142. Memorandum From the Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State for Arms Control (Nitze) to Secretary of State Shultz1
SUBJECT
- Luncheon Discussion with Colonel Linhard
In our discussion today of the upcoming meeting with Shevardnadze,2 Linhard told me he was concerned about the fact that the conversion of the 131st bomber could occur as early as the 11th of November, unless action were promptly taken to delay it. I said that I was not certain that a specific time in the future would be better but that that is a matter to which we should give prompt consideration.
He asked me what you had in mind with respect to the meeting with Shevardnadze. I said I thought you wanted to be prepared for a meeting which will deal either with procedures, i.e., what further fora and channels are appropriate, or with making progress at Vienna on substance. I said that you had thought it wise to have Mike Glitman and Ron Lehman at Vienna if the Soviets indicate they wish to negotiate substance there. I said Roz had been asked to find out from them what their ideas were. We both agreed that prior to leaving for Vienna we should have clarified our thoughts on procedure, i.e., when should the next Geneva round begin; should there be additional experts’ meetings, if so, would it not be better to have Marshal Akhromeyev head their team rather than Karpov; should there be a further Shultz-Shevardnadze meeting, and should there be a review of the other scheduled meetings such as that of the experts’ meeting on nuclear testing.
I said I thought it important that the issue of the approach to a forum for a conventional arms reduction negotiations should be clarified prior to your departure for Vienna. Linhard asked me what solution I preferred. I said I thought the circumstances were such that we should support the position of the Germans, French, British, Italians, and Belgians; this was informally supported by all the NATO countries other than the US. Linhard asked whether it was necessary to decide [Page 501] this issue now or whether it could be postponed. I said I thought postponement would be risky.
Linhard concluded this portion of the discussion by saying that he proposed that the issue of instructions to our Geneva negotiators be settled by next Tuesday3 and that the remainder of the week be devoted to issues connected with Vienna.
On the draft additional instructions to Kampelman and Company,4 I said that I believed we could get into deep trouble on the evident appearance of contradiction between the statement in the President’s Reykjavik proposal that the USSR and the US would undertake for 10 years not to exercise their existing right of withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and paragraph 7 of the instructions which said that the US cannot waive its rights to withdrawal for reasons of supreme national interests or in the face of a mutual breach or for other reasons reached under international law. I thought the contrast between “undertake not to exercise” and “cannot waive” is too stark and that there must be another way of going at the same point. He asked that we suggest alternative language by the end of the day; this we have done. He also asked that I look closely at the language concerning the second five years in the draft instructions and indicate any improvement that could be made, particularly with respect to the linkage between the immediate INF and START negotiations and the ten-year elimination proposal; this we have also done.
I asked Linhard how the Joint Staff was progressing on their analysis of the pros and cons of total elimination of ballistic missiles or of strategic nuclear arms. He said he had low confidence in their ability to do a useful analysis, particularly in the absence of Admiral Crowe who had gone to Gleneagles with Secretary Weinberger. I said I thought one could analyze the issues involved without the assistance of computer analyses; the uncertainties involved in the inputs to the computers make such analyses no more useful than an objective common sense review of the facts inherent in problems. Linhard agreed but stressed the political importance of having concurrence or non-objection from the Joint Chiefs.
- Source: Department of State, Ambassador Nitze’s Personal Files 1953, 1972–1989, Lot 90D397, 1986. Secret; Sensitive. A stamped notation indicates that Shultz saw the memorandum. Pascoe’s stamped initials are at the top of the memorandum.↩
- For the memoranda of conversation of Shultz and Shevardnadze’s November 5–6 meetings in Vienna, see Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Documents 6 and 7.↩
- October 28.↩
- Not found.↩