221. Telegram From the Delegation to the Nuclear and Space Talks in Geneva to the Department of State1
6345.
Geneva, June 6, 1991,
1004Z
SUBJECT
- START: And Now for the Big One
- 1.
- Secret—Entire Text.
- 2.
- Congratulations on the very successful resolution of the difficult CFE problems. The spotlight now turns to START and the summit, which will be more difficult. We are getting rumors here that announcement of a summit date is imminent. Faced with the risk of giving advice and then looking foolish and uninformed when the announcement is made, or waiting until the announcement is made and thus having no input at all, I will opt for the former. There is general agreement here on both delegations that signing the treaty this month is not a realistic goal. However, assuming the go button is pushed, and pushed hard, now in both capitals, our judgment is that we could complete the treaty in July. Other things being equal, which they probably are not, my personal recommendation would be to schedule the summit for the last week of July or the first week of August accompanied by a firm commitment to sign the treaty at that time. I believe Lint Brooks generally agrees with this. I was told yesterday by Roslyakov that the Soviet delegation’s view is that the period around July 20 would be a reasonable target date.
- 3.
- We are getting vibrations that, for political reasons, holding the summit in June may be an overriding goal. The conventional wisdom here on both sides has been for a long time that holding the next summit and not signing the treaty would be disastrous for the negotiations and perhaps kill the treaty altogether. Naturally, such a worst case scenario would not come to pass if a June summit were followed in July or August by another summit/signing ceremony at which START were concluded. The main thing that is needed, from our point of view, is to set a firm date for completion of the treaty. I understand that this is somewhat of a chicken and egg problem—on the one hand there is some risk in setting a date before one is absolutely certain that it is achievable, but on the other hand without the pressure of a date certain, the remaining problems never will be solved.
- 4.
- The references to a “framework agreement” have caused a bit of a stir here on the Soviet side, according to Roslyakov. Given the baggage carried by this phrase, it should be avoided. In particular, the USG violently opposed a framework agreement three or four years ago, claiming that the negotiations had gone far beyond the stage where this would be useful. The Soviets remember this very well. Likewise, “agreement in principle” would not be a felicitous phrase to use, since we have had an agreement in principle on the START treaty for an even longer period. The device which has been, and could continue to be used to signal solutions of difficult problems is the elements of common ground. A document with this or a similar title which resolved issues like data denial, downloading, production units, new types, etc. could be useful at or before an otherwise STARTless summit.
- 5.
- I understand from Roslyakov that the Soviets have proposed that the ungroup come to Geneva to meet with Obukhov. Roslyakov said that Moiseyev might attend such a meeting. In terms of timing, you should know that Nazarkin, Katayev and Koltunov are now in Moscow and are not expected back here before June 9 at the earliest. If such a meeting occurs in the near future, it should have an agenda agreed in advance and should include at least some of the big items mentioned above. The only one of these that I might be able to provide some new information on would be production units. Within the last two days, several of us have gotten indications that there is more to come on production units and that it may well involve changes in current Soviet practices which will ease our concerns. Thus, we should not overreact to what we have heard thus far from Obukhov, which is certainly not the complete story. Significantly, Roslyakov told me that it may be that production units do not exist or, if they do exist at present, perhaps they will not exist after entry into force. The solution which is emerging may be that solid rocket motors would be sent directly from the production facility to the test facility, where the nozzles and any other components [Page 1067] needed to conduct a test would be added. This would be in addition to the change in current practices the Soviets have already offered for SS–18s at Pavlograd.
Brooks
- Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D910542–0143. Secret; Immediate.↩