206. Editorial Note
On March 14, 1991, Secretary of State James Baker arrived in Moscow after spending March 8–14 traveling throughout the Middle East to garner support for an international conference to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Baker met several times with Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to discuss the Persian Gulf and Middle East, the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, and ongoing unrest in the Baltics. Memoranda of these conversations are scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1989–1992, vol. III, Soviet Union, Russia, and Post-Soviet States: High-Level Contacts. According to a draft memorandum of conversation dated March 16, Bessmertnykh told Baker: “The people [Page 1017] in Geneva want an interval . . . they are really tired or less interested in getting a deal.” Baker responded: “I talked to the President—no matter what, the CFE thing must go forward, then the President wants START—the longer it hands, the tough it will be. The President wants a Summit, but not without START.” Later on in the conversation, Baker reiterated: “Now on the Summit . . . if we get CFE finished, we should take a break, then get START . . . they have been working for eight months and they need a three weeks break. Burt is leaving—but we can go on with his deputy. After START we have post-START, CFE Ia . . . by the way many people don’t want follow-up meetings such as these.” (Department of State, Policy Planning Staff, Lot 03D102, Dennis Ross Files, Middle East Memos of Conversation/Miscellaneous 1989–1995; all ellipses in the original) Later that day, Baker departed for Ankara before returning to Washington. A memorandum for the record of conversations between U.S. and Soviet technical experts is below, Document 207.
In a letter dated March 21, 1991, President George H.W. Bush wrote President Gorbachev to reiterate a proposal for overcoming differences over Article III of the CFE Treaty that Baker had submitted to Bessmertnykh on March 16: “The proposed approach is based on three simple principles. First, total Soviet holdings of tanks, artillery, and armored combat vehicles in the CFE zone (regardless of the branch of the military service to which they may be assigned) could not exceed the limits specified in the treaty. Second, any such equipment in excess of these limits would have to be converted or destroyed using agreed procedures. Third, of course, such an approach would need to be implemented in a manner that is consistent with the CFE treaty we already have signed (including the limits by zone and on holdings in active units), so that it will not be necessary to renegotiate its terms.” (Department of State, Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control, International Security Affairs, Lot 05D259, Records of James Timbie, US-Russia BW, CTB Ratification, CFE Bartholomew May 1991)
In a letter dated March 27, Gorbachev proposed six points of compensation for precluding coastal defense, naval infantry, and armored combat vehicles in the Strategic Rocket Forces. In his reply of April 8, Bush proposed a “comprehensive approach that elaborates your ideas in a way that also would achieve a practical resolution of the difficult naval infantry issue, and would remove all of the remaining roadblocks to the ratification and implementation of the CFE treaty. Under this comprehensive approach, the Soviet side would, as you propose, making a binding commitment outside the treaty not to increase the equipment held by units in the coastal defense, naval infantry, and armored combat vehicles assigned to the Strategic Rocket Forces.” President Bush went on to lay out specific steps in a counterproposal that “differs only slightly from the numbers you have proposed, but it has one crucial advantage: it will allow us to move forward with ratification and implementation of the CFE treaty because it will bring the Soviet into [Page 1018] practical conformity with treaty obligations as they are understood by the other twenty-one signatories.” “With CFE resolve by our personal efforts,” Bush concluded, “I will be ready to work with you—in the same spirit of openness, frankness, and cooperation to find practical solutions to the remaining START issues so that we can sign that treaty at an early date. I also want to work with you to move ahead on our broader agenda. We have so much yet to achieve. Resolving the current problems now will set the stage for future progress.” (Department of State, Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control, International Security Affairs, Lot 05D259, Records of James Timbie, US-Russia BW, CTB Ratification, CFE Bartholomew May 1991)