218. Letter From President Bush to Soviet President Gorbachev1
I am gratified that, working together, you and I have been able to resolve all the remaining CFE issues. Building on that success, and proceeding on the same basis of cooperation and frankness, I propose that we now join forces in the same way to resolve the outstanding START issues. Let us use our close relationship, and our common commitment to reduce these most devastating weapons, to quickly overcome the remaining obstacles so that we can sign an historic START treaty at a summit in Moscow in the very near future.
[Page 1056]I am proceeding on the basis of the agreements reached by our Foreign Ministers in Houston on the following issues: continuous monitoring of mobile ICBM production, the accountability and inspections of heavy bombers, limitations on throw-weight, construction of new silos for heavy ICBMs, and how to attribute warheads to new types of ballistic missiles, including the application of the so-called “40 percent” rule. If you too are prepared to proceed on this basis, then I believe our hopes of resolving the remaining START issues quickly can be realized.
The remaining issues are few in number but central to the effectiveness of the treaty. To achieve a meaningful agreement, I propose that we be guided by the following principle: rather than attempting to maximize our respective advantages, we should aim to strengthen the agreement itself—its soundness, confidence in its integrity, and the stability it provides. In this spirit, I suggest we find a way to solve the stubborn problems of identifying “new types” of ballistic missiles, missile “downloading,” and data denial.
The issue of “new types” arises because the treaty applies different sets of rules to the types of missiles that each side now has in its arsenal and those types that may be fielded in the future. Thus, the boundary between “existing” and “new” is important. If we make it easy merely to declare a missile to be “new,” we will have left open a clear path to evade START limits. Moreover, if the boundary between “existing” and “new” cannot be verified with confidence, disagreements about whether a missile is “new” will become a constant and potentially serious source of friction in our relationship.
I believe we can deal with this problem by agreeing on the following simple principle: for a missile to be considered a “new type” in START, it must be genuinely new and verifiably different from any existing ballistic missile. If the missile is not such a “new type,” then the START rules for existing ballistic missiles would apply.
I believe that the criteria to which the two sides already have agreed faithfully reflect this principle, but there may be other ways to achieve the same objective. The key point is that the criteria support the principle and the spirit behind it, rather than be designed to accommodate missiles under development which one side or the other would prefer not be treated as existing ballistic missiles.
Following agreement between the two sides on the criteria for identifying new types of missiles, the Soviet side argued forcefully for making increases in throw-weight an additional criterion. We have explained in detail to the Soviet side our concerns that such an approach would not be a useful way to identify missiles that are genuinely new and verifiably different. Nevertheless, in the spirit of working together to overcome obstacles to prompt completion of START, I am prepared to agree that a missile whose throw-weight is at least 30 percent greater than the throw-weight of its predecessor missile and whose first stage [Page 1057] length differs in real terms by at least 5 percent from that missile should be treated as a new type.
The second issue concerns the “downloading” of warheads from ballistic missiles. Both sides face the practical need to adapt the forces we each now have to fit the new strategic reality that START will create. Downloading could be a key element in managing that transition.
The major problem with downloading is that it undermines the stability and predictability about each other’s strategic forces that START is intended to enhance. Warheads downloaded from missiles could readily be replaced so that the total number of missile warheads on a side could change rapidly and unpredictably, leading to a dramatic, destabilizing change in the strategic balance. That potential for instability is what lay behind the concerns we expressed about the warhead carrying capacity of your SS–18 and SS–N–23 missiles in the exchanges that preceded the 1987 Summit agreement between you and President Reagan. I assume that your questions during those exchanges about the capabilities of our Peacekeeper and D–5 missiles reflected similar concerns.
The 1987 Summit agreement represented a fair balancing of our respective concerns, but it also accepted an element of unpredictability about the strategic balance under START. Any changes in the 1987 agreement, including downloading you and I might agree to, would add to that uncertainty. That is the core of the problem and why I believe that downloading must be sharply limited. That also is why I believe that it is appropriate to treat the SS–N–18 issue in the context of an overall approach to downloading.
In my view, an approach that strikes the best balance between achieving the stability and predictability that START is designed to achieve, and avoiding wasteful scrapping of current missiles, would be to allow each side to equip and count one type of existing missile with fewer warheads than was agreed at the 1987 Summit. Under this approach, we could remove one or two warheads from our existing three-warhead Minuteman missiles. You could equip and count your SS–N–18 missiles at three warheads each instead of the seven that was agreed at the 1987 Summit. This approach would allow each of us to remove an approximately equal number of warheads while avoiding the risks to strategic stability that more extensive downloading would pose.
I recognize that the two sides may well identify other transition requirements that we do not now foresee and new ways to deal with the problems that downloading poses. Accordingly, I am prepared to agree that this approach should permit such additional downloading as the two sides might agree following entry into force of the START treaty.
The final issue concerns the ban on denying performance data about ballistic missiles. This provision is crucial to the transparency needed to build confidence and stability. It is indispensable to effective verification. [Page 1058] That is why it must be resolved before the treaty can be completed and signed. The sides already have broadly agreed to such a ban, but are bogged down in trying to agree on its implementation. You and I now need to issue instructions to complete work rapidly on this question.
As on the other issues, if you and I can agree on the principles to be applied, I am confident that a way can be found to translate them quickly into practice. We should agree that each side would use practices such that the other side can in fact acquire data about ballistic missile performance. Otherwise, the ban on data denial would be meaningless. Second, we should agree that each side would be obligated to ensure the other side can interpret and understand the data it acquires. Otherwise, a guarantee that the data will be received would likewise be hollow.
On the basis of these two principles, my senior advisers and experts have just completed an extensive review of this complex issue. The resulting approach takes fully into account concerns raised by the Soviet side and, I believe, provides a fair and equitable basis for resolving the issue promptly. We will be presenting our new and comprehensive proposal to the Soviet delegation in Geneva within the next few days. In light of the complexity and importance of this issue, I propose to send a special team of technical experts to Geneva that would be instructed to work with their Soviet counterparts to reach quick agreement on the necessary data denial provisions.
Mikhail, let me urge you to accept the approach I have laid out in this letter as the basis for the two of us to direct our negotiators to complete their work promptly. If you can do so, I am prepared to send a team of senior officials to Geneva immediately to meet with their Soviet counterparts in order to expedite resolution of the remaining START issues. On the same basis, I likewise am ready to ask Jim Baker to meet with Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh in the near future so that they can break through any remaining logjams and clear the way for a summit this summer at which you and I can sign the START treaty.
In sum, we should resolve the outstanding issues directly, decisively, and in a way that will produce an agreement that we together can proudly state will be effective and lasting. I know you share my commitment to such an achievement, which would crown our relationship and show that the United States and the Soviet Union continue to lead the way toward a safer world. This has become more important than ever as we intensify our efforts to thwart the spread of nuclear weapons.
I look forward to hearing from you on this and to expanding our cooperation in all areas.2
- Source: George H.W. Bush Library, Bush Presidential Records, National Security Council, NSC Intel (IFG, IFM, NS) Files, OA/ID CF01689, 9120433. Secret. Under cover of a memorandum of June 10, Scowcroft sent copies of the letter to Cheney, Powell, and Lehman. (Ibid.)↩
- Printed from an unsigned copy. In telegram 16084 from Moscow, June 10, 1991, the Embassy reported that Baker handed the letter to Bessmertnykh in Geneva on June 7. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, N910004–0438)↩