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

169. Telegram From the Delegation to the Nuclear and Space Talks in Geneva to the Department of State¹

12906.

Geneva, November 28, 1990, 1844Z

SUBJECT

• START: The Year Without a Christmas?

1. Secret—Entire Text.

2. Rumors about schedules continue to swirl around the delegations here as the bracket-crunching machinery continues to pound away at the mammoth START text. We are getting away from large meetings and using small ad HOC groups to attack specific issues. About a week ago, I detected a greater sense of urgency on the Soviet side and this has led to an accelerated rate of progress. One interesting aspect of this has been some useful competition on the Soviet delegation. The recent promotion of Kryuchkov, coupled with completion of his portion of the treaty (conversion or elimination protocol), has made him available as a constructive rival to Masterkov and Zaytsev, two old-style negotiators who have slowed progress. Both Rick and Nazarkin have used this to stimulate these two to be more reasonable.

3. Recent achievements of note include the following:

— An ad ref agreement on test and training launchers—you have the request for approval.

— An ad ref agreement on rapid reload issues—you have the request for approval.

— An ad ref agreement on the verification regime to be applied after exercise dispersals (same procedures should apply after operational dispersals, but the Soviets thus far refuse to address this)—you have the request for approval.

— An ad ref agreement on throw-weight—you have the request for approval but it is running into opposition in Moscow, primarily with regard to possible late separation of the shroud on some flights. We assume these are short-range SLBM flights.

— The MOU data exchange is successfully under way. Problems thus far have centered on the Soviets’ claim that the SS–N–18 has only 3 warheads rather than the 7 declared at the 1987 summit, and their claim that they have no former heavy bombers (the aircraft which should be in this category are claimed to be under the maritime exclusion). We are trying to convince them to declare the SS–N–18 at 7 and then reduce to 3 via downloading procedures after entry into force (assumes that downloading by 4 warheads will be allowed). There is no give thus far on their side and this could be a troublesome issue. All the data should be exchanged by the end of next week, with site diagrams and photos to follow later.

— Good progress on the heavy bomber/ALCM issues. It appears we may soon have solved nearly all of these, ad ref, except for the pivotal question of whether some OSI of the B–2 can be allowed. Washington should be preparing to face this question soon, presumably during Shevardnadze’s visit. The Soviets consider this the key to many other parts of the package we are putting together and it appears to be a major political issue for them. Even some token OSI here could buy us a lot. Unfortunately, if what they see in the bomb bay of a B–2 is an ALCM-capable rotary [garble] do anything further on this. It is not clear what they will do, but I would expect some statement for the record protecting their position that non-nuclear strategic offensive arms could arise in the future and should be controlled. Both sides need to remind themselves that there is not, and never has been, any agreed definition of “strategic” in these negotiations. It is also important to note that there are many constraints on non-nuclear arms in the treaty. Thus, the statement in our guidance that “START is intended to regulate only strategic nuclear weapons, not non-nuclear systems,” which implies that all these constraints are somehow mistaken or unintended, is off the mark. There is a correct way to describe the situation, which we will need to come back to in preparing for ratification.

— Complete agreement at last on the preamble. We got the Soviets to accept a bland, one-paragraph reference to the NPT, ABM treaty and 1990 summit statement as desired by OSD. The last vestige of offense-defense linkage has thus been removed from the treaty text.

— Near agreement on non-circumvention and third country basing—this is in a special channel and I do not have access to the details.

— Good progress on the problem of ICBM launch canisters. The key here will be to control only canisters for ICBMs subject to non-deployed limits. There are large numbers of old canisters all over the USSR at collective farms, etc.—the Soviet government has no idea where they all are. These derelicts will simply be ignored, though we could ask for SSI in suspicious cases.

4. An interesting development you may not be fully aware of concerns exchanges of letters and agreed statements. For years, we maintained that such devices were somehow un-American. Recently, however, there has been an explosion of such documents as awkward issues are solved through these handy pieces of paper outside the treaty text—perhaps the people who negotiated all those agreed statements in SALT II were not so stupid after all. At latest count, there are approximately 30 of these in play.

5. Another recent development is a formal Soviet offer to have a one-time OSI of their three sub tunnels before signature. They propose limiting the teams to only five people, with all costs borne by the U.S. The former should be negotiable—the latter probably is not.

6. We continue to have major problems on the initial accountability of silos—it seems clear that the Soviets did not intend in the Washington meetings to agree that silos count in the 1600/6000 aggregates at the beginning of excavation. They have now proposed a compromise whereby silos would count then the excavation is complete, but before concrete is poured/installed. We are thinking about how this compares to first launch of a new submarine, which would be the point at which subs would enter the 1600/6000. I would think the key point should be that the time from initial accountability to ability to launch missiles should be about the same for both silos and SLBM launchers.

7. The major issues for the Baker-Shevardnadze meeting seem clear enough. The big three would be PPCM, data denial and heavy bomber/ALCM issues, principally OSI of the B–2. Other issues that need resolution in connection with this meeting would be the sublimit on ICBM warheads, inspection issues connected with SSI, downloading, initial accountability of silos (again), additional silos for heavy ICBMs (again), solid rocket motor vs stage, cooperative measures and perhaps space launch issues (we are still awaiting guidance on this). In addition, any of the pending ad ref deals which fall apart must also be added to the list.

8. The question of questions for us, of course, is are we serious about setting a date of something like January 14 for signature? The near-unanimous view here is that this would be wildly optimistic. We understand, of course, that events unrelated to start may drive the schedule. We also understand that policy makers dismiss things like conforming texts and preparing 500 pages of flawless text on treaty paper as mechanical trivia disposed of in a couple of all-night sessions. Our position has always been that doing this properly will require at least 2–3 weeks after the negotiations are essentially completed.

9. To have any chance of meeting a January deadline, two things must happen. First, the December meetings in Washington must break the back of all the issues noted above. Second, the backstopping process must be greatly accelerated. Although the back-stoppers are no doubt working hard, from our perspective, response times are far too long. To note just one example, we asked for a response to our heavy bomber definition—what seemed to us a relatively routine matter—by October 12, and we are still waiting. We have just received a cable on expediting the backstopping process, so perhaps the necessary changes are already underway, but response times must be measured from here on in hours and days, not weeks.

10. One final thought on this delicate subject would be that, if events force a signing of something in January, we might be faced with having to tidy up some details in Geneva afterward. Of course, this is thinking the unthinkable and we promised ourselves and congress we would never do that again, but we also promised never to repeat the frantic and somewhat sloppy INF endgame. If it comes to that, we could cite the extraordinary circumstances involved and probably still have a happy ending.

Burt

1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D901116–0087. Secret; Immediate.