Foreign Relations of the United States, 1989–1992, Volume XXXI, START I, 1989–1991

101. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, April 5, 1990, 6:45–8:04 p.m.

SUBJECT

• START: ALCMs and SLCMs

PARTICIPANTS

• U.S.

  • James A. Baker, III, Secretary of State
  • Robert Gates, Deputy National Security Advisor to President
  • Jack Matlock, U.S. Ambassador to the USSR
  • Ronald Lehman, Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
  • Reginald Bartholomew, Under Secretary of State, T
  • Robert B. Zoellick, Counselor, Department of State
  • Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
  • Richard Burt, U.S. Ambassador to the Nuclear and Space Talks
  • Dennis B. Ross, Director, Policy Planning Staff
  • Raymond G. H. Seitz, Assistant Secretary of State, EUR
  • Margaret DeB. Tutwiler, Assistant Secretary of State, PA
  • David Smith, U.S. Ambassador to the Defense and Space Talks
  • Steven Hadley, Assistant Secretary of Defense, ISP
  • Gen. Howard Graves, Joint Chiefs of Staff
  • Jonathan Hawes, U.S. Open Skies Negotiator
  • Alexander Vershbow, Director, EUR/SOV
  • Steven Pifer, Deputy Director, EUR/SOV (notetaker)

• USSR

  • Eduard A. Shevardnadze, Minister of Foreign Affairs
  • Sergey Akhromeyev, Security Advisor to the President
  • Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, First Deputy Foreign Minister
  • Yuriy Dubinin, USSR Ambassador to the U.S.
  • Aleksey Obukhov, Head, USA & Canada Administration, MFA
  • Teymuraz Stepanov, Special Assistant to Shevardnadze
  • Sergey Tarasenko, Special Assistant to Shevardnadze
  • Gennadiy Gerasimov, MFA Spokesman
  • Georgiy Mamedov, Deputy Head, USA & Canada Administration
  • Yuriy K. Nazarkin, USSR Ambassador to the Nuclear and Space Talks
  • Aleksandr Peresypkin, General Staff representative
  • Sergey Batsanov, Head of USSR Delegation to the Conference on Disarmament
  • Oleg A. Grinevskiy, USSR Ambassador to the CFE Negotiations
  • Igor Plenykh, Head of USSR Delegation ot the Nuclear Testing Talks
  • Vitaliy Churkin, Special Assistant to Shevardnadze
  • Viktor Prokofiev, MFA interpreter (notetaker)
  • (plus other Soviet arms control experts)

Secretary Baker began the session by noting that the Ministers had agreed that Marshal Akhromeyev would proceed first. The U.S. side would then respond with Ambassador Bartholomew.

Marshal Akhromeyev thanked the Secretary and stated that the working group on arms reductions—headed by Mr. Bartholomew and himself—had considered in great detail² two questions: ALCMs and SLCMs. Before the sides began to consider specific differences, he would report that at the beginning there was a lack of understanding concerning the fact that the Soviet side had allegedly departed from the Moscow understandings on these two questions. The Soviet side had clarified that there were no departures. With regard to ALCMs, the Moscow agreement had dealt with counting rules and the range for SRAM-type missiles not to exceed 600 kms. This package formed the essence of the Moscow agreement. However, some questions—such as counting rules—were outstanding in Moscow and they had remained outstanding.

Akhromeyev continued that there were four differences on ALCMs from Moscow. First, there was no common understanding on range threshold to ensure that SRAM-type missiles did not have a range greater than 600 kms. Second, a difference still remained on counting ALCMs on future types of heavy bombers. The Soviet side believed that, since these were future bombers, the counting rule should be “as equipped”; the U.S. side believed the counting rule should be similar to that for existing U.S. bombers, i.e. they would count as 10 but have a capability of 20.

Akhromeyev said the third difference related to counting heavy bombers within the 1600 limit. In Moscow the sides had agreed the number of bombers in the 1600 limit could be sliding, that is, the number could change within certain limits. This remained the same. But in Moscow the U.S. side had said that the floating number would not be limited by an upper limit, although the Soviet Union would have 40% more bombers than the United States. The Soviet side believed the upper limit had to be limited but did not respond to this problem in Moscow. After having studied this, the Soviet side believed that the upper number must be limited, say at 115. But the U.S. side had not expressed a view.

Akhromeyev noted that the fourth difference concerned counting non-nuclear-armed heavy bombers that could be excluded from the 1600 limit. The Soviet position was to count them in the 1600 limit; the U.S. position was that 115 such bombers could be outside the 1600 limit. These were the differences on ALCMs.

Turning to SLCMs, Akhromeyev asserted that two differences remained as before. But there had also been a dramatic misunderstanding; while all had appeared clear before, now this new problem had emerged. The former problems existed before and still existed. The sides had not yet reached agreement on the minimum range for qualifying as a long-range SLCM: in the Soviet view, long-range SLCMs had a range greater than 600 kms; the U.S. side believed the range should be less, around 300 kms.

Akhromeyev noted that the second difference concerned counting just nuclear-armed SLCMs or non-nuclear-armed SLCMs as well. The Soviets could accommodate the position of both sides: if the U.S. would agree to 600 kms, then the Soviets could consider counting nuclear-armed only.

Akhromeyev said the question of verification and inspections remained outstanding, that is, verification of submarines and surface ships with SLCMs and SLCM production facilities. Another difference was the maximum level of the number of SLCMs for both sides. Mr. Bartholomew held the view that this was not discussed in Moscow and therefore was resolved. But the Soviet position was that SLCMs must be constrained by an agreed limit; they were proposing establishing that limit at a level of 600 cruise missiles. The U.S. side, on the other hand, believed there should be no limit at all; each side would notify the other of the number of SLCMs in the year of the declaration and for the next five years, but the two sides’ levels would not be related. There would be declarations but no agreed limit.

Under Secretary Bartholomew began by stating that the U.S. side admired Marshal Akhromeyev’s service to his country. Therefore he was pained to deliver a different assessment of the working group discussion. The sides had gone through the Soviet papers from the previous night as well as the Moscow elements of common ground on ALCMs, joint declaration on SLCMs and joint statement issued by the two Ministers; the U.S. view was that a great deal of good work had been done in Moscow that was critical to the work of the leaders. That work was done and mutually recorded in the common elements, SLCM declaration and joint statement. At the end of the Moscow talks, the sides understood that there was one ALCM issue (range) and two SLCM issues (range and nuclear vs. nuclear plus non-nuclear) that were unresolved. The record clearly reflected this. Therefore all other differences identified in the Soviet papers and to which Marshal Akhromeyev had referred were not, in the U.S. view, differences but reopening of questions that had already been resolved in Moscow. This was a return to ideas that had been discussed and to which the U.S. could not agree. He could give many examples.

Bartholomew continued that Marshal Akhromeyev had called the discussion useful. But he had to express his personal concern that the sides were seven weeks from the summit and the Soviet papers had moved us backward from the goal rather than toward it. Marshal Akhromeyev had said the next step was for the subject to be reviewed by the Ministers. Bartholomew shared this viewpoint: intervention by Ministers was essential. They should consult on this problem.

In his view, Bartholomew said, we needed to find a way back to the Moscow elements of common ground and to the sentence in the joint statement that clearly stated that all ALCM issues were resolved except for range. We also had to get back to the SLCM deal, which said that the sides agreed to parallel, politically-binding declarations. This was necessary so that we could move ahead on the basis of the Moscow meeting and deal with the three issues remaining from Moscow.

Bartholomew concluded his report by noting that, in order to stay on track on other questions, Ambassadors Burt and Nazarkin had been asked to meet on non-circumvention, mobile ICBM verification and other technical questions.

The Secretary said that when he and Shevardnadze had talked the previous night, they had recognized a serious problem here and, at the very least, an extraordinary, major misunderstanding. He would be pleased to discuss with the Foreign Minister and any of his associates the record from the Moscow ministerial. He was aware of the elements of common ground, the joint statement and what was in the record of previous discussions with the same faces sitting across the table. But he did not know what else to say or how to move forward. We had a major problem, which was particularly serious when the Presidents had called for resolution of remaining substantive issues by the summit. He was sorry to say it, but he agreed with Ambassador Bartholomew that not only had we accomplished no progress in the last twenty-four hours, but perhaps we had taken a significant large step backward.

The Secretary noted that he had thought we had a clear understanding on ALCMs; there was only one issue—range. But when he looked at the elements of common ground from Moscow, he saw a flat contradiction in what the Soviet side was now saying. Referring to the memcon of the final Moscow small group meeting on arms control, the Secretary recalled how the sides had discussed ALCMs: Shevardnadze had asked for a recess from 9:30–9:35 and conferred with his experts; then Shevardnadze had said that on seven points the sides had taken an agreed position and on one point—range—they still had differences; the sides could thus say that all issues except range had been agreed, which was reflected in the joint statement.

The Secretary continued that he could show the same with regard to SLCMs. For the Soviet side to suggest that it needed legally-binding limits instead of politically-binding declarations at this stage gave the U.S. side—to put it mildly—a large case of heartburn. He could go through and point out other examples, but beyond that, he did not know what to say.

Foreign Minister Shevardnadze stated that Akhromeyev had said which issues had been agreed in Moscow. This morning he (Shevardnadze) had confirmed everything that had been agreed upon and had in mind the issues now under discussion. What the Soviet side had agreed remained valid and he could confirm it once again. But the Secretary had shirked the main issue—the range issue—which was a condition for resolution of all other issues. The Soviet side operated on the assumption that the U.S. side would meet it half-way.

Shevardnadze recalled the Wyoming package discussion which had been continued in Moscow; it was in that package that the Soviet side had proposed resolving the ALCM issue. But unless the range issue was resolved, the sides could hardly talk about reaching agreement on the other issues. If the sides resolved the main issue, then it would be a totally different conversation. The sides should not exchange claims now. The Soviet side had explained why it could not accept other range thresholds; the U.S. side understood what it would mean for the USSR. If the U.S. side could resolve this, it should do so and then the sides could consider other elements of the package. The key issue was range; if the Secretary could find a solution on this, then even this evening they could discuss the other issues.

As for SLCMs, Shevardnadze continued, he had already mentioned that the Soviets had made a decision to make serious concessions in this regard. But the concessions had limits. To say that there would be no top limit for the number of SLCMs would mean to open a totally new channel for an unrestrained arms race. For that reason, it seemed that political declarations as a mechanism should set a top limit for the number of SLCMs. Unless a solution was found on long-range cruise missiles, the sides would find themselves at an impasse.

The Secretary referred to the Moscow joint statement section on SLCMs and read: “The sides agreed that such missiles would be dealt with by parallel, politically-binding declarations for the duration of the START Treaty.” He added that the sides’ experts had even worked out a formulation for the declaration. The U.S. side had refused to put in a numerical limit, much less agree to a legally-binding treaty protocol.

Turning to the question of ALCM range, the Secretary noted that the issue was not whether the U.S. side could agree to the Soviet figure. The U.S. side had come from 1500 down to 800 kms, a change of 700 kms. The Soviet side was still at the same level. He was well aware of the importance the Soviet side attached to range; the Ministers had discussed it with Marshal Akhromeyev for an hour and a half in Moscow. But for the Soviets to say that if the U.S. agreed to the Soviet range, then the Soviets would discuss other issues which had been settled in Moscow was not an appropriate way to proceed. The Secretary had no authority on range, as he had told Shevardnadze the previous night. And frankly he was not inclined to seek such authority unless the ALCM counting rules, distinguishability rules and other elements of common ground were as agreed in Moscow. If he could get Shevardnadze’s assurance on that, he might seek authority. It appeared the sides had a serious difficulty.

The Secretary continued that there was no one on his side of the table who did not think that we had had a clear understanding on this. It was important now to hear from Shevardnadze on SLCM issues other than the upper limit and get back to what the Secretary thought the sides had agreed in Moscow—political declarations. On the other hand, maybe the sides just had an insoluble problem that would prevent them from solving this for the summit.

Shevardnadze replied that a serious question was who interpreted political statements. If the U.S. side felt it to be an empty phrase, why should the Soviet side accept it? The Soviet side believed a political statement should designate effective limits, but these would not be incorporated into the START Treaty.

The Secretary rejoined that perhaps they were passing in the night. The formulation of the declaration that they had worked on in Moscow called for the U.S. to state the numbers of SLCMs it would have for five years and for the Soviets to state their numbers for five years. It was not legally binding but a political statement. Maybe the sides were hung up on the wording.

The Secretary continued that the U.S. side could not agree to say that it would not have more than a certain number. As the sides had discussed in Moscow, the U.S. wanted flexibility to build the number of SLCMs it wanted to build. The Soviet side would know what that number would be for five years. The U.S. would state that number in advance and not exceed it. What else was Shevardnadze asking the U.S. to do?

Shevardnadze responded that the Soviet side wanted to cap the upper limit and do so jointly. This was the ultimate goal—to limit the arms race. The second point was that the sides should not retreat from the principles agreed back in 1987 and should not be angry about the inspections that were agreed. Why was it that, when the sides could use any form of verification for land-based ballistic missiles, they could not use the same—including on-site inspection—for SLCMs? All of that was agreed; he could quote from the record. Or was it a case of misunderstanding between the sides?

Shevardnadze argued that it was another question to have a bad agreement that did not limit the arms race. That was something he would be loath to see. He would prefer no agreement. Without an upper limit the arms race would continue endlessly. He proposed that he and the Secretary think on this issue.

The Secretary replied that he had nothing more to suggest. Perhaps he and Shevardnadze could consult privately on how to proceed. But he did not have a good solution. The U.S. side really had trouble with some of the Soviet proposals that flew in the face of the agreed elements of common ground. He would like to read one: there would be a “continuing right to 115 former heavy bombers outside the START limits for non-nuclear roles.”

That seemed clear, but now the U.S. side was told that all heavy bombers had to be counted in the 1600 limit. This flew in the face of what the sides had agreed in Moscow. Perhaps the Ministers should adjourn and think. But the Secretary was not optimistic; he did not know how to attack this problem.

Shevardnadze stated that, if the sides did not find a solution on the main ALCM issue (range), he did not expect breakthroughs on other questions. His delegation could testify to the fact that they had examined all the options but had no fallbacks on ALCM range. It was the problem of problems.

The Secretary asked whether ALCM range was related to all the other issues that flew in the face of the Moscow elements of common ground. Shevardnadze responded that it related to the entire package. The Secretary asked if that meant both the ALCM package and the SLCM deal. Shevardnadze answered no; SLCMs were a different matter. The Secretary said that Shevardnadze was talking just ALCMs. Shevardnadze confirmed that he was.

The Secretary proposed to discuss this further with Shevardnadze over dinner. He did not know what to do. He had told Shevardnadze in Namibia that he had no authority on ALCM range. That was the truth. He would not pretend that he did. He would be glad to talk with Shevardnadze privately; maybe they could figure some way out of the impasse.

Shevardnadze commented that he did not think that would help. This was a matter of principle. He could not budge, not even one meter. The Secretary replied that he believed Shevardnadze. They needed a private conversation. He was not at liberty to proceed further.

Shevardnadze suggested that the experts might take up the question again. The Secretary responded that that would not work. Ambassador Bartholomew had told him it would not work, so the Ministers could not resort to that old ploy. The Secretary and Shevardnadze had to talk; they should discuss this over dinner.

Shevardnadze said they should let the Presidents talk. The Secretary recalled that that had been his solution in Namibia. He was prepared to do that, but he strongly suspected that—because the sides now had all these other issues on the table—there would be no agreement. Shevardnadze said that that outcome was not to be ruled out.

Following a short whispered discussion between Shevardnadze and Akhromeyev, Shevardnadze proposed a ten-minute break. The Secretary agreed.

(The break began at 7:35 p.m. The Soviet delegation caucused at the table while the U.S. delegation met outside on the balcony. The Secretary and Shevardnadze then held a brief private discussion with only interpreters present. The small group meeting resumed at 8:00 p.m.)

The Secretary said he would like to sum up his private chat with Shevardnadze. They had decided that Marshal Akhromeyev and Ambassador Bartholomew would get together that night and do some homework. They would meet with the Ministers the next morning, after which the Ministers would receive reports from the other working groups, such as conventional forces and CW, and on other START issues. This might be before the meeting with the President; if not, it could be when the Ministers came back to the State Department that afternoon. Did this summarize the discussion?

Shevardnadze confirmed that it did. He said that after the meeting with the President the Ministers would listen to experts on testing, CFE and CW. The meeting ended at 8:04 p.m.

1. Source: Department of State, Bureau of European Affairs, Office of Russian Affairs, Russia Desk Files, Lot 99D344, Baker-Shevardnadze Washington 4/4–6/90. Secret; Nodis. Drafted on April 10 by Pifer; cleared by Vershbow, Bartholomew, Seitz, and Burns. The meeting took place in the Franklin Room of the Department of State.
2. See Documents 99 and 100.