173. Letter From Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze and Soviet Defense Minister Yazov to Secretary of State Baker and Secretary of Defense Cheney1
In view of the doubts that you have had regarding the question of the construction of new silo launchers for heavy ICBMs (in the context of a broader agreement on heavy ICBMs reached last October in New York), we thought it would be useful to make the following additional clarifications.
First of all, we wish to once again make it absolutely clear that construction of new heavy ICBM silo launchers under the existing agreement would only take place by way of replacing those heavy ICBM silo launchers that have been eliminated under the Protocol on Conversion or Elimination Procedures to the START Treaty, i.e. their number would remain within the Treaty-permitted limits. We understand that you have a question as to which would be the instances where the need for such construction may arise. The answer lies in those situations which may occur in real life.
We hope you will agree with us that, unfortunately, one cannot completely rule out such emergency situations – due to, among other things, the extended life of silo launchers – which may make their further operation impossible. Incidentally, this has been taken into account in the Protocol on Conversion or Elimination Procedures, which, as has already been agreed between the two sides, provides for a special procedure of notification and exemption of strategic offensive arms from the Treaty count, including ICBM silo launchers, when they become inoperable as a result of an accident or an irreparable damage. Naturally, each side would have the right in such cases to compensate for the systems excluded from the count—within the relevant limits set by the Treaty. This, of course, applies to heavy ICBMs as well. For this reason alone one cannot foreclose the possibility of construction of new silo launchers for them.
Nor can one rule out such situations which could require relocation of silo launchers, including those for heavy ICBMs, that is, closing them down in one area of the country and constructing new ones in another area, for non-military reasons, in particular due to the internal political processes taking place in our country. Silo launcher relocation could be required either during the period of reductions under the Treaty, or at [Page 922] a later stage. It appears that it would be difficult to take into account non-military factors in advance by simply changing our current plans.
At present we have no plans of relocating heavy ICBM silo launchers. And while such relocation, if it had to be done in the future, would involve great additional costs and would be a difficult step to make, we cannot, as you understand, exclude such a possibility.
We hope that these additional clarifications fully remove the misunderstanding that has developed, which finally makes it possible to confirm the New York agreements on heavy ICBMs and lays the matter to rest.
Sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control, International Security Affairs, Lot 05D259, Records of James Timbie, US-Russia START I CFE December 1990. No classification marking.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩