibility of
a dramatic Soviet initiative, perhaps on Afghanistan, to show how
forthcoming the USSR has become.
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A major Soviet goal is to gain better access to Western technology and
capital without paying too heavy a price in geopolitical, military, and
other concessions. This is vital to Gorbachev’s domestic plans. At the summit, he probably won’t
appeal directly for US economic aid, but
appeal for it indirectly, in the guise of trade and joint ventures, over the
heads of the Administration to Congress and the business community, and to
our allies.
Gorbachev sees the summit itself, on
balance, as a plus in his domestic political struggles, which have obviously
intensified in recent months. There is a downside to his being seen with his
politically controversial wife in the capital of the Main Adversary. But
foreign policy goals, approved by the Politburo, make it worthwhile.
The Soviets think they have an advantage in the fact that you will soon leave
office. They are ready for accommodations with you because they believe you
can make them stick and that this will prevent your successors from being as
tough as you have been in the past.
To promote our own objectives, we must be stubborn and clever in using Soviet
eagerness for continued engagement. In historic and strategic terms, the
Soviets need more from us than we need from them. We can afford to set high
conditions for agreement, and hold to them patiently. We can afford to be
sure that the agreements we reach push future events in our direction. If
they don’t promise to do that, we can afford to forego agreements. We want
accommodation on our terms, but don’t need it. They want accommodation on
their terms, but need it on almost any terms they can get.
Soviet Tactics
Gorbachev’s target at this summit is
to lock you into a 1988 “calendar of high expectations.” This would be based
on a) enough convergence of our positions on the ABM Treaty and on START
provisions to excite expectations that a START/D&S package could be
completed in six months or so, and b) commitment to another summit sometime
between April and July, vaguely conditioned on achieving these agreements.
This would put us under great pressure next year. We expect him to use a
“soft sell”, not attacking SDI directly but
seeking to use the ABM Treaty to constrain
it. But we cannot rule out his taking a fairly demanding position.
On regional issues and human rights, Gorbachev will counterpunch, but not belligerently, seeking
our cooperation on self-serving Soviet proposals.
Gorbachev is bold and highly
manipulative. He knows the value of appearing sincere at all times. He knows
how to be soft and reasoning as well as hard and demanding. He has a good
“tag team” relationship with Shevardnadze, a sense of the differences within your
Administra
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tion, and a very open
political arena in and outside Washington. He’ll work the media, the Hill,
and the business community.
But he faces constraints and liabilities. He knows you are very resolute. A
life-long communist and not a worldly man, he may be a bit apprehensive
coming to the Capital of Capitalism. Security concerns will constrain his
movements and flexibility once summit plans are set. Constantly on his mind
will be Moscow politics, where his political aims and personal fate are on
the line.
Pitfalls and Dangers for US
The most obvious pitfall for us lies in the temptation to sign up to the
“calendar of high expectations” for 1988 which would oblige us either to
sacrifice what many will call “the arms control deal of the century”, or to
negotiate a very complex START treaty
under a tight deadline, possibly jeopardizing SDI. The guard against this is simply to reject setting a time
frame for a summit conditioned on uncertain and difficult agreements. We can
welcome another summit as well as progress on strategic arms reduction, but
must proceed toward both on their own merits.
The summit could engender public illusions which undermine our strength and
realism. The best way to combat this danger is to assure clarity where
US and Soviet positions do not converge,
and where Soviet rhetoric does not match Soviet actions.
We should avoid a lot of discussion of very long-range or possibly
impractical goals, e.g., eliminating nuclear weapons, whose impact on our
strategic interests is uncertain, particularly as seen by allies. This
danger will be contained by careful preparations.
A dramatic failure that appears our fault is unlikely. A solid INF agreement before summit time, and the
interest of both sides in a political success are guards against this. If
Gorbachev makes appealing
proposals we cannot endorse, and accuses us of blocking further progress,
we’ll combat this by setting the record straight.
Our Tactics at the Summit
The exact tactics you and your team should follow will depend somewhat on the
summit schedule still to be finalized and on incoming intelligence. But we
already have a tactical concept.
It will involve careful and thorough preparations, detailed in a complete
meeting book prepared for you. We shall pay careful attention to
participants and their roles, in meetings and spin-off sessions or working
groups. This will allow you to control the level of detail you want to get
into.
We shall regulate the timing of issues so that the real arm wrestling over
NST issues comes only after INF is signed. We shall seek to build
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on your experience with Gorbachev with new material on him and how
to work his personality. We’ll have some suggestions as to how to throw off
Soviet tactics if they are putting us on the defensive.
We shall prepare our positions on possible communique language beforehand and
maintain tight control over negotiations of such language.
Media control will be much harder in Washington than in Reykjavik or Geneva,
and the Soviets will exploit this. We shall discipline what the
Administration says, however. Your public remarks, e.g. arrival statement
and toasts, will set a friendly, forward-looking, but sensible tone.
Pre- and post-summit events are being arranged to create the balanced
impressions we believe appropriate, e.g., your meetings with the Afghan
Resistance and with human rights groups.
The Key Issues
At TAB A you will find a listing of the key issues likely to come up at the
summit and brief notations on how we see them. They will, of course, be
covered more extensively in your Background and Meeting Books. I am
attaching this glossary of issues because we don’t plan to send you separate
issue papers except on subjects, mainly on arms control, where you must make
policy decisions.
Tab A
Paper Prepared in the National Security Council
Staff3
Washington, November 19, 1987
KEY ISSUES FOR THE SUMMIT
I. THE BROADER RELATIONSHIP
Our View of the Gorbachev Regime
Gorbachev and his colleagues are
genuinely seeking ways to revive a sick economy, society, and political
system while preserving one-party rule and the essence of a planned
economy. They are having serious political battles over how fast and far
to go. Outcomes are hard to predict and true liberalization of the
system is not intended, is a long shot in any case, and will take a long
time if it happens. A
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conservative backlash is always possible, and one may be occurring now.
Meanwhile, not much fundamental about the system or its foreign policies
has changed.
Gorbachev’s “New Thinking” about
Foreign Policy
Gorbachev tries to persuade the
world that Moscow has an entirely new way of thinking about foreign
policy, based in cooperation, interdependence, and common causes, such
as peace, ecology, etc. He wants to increase the role of the UN because it tends to be hostile to US interests. While it may produce
something eventually, Soviet “new thinking” is mostly rhetoric so far.
Soviet policy toward Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq, the Middle East, and other
areas shows the familiar quest for advantage at the expense of the West,
pursued with new energy and flexibility. Similar “reforms” of Soviet
foreign policy, designed to appeal to the West, were seen under Lenin,
Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev.
Our Conception of a Better Relationship
America is prepared to contemplate a fundamentally improved relationship
with the USSR. But that improvement
must come from attentuation of the causes of past hostility and
mistrust: The dictatorial nature of the Soviet system, its preoccupation
with military power, and its hegemonical, subversive, and imperial
approach to other nations. This is asking a lot but a lot is at stake,
the real basis of peace being, as Sakharov4 says, states
respecting people, their own and others. If the USSR changes its ways and nature, it can
join the world and prosper from its rich resources and human talent. In
the meantime, we shall observe what the Soviets do in the world and at
home, responding on the basis of our own values, interests and
commitments. We are not reluctant to engage with the Gorbachev regime; we hope it holds the
promise it proclaims. But we want to see deeds and engage in practical
projects for peace, human welfare, and freedom, not vague designs that
disguise the reality of continuing Cold War. It is precisely the
eagerness of the Soviet regime for a breathing space from competition
that gives us the possibility of resolving real security problems, if we
are patient and demanding.
1988 Summit in the USSR
The Soviets want to schedule a summit in the USSR next year mainly to put us under time pressure to
complete a START agreement and
especially to force concessions on SDI
and the ABM Treaty. We
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can welcome a summit next year, but must
avoid firm commitment to a timeframe or to linkage with agreements that
will be hard to complete and could be dangerous to SDI. If we can complete a satisfactory
START agreement that protects
SDI, a 1988 summit in the USSR would be a triumph, while a summit
without a START/D&S package will probably be
unacceptable to the Soviets. The Soviets sometimes mention an April
date, which is almost surely too early. July seems more reasonable;
thereafter our party conventions interfere.
II. ARMS CONTROL ISSUES
Strategic Defense and the ABM Treaty
SDI could favorably alter the nature of
the strategic environment and the superpower relationship. It is
non-threatening to a non-threatening country, but still very frightening
to the Soviet leadership. Moscow has given up on a direct attack, and
now sees the ABM Treaty as the tool to
constrain SDI, mainly a lengthy period
of nonwithdrawal and definitions of what is allowed under the Treaty.
You will discuss with NSC principals
whether any change in our position is advisable. The basic Soviet aim is
unlikely to change.
Strategic Arms Reductions
The Soviets have been moving haltingly toward our positions in START to hold it hostage for concessions
on SDI. We can probably get something
near our current demands on subceilings. The Soviets will almost surely
hold out to allow mobiles, and seek other concessions from us. These
issues will be reviewed at NSPGs
INF Ratification
How the Soviets act on regional issues, human rights, and arms control
compliance will affect prospects for ratification. We can use this as
leverage. How reasonable and credible our arms control actions appear in
early 1988 will also affect ratification. A signed but unratified Treaty
would be a bad outcome for us and NATO, because our deployments would halt and SS–20s would
remain in place.
Nuclear Testing
We must preserve the ability to test so long as deterrence depends on
nuclear weapons. But we probably can move to improved verification of
existing treaties, a worthwhile goal even as testing continues.
Conventional Arms
Reducing nuclear weapons makes conventional imbalances more important.
The Soviets are making appealing but vague proposals. With the best of
will, designing good proposals is very hard in this complex area. We
need to be seen moving systematically, but carefully,
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with our allies in the coming year, not
giving too much credence to Soviet proposals. Still, the Soviets need to
cut their armed forces for economic reasons and wish to impress the
West; therefore they may make some unilateral reductions.
Chemical Arms Ban
The whole world would welcome this, and we must be seen working on it.
But it is practically unverifiable inside or outside the USSR. The Soviets could and probably
would cheat, at least for fear others would. This goal awaits a better
world than the one we live in.
Compliance
The Soviets have violated past agreements, some egregiously; they have
not cleaned up their record. But they are much more active in trying to
obscure it with public ploys, because they know their record blocks
future agreements. We have the right, need, and ability to insist on a
much improved performance, the key target being the Krasnoyarsk
radar.
“Glasnost” in Soviet Military Affairs
Soviet strategic secrecy continues to hamper confidence in arms control
and to excite suspicions of Soviet intent. You have called for more
openness on the Soviet military budget and policies. The Soviets have
said they will give more data in a “couple of years.” Because their
bureaucratized economy makes money meaningless, they may not know what
their real military budget is. But they do know what their total force
posture is and what programs they are working on. We must keep up the
pressure for “glasnost” here.
III. REGIONAL CONFLICTS
General
Soviet misbehavior on regional conflicts not only prevents a general
improvement in US-Soviet relations, it
causes vast suffering and risks confrontation which even the Soviets do
not want. Moscow continues to rely on imposing or protecting communist
regimes, exporting arms, and playing on local rivalries to be a global
superpower. It claims “new thinking” but conducts old actions. We must
insist on improved Soviet behavior as part of the price of a general
accommodation.
Afghanistan
Over eight years of war, over 5 million refugees, uncounted dead and
wounded mark a continuing outrage and tragedy for which the Soviets are
solely responsible. They do want to get out, but so long as they want to
protect a communist regime even more, they cannot. We have to insist
that they drop the Kabul regime and withdraw quickly.
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The Soviets are hinting again that they
are ready for this move; but the record of duplicity obliges us to be
skeptical.
Iran-Iraq
After cooperating on UNSC resolution
598, the Soviets are now blocking progress by tilting toward Iran and
providing political cover for Iranian belligerence. The Arabs are
increasingly critical. We need to tell the Soviets how serious this
issue is to us and press them for an arms-embargo resolution that they
and their clients comply with.
Middle East Peace Process
To match our position of influence in the Middle East, the Soviets want
an international conference that includes them, asks little of them, and
isolates Israel. We can only tolerate an increased Soviet role and a
peace conference if both deliver intransigent Arabs, mainly the Syrians
and Palestinians, into direct bilateral talks with Israel and
step-by-step compromises. It is unlikely that the Soviets will, or can,
deliver this.
Cambodia
Because of their relations with China, the Soviets would like some “fix”
to the Cambodia problem. But their policy there is rather like
Afghanistan. The key is withdrawal of Vietnam’s forces and talks with
the Resistance.
Angola
Despite continued Soviet military aid, Moscow’s client is not doing well
and, as elsewhere, the Soviets are angling for some political device to
help the client survive at lower cost. We must press for a pullback and
then pullout of Cuban troops and negotiations with the UNITA freedom fighters.
Central America
The Soviets are increasingly confident that the “peace process” will
allow the Sandinistas to survive and consolidate. They encourage Managua
to play along to undercut the Contras, while they continue to supply
arms. We shall be unable to talk them out of this policy save by actions
that cause events to move in another direction or by intolerable
concessions on other issues.
East Europe
The domestic illegitimacy of communist regimes and turbulence in Moscow
have made East Europe particularly unstable at present. There could be a
blowup somewhere that forces Moscow to intervene, however reluctantly,
and severely disrupts East-West relations. You have called for an end to
the Brezhnev Doctrine. Soviet diplomats have hinted that it is dead. We
should press Moscow to declare this so that
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East Europe can go its own way and no longer be a
cause for Soviet-sponsored repressions and potential crises.
Berlin
Both as a symbol of new openness in the heart of Europe and to keep
Berliners confident that their hopes lie with the West, you have
proposed initiatives to ameliorate conditions affecting the city, and
eventual dismantlement of the Wall. Practical plans are in discussion
among the allies. We need to keep this project alive with low-key
reminders to the Soviets, until we are ready to make formal
proposals.
IV. HUMAN RIGHTS
General
We press the Soviets on human rights because it is morally necessary and
because we believe a government’s respect for human rights at home is a
measure of its trustworthiness in international affairs. Your
administration’s efforts have made it impossible for Moscow to duck the
human rights agenda. Under Gorbachev, considerable effort has been made to get the
USSR off the defensive, by
discussing human rights issues with us, making some accusations of their
own, releasing some political prisoners and raising emigration levels
somewhat. There has been some liberalization on the cultural front, and
certain repressive laws are under review. But the repressive apparatus
of the system remains intact. Moscow political battles have persuaded
Gorbachev to move in
conservative directions recently, reducing hope that the system will
change fundamentally. Yet pressures from many parts of the society for
liberalization and the need for economic reform require such change.
Hence, pressure from us on human rights continues to be necessary and
useful, and the summit must register our continuing concern. We need to
guard against the Soviets using diplomatic talk to deflect pressure.
Individual Cases
The Soviets have granted release to many of the refuseniks, divided
families/spouses, and political prisoners we have been pleading for. But
a good many cases remain to be resolved. Names and appropriate points
for summit discussions will be provided. We must now give more attention
to the broader themes and principles of healthy human rights
performance.
Themes
The following are our main themes: Prisoners of conscience (from 400 to
4000 political prisoners are estimated to be still incarcerated);
religious freedom (interest in religion is growing; but free practice is
still restricted, especially for Jews, and minority sects persecuted);
abuse
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of psychiatry (while
continuing, this area is likely to see some real improvement); and, of
course, free emigration for Jews and all others desiring to leave
(emigration levels are up, but still far below levels of the 1970s and
known demand; the thrust of new Soviet laws seems aimed at restricting,
not relaxing, emigration). In the final analysis, human rights and
political liberties are tied; hence we press for free flow of
information and more democracy in the USSR.
Moscow Human Rights Conference
At the CSCE meeting in Vienna, the Soviets are pressing the West to agree
to a conference on human rights in Moscow. Some of our allies are
inclined to accede to this. The Soviets want it to take pressure off. We
want to use their interest to maintain pressure for real and permanent
improvements. We must resist a conference that gives moral sanction to
continuing dictatorship, and therefore cannot accede to one without a
vastly improved Soviet performance.
V. BILATERAL ISSUES
General
There has been positive movement in a number of areas of our bilateral
relationship, and the summit can give new impetus. Our strategic aim is
to stimulate more openness in Soviet society, while not giving away
sensitive technology and free capital. The Soviets, on the other hand,
generally seek to limit our impact on their society while using
exchanges to promote their version of detente and for technology gains.
Nevertheless, we both have sufficiently overlapping interests to want
these bilateral ties to prosper.
Embassy and Representational Issues
The extent which the Soviets use their diplomats for espionage and their
efforts to penetrate our embassy in Moscow have created a kind of
representational warfare between us as we have sought to protect our
embassy and gain some measure of equivalence and reciprocity in our
diplomatic postures. On our embassy, we have decisions yet to make and
much work to do. But the Soviets have said they will be cooperative; we
must hold them to this.
Media Reciprocity
The Soviets have virtually free access to our media; we are working hard
to open theirs up to us and the West generally. Even with new
“glasnost”, they have a long way to go. Hence, it is extremely important
that we exploit opportunities for you to address the Soviet people, and
hammer away on such Soviet practices as jamming and malicious
disinformation against us.
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People-to-people and Cultural Exchanges
These are developing in directions we seek, more contact with less
inhibiting control by the Soviet state. Your personal interest helps to
sustain momentum.
Science and Technology Exchanges
We are progressing with the Soviets in many areas under existing or
developing agreements. A comprehensive new agreement on cooperation in
basic science is around the corner but probably won’t be ready by the
summit. We have to continually balance the potential benefits against
the risks of technology loss.
Economics and Trade
The Soviets want to expand trade with us, which could happen if they had
more competitive products to sell and more hard currency to buy. What
they are really after are a) more access to sensitive technology (which
we restrict for strategic reasons), b) easy, government-guaranteed
credits (a form of foreign aid we deny on political grounds, e.g.,
Jackson-Vanik-Stevenson amendments), c) entry into GATT and the IMF
(which we oppose because the Soviet system and its policies are hostile
to these bodies), and d) US government
support for participation of American firms in joint ventures within the
USSR (blanket US endorsement of this new Soviet approach
to gaining capital and technology is probably unwise at present from
both a political and a business point of view). We should take the line
that US-Soviet economic relations should
improve along with, but not ahead of, improvements in Soviet
international behavior and internal economic practices. Fulfillment of
their own pledges under the Long-term Grain Agreement would help.
