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

41. Memorandum From the Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology (Bartholomew) to Secretary of State Baker¹

Washington, August 7, 1989

SUBJECT

• Arms Control at the September Ministerial

This is the planning memo I said I would send you. Elements of it are being worked in the Department and interagency. I’d like your reactions/guidance on your return from Houston (we can discuss the START aspects with Rick Burt at your August 11 meeting).² If you think we are on the right track, you might take it up with Scowcroft and Cheney and with the President at your August 11 meeting. Caveat: We know Gorbachev will be writing to the President and we will want to look again at our aims for the Ministerial in light of what he has to say.

What We Want to Accomplish at the Ministerial

START

— Verification and stability (V/S) measures: (a) Baker-Shevardnadze signature of the exercise notification agreement; (b) agreement in principle on one or more of the other six V/S measures we’ve tabled.

— ALCMs/Heavy Bombers: Agreement on a package that closes this major subject of the negotiations (e.g., count ALCMS favorably, preserve U.S. conventional ALCM programs, exempt conventional bombers).

— Mobile ICBM verification: Agreement expanding the common ground on verification procedures reached at the Moscow Summit (e.g. agreement on notification and deployment areas).

— Unit of account: Agreement on the role of missiles vice launchers as the basis for the terms of the treaty, resolving a large number of brackets in the JDT (to be done by the Working Group).

Nuclear Testing

— Agreement on Soviet proposed compromise (we get CORRTEX, they get seismic stations) on TTBT verification protocol, allowing the delegations to complete the TTBT and PNET protocol texts in time for signature at a spring summit.

CFE

— Press Shevardnadze to move to our aircraft definition and not press naval forces, as necessary to avoid obstacles that could impede early CFE agreement.

Chemical Weapons

— Sign MOU establishing an early bilateral data exchange and visits to a number of storage sites and production plants. Issue a covering communique recording the progress that has been made toward a CW treaty and destruction of stocks.

— Propose new ideas for the CW treaty, including moving from “anywhere/anytime” to START-like inspection procedures, and adding export controls to the draft text.

— Seek Soviet support for our Canberra objectives, including establishment of an early secretariat for exchange of information on transfers of precursor chemicals.

Proliferation

— Missile: Compare assessments; set November date for bilateral talks.

— Chemical: Compare assessments; propose cooperation on Canberra follow-up.

— Nuclear: Seek Shevardnadze response on Soviet action on North Korea, raise Iran.

All or even a good part of the foregoing would be a solid, substantive outcome for the Ministerial.

On START, the package includes four of the five subjects that Rick and Nazarkin identify as ready for the Ministers to address. (You should read Rick’s very good message at Tab A). It will take some doing to get interagency agreement on the START package, especially the ALCM/heavy bomber element, but it would give a big boost to START and we should go for it. On the fifth element that Nazarkin identified—SLCMs—Rick says we should consider an agreement to discuss SLCM verification but as he also notes, DOD will strongly resist doing anything on SLCMs for fear of the “slippery slope”.

On nuclear testing the Soviets have offered a package solution in which we get CORRTEX and they get three seismic stations in both countries. This is an attractive offer that we should work with (we would negotiate over the trigger level and the number of seismic stations). But DOD will strongly oppose this because they fear seismic stations could lay the basis for verification of a CTB. If we can overcome DOD resistance so that you and Shevardnadze could agree on the basic solution at the Ministerial, that would allow the delegations to complete the TTBT and PNET protocols in time for signature at a spring summit, which would be a considerable achievement.

On CW, we are going to try to work out the data exchange/visits MOU at the August bilaterals with the Soviets in Geneva, along with the communique that would record the MOU and other progress that has been made toward a CW treaty. These steps would support our efforts at the Canberra Conference which will be held at the same time as the Ministerial.

On the CW treaty, the Soviets are zeroing in on the inconsistency between our CW and START positions on challenge inspection. We are trying to get a meeting scheduled with the President and Cheney to discuss a CW initiative, including moving from “anywhere/anytime” to a START-like approach to challenge inspection.

Soviet Objectives at the Ministerial and Our Response

We will know more about Soviet aims for the meeting when we see the Gorbachev letter. Everything indicates that the letter will be substantive. We expect at a minimum that it will respond and make counterproposals on CFE and V/S and it may well include a menu of proposals on other subjects.

In any event we are predicating our approach to the Ministerial on the view that Shevardnadze will come prepared for a real give and take. In Paris he appeared to be looking for ways to accelerate progress. And Soviet behavior in Geneva and Vienna indicates they want to move forward on nuclear testing, CFE, START and CW.

Structure of the Ministerial

It is important that the Ministers interact with the Working Group. The secret to getting issues resolved is to hand them back and forth between the Ministers and the Working Group. The Working Group can narrow differences and frame issues for decision. Ministers can then take them on, and hand them back to the Working Group with guidance on how to resolve problems. This type of interaction was used to crack some of the tough nuts in INF.

I plan to chair the US group again, with Ron Lehman at my right hand, and Rick at my left. Karpov will have Nazarkin. This union of people from capitals and from the negotiations makes the Working Group more than just another session in Geneva. For special tasks I may break off Rick and the other negotiators to subgroups.

At the May Ministerial in Moscow the suggestion was made that next time the Working Groups meet a few days before the Ministers. This is still a good idea. But for the reasons outlined above, it is important that the Working Groups continue to meet through the Ministerial, with close contact with the Ministers.

What Needs to Be Done

Considerable work is already underway.

My office is coordinating the work of PM, EUR, and other bureaus to analyze alternative approaches on the key issues we hope to resolve and to draft talking points for you to use with Shevardnadze and me to use with Karpov. Arnie Kanter is coordinating the interagency work, and we are working closely with him.

As noted above, you can outline our ideas at your August 11 meeting with the President and Scowcroft, and discuss them with Cheney as well.

Tab A

Message From the Head of the Delegation to the Nuclear and Space Talks (Burt) to Secretary of State Baker³

0014.

Geneva, undated

SUBJECT

• START: Some Thoughts on Where We Stand

1. We are getting ready to wrap up our current negotiating round here in Geneva and I want to give you my entirely personal impressions of where we stand and some ideas about where we should go from here, including in your September meeting with Shevardnadze.

2. As you know, I approached this first Bush Administration round as a reconnaissance mission; to get a feel for the rhythm and routine of negotiating with the Gorbachev-era Soviets. In fact, it was more than this; some solid progress was made. The Soviets finally agreed to give us equal rights to heavy ICBMs and to accept the principle of equal, intermediate ceilings as START reductions are carried out. That said, my single most important impression of these negotiations has more to do with their overall atmosphere than their technical details: the Soviets really want a START agreement and they are thus ready to deal.

3. I’m sure that Sovietologists can offer a number of explanations for Moscow’s current attitude. In my view, it reflects in part Gorbachev’s domestic difficulties and his hope that a major accord reducing nuclear arms would bolster his standing at home and abroad. I also believe that a START agreement, in Gorbachev’s mind, would give a boost to Perestroika. While a CFE accord would result in larger short-term savings, my Soviet counterpart has told me Moscow hopes that a START treaty would begin a process in which the Soviet high-tech establishment—now heavily preoccupied with the strategic arms race—could be diverted to the task of regenerating the Soviet economy. Whatever the explanation, the bottom line, at least from my vantage point in Geneva, is clear: if we want a good agreement in a year or two, this Administration can achieve one.

4. If this is the goal, we need to begin thinking now about overall strategy and specific tactics. In General, our goal should be to make steady progress in the talks so that you and the President will have the option of moving into the end game at a politically opportune time. As I have become painfully aware during this round, this will not be easy. We have not only inherited one of the longest and most complex negotiations in diplomatic history (over 450 pages of joint draft text with 1,000 or so brackets), but the Washington bureaucracy has developed the habit of micromanaging negotiating issues while deferring tough decisions on policy issues. In a nutshell, START, to quote a senior OSD official, could well turn into “the MBFR of the 1990s,” an endlessly complicated diplomatic charade.

5. Assuming we want to avoid this, we need to exploit the opportunities for movement that high-level U.S.–Soviet meetings, especially summits, will offer us. To do this, I suggest we follow a two-track approach. The first-track would consist of your full-dress ministerials with Shevardnadze, including the associated arms control expert meetings. Based on our work here in Geneva, I believe that a month or so before each meeting you should select two or three key START issues that are “ripe” for agreement. After the necessary spadework in Washington, you would then be in the position to move these issues to closure with Shevardnadze. Meeting separately, the experts should not only prepare the ground for your handling of big-ticket items, but they should also shoot at resolving some second-tier issues on their own.

6. Looking toward your September meeting, I have, at Reg’s suggestion, discussed an agenda of START-related issues with my counterpart. Briefly, they are:

— Verification and stability: Here I think our goal should not only be to get the Soviets to buy onto the concept—they have already indicated they will. We should try to go further by having you and Shevardnadze sign the strategic exercise notification accord and also getting him to agree “in principle” to the idea of quickly completing accords on one or more of the other six proposals.

— ALCMs and heavy bombers: of the “big” START issues still in dispute, I believe this is the one that is most amenable to solution right now. The issue is really a collection of many differences, including ALCM counting, range and distinguishability. If both sides are ready to engage in a little horse-trading, I don’t see any reason that it couldn’t be resolved next month. I will have a specific proposal for you when I get back to Washington next week.

— Mobile missiles: the big question here is whether funding on the Hill for the MX rail garrison and the Midgetman is secure enough to enable us to lift our proposed ban on mobiles. If it is, this is a move we could take at the ministerial, either by permitting both rail and road-variants, or by taking the riskier, but more stabilizing step of only allowing single-warhead, road-mobile systems.

— Warheads vs. launchers: This is a mostly theological issue that has its origins in the SALT II debate. Because it is the source of so many brackets in the treaty text, I would hope that the arms control experts could work out a compromise formulation that could be blessed at your level.

— SLCMs: this is obviously a Soviet agenda item and I don’t think there is much you should or could do on the issue next month. That said, Soviet thinking on SLCMs is clearly in flux and we should hear them out. Beyond that, one step we could take in September would be to agree to engage on SLCM verification. At the Washington summit in 1987 we not only agreed to SLCM limits but to seek an effective verification regime. However, for the last two years, we have resisted being drawn into any systematic dialogue on verification. This is not only an untenable position over the long run, but we might be able to get something from the Soviets by simply agreeing to talk about monitoring SLCMs. You should know, however, that OSD and the Chiefs will strongly resist doing anything on SLCMs.

7. In a nutshell, then, there are plenty of START issues that could be profitably addressed during your September meeting. The corollary is that if they are not covered in Washington, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to move them forward in Geneva.

8. This brings me to the ‘‘second-track” of a strategy for moving START—the Geneva negotiations themselves. Although I am lucky to lead a talented and experienced negotiating team, there is passive mindset here that relfects the fact that in recent years, the real action in the talks occurred at the ministerials rather than Geneva. It also reflects the close watch that the Washington bureaucracy keeps on Geneva, to ensure that nothing happens there that hasn’t been vetted and approved in detail beforehand. But much more work on second and third-tier issues needs to be done in Geneva. Putting it bluntly, I think many of us have been lulled by reports that a START treaty is 80 to 90 percent completed and only four or five major issues remain. This is simply not the case. If progress in Geneva continues at the current rate, I am afraid there will be no possibility of a completed agreement in the first term of a Bush Administration. In my view, this is alarming because down the road the perception that we had dropped the ball on the most important arms control accord every would entail real political costs.

9. Thus, in addition to well-prepared ministerials, there are some steps we should take to breath new life into the Geneva exercise: (A) Use the interagency process to simplify the START text. The current reviews under way in Washington on such topics as non-deployed missiles and perimeter-portal monitoring should be designed to make our position less complicated. I’m worried that we are currently headed in the opposite direction. (B) Give the delegation more authority. We have a strong interagency team in Geneva that works far more effectively than the interagency process in Washington. We sould rely on it more. (C) Rather than micromanaging Geneva, force the interagency process to fill in the remaining gaps in our positions on some reasonable schedule. In the first six months of the Bush Administration, we have failed to fill in a single gap in our START position. Indeed, we are in the process now of reopening many of the decisions that were taken last year.

10. In conclusion, we may be approaching a turning point in START. It is far from clear that the opportunity that now exists for START will be available indefinitely. If START drifts, Gorbachev may not be in the posiion a few years from now to deliver the tough decisions that a START treaty requires. As a result, putting the talks on the back-burner could mean letting an important chance for moving “beyond containment” slip from our grasp. At the same time, a crash effort to wrap up a treaty would clearly send the wrong signal to Moscow and would be bad politics at home. We can best exploit Gorbachev’s current desire for an agreement by pursuing a measured, step-by-step approach to START that puts the President and you in the position to close a deal two years from now while avoiding a last-minute rush to judgment. I look forward to discussing these issues with you soon in Washington. Cheers, Rick.

Burt

1. Source: Department of State, Verification, Compliance and Implementation, Subject Files, 1983–2005, Lot 06D436, Wyoming Ministerial, Sept. 18–23, 1989. Secret.
2. Not further identified.
3. Secret.