123. Telegram From the Embassy in Moscow to the Department of State1
SUBJECT
- Official—Informal
1. Secret—Entire Text.
2. Embassy’s draft Memcon for the Moscow ministerial arms control working group’s opening session on May 18 follows, para 3.
3. Begin Text
SUBJECT
Moscow ministerial, May 15–19, 1990: Arms Control Working Group
TIME: 9:15–9:30 a.m.; May 18, 1990
PLACE: Osobnyak, Moscow
PARTICIPANTS
US—Chairman, Reginald Bartholomew (T), Richard Burt (NST), Read Hanmer (ACDA), Arnold Kanter (NSC), Richard Clarke (PM), Greg Thielmann (Embassy) - Notetaker.
USSR—Chairman Viktor Karpov (Deputy Foreign Minister), Gen-Col Bronislav Omelichev (General Staff), Gen-Maj Peresypkin (General Staff), Yuriy Nazarkin (NST), Oleg Grinevskiy (CFE/CSBM), Lem Masterkov (START), Gennadiy Khromov (Council of Ministers), Anatoliy Luk’yantsev (MFA Arms Limitation And Disarmament Administration)
[Page 698]- —
- Undersecretary Bartholomew opened the session with procedural suggestions for convening subgroups: after a few observations on START by working group chairmen, Burt and Nazarkin would break off to continue subgroup discussions; the main group would then address CFE.
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- Karpov recited a list of START issues “to remind Burt and Nazarkin of the small debts they have:” non-circumvention; stages of reductions; road mobiles; elimination of charges; deployments in third countries; and missile throwweight.
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- Bartholomew said he had been exhausted just in hearing the list, but recovered considering that Burt would have to do the work. The one exception was the road mobiles issue on which he needed to make some procedural observations in plenary. Secretary Baker had expressed disappointment that the Geneva Ad Ref Agreement on mobiles had not been approved by Moscow. Substantive questions aside, this development also raised questions about the Ad Ref process, a process which was needed to make sufficient progress by the Summit and by the end of the year. Bartholomew emphasized that Washington set great store by the Ad Ref process, even though accepting its results was not always easy for either side. He noted that both he and Karpov had a big stake in the process and appealed to Karpov to review personally the Geneva road mobiles agreement.
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- Drawing on a piece of paper, Karpov made “several clarifications” so the U.S. side could understand the nature of the Soviet response to the issue. He said the Soviets had accepted the U.S. deployment area concept, but had enlarged the total area to 125,000 sq km (from 100,000 sq km). The Soviets also had created 5 sq km restricted areas in which no activity would be possible if it implied exit into the deployment area. Regular daily activity inside these restricted areas should not be notified because if would require 40–50 notifications daily. Karpov said that it would be impossible to provide notification of the day-to-day work of the maintenance crew. “The papers would swallow us, and it would yield nothing to the other side.” He explained that in the event of inspection, all launchers would return to their bases within the deployment area when notice was given. If launchers left the deployment area for repair or re-deployment, notification should be given, but notification should be extraordinary—not for day-to-day activities.
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- Burt responded that he was glad he would have a chance to discuss the issue with Nazarkin since Karpov was not aware of the facts. Burt said every one of the concerns raised by Karpov had been taken into account in drafting the Geneva compromise solution. He expressed his doubts that road mobile systems could be agreed to in START without reaching some form of compromise on verification.
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- Karpov commented that he was not going to discuss the issue further, “considering the tone that Burt is choosing.” Bartholomew said [Page 699] that Burt’s remarks were a reflection of the very great efforts that it had taken to bring Washington around on this issue. (At this point, Burt and Nazarkin departed for START subgroup discussions).
End Text.
- Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D900465–0049. Secret; Immediate. Sent Immediate for information to NST Geneva.↩