Office of the Historian

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

8572.
Geneva, August 5, 1991, 1503Z

SUBJECT

  • START: Soviet Unilateral Statement on Submarine Tunnels

1. Secret—Entire Text.

2. On the margins of initialling the START treaty on July 29, Nazarkin gave Brooks a Soviet unilateral statement on submarine tunnels. Nazarkin said that he had been instructed to make this statement at the closing plenary earlier in the day, but the statement was not ready in time.

3. Comment: The Soviet position up to and through the time of the plenary was that its unilateral statement on submarine tunnels had already been made. There was no hint that the statement would be made again and no copy was provided at the plenary. End comment.

4. Begin text of Soviet unilateral statement:

Unilateral Statement of the Soviet Side Regarding Underground Structures Adjacent to Waters in Which Ballistic Missile Submarines Operate

Since the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has underground structures located in the immediate vicinity of the Ara Inlet (Kola Peninsula), the Yagel’Naya Submarine Base (Kola Peninsula), and the Pavlovskoye Submarine Base (Primorskiy Kray), in connection with the treaty on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms and in order to settle the issue of these underground structures once and for all, the Soviet side states that these underground structures have no adits that make them accessible to waterborne craft of any displacement from adjacent waters and that the Soviet Union has no plans to construct and will not construct such adits as long as the treaty remains in force. Effective verification of this shall be ensured by national technical means.

The Soviet side proceeds from the premise that the United States of America does not have and will not construct similar underground structures as long as the treaty remains in force.

End Text.

Brooks
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D910745–0060. Secret; Priority; Exdis. Sent Priority for information to Moscow, the Mission to NATO, and USNMR SHAPE.↩