231. Editorial Note
From July 11–14, 1991, Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh, Secretary of State James Baker, and their respective delegations met in Washington. According to talking points prepared for Baker’s first private meeting with Bessmertnykh, “Sasha, the purpose of our getting together now is to close on the outstanding issues in START. The President suggested this meeting as a way—the only way—to resolve the remaining START issues so we can schedule a summit for the end of July.” (Department of State, Policy Planning Staff, Lot 03D012, Dennis Ross Files, US Moscow Ministerial July 11–14, 1991) No memoranda of conversations were found.
On July 15, Baker and Bessmertnykh delivered remarks at the conclusion of their meetings. Baker stated: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been working hard, continuously since Thursday afternoon. We have now reached agreement on almost all of the outstanding issues that remained when Minister Bessmertnykh arrived in Washington. In fact we had reached agreement on all of them, save for one. We’ve reached agreement with respect to the issues of downloading and data denial—or telemetry encryption—and on all but one of the issues associated with the question of new types of missiles. The one issue upon which we not been able to agree has to do with the definition of throw-weight for the purpose of determining whether a missile is a missile of a new type. This is a very technical issue, and our technicians and experts will continue to work on this issue. Perhaps the Minister and I might be able to follow up ourselves when the Presidents get together in London next Wednesday. Let met say, finally, while we were unable to conclude this one final issue, we have made what I would characterize as outstanding progress toward completion of a START agreement. And I’d like to thank the Minister and his entire delegation for the very constructive and workmanlike way in which they have engaged with us over the course of this past 3 days.”
Bessmertnykh responded: “I would like to add to that that it was really a tremendous effort on both sides to solve several most difficult issues involving the START treaty. They were the most difficult, because they were the last to decide. Our people who have been dealing with those things couldn’t do it for months, and sometimes even years they spent on those issues. So, I [am] really very much satisfied with the job we have done together with the American team, headed by the Secretary of State. I do believe we have managed to solve the most difficult things that were left on the negotiating table. We have solved this data denial issue. We have solved [the] downloading issues and several other—maybe about a dozen other—issues that were discussed here in Washington. We have one very technical aspect of a problem to [Page 1099] deal with, and I hope we’ll finish it soon. Unfortunately, we are both leaving Washington—the Secretary’s going to London, and I’m going to Moscow. But in several hours, I’ll be also going to London. So we shall be in touch on that particular aspect, and I hope we shall be dealing with this in the future days and solve them all. It’s a tremendous step forward to finalizing the START treaty. The long journey of 9 years is coming really to the end, and I would like to thank the Secretary and his fine team that worked with us days and nights and who are a little bit exhausted. But everybody’s happy about the amount of the job we have accomplished, so thank you very much.” (Department of State Dispatch, July 15, 1991, p. 503; brackets are in the original)