60. Memorandum of Conversation1
SUBJECT
- First Expanded Bilateral Session with Chairman Gorbachev of the Soviet Union (U)
PARTICIPANTS
U.S.
- The President
- James A. Baker, Secretary of State
- John H. Sununu, Chief of Staff
- Brent Scowcroft, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
- Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
- Robert Zoellick, Counsellor to the Department, Department of State
- Robert D. Blackwill, Special Assistant to the President for European and Soviet Affairs
- Interpreter
USSR
- Mikhail Gorbachev, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
- Eduard Shevardnadze, Minister of Foreign Affairs
- Aleksandr Yakovlev, Chairman, International Policy
- Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, First Deputy Minister of Foreign affairs
- Anatoliy Chernyaev, Aide to the General Secretary, CPSU
- Anatoliy Dobrynin, Adviser to the Chairman
- Sergey Akhromeyev, Adviser to the Chairman
- Interpreter
The President: General Scowcroft said that his conversation with General Akhromeyev was the best that he had ever had with a Soviet official. (U)
Chairman Gorbachev: Our meeting was at your initiative. It is for me to begin and welcome you and your close associates. The first thing to do is to note and appreciate your initiative to hold this meeting. Initially, I wondered why you wanted this meeting, but now I know that a lot is happening. That is the most important thing. We have to find a dialogue commensurate with the pace of change. We need more working contacts. Since the changes underway affect fundamental things, even Ministerial contacts are not enough now. You and I have to be more active in developing personal contacts. This must be regarded [Page 403] as a prelude to the official Summit, but this meeting will have an importance of its own. (C)
The President: I agree. (U)
Chairman Gorbachev: I like informal meetings. I think we need more than correspondence. We need to talk to each other. Both for the U.S. and the USSR, and for the world, this meeting is more than just a symbol. Our people are looking forward to our getting down to business. So welcome, Mr. President, we are at your disposal. (U)
The President: Thank you for your welcome. It is true that this particular meeting was my idea. In doing so, I had the feeling you would be most agreeable to this kind of meeting. I think I told you that when I drafted my letter on the way back from Paris, I was changing 180 degrees on the need and benefit of such a meeting. That change of heart has been well received in my country for the most part. Since the genesis of this idea, there have been so many dramatic changes in the world. I want to be sure how you view them, including in Eastern Europe, and for you to understand the way I see things. Before the end of these two days, I hope you and I can get together, perhaps with one notetaker. (C)
Chairman Gorbachev: It is very necessary, because they will get tired of us and we will get tired of them. (U)
The President: You said it, pal. But such a talk between us would be very useful. (U)
Chairman Gorbachev: I have the feeling that this is a continuation of our two previous talks. (U)
The President: I feel those were comfortable. There were no kicks under the table. With your permission, I would like to put some ideas on the table, but it is your choice. The first page is boilerplate, so I may skip it. Where it says this is a chance to have a serious discussion, I know you agree. I do want to say that the world will be a better place if perestroika succeeds. I know you had some doubt in New York. You made a statement in New York, which I still remember. You said some U.S. elements want to see perestroika fail. I can’t say there are no such elements in the U.S.—but there are no serious elements, and most Americans don’t feel that way. As we sit and try to analyze change in Eastern Europe and admire perestroika, there are bound to be differences in the analytical community. But you are dealing with an Administration and, for the most part, a Congress that want to see you succeed. (C)
What I propose to do now is to spell out positive initiatives, not in the sense of negotiating teams, but to set down a framework of areas in which we want to move forward with you. I would like to set the time of a 1990 Summit for several days in the last two weeks of June and set [Page 404] the day for the Ministerials. Jim’s thought is the end of January, but of course we will be flexible.
[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]
The President: Arms control: I want to get rid of chemical weapons. I mean it. Let me offer a new suggestion, granting a concession on my part. If you will agree to the CW initiative I put forward at the UN in September, I am prepared to terminate the U.S. binary modernization program as soon as a global ban is in force. I hope we can get agreement to substantially reduce our stockpiles. CFE: I want to complete a CFE Treaty. High level political attention from your side and our side will be needed to get it done. I worry about getting bogged down in the bureaucracies. I would like to have a goal of a CFE Summit in Vienna to sign a CFE Treaty in 1990. On START, I want to put some steam behind the process. You and I should agree to get all our differences out of the way by the 1990 Summit and hopefully conclude a treaty by then. To that end, we need to concentrate on three issues—ALCM’s, non-deployed missiles, and telemetry encryption—to be resolved at the January Ministerial meeting. I am expediting the START process. We will table most major issues by the January meeting, and will table all positions by the time of the next Ministerial following the Open Skies conference.2 I am instructing my negotiator in Geneva to lift the U.S.-proposed ban on mobiles and make acceptance of mobile ICBMs part of the negotiating text. I would also like you to consider an idea that would improve strategic stability. The SS-18 is the only “heavy” missile in either arsenal. I hope you will consider ending modernization of the SS-18 and deeper unilateral reductions in the SS-18 force. On nuclear testing, I propose that we complete the TTBT and PNET protocols for signature at our summit next year. In addition, I propose that you announce a unilateral decision to adhere to the limits of the Missile Technology Control Regime, to which the U.S. and six other industrial powers adhere. [The Soviets didn’t seem to know what we are talking about.] On your military budget, could you consider making public the details of your budget, force posture, and weapons production figures, the way the U.S. does? As a former CIA man, I hope you got these from the KGB before our meeting. (S)
Chairman Gorbachev: They say you are not publishing everything. (C)
The President: I hope you can do this as a trust-building measure. Let me raise some general points for the future. I suggest that we support Berlin as the Olympic site in 2004. This would be a fitting symbol of the new era in East-West relations. On the environment, I know you are getting hit hard. I am getting hit hard. Global climate change [Page 405] is a key issue. Some in the West want to shut down the whole world because of global climate change. We have resisted shutting down the economies of certain countries. We chair two of the three bodies dealing with the issue. There are two steps I intend to take. First, I will offer to host a conference next fall to negotiate a framework treaty on global climate change, after the working groups on the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change complete their final report. There is a lot of science that needs to be factored into this. We have Dr. Allan Bromley, an internationally known scientist, in the White House. I will ask him to convene a White House meeting next spring for top level scientific, environmental, and economic officials to discuss global climate change issues. I hope you will send your top officials in the field. This is my very last point. So much depends on young people, that I would like to propose that we ask our relevant officials to develop a program of university exchanges for Soviet and American undergraduates. Let’s aim to have 1000 young—say, under the age of 25—Soviet people and 1000 Americans studying in each other’s country by the start of the 1991 school year. We are not locked in by numbers; perhaps we can increase these. Perhaps a formula like this would be possible. We have good land grant colleges. This is the end of my non-agenda. (S)
[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]
As for START, our negotiators need new instructions from our level. But your remarks are very important from that standpoint. I thank you for placing bilateral cooperation at the top of the agenda.
[Omitted here are discussions not related to START.]
Chairman Gorbachev: Without details on CFE, let me respond to your proposal. This is 100% the same proposal we have been pushing. It is very important. As for START, we need political will. I listened carefully to what you have said. I heard nothing from you on SLCMs. I understand that you were in the Navy. (S)
The President: They didn’t have SLCMs when I was in. I’m too old.
President Gorbachev: By June, it is realistic to expect that a START Treaty could be completed. But if we cannot solve SLCM by then, that could cause significant problems. You have a significant advantage. Marshal Akhromeyev and General Scowcroft have discussed some suggestions on this. (C)
The President: Maybe they can talk further. (U)
President Gorbachev: It’s a problem and both sides consider it a problem. We don’t think on all issues we have to be neck and neck. There are differences in the structures of our forces. But nuclear SLCM are a serious factor if we reduce everything else while those remain without some SLCM constraints. And the Supreme Soviet would not ratify. (S)
Secretary Baker: Come on. That’s our argument.
[Page 406]President Gorbachev: As for nuclear testing and publicizing our military budget, we take note of your proposals. I welcome your suggestions for further cooperation. We will participate in that White House meeting. In summing up, we could particularly note these.
- Source: George H.W. Bush Library, Bush Presidential Records, National Security Council, Condoleezza Rice Files, Soviet Union/USSR Subject Files, OA/ID CF00178–008, Summit at Malta December 1989: Malta Memcons [1]. Secret; Sensitive; Nodis. Brackets are in the original. The meeting took place on the Maxim Gorky cruise liner. The full memorandum of conversation is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1989–1992, vol. III, Soviet Union, Russia, and Post-Soviet States: High-Level Contacts. Bush flew to Valleta, Malta, on November 30 in advance of his December 2–3 meeting with Gorbachev.↩
- Negotiations on a Treaty on Open Skies began in Ottawa in February 1990 and continued in Budapest in April and May 1990.↩