154. Memorandum From Arnold Kanter and Condoleezza Rice of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft)1
SUBJECT
- Arms Control Talks in Moscow
The four days of talks were a waste of time or worse. We made no progress on START and literally lost ground on CFE. If the U.S. side was not prepared to do end-game hard bargaining, the Soviets were barely ready to meet. Karpov was not well prepared. The General Staff was represented by colonels. Aside from a last-minute (if fascinating) appearance by Akhromeyev on CFE, there were no signs that anyone among the senior Soviet leadership was engaged or that the Soviet positions being articulated were serious.
In brief, neither side—but particularly the Soviets—behaved as though there was any intention of signing CFE on November 19 or START by the end of the year. Unless both sides change the way they do business rapidly and radically, there is no possibility that we will be able to achieve the goal that the President and Gorbachev reaffirmed in Helsinki: completion of both treaties this year. Even then, making the end-of-the-year target will be a long shot.
We thus have two problems: engaging the top Soviet leadership—including Gorbachev—and getting our own house in order.
To address the first, we have drafted a memo to the President (attached at Tab I)2 recommending that he send a letter to Gorbachev (which we believe would have greater impact than a phone call). To address the second, achieving rapid U.S. consensus on the major remaining issues, we propose that they be addressed next week at your level and decided by the President. In that way, the President could give Baker the authority to close the deal (if and when the Soviets are ready), while accepting the responsibility himself for the bottom-line U.S. positions.
[Page 850]The Talks in Moscow
START. Except for closing on two secondary matters, the Soviets simply went through the motions on START, confining themselves to reiterating familiar positions and reciting well known arguments. They did not respond to a new U.S. proposal on Backfire which, while modest on its face, was unmistakably an invitation to deal. They also did not engage us on heavy ICBMs, not even to repeat their insistence that the issue was closed for the remainder of the current START talks. Overall, the Soviets did little more than propose that issues be deferred to Geneva or offer to return to them when we meet in Washington next week.
CFE. The problems in CFE are more serious and raise the real possibility that the Soviets may be re-evaluating their stake in a CFE treaty. The Soviets introduced two new positions—one on zones and one on the “sufficiency rule”—that dramatically widen the gap between the sides. They indicated that both changes were required by the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and the resulting need for the Soviets to single-handedly balance the collective military forces of all the NATO allies.
Akhromeyev also said that there was no way the Soviets could include limits on land-based naval aircraft (LBNA) in CFE. Drawing an explicit analogy between LBNA in CFE and ALCMs in START, he said that refusing LBNA limits was a matter of “national dignity,” and that any Soviet government that accepted such limits would be forced to resign.
If the Soviets are serious about these new positions—and their candid assessment of their new strategic situation gives every indication that they are—the prospects for wrapping up CFE soon have become extraordinarily bleak. It might be possible to work out a compromise on zones, and we might decide in the end to side-step the LBNA issue by dropping aircraft limits from CFE. But the Soviet effort to increase their share of equipment permitted under CFE limits—a reflection of their go-it-alone approach to the European military balance—will rightly be strongly resisted by the Eastern Europeans as well as by most of the NATO allies.
Next Steps
If we do not complete the treaties by the end of the year, there is a real chance that both will slip away as the political consensus grows that they no longer are worth the trouble. From one perspective, that would not be a calamity: both treaties were conceived in (and for) another era and arms control has gone from being the centerpiece to just one more element in superpower relationship. But the political costs to the President of what would undoubtedly be viewed by arms control afficionados—particularly on the Hill—could be significant. Our [Page 851] European allies would also be alarmed, particularly by the failure to complete CFE, which they (and we) have promoted as a cornerstone of the new Europe. If we want the benefits of these treaties and (at least as important) avoid these costs, we may be in a “now or never” situation.
Shevardnadze will be in the U.S. for about ten days beginning around September 23. He will be preceded by Karpov to resume the “working group” discussions with Reg Bartholomew. That ten-day period will be critical in determining whether we get one or both treaties this year. The proposed letter to Gorbachev3 is intended to increase the chances that Shevardnadze comes prepared and empowered to do business.
Baker will meet with Shevardnadze around September 26. They agreed in Moscow that arms control will be the major subject. Baker will be seeing Shevardnadze again in New York at the CSCE Foreign Ministers’ Conference on October 1–2. (A Shevardnadze meeting with the President also is likely during that week, but that should not become a negotiating session.) A meeting of NATO foreign ministers and/or a meeting at the 23 immediately prior to the October 1–2 conference to address CFE also is a distinct possibility.
We need to use the coming week to ensure that we too are ready. Because the remaining START issues are largely political, the bureaucracy cannot solve them and should stop trying. The new Soviet positions in CFE post fundamental questions about that negotiation that likewise should be addressed at your level. Accordingly, you should be prepared to have one or perhaps two meetings with your counterparts on the major remaining issues and then take them to the President for decision. You also will need to address whether we can agree at the October 1–2 CSCE Foreign Ministers’ Conference to set a November 19 date for the CSCE summit and signing the CFE treaty. (Substantively, it is very hard to imagine how we could agree. Politically, it will be enormously difficult, but probably necessary, not to.) Recognizing the risks of leaks, you also may want to have an NSC meeting both to put a formal stamp on the process and to signal clearly—including to the Soviets—that we are fully ready for the end game.
RECOMMENDATION
That you send the memo at Tab I to the President.
- Source: George H.W. Bush Library, Bush Presidential Records, Brent Scowcroft Collection, Special Separate USSR Notes Files, Gorbachev Files, OA/ID 91128–003, Gorbachev (Dobrynin) Sensitive 1989–June 1990 [3]. Secret; Limited Access. Sent for action.↩
- Printed as Document 155.↩
- See Document 156.↩