Foreign Relations of the United States, 1989–1992, Volume XXXI, START I, 1989–1991

237. Telegram From the Delegation to the Nuclear and Space Talks in Geneva to the Department of State¹

7939.

Geneva, July 18, 1991, 1247Z

SUBJECT

• START: The Mother of All Endgames

1. Secret—Entire Text.

Endgame

2. Congratulations to everyone who was involved in the dramatic breakthroughs on START which were made in Washington last week. Lint described this as the “greatest four days in the history of arms control.” While I might not go quite that far, it was clearly a magnificent achievement. With yesterday’s summit announcement,² the path is finally clear. I have been saying for quite some time that we needed a minimum of four weeks advance notice of the specific signing date in order to finish the treaty properly. Since we have been given only half that time, we will finish the treaty improperly. This will probably involve jettisoning certain material now in the inspection protocol and dropping it onto the JCIC, along with shortcuts of various kinds.

3. The U.S. delegation is enthusiastic about the next two weeks, though with some misgivings among the fainthearted. One alarming problem we have had here this week is that we are hearing what Jeff Garrison described as “the sound of one hand clapping.” Ambassador Obukhov and Colonel Koltunov, the two key actors on the Soviet side, have still not returned to Geneva. The Soviet delegation has no new instructions and no information on what was agreed in Washington beyond what we have told them. Thus it has been a frustrating and one-sided endgame thus far (presumably this will change dramatically in the next day or so). Nevertheless, it is clear that the Soviet delegation is seriously understaffed and may have problems with the sheer volume of mechanical work that will be required. They have been showing up for meetings without Soviet interpreters for several days now.

4. Perhaps a brief snapshot of where we stand with the major pieces of the treaty would be useful:

— The treaty text proper has about 50 sets of brackets remaining. This should not be a major problem, and we will probably clear these away in one or two ambassadorial-level sessions next week. The major problem here as elsewhere is the slow Soviet response time.

— The definitions annex is in good shape with only a handful of problems remaining.

— There are now 17 agreed statements fully agreed, with several more in the works.

— Letters to be exchanged continue to proliferate at an alarming rate, but should not be a problem. The current count is about 20.

— We currently have 14 formal statements for the record, to be recited at a closing plenary July 26 or 27.

— The conversion or elimination protocol is fully agreed and printed on treaty paper, although it may be reopened for minor fixes.

— The MOU on data exchange appears to be on schedule, although troublesome conforming issues which ripple through many pages continue to arise. Our latest proposal on the confidentiality of geographic coordinates, which has been a real headache recently, has been accepted ad ref by the Soviets. The 30-day grace period for the exchange of site diagrams has removed for the time being what could have been a real disaster.

— The inspection protocol remains the greatest source of problems for both sides. Frantic work is going on and people believe that the 175 pages of the protocol proper will be ready. The 10 annexes, however, may be another story. A couple of these contain crucial general procedures for conducting inspections and they should get high priority in the next few days. Others, in particular the detailed listing of equipment desired by OSIA, could be dropped into the JCIC if not completed by the summit. Fortunately, imperfections in the inspection protocol and its annexes can be fixed by the JCIC later without resorting to the amendment process.

5. The new treaty article and protocol dealing with telemetry have now been drafted and, cross your fingers, should be readily accepted by the Soviets. Much work apparently remains in the area of HB/ALCM issues. It was a big mistake to allow all of these issues, many of which were quite trivial, to remain until the end. However, good people are working hard on this area and one assumes it will turn out satisfactorily.

6. My personal bottom line on all of this is that the President will have the full treaty ready for signature in Moscow. Whether all of your loyal negotiators will survive the process is another question. Continued statements by the President and the Secretary that we do not need to dot every i and cross every t are puzzling to both sides here. I assume we are just prudently laying down markers that some things will be deferred to the JCIC. We understand that there is an opening in the President’s schedule on August 2 after his visit to Kiev. My advice would be to keep that open, because given the very few days we have been allowed for endgame, an extra day or two could be crucial.

The Future

7. Roslyakov has repeatedly asked me whether the USG is ready for the “consultations” about future talks to which we are committed promptly after signature. Our most recent (one-sided) discussion of this subject was on June 10 (Geneva 7770, NST/START XV-M-366).³ Lint called attention to this in his expedited guidance request No. 1 to the ungroup yesterday.⁴ I am not sure of Washington’s state of thinking on future negotiations, although I do know that Bob Einhorn has been thinking about this for some time and has written a paper or two on the subject. I will venture a few tentative thoughts and predictions on the subject together with the strong recommendation that we must be prepared to engage at least in a general sense at the summit on the subject.

8. I believe that Gorbachev and the Foreign Ministry will push for a relatively rapid plunge into START II. They, of course, will have a broader agenda of arms control topics, including naval arms control, further constraints on nuclear testing and possibly SNF. I believe that we should go slow on the question of START II, especially until ratification has been completed. We do not want to appear to be negotiating on further reductions until the Senate has exercised its prerogatives. At a minimum, we should not plunge into new negotiations until we have established reasonably clear U.S. goals for next steps. Preferably, such negotiations would not begin until these goals have been generally agreed with the Soviets. I understand that some thought has been given to the so-called “stability talks,” a new venture which has been agreed in principle with the Soviets. Such talks could begin after ratification and could lead to an agreed mandate for further strategic arms negotiations, with the mandate being blessed by the foreign ministers. The 1985 Shultz/Gromyko meeting provides a useful precedent. One thing is clear—no reasonable person on either side should want another 10-year negotiation which results in another 1000-page treaty.

9. The defense and space negotiations are a delicate subject which requires some special considerations. In as much as there is no state representative for these negotiations here, I will venture a few thoughts on this subject also. I assume that senior people in the Department are aware that the defense and space talks have for a long time been a hopeless enterprise and the subject of ridicule by both sides here. I want to stress that this is not the fault of the U.S. negotiators, who continue to show remarkable patience and good humor and perform in a highly professional manner. The problem is that they are saddled with a hopeless U.S. position and must deal with hopeless Soviet counterparts. There is no reason to believe that this will change for the better if the negotiations continue in their present form as if nothing had happened.

10. You have the defense and space delegation’s request for guidance (Geneva 7815, DST-XV-17)⁵ on the future of defense and space. Roslyakov has told me repeatedly that the Soviets’ agreement at the 1990 summit to continue defense and space “without delay” after START signature was given almost no thought at the time by senior Soviet officials, and he has strongly implied that it does not represent current Soviet thinking. On the other hand, Nazarkin seems relaxed on the subject. For the Soviets to refuse to continue negotiations which they insisted upon starting and which deal with a U.S. program they find threatening is also not very credible. Thus, I believe they may want to continue to negotiate on ABM defenses, but with a different negotiating format and one that is tied more closely to negotiations on offensive systems. The question is does the USG actually want to reach some realistic agreement on this subject, or merely continue to be able to say that negotiations are going on to meet some alleged political requirement? If it is the former, people need to understand that a lot of bad feelings and lack of credibility have been generated by six years of non-serious negotiations here. What would be needed seems to me to be a reorganization/recertification of the effort, not a mere continuation without delay.

11. I have been saying for some years that the Soviets will agree to amend the ABM treaty to allow a larger number of ground-based deployment sites with a larger number of ground-based interceptors. They may also agree to loosen the ABM treaty’s constraints on sensors in space. They would also probably be willing to meet us somewhere between the broad and narrow interpretations of the ABM treaty, if we were willing to negotiate on such matters. Of course, the U.S. side has never made any proposal along these lines. What the Soviets will demand in exchange for the above concessions is, I believe, a continued prohibition on kill mechanisms in space and a renewed long-term U.S. commitment to clear constraints on ABM systems and activities. Presumably, the U.S. will want to keep the door open for a cooperative transition to a greater reliance upon defense in the future than would be represented by the above set of provisions. Thus, I believe that the compromise available to both sides would be a loosening of the ABM treaty’s constraints, together with agreed prohibitions on other possible deployments and activities for an agreed time period. The net effect of this would be to block deployment and some testing of Brilliant Pebbles and other ambitious possibilities for some number of years, but with the door left ajar, which it is not under the current legal regime. The way in which all of this might or might not be linked to future negotiations to strategic offensive arms is left as an exercise for the reader.

Brooks

1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D910686–0672. Secret; Immediate.
2. In an evening news conference at the London Economic Summit on July 17, following a joint news conference with Gorbachev earlier in the day, President Bush declared that “We’ve today concluded with the Soviet Union a nuclear arms treaty that will begin the reduction of long-range nuclear weapons,” and that he intended to meet with Gorbachev in Moscow from July 30–31. (Public Papers: Bush, 1991, p. 907)
3. Reference is to telegram 7700 from NST Geneva, July 15 (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D910671–0674)
4. Not found.
5. Reference is to telegram 7815 from NST Geneva, July 16 (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D910676–0752)