59. Personal Note Prepared by the Deputy Secretary of State (Dam)1
[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]
After a quick attendance at a Situation Room meeting chaired by Judge Clark on public diplomacy, I attended a lengthy meeting that the Secretary had with Ambassador Dobrynin.2 This was a meeting devoted to probing whether there was a possibility for making some progress in the START negotiations. Ambassador Rowny was present. [Page 217] (Incidentally, Kenneth Adelman was confirmed by the Senate 57 to 42 just before the Dobrynin meeting began.)
Secretary Shultz asked Dobrynin three questions. One had to do with whether or not some compromise was possible between the Soviet number of 1800 strategic delivery vehicles and our number of 850 missiles and 400 bombers. The second question had to do with whether the Soviets were prepared to back off of their position that there could be no ALCMs; the Secretary referred to this as the Soviet zero option. The third question had to do with how the Soviets were prepared to meet our security concern raised by their heavy and medium-weight missiles. This is an attempt to put some life in the START talks. Dobrynin agreed to get back to us with an answer from his government.
[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]
- Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S-I Records: Deputy Secretary Dam’s Official Files, Lot 85D308, Personal Notes of Deputy Secretary—Kenneth W. Dam—Oct. 1982–Sept. 1983. Secret. Dictated on April 14.↩
- The memorandum of conversation is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. IV, Soviet Union, January 1983—March 1985, Document 42.↩