Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XI, START I

192. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Moscow, April 14, 1987, 3–7:25 p.m.

SUBJECT

• The Secretary’s Meeting with Gorbachev April 14

The Secretary met with Gorbachev in the Kremlin between 1500 and 1925 Moscow time April 14. The Secretary was accompanied by Ambassador Matlock, Ambassador Paul Nitze, EUR Assistant Secretary Ridgway, EUR DAS Tom Simons (Notetaker), and Dimitri Zarechnak, Interpreter. Gorbachev was accompanied by Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, CPSU CC Secretary Anatoliy Dobrynin, Ambassador to Washington, Yuriy Dubinin, Gorbachev Chief of Staff Anatoliy Sergeyevich Chernyayev, and P. Palazhchenko, Interpreter. Chief of Staff Marshal Akhromeyev later joined the meeting.

[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]

On resumption,² Gorbachev asked the Secretary to summarize the positions of the two sides on strategic offensive weapons. The Secretary said he was a little disappointed. He felt we had moved a long way at Reykjavik but we did not seem to have moved any further. We agreed that at Reykjavik on limits of 6,000 warheads and 1,600 launchers and we also agreed to cut into the main elements of the various types of forces in the triad. He remembered that Gorbachev had used that kind of expression in Hofdi House.

Gorbachev said we had found a good solution there, of cutting every element by half. Nitze objects, but the President, had not. The Secretary said it was a question of translating the agreement into numbers. They had passed the issue over to Nitze and to Akhromeyev, and in their meetings they had come up with the very important rule on counting bombers. We had come up with numbers that were illustrative of how to cut into the forces. Starting with that idea, we have come down to equal levels, to equality recognizing the force structures that have emerged in different ways. It would be unreasonable for the Soviets to force us, or for us to force them to match structures. But we needed to come down through some process that gave stability as it went along, recognize the various in force structures, and dealt with important weapons systems. So, in the process of the Akhromeyev-Nitze session³ and subsequently we had changed positions quite a lot to meet ideas that the Soviet side had put forward. He had thought we were getting somewhere, although the night before we had, if anything, gone backward.

Gorbachev asked in which elements the Secretary saw backward movement. The Secretary replied that the Soviet side had seemed to walk away from the concept of sub-limits. Even if we reduced on a mechanical basis, which made no sense, we would end up with sub-limits. We had expressed our view and provided some rationale, and we should argue back and forth.

The Secretary went on to say that within the total limit of 6,000 warheads we thought it important to state a limit on ballistic missile warheads. The reason was that by contrast to weapons delivered by aircraft, they were the most threatening. They were fast, they were accurate, they were non-recallable. The U.S. had suggested a limit of 4,800, derived from the idea of halving. The Air Force felt this would put quite a crimp in its forces since it suggested a limit of 1,200 cruise missiles and might limit the possibilities of the stealth program. It would also limit ballistic missiles on our submarines. It would keep alive our land-based forces, and as they were modernized it would squeeze submarine weapons further up against the ceiling. None of this was easy, but it seemed workable and we had thought that the Soviet side, with more or less the same kind of reasoning, had agreed on it. So we thought it important that there be a ballistic missile ceiling within the 6,000.

Gorbachev said that it seemed to him that we had decided at Reykjavik to do without sub-limits. What did we talk about, he asked. On strategic force structures both the USSR and the U.S. had its own specific features which had emerged historically. Both had all three legs, but the share of each was different in each country. The Geneva talk showed that neither side could agree on sub-limits. At Reykjavik it had been agreed that sub-limits led to an impasse. They were where the devil is, each side insisting on certain points that were not acceptable to the other. So, at Reykjavik the Soviet side had proposed to take what existed, the triad as it was, and to reduce it by 50 percent over the first 5 years. The triad would remain as it was, but with 50 percent remaining for each element. Gorbachev said he had asked himself before what the U.S. was after with sub-limits, and the U.S. had said that this was an acceptable approach. It was simple, it was understandable. If it were abandoned today, he would suspect the U.S. of seeking an advantage. It seemed to him the simplest and best way.

The Secretary said that it did not work. It did not give the stability, the equality, and equal numbers necessary. The general idea was to respect structures, but the idea of getting to equal numbers required a process that ensured stability. Akhromeyev and Nitze had worked on that. We were looking for more concrete expression of the more general idea. Simple arithmetic would not yield a good result. We were seeking reasonable reflections of our views. (At this point, Chief of Staff Marshal Akhromeyev joined the group.)

Gorbachev said their impression was that the U.S. was trying to make Reykjavik fall apart and blame the Soviets. The Secretary rejoined that we were just trying to make the approach work.

Gorbachev asked if the Secretary considered it correct to state that at present strategic parity existed. The Secretary said the Soviets had a greater number of strategic missiles than we did, that there were variations in structure and that their land-based missiles were awesome, far outstripping us. Developments in other fields were also impressive. The U.S. side thought the Soviets were formidable.

Gorbachev asked whether the Secretary meant to say there was no strategic parity. The Secretary said we would like to feel comfortable that we could give a good account of ourselves, but the Soviets had made an impressive modernization effort. They had many new systems. The number of warheads was growing at alarming rates. This had in fact led to the reinvigoration of our efforts during President Reagan’s tenure.

Gorbachev said that by Soviet data numerical equality, even closely calculated, existed. The same held for the overall capability of the two sides. Parity existed at a high level, and reductions were needed, but it existed. The U.S. side spoke of the threat from Soviet land-based missiles. They felt an even greater threat from our less vulnerable and very accurate SLBMs. And as Shevardnadze had pointed, there existed a mechanism, in SALT II, that provided us with limits and reductions, even though it was not ratified. The Soviet side had taken reductions to be in compliance.

We had had a mutual understanding that there is strategic parity, Gorbachev went on. If the structure today provided for strategic parity, then there would be the same balance with a 50 percent cut, but lowered by half. Why not do this? There would not be anything new, and sub-limits would be avoided. Pushing for limits and sub-limits gave rise to mutual suspicions that bad intentions were involved in defining them. We needed simple means, and the Soviet side had thought we had a good one at Reykjavik. He was amazed that this was questioned. He, the Secretary and the Foreign Minister had been there, and the Secretary personally had supported this approach.

Shevardnadze added that when the Soviet side had proposed reductions by one half, it had proposed something it had never proposed before—50 percent reductions of its heavy missiles. Previously the maximum had been 33 percent. Second, a rule counting heavy bombers as one system had been agreed. We know how many weapons there are, so this was a principled question. Third, there was a question they had discussed the day before: it worried the Soviet side a little that the U.S. was adding a new timeframe, going from 5 years to 7 years. This looked like a hardening of the U.S. position compared to Reykjavik, as had also occurred in the space area.

Akhromeyev said he and Nitze had discussed sub-limits for about two hours. It seemed there was agreement at that time that heavy bombers carrying gravity bombs and SRAMs would count as one launcher and one warhead. For many years such a solution had not been found, and it had been a great accommodation for the Soviet side. Nitze had said that in that context the question of all sub-limits was removed, except for the sub-limit on heavy missiles. We had agreed on 50 percent cuts in other categories. That was the essence of Reykjavik.

Nitze said that when Marshal Akhromeyev and he had met, they had negotiated from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., and reached no agreement. The reason that there was no agreement whatsoever was that Akhromeyev was insisting on 50 percent reductions by category from the levels then existing, and Nitze would not agree to anything that did not involve equal end levels. At 2:00 a.m. Akhromeyev rose and said he was leaving and would return at 3:00. They both left, and returned at 3:00, and he said he was authorized to agree to equal levels. This resulted in 1,600 launch vehicles on both sides, and 6,000 warheads on each side, including reentry vehicles, SLBMs, ICBMs and a number of long-range cruise missiles. Then the question arose as to how to count heavy bombers not carrying long-range cruise missiles. Marshal Akhromeyev suggested that heavy bombers carrying gravity bombs and SRAMs be counted as one weapon, warhead and delivery vehicle. Nitze had considered this a fair settlement of a difficult question.

Nitze continued that he had suggested a sub-limit of 4,800 for reentry vehicles, but Akhromeyev did not agree. He said he was authorized to reduce heavy missiles to half of what the Soviet side then had, but he was not authorized to agree to either 4,800 nor to 3,300 for ICBMs. Near 6:00 a.m. they began to work out a final set of three paragraphs on the extent of agreement achieved. He had suggested that a sentence be included to the effect that either side in follow-on negotiations was entitled to raise the question of sublimits. Akhromeyev asked that it not be included in the paragraph, and assured Nitze it was not needed, saying that either side was free in a negotiation to raise what it thought fit. Nitze had asked that Akhromeyev give him his word that this was a situation on which Nitze could rely. He had assured Nitze that this was so, and on that basis Nitze had agreed not to include the sentence.

Akhromeyev said Nitze’s account was essentially accurate except for one point. He had told Nitze he was authorized by his leaders to the rule counting bombers as one delivery vehicle and one warhead only on condition that the question of sub-limits thereby be removed. So that if the U.S. now withdrew from that agreement, the bomber counting rule should be withdrawn too.

Nitze said he did not remember this condition, but he was sure of the agreement that we could subsequently raise sub-limits.

Gorbachev said he remembered that Akhromeyev and Nitze had talked and had meetings, but then he had met with the President. They had considered the report of ten hours’ work, and what agreements had been reached. He had a record of agreement to 50 percent reductions in ballistic missiles, and agreement to counting bombers with gravity bombs and SRAMs as one launcher and one warhead. There had been no mention of sub-limits.

But if one looked simply at the entire mass of strategic weapons systems reduced by one-half, Gorbachev went on, and the concession on heavy missiles, this was an improvement for the U.S., and a concession on the part of the Soviets. He asked the Secretary to recall that they had agreed and given the matter over to their negotiators. Where we had stumbled was on SDI, on the ABM problem. Now new questions were being raised, and were being used to weaken the Reykjavik agreement. He simply could not accept such an approach. The Soviet side did not want to outstrip the U.S., but to accommodate it. It had thought it could reach an agreement with this concession. Even the President had agreed to it all. The one question that remained was the concession he had asked for on SDI.

Gorbachev said he wanted to turn to the ABM regime. The U.S. had buried SALT, and nothing had been created yet to take its place. The burial was proceeding. Every Administration including the present one had issued reports until 1983 that underlined the one single interpretation of the ABM Treaty. Now the U.S. planned to go into space with weapons, and squeeze the Soviet Union from there. And that was in a context of a situation where chances were emerging to reduce strategic offensive weapons. That made the Soviet side suspicious. When the ABM Treaty limits looked too narrow for U.S. SDI plans, lawyers appeared with a broad interpretation. But so far they have not been able to prove it is correct even to the U.S. people. The Administration was going ahead without looking around. The Soviet Union had had specific debates with the U.S., where it was hard to find answers. In this situation there suddenly came the idea of the U.S. side’s extending the arms race into space. The Soviet side was supposed to look on this as routine, rain today but not tomorrow. But no: what was involved was changing existing ideas of parity and balance. Why should the Soviet side help, Gorbachev asked. He simply did not trust the U.S. side.

Gorbachev said he considered this a very critical moment in the process of reducing strategic offensive weapons. But as he had said on a number of occasions—and this was a position that was worked out—this was a serious matter, not a machine gun, serious. He had the firm conviction that if the U.S. side went to deployment of ABM in space, there would be no agreement between us even on 50 percent reductions.

The Soviet side was not engaged in that kind of research to the extent the U.S., Gorbachev went on. Soviet research concerned the ABM defense of Moscow, one limited anti-missile base. It was hard to predict the success of SDI; they would have to rely on the U.S. But he thought Americans did not invest in things that were not cost-effective, and that meant the U.S. thought it could be done. He thought that since the U.S. was that committed, the Soviet objective should be to take care of its own interest, not to make the U.S. task any easier. The U.S. was trying to impose a choice on the Soviets, and they preferred the U.S. discontinue SDI as unnecessary. But while the U.S. felt it might be able to do something with SDI, to gain advantage, or superiority, this was an illusion. The U.S. side would not achieve it. The Soviet response would be asymmetrical; it would not necessarily be in space; and it would be less expensive.

Gorbachev said that if the U.S. violated the ABM Treaty and deployed SDI, the Soviet side would implement its program to defend its interests. This would create a most dangerous situation. There would be no trust for the U.S., and the situation would not be quiet for the U.S. It would have to watch the Soviets, for they would not sit idly by. Gorbachev asked whether it was responsible policy to destabilize the existing arrangements and SALT at a time when the contours of a strategic arrangement were emerging.

The Administration had painted inself into a corner, Gorbachev went on. The orders had been placed. Industries had been engaged. It expected a technological breakthrough, with computers and information systems. Had it concluded, with President Johnson, that he who rules space rules the world?, Gorbachev asked. Mr. Secretary, he said, this was a grave illusion.

But if the Administration was that committed to SDI, he went on, he proposed to record the Soviet side’s agreement to the U.S. side’s conducting laboratory research. The SDI program would be preserved. That was the thought, and they had returned to the idea. They could talk about it if it would help the Administration untie the knot. They were thinking of an interpretation of laboratory not inconsistent with the ABM Treaty. The Soviet side could now explain, for the first time, that it consider laboratory work ground-based research in various scientific institutions and research centers, conducted without launching an object into outer space.

Obviously we could discuss in the negotiations which objects would be specifically banned from space, Gorbachev went on. This was a last effort. He had run out of gas for further new proposals. U.S. policy was one of extorting more and more concessions. This was not polite. Two great powers should not treat each other like that. In later years people would look back and wonder at it.

The Secretary said he was crying for Gorbachev.

Shevardnadze noted that the day before the Secretary had proposed a limit of seven instead of ten years for non-withdrawal. He cited the Russian proverb the further you go into the forest, the more firewood you see.

Gorbachev said he wished to end on this topic by saying that the Soviet side was ready to begin the process of working out an agreement to end all nuclear testing, with the understanding that we would begin with the treaties and further limitations.

In sum, said Gorbachev, the Soviet side was ready to work to develop key provisions for all agreements, on strategic offensive weapons, on space, on nuclear testing. These, with the treaty on medium-range missiles, could become the subject and the main result of a political agreement, and this could happen toward the end of this year or in the autumn. And if that happened the two sides could proceed to develop legally binding treaties between the Soviet Union and the U.S. on all three questions.

The Secretary said he would comment on all three areas but only briefly. The U.S. side was dedicated to trying to find agreement with the Soviet side in all three. He was even more aware after that day’s discussion of how difficult it would be.

On strategic weapons, the Secretary said, since we were not able to agree on the kind of two-stage approach to vast reductions discussed at Reykjavik, we had concentrated on 50 percent reductions, which would in themselves be a magnificent and unprecedented thing to bring off. Gorbachev commented that this was again a retreat from Reykjavik. The U.S. was afraid to reduce nuclear weapons. Still the Soviet side was ready to proceed. Politics was the art of the possible.

The Secretary rejoined that as he had said to Shevardnadze we had made various proposals and none of them had rung a bell. We had therefore gone to another one, not as large as the ones the Soviets had rejected. This showed how anxious we were to make an important agreement in this field. 50 percent would be breathtaking. Gorbachev said he agreed.

On sub-limits, the Secretary said perhaps we should not call them sub-limits; we might find another phrase. But we should hold on to the 1,600, the 6,000, the halving of heavy missiles, and we should try to hold on to the bomber counting rule. We should try to see how it was possible to squeeze the numbers to equality in a way that preserved some stability. Our 4,800 number is approximately half the Soviet number, based on the Soviet side’s percentage. The point was that numbers are needed to make the principle real. A very strict inspection regime would also be needed. By the time we were through there would not be anything left in either country. We would not need intelligence services because everything would have been discovered.

The Secretary said the American side thought we should keep driving. We hoped to be in a position at the next START round to present a full draft agreement. We had no objections at all to setting out next fall or at some point, as definitively as possible, what a strategic agreement would look like, or what an agreement on space would look like, if we could find them.

We thought it important to recognize defense, the Secretary went on. The Soviets did recognize it, and we should more than we do. The Soviets had extensive air defenses. Like us they poured concrete around silos. They had their Moscow ABM, which we recognized was permitted. They had mobile systems, hard to verify. We both put missiles under the sea; that too was defense. The concept was as old as warfare. It was important to see that it could contribute to stability. This was what the President had tried to do. It would be good to engage at the philosophical level. He had given over a paper,⁴ and even though Karpov had said there was nothing new in it, it might serve to engage us.

Gorbachev said he thought it was a great historic misfortune that the President had met with Teller.⁵ Without that there would be no SDI. As to air defenses, the Soviets were doing them, the U.S. was doing them. But SDI was different. It changed the whole situation. The Secretary would recall the time it had taken us to develop an approach for treating existing arsenals the various commissions, Smith, Nitze. Now it seemed that instead of using that, the U.S. was opening up an arms race in space, all into the unknown, the devil knew where it would lead. Dreams were fine, they were important in politics, but one could not turn politics into dreams. As for strategic defense with an arms race in space, he rejected it. It would be destabilizing.

The Secretary said it was important to keep at work. The ten-year commitment had been offered in the context of elimination of all ballistic missiles. He had to point out that seven years was an eternity in U.S. political time, two Presidents away in terms of U.S. politics.

The Secretary continued that Gorbachev had mentioned nuclear testing. He knew Gorbachev had thought a lot about it. The U.S. placed importance on starting negotiations to deal with it. Shevardnadze and he had discussed finding a measure of agreement. They had talked of various means of verification under discussion by scientists, CORRTEX, seismic. These ought to be tried out, to see what works best to try to improve what goes on. So they had assigned people from both sides to draft an agreement to start negotiations. They had reached agreement on all except the last paragraph, the Secretary said, and he had merged some language and brought it over. The way to get started with negotiations was to agree to start. If we had a start to negotiations right away, it should not be difficult to have the two treaties ratified by the fall. If the text he was presenting was agreeable, he would glad to be in touch with the President, and thought he would find it agreeable. They could thus agree here in Moscow and get started.

Gorbachev said he would have the comrades look at the issue as a whole, and would give a reply the next day.

Gorbachev asked the Secretary what he thought of the laboratory testing formulation. He (Gorbachev) saw the possibility of a compromise. The Secretary said he was willing to listen, but wished to give Gorbachev the President’s view. This was that we had the ABM Treaty, and had a program conducted in accordance with it. (At the translation, Gorbachev said in accordance up to now, but not in the next stage. The Secretary assured him that it would continue to be.) The program would continue. Questions abounded, and no decisions on them had been made. We were making laborious progress studying them, largely in the Secretary’s own department, and the results would be presented to the President, who would look at them and look at the program. Until then, he would see what could be done consistent with the Treaty. He was leery of changes. He was willing to listen, but in candor he had to say that the President’s view was that the ABM Treaty gave us guidance. Gorbachev said the Soviets were not saying it should be changed, but observed. The Secretary said the U.S. was saying “let’s observe it.”

Gorbachev asked why the U.S. delegation in Geneva was avoiding discussion of what was permitted and not permitted under the treaty. The Secretary said he understood Ambassador Kampelman had given many explanations. Gorbachev said he had his own information, and urged the Secretary to try to develop some new instructions.

Gorbachev appealed to the Secretary to give careful thought to all aspects of strategic offensive weapons across the entire triad and to related ABM Treaty questions. The President should look again at all aspects. The Soviet side thought compromise was possible on all aspects, without prejudice to the President or his interests. There might not be enough time to complete a treaty, but there was time to agree on basic provisions. There had been years of discussion, of clarifications. These were assets that should not be wasted.

The Secretary assured Gorbachev he would give the President a full report when he saw him in California, and would supplement his written report with a sense of how Gorbachev had said it, to give the full impact of Gorbachev’s view, as the Secretary had given Gorbachev the President’s view.

Gorbachev said he had covered all the ground he wanted to propose, and invited the Secretary to touch on items of interest.

[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]

1. Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S-IRM Records, Memoranda of Conversations Pertaining to United States and USSR Relations, 1981–1990, Lot 93D188, Moscow Trip—Memcons 4/12–16/87. Secret; Nodis. Drafted by Simons; cleared by Graze and Pascoe. The conversation took place at the Kremlin. The full memorandum of conversation is printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 42.
2. There was a break in the conversation from 4:45 to 5:10 p.m.
3. See Document 159.
4. Not attached.
5. Documentation on Reagan’s September 14, 1982, meeting with scientist Edward Teller is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. XLIII, National Security Policy, 1981–1984.