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

135. Memorandum From Arnold Kanter of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft)¹

Washington, May 24, 1990

Brent:

Rick Burt sent me the attached backchannel which includes the text of the proposed joint statement on START follow-on negotiations. (Since the backchannel did not go to all the interested readers in Washington, I would appreciate it if you did not acknowledge that we had it.) I will want to go over it with you in our meeting tomorrow,² but following are a few initial observations and impressions.

— For better or worse, almost all of the statement is agreed. There are only three brackets, and no more than two of them are of any consequence.

— One of the issues that is not bracketed concerns whether the object of START II is “stability” or “reductions.” Our draft made clear that the right answer is “stability.” Rick claims the Soviets insist that reductions lead to increased stability. He therefore compromised by resorting to the phrase “stabilizing reductions.” You will need to decide whether that is good enough as well as whether you can live with the statement that the two sides will “seek to reduce their strategic offensive arms in a way consistent with enhancing strategic stability.” I personally don’t like, but don’t feel compelled to make a federal case out of it.

— The Soviets bracketed the sentence in our draft that calls for “a ban on mobile MIRVed ICBMs, looking to the elimination of all land-based MIRVed ICBMs [and, Rick added], especially heavy ICBMs].” Rick thinks we can get the Soviets ultimately to accept our deMIRVing sentence in exchange for dropping our SDI reference to a “cooperative transition.” I would be willing to make that trade, but Cheney, among others, may not be.

— The Soviets bracketed our call for a “cooperative transition” to the proper balance between offensive and defensive arms. I am surprised that the Soviets have accepted as many of our SDI codewords as they have, and believe that we have enough such hooks in the statement without the “cooperative transition” phrase. I know, however, that the strong SDI supporters place great weight on the “cooperative transition” reference and will use its presence or absence as one more gauge of this Administration’s commitment to SDI. A possible alternative to deleting “cooperative transition” is to accept Soviet buzz words including an explicit incorporation of ASAT arms control into these follow-on negotiations.

— There are a few troubling references to “ABM and Space” instead of “Defense and Space” sprinkled through the text. This could be seen by some as an implicit relinking of START and the ABM Treaty. If others see the same pitfall, then this may be something we will need to fix.

More on all this tomorrow.³

Arnie

1. Source: George H.W. Bush Library, Bush Presidential Records, National Security Council, John A. Gordon Files, Subject Files, OA/ID CF01657–030, Backchannel—May 1990. Secret. Copied to Gates.
2. Not attached. Burt’s backchannel, along with Kanter’s comments, is in George H.W. Bush Library, Bush Presidential Records, National Security Council, John A. Gordon Files, Subject Files, OA/ID CF01657–023, Moscow Ministerials—May 1990 (May 15–19, 1990) [2].
3. No minutes were found.