Office of the Historian

155. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft) to President Bush1

Washington, September 15, 1990

SUBJECT

  • Arms Control Talks in Moscow

Purpose

This memorandum recommends that you send the letter at Tab A2 to President Gorbachev urging his personal involvement to conclude START and CFE by the end of the year.

Background

As Jim Baker agreed with Shevardnadze in Irkutsk,3 Reg Bartholomew led an interagency team for September 9–13 talks in Moscow4 to resolve remaining differences in START and CFE. These talks were a bust. No progress was made on any of the major issues. If anything, we lost ground on CFE. Absent dramatic changes in the way both sides do business and interact, I am convinced we will not be able to sign either treaty this year.

Despite the fact that we are well into the end game, the Soviets were not ready to do business during the Moscow meetings. Some of their hard line may have been tactical, and there are also indications that the Soviets are having real second thoughts about CFE as the Warsaw Pact disintegrates around them. But it was clear both from the low-level composition of the Soviet team (which was heavily populated by General Staff colonels and Foreign Ministry notetakers), and from their unwillingness to engage in a substantive give-and-take, that the top Soviet leadership was not engaged. This must change if we are going to wrap up these treaties.

The week of September 23 will be critical to the resolution of the remaining issues. Shevardnadze will be in the U.S. for about ten days, beginning with the U.N. and ending with the CSCE Foreign Ministers’ Conference on October 1–2. Jim is scheduled to meet with him on September 26 and will be seeing him again during the CSCE conference. If necessary, Jim probably could engage Shevardnadze by phone, [Page 853] if not in person, at other times during the week. You also will be seeing Shevardnadze some time that week.

We must also find a way to engage Gorbachev personally, if only because Shevardnadze probably cannot overcome the bureaucratic inertia and General Staff footdragging by himself. To that end, the proposed letter at Tab A to Gorbachev tells him that completion of START and CFE this year is in serious jeopardy and urges him to become directly involved.

We also need to make final decisions ourselves on the major remaining START and CFE issues so that Jim has the authority he needs to close the deal if and when the Soviets get ready to engage us seriously. I will be asking you to address these during the coming week.

RECOMMENDATION

That you send the letter to President Gorbachev at Tab A.

  1. 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. Sent for action. Copied to Quayle and Sununu. A stamped notation indicates Bush saw the memorandum.↩
  2. Attached but not printed. See Document 156.↩
  3. See Document 150.↩
  4. See footnote 2, Document 153.↩