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

274. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Moscow, February 22, 1988, 11:05 a.m.–2:40 p.m.

SUBJECT

• The Secretary’s Meeting with Gorbachev February 22

PARTICIPANTS

• U.S.

  • George P. Shultz, Secretary of State
  • Colin Powell, President’s National Security Advisor
  • Paul Nitze, Special Advisor to the President on Arms Control
  • Michael H. Armacost, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
  • Jack F. Matlock, U.S. Ambassador to Moscow
  • Rozanne L. Ridgway, Assistant Secretary of State (EUR)
  • Thomas W. Simons, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of State (EUR) (notetaker)
  • Dimitri Zarechnak (interpreter)

• USSR

  • Mikhail S. Gorbachev, General Secretary, CPSU CC
  • Eduard Shevardnadze, Minister of Foreign Affairs
  • Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, First Deputy Minister of Defense
  • Anatoliy F. Dobrynin, Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee
  • Aleksandr A. Bessmertnykh, DeputyForeign Minister
  • Yuriy Dubinin, Soviet Ambassador to Washington
  • Mr. Chernyayev, Special Assistant to the General Secretary (notetaker)
  • P. Palazhchenko (interpreter)

[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]

Gorbachev said he thought the Soviet side could agree on the importance of verification in the preparation of the START Treaty. He also believed the problem was more complex than for INF. The Soviet side was ready for cooperation, for intensive, even new forms of verification compared to the INF Treaty, as had been said in Washington. The sides were now doing reductions for real. Verification was needed to assure the U.S. side and the Soviet side that there would not be one-sided advantages in reductions. The U.S. side should take the same approach. Otherwise there would be no movement.

The Secretary said that he agreed, and that to come to grips with this, both sides needed more information on the other’s forces. He and Shevardnadze had agreed the day before to instruct the Geneva negotiators to produce drafts of the two protocols and the Memorandum of Understanding in time for Shevardnadze to come to Washington, on March 22 or thereabouts. He had talked to Admiral Crowe and the other chiefs. They were doing a lot of agonizing. But they were ready. Shevardnadze had said Akhromeyev and his colleagues were in the same position. This was an important and serious matter.

Gorbachev said that since verification seemed the most difficult issue, perhaps it should receive priority attention now. Perhaps there should be a special group of experts—say scientists and military people—to single the thing out, not just as part of the general work.

Shevardnadze said he and the Secretary had particularly discussed ways to intensify this work, especially on SLCM’s, but this could be expanded to other matters.

Gorbachev said the work should encompass production, inventories, deployment areas on land, at sea, under water. Of course the two sides would need reciprocal information on each other. Without it verification efforts could not be successful.

The Secretary said he agreed. The two sides would see to it that the Geneva delegations were equipped with experts who could work competently and effectively, so that by the time of the Washington meeting there could be results. It was a good thing to set deadlines for them.

Gorbachev said it was a matter of fundamental (printsipialno) importance that in this process of seeking solutions to all problems of strategic arms, including ABM, the sides proceed from the provisions of the Washington statement. He said this because the draft document proposed by the U.S. at Geneva reflected the U.S. approach to strategic stability. President Reagan had taken that approach in Washington too. He (Gorbachev) had made clear from the outset that this was not the way to a solution. Together they had managed to find acceptable language on the subject. But if that were changed there would be no solutions. As was said here, one had to build a bridge across rather than alongside a river.

The Secretary said he agreed that the Washington statement should be the Bible, so to speak, of what we were doing.

He continued that he wished to make some comments in the space and defense area. The U.S. side believed that it was essential, if we were to reach a strategic arms agreement, that there also be a treaty or agreement dealing with this. It was important that it be separate, but in any case it had to be there. The U.S. side believed that the essence of that agreement was contained in the Washington joint statement. It proposed basically to take the language there as the fundamental basis for the agreement or treaty. The sides did not need lawyers to change it. Central to the concept was the idea that there should be an agreed length of time not to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. They had talked enough about that—they had not agreed, but they had talked a lot—and enough for them to agree that that period would exceed the length of time involved for reductions of strategic arms.

Gorbachev said the Washington statement had had two aspects and not just one. The first concerned interpretation of the ABM Treaty as it was understood in 1972. The second concerned the non-withdrawal period the Secretary had mentioned.

The Secretary said there had been a third element. The statement had used the Soviet side’s language on what each side could do, with six months’ notice, at the end of the agreed period. So there were three elements.

Gorbachev said that actually there had been a fourth element. In the U.S. side’s comments on the Washington statement, it was saying that either side could withdraw at any time when it judged there was a threat to its supreme national interest. This negated the rest of the agreement. It provided for unilateral withdrawal, and then there would be no agreement. Complete clarity was needed on this, for both the U.S. side and the Soviet side. He did not think the U.S. side would want a situation where the Soviet side could decide to withdraw that way.

The Secretary said that, with due respect, he thought the Soviet side was creating an unnecessary issue here. That language was practically standard in all our agreements. It was in the present ABM Treaty. It was in no way related to anything else but a supreme national interest. The U.S. side would be glad to make a statement along those lines. It was a standard provision.

Gorbachev said he thought the exchange would be useful for continued work on this question.

The Secretary continued that the question of the 1972 Treaty and what “understood” meant was a matter of some controversy. Both sides knew that. There was more work to be done on that subject. Here Shevardnadze had made a suggestion that the U.S. side welcomed, and would go home thinking about. This was to look at the verification aspects of our discussion, and see if in there there was not some way to resolve this issue. He had a feeling that if the sides worked on that they might perhaps find an answer. But he knew more work needed to be done.

The Secretary said he would like to go back to the strategic arms treaty, and make some more comments. Looking at the verification issues, they were all difficult, but those concerning mobiles were a special and more difficult problem, and those concerning SLCM’s even more so. There had been special discussion of each issue in the meeting the day before. The U.S. side had had the position on mobiles that they should be banned, basically because anything agreed to would be so difficult to verify. But both sides had been working on the verification issue. Part of the discussion had been conceptual, part of it explicit. The sides were not home free. But he was somewhat more confident than in times past.

Turning to SLCM’s, the Secretary continued that Akhromeyev had spoken strongly on it in Washington. The U.S. side had examined the suggestion the Soviet side had made. It was still at a loss to see how it could be confident about verification. But the U.S. side was prepared to keep working. It also agreed that there were certain things that could be done: at a minimum this was an area that had to be treated; there should be a limit to nuclear-armed SLCM’s; the U.S. side would be willing at the right time to set a number we would be prepared to live with; we would like to have it verifiable. The U.S. side did not see how that could be accomplished. But it did see that a limit was necessary, and was prepared to step up to the issue.

Gorbachev said that many things on strategic offensive arms had been worked on. In Washington the sides had been able to note progress on some aspects, and to take some important steps. With regard to certain concerns that the U.S. side had expressed, the Soviet side had given some more thought, and was in a position to take some additional steps.

The U.S. side had raised the issue of sublimits, Gorbachev went on. The sides had agreed on a sublimit of 4900 warheads on ICBM’s and SLBM’s. This was a basis. Continuing on sublimits, he believed the Soviet side could speak of an additional sublimit of 3300 on ICBM warheads and another of 1100 on heavy bomber warheads. Then the U.S. side had raised the issue of the heavy bomber warhead sublimit. The Soviet side understood the U.S. side needed it to be bigger than 1100, say 1300. If the sides agreed on 4900, then they might agree to add or subtract 200, if that was a problem for the U.S., say to 1300 on heavy bomber warheads and 5100 for ICBM/SLBM warheads. This was assuming that was a problem for the U.S.

Gorbachev continued that the Soviet side also thought there was agreement concerning Soviet heavy ICBM’s—on 154 launchers and 1540 warheads. There could also be a ban on development, production and deployment of new heavy ICBM’s and SLBM’s. This could be agreed, but the sides would need criteria. The Soviet side was also ready to reach agreement on the limits of acceptable modernization of existing heavy missiles.

In connection with that, Gorbachev continued, the Soviet side thought the sides could write into the treaty a ban on heavy SLBM’s and a ban on heavy mobile ICBM’s, and a provision for non-conversion of non-heavy launchers into heavy launchers. The Soviet side was ready to specify all that.

The Secretary had raised mobiles, Gorbachev continued. He understood there had been movement on that. To remove ambiguity, the Soviet side was ready to specify the number of mobile launchers and to specify limits on deployed and non-deployed ICBM’s.

With regard to verification, Gorbachev said, the Soviet side believed that the problem with respect to mobile missiles could be solved. He did not wish to go into the details. Soviet experts agreed that mutually acceptable solutions could be found.

The Secretary had spoken about SLCM’s, Gorbachev went on. The Soviet side did believe, as it had said in Washington, that this was a fundamental problem. If no solution were found it would devalue all the efforts of the two sides on START and ABM. It would make them pointless. He would use the fashionable word “compensation.” SLCM’s could be the start of a new arms race. He understood that the U.S. position was to agree there should be a specific limit on SLCM’s, but to doubt that it could be verified. But if the U.S. agreed to the concept of comprehensive verification, including national technical means, inspections, and limits on types of ships and submarines on which they were deployed, then the task of assuring effective verification could be accomplished. If two elements were combined—verification with the obligation of both sides to abide by and not violate the agreement, and access to production facilities, ships and submarines—then the problem could be resolved. If there were no such access this could be more difficult. Systems could be configured—with lead packaging, shielding—to make it more difficult. But that would not be good for an agreement. It would be deception.

To sum up, Gorbachev said, he saw good possibilities of moving forward, and doing so faster. Solutions were possible.

The Secretary said he welcomed Gorbachev’s comments that he saw things moving forward. He was uncertain about all the subtleties and complications. But he could see important strides in what Gorbachev had said.

The Secretary said he would like to comment on two questions Gorbachev had raised.

Returning to SLCM’s, the Secretary said that on-site inspection, at least in certain cases, and identification of types of ships and submarines both give us problems. We would have to think hard on this issue. We were prepared to set a number and live with it, but we were not at all confident about verification. However, we would keep working.

Gorbachev said “now you are afraid of verification.” Once the Soviet side has accepted a U.S. proposal, the U.S. side took it back. It was becoming almost a routine.

The Secretary said he did not know how Gorbachev’s navy was, but to ours the idea of people tramping around inside nuclear submarines was not attractive. We would keep working on the issue. Gorbachev said the Soviet navy was positively enthusiastic about the idea. Akhromeyev said the Soviet side’s missile people, the ICBM people, had resisted the idea of U.S. inspectors on their bases till the very end. But the Soviet Union had a government. The U.S. side also had people in power, but they did not seem to be able to break the resistance of the navy people. Gorbachev commented that there was after all a government (vlast’) in both the Soviet Union and the United States. Akhromeyev said the Soviet side had broken their land-based people, but the U.S. side could not break its sea-based people. Perhaps that was because the Secretary was a Marine. Gorbachev said he thought that was an old bias. The Secretary offered to turn the floor over to General Powell.

With reference to the proposal for an 1100 sublimit, the Secretary continued, the U.S. side had no desire to change the 4900 sublimit. It recognized that 4900 plus 1100 equalled 6000. This was an automatic regulator. If either side wanted more than 1100 warheads on heavy bombers and ALCM’s it would have to cut ICBM’s. There was an automatic tradeoff there that both sides recognized. But in discussing this with Shevardnadze the day before, it had come through to him that this was not the problem. It had seemed to him that the Soviet concern reflecting uneasiness with the rule for counting ALCM’s.

Gorbachev said that was another point that had not been discussed, but what the Secretary said was true. It seemed to him that there was added clarity on that question. The Secretary replied that the way the matter had been left was that there was more work to do on that counting rule. As that progressed and the Soviet side got more comfortable with it, the 1100 number would probably fade away. What he had gotten was that the counting rule problem had generated the new number. The U.S. side recognized that it would have work to do on it.

Gorbachev said that as far as ALCM’s were concerned there were two important elements. The first was the need for clarity on the long-agreed principle that long-range strategic cruise missiles were those with a range of over 600 km. The second was that we should agree to a specific number of cruise missiles for each type of aircraft, and, as the Secretary had said, that this should be within the 6000 warheads limit. He thought it was possible to reach an understanding on this. He did not see insurmountable obstacles to it.

The Secretary said that he agreed.

Gorbachev continued that nevertheless there were also new problems emerging. To deal with them the sides should add more experts, and make them work harder. The Secretary replied that the experience of the other treaty had shown that when one problem was solved, five more emerged. There needed to be an effort to put on more expert manpower and get them working intensively.

Gorbachev said he wished to repeat: it was his view, he was convinced, that if the sides began to work intensively right now, they could prepare good documents, good results, for the President’s visit. The Secretary said we were determined to do that, and the President was as determined as Gorbachev. When Shevardnadze came to Washington the Secretary would keep him up all night. Gorbachev said he would give Shevardnadze a big suitcase.

[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—Feb 88—Shultz/Shev. Secret; Sensitive. Drafted by Simons on February 23. The meeting took place in the Kremlin. The full memorandum of conversation is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 125.