Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XLIV, Part 1, National Security Policy, 1985–1988

112. Memorandum for the Record¹

Washington, undated

SUBJECT

• NSPG Meeting, White House Situation Room, 6 June 1986 on US/USSR Relationships, the President and the Vice President both in attendance

George Shultz made a long opening statement about how well the general struggle with the Soviets was going, and the recognized bankruptcy of the Soviet policy, and the ascendancy of Democracy in various parts of the world. He concluded that militarily they were basically somewhat weak, having as their only forward bases, “Cuba and Cam’ranh Bay”, and that really they were only good at one thing and that was building very large numbers of ground based Intercontinental Nuclear Missiles.

His recommendations follow:

(1) We must restore funding for Defense and Foreign Aid. We cannot achieve what we need to by giving up this funding.

(2) We must work to keep and to strengthen our relationships with our allies.

(3) We must keep on working and devising proposals that will give us good arms reduction agreements.

John Poindexter then followed with a statement that:

(1) The most hopeful field that we can work in with the Soviets is arms control. It is necessary to do this to secure support at home, as well as among our allies abroad.

(2) There has been a steady flow of Soviet proposals which give them diplomatic and public opinion high ground. They present proposals as having new elements even though they are simply replacing old ones. But this does give them (?) an advantage with our allies and public opinion, and some of our own actions help the Soviets to maintain that advantage—actions such as our decision on the SALT Treaty, passing of protectionist trade bills by the Congress, and the attack on Libya, etc.

Poindexter continued that, therefore, we must take steps to counter the Soviet proposals. Our proposals must be comprehensive, and cover nuclear matters relating both to Defensive Space Weapons and Intermediate Nuclear Force testing, and arms reductions, and confidence building measures.

He said one of the big questions would be should we change any of our existing proposals, or replace them simply because of the favorable presentation of the USSR’s proposals. He asked if we felt we needed to counteract Gorbachev’s proposals.

With respect to Defense and Space, he said that one possibility would be for us to agree to define research and “strengthen the ABM Treaty, and then comply with that in future SDI work. In return, we should get the Soviets’ agreement to move forward with a 50% reduction in offensive weapons, defined by the SALT definition.” He said much of this may be necessary to assure Congressional support for SDI. He wants to avoid any constraints that might restrain research for the Strategic Defense, and he said it was important to institutionalize Strategic Defense to try to bind the next Administration and future Congresses.

He said it was important to bear in mind that the President’s vision of SDI could not be achieved by the end of the term. He said research would go on for several years, and we are getting domestic pressure to cut the budget, but we cannot verify or stop the USSR’s program to acquire their own SDI. He said that some feel the restraints of the ABM Treaty hurt Strategic Defense, but others feel that SDI could not survive in Congress if we abrogated ABM now. He said eventually the Soviets in their research will come up against the ABM Treaty, so they may want to consider modifying it too. [I don’t think the Soviets would “come up against the ABM Treaty”. I think they would simply brush through it and set it aside when it gets in the way, as they have done with it and the SALT Treaty. I also believe once we start negotiations on the existing ABM Treaty, we can never retreat or end the matter without some type of agreement, because of public and Congressional opinion, and that such an agreement is bound to be worse than the situation we have now.] Poindexter concluded by saying that we are being hurt on testing. The Soviets apparently have stopped testing, and we should at least negotiate on testing, and work out various means on tests of missiles so we could agree to some form of verification that would enable us to stem some of this.

He said we need to get the high ground, and we need to instruct the bureaucracy to produce new programs and proposals, and to do something that will prevent SDI from being cut badly by Congress.

The President intervened at this point, saying he would have to leave in a moment or two, but he felt the image of Gorbachev as having great and unlimited power was wrong, that he was still feeling his way and trying to consolidate his position. The President implied the Soviets are confused. He told Gorbachev that there was a need for meetings to eliminate mutual mistrust that arises from the continued growth of their offensive strength, and that they have never really changed their stand from their original position, which was world domination and a one-world Communist state. The President recalled that he told Gorbachev we wanted no superiority, but we would not let them increase their margin of superiority.

The President then inquired as to whether we shouldn’t send Gorbachev a message thanking him for the few things he has done in connection with Ms. Bonner coming to the U.S.; letting a few people out of jail; and helping a few families; our thanks being predicated on the theory that Gorbachev may be in trouble at home, and may need some ammunition. The President also asked if we should not propose progress in connection with an international group on nuclear power safety (not nuclear weapons), that would try to prevent accidents, and would provide for immediate dissemination of facts about any accident that did occur.

The President said then we should press for a definite plan leading to reductions of weapons, perhaps starting with INF, since they do agree that could go down to 50%. The President said we should press for that first, and express an understanding of the deep mistrust that SDI arouses.

The President added there is mistrust between us because of the ABM Treaty, but we cannot under any circumstances make SDI a bargaining chip, but we should think of anything we could offer for the future to show we do not want a first strike capability. [I believe we could perfectly well offer to the Soviets and the world promises that Strategic Defense kills weapons, not people, and we could promise we would never develop or deploy in space a system designed to kill people on earth.] SDI is needed and we must continue our research, but would it not be possible to find agreement with respect to those above measures.² Then if and when we can get a system deployed, we will invite them over to view our tests, and then tell them deployment depends on total elimination of nuclear weapons, fully verifiable. We would make the Defense available to them and to the world once we knew it could work to defend against, not the missiles we would eliminate, but any proposed or manufactured by a third country. If we have these defenses, no mad man could use nuclear weapons against us.

Cap Weinberger³

1. Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Weinberger Papers, Department of Defense Files, Box CL 843, Subject File, 1986, General Arms Control: Set B. No classification marking. Drafted by Weinberger. All brackets are in the original. The official NSPG minutes are in the Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC National Security Planning Group (NSPG), NSPG 0134 06/06/1986 [US-Soviet Relations]. Casey’s readout of the meeting is in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986, Document 239. An image of Shultz’s handwritten notes from the meeting are in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, Appendix A, with a transcription of the notes at Document 272.
2. Weinberger drew a short vertical line in the left-hand and right-hand margin beside this sentence and the previous one.
3. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.