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

88. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Windhoek, Namibia, March 20, 1990, 6–9:30 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

• Secretary Baker
• Eduard Shevardnadze

Baker: I am glad to have an opportunity to talk and see you. There have been a lot of things happening around the world since we last met. And I think we will have a good deal to talk about. You are the guest here so I would like to allow you to set the agenda, but before you do could I first go over two housekeeping items?

First, I am going to give you a letter² which you do not need to read now, which is on open skies. What I have outlined in the letter is a proposal for removing some of the obstacles on open skies. Please study it at your leisure and then respond to me when you can.

Shevardnadze: I feel there is a need for us to sort out what is happening in those talks.

Baker: Well I propose some things that move us in your direction and also have you moving in ours.

Shevardnadze: That’s good. I am sure that this is a question on which we can agree.

Baker: Second item—the timing of the Summit. I gave you some dates through Ambassador Matlock and those dates of June 18–22 I understand could be a bit of a problem for you because they are too close to the Party Congress date. And if those dates are not convenient for you, then we would be prepared to move up the timing of the Summit by one week. So, in other words, instead of meeting from June 18–22 we could meet from June 11–15. Regardless of which week you would come, we would hope that President Gorbachev would arrive on either Tuesday, June 12th or Tuesday, June 19th. Then we could have meetings that day and then the next day, perhaps in the evening a State dinner and that would be on either June 13th or June 20th. President Bush would then like it if President Gorbachev could come up to his home in Maine at Kennebunkport, that would be on either June 15th or June 22nd. That would leave time for meetings with Congress or others on June 14th or June 21st. Then you would be able to leave from Pease AFB on either June 16th or the 23rd. I know that President Reagan would like President Gorbachev to visit in California and President Bush has no objection, provided that time does not detract from the program I have just outlined. In other words, President Bush would hope that any visit to California would not come at the expense of President Gorbachev’s time in either Washington or Kennebunkport. I know this is short notice and you will need time to confer with President Gorbachev on timing and on the scenario I have outlined for the visit to President Bush’s home.

Shevardnadze: Thank you. We did consider the dates that Ambassador Matlock gave us very carefully. The problem with the original date is that it is not convenient because of the first Party Congress of the Russian Federal Republic. We’ve never had such a Congress before in the past. This republic only has had regional organizations, not a Congress. This is an important event for Gorbachev. And the other time was in fact too close to the Union Party Congress. Given that, I would hope that you would be willing to consider the following option and that is June 4th to June 8th. That is the first week in June, early June, and we would like you to consider it. After that slot we really have no other slots available. We do not want the Summit to come after the big Party Congress, and I am afraid that might be the only alternative. If the June 4th date is convenient—and I am sure the program is agreeable to us though I would have to speak with President Gorbachev—but in principle we are prepared, I know, to accept whatever you and the President want to suggest in terms of the organization of the visit here. We are not considering a visit to California. We have heard from President Reagan that he would like to come to visit the Soviet Union some time in the spring. At any rate, please consider our suggestion given the complexity of our situation and the big events that we are planning. This is really the only time that works for President Gorbachev. This is the time we are proposing.

Baker: I will talk to President Bush. Presently, we have a state visit during those dates and that is also the time of the spring ministerial meeting of the NATO Council. But we will see if we can’t rearrange the state visit and perhaps try to make some accommodation with regard to the NATO Council meeting.

Shevardnadze: Good. I recognize you will need some time to consider this.

Baker: I will let you know as soon as I can.

Shevardnadze: Regarding our ministerial visits. We are set for Washington, D.C. We will arrive on April 3rd. You and I will have a meeting the evening of April 4th and then we will have our full set of discussions on April 5th and 6th. That is really convenient timing for me and I am pleased we will have a chance to have a full discussion. The Washington D.C. meeting, I believe, will be of great importance and I will, of course, appreciate the chance to meet with President Bush as well.

Baker: I think that meeting is set for Friday³ at 10:00 but I will have to confirm that with you.

Shevardnadze: I would like to make a tentative suggestion about your visiting the Soviet Union. We need to have one last meeting before the Summit to complete our work. As I have said to you before, we are considering the possibility of holding the meeting outside of Moscow. You would meet President Gorbachev in Moscow and then we would have the ministerial outside of Moscow. For now, I would like to keep the venue a secret but in terms of timing, I would like to suggest that it be in mid-May.

Baker: If we have an early June Summit, that sounds fine with me. As I look at my calendar, I can see that we have a state visit every week but I am prepared to just leave and go and have our meeting.

Shevardnadze: Well, I hope you will consider a mid-May time.

Baker: I will come up with some specific dates to suggest you in the middle of May.

Shevardnadze: The first ten days of May are not good for us. We have holidays and we are really not in a position until May 9th. So any time after that would be okay.

Baker: Well, how would May 16, 17, 18 and 19 be for you? I think that would be okay for us and that would be three weeks before the Summit. Maybe before we leave Namibia I can give you a definite response.

Shevardnadze: That would be good. That would give us some time to plan. In any case our main task is to prepare the Summit well. And that is not an easy task. I cannot say yet that we have a good degree of readiness for the Summit. Maybe today we can agree that we should give additional instructions to our negotiators in Geneva to speed up their work. I believe that in Moscow we made good progress. As you know, there are still some difficult positions, particularly on ALCMs. I have to tell you that I really don’t have any fallback on that one. I am not proposing that we should raise the ALCM issue right now but I want to mention that.

Baker: Well, I have got to tell you that if you do not have a fallback on ALCMs then we are going to have to leave this issue up to our two Presidents to solve.

Shevardnadze: But we will be scolded if we do that. Presidents shouldn’t have to spend their valuable time on such specifics. I know we have made some progress on SLCMs as well and therefore I hope we can complete our work on the substance of the parallel statements on SLCMs. I think we also should be able to complete our work on the duration of the treaty and on the non-circumvention clause of the treaty. Then that will leave some comparatively smaller issues to resolve. As regards subsequent talks for strategic negotiations, we propose that the Summit produce a statement of intent on where we plan to be taking our follow-on negotiations.

On chemical weapons, I think we are making good progress. Our delegations are working at it, and I think there is a good basis for an agreement.

On nuclear testing talks I think most of the work has been completed. So I believe our delegation should work hard and actively on these issues.

In Washington, we should also seek to try to get something done on CFE. Perhaps we should try to agree in advance with our allies before Washington and then we could move the whole process much farther when we have our Ministerial.

Baker: On issues other than manpower, I would like to reserve on that proposal because our allies see CFE as really a pact-to-pact negotiation so I don’t want to create an image that it is something else.

While we are on conventional arms, I would like to ask a question. It was my understanding that when we agreed to our bilateral understanding on U.S.–Soviet troop levels in the central zone that that meant that you were not going to try to reach in CFE I an overall stationed forces agreement or an overall stationed forces limit. But subsequent to our agreement your Ambassador Grinevskiy in Vienna tabled a proposal. Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought that President Gorbachev in Moscow and that you in Ottawa had made it clear that there would be no overall ceiling.

Shevardnadze: Yes, that is so. We agree that there should be no overall ceiling of manpower in the Atlantic to the Urals zone. But when we finally formulated our position, we also thought that it would become important to have an overall ceiling in the central zone. In fact given the changes that have taken place in Central Europe now, such an overall ceiling seems to make a lot of sense.

Baker: Are you talking about a 750,000 limit in the central zone of overall stationed forces?

Shevardnadze: Yes. An overall stationed forces limit in the central zone not in the Atlantic to the Ural zone.

Baker: I understand.

Shevardnadze: This is consistent with what we said in Moscow because there what we said is that we wanted to have a limit in the central zone. There we were talking only, however, about the US and Soviet manpower limits in the central zone. So what we are talking about now is an overall ceiling within which those US and Soviet numbers would apply.

Baker: Well, let me just say I am not agreeing to an overall ceiling, I am just trying to understand what it is you said. And I think I do understand it.

Shevardnadze: We could always come back to this and reassess this question but our allies actually feel quite strongly for coming to some kind of agreement on overall manpower ceiling or stationed forces ceilings in the central zone.

Baker: Have you finished what you were going to talk about on START?

Shevardnadze: Yes.

Baker: Then I would like to raise something with you. Your suggestion that we look ahead to follow-on negotiations and give some thought to the kind of strategic relationship we are going to have down the road between the United States and the Soviet Union is an important one. And we have been thinking about the opportunity for achieving something like that in this treaty and in follow-on negotiations—again, particularly in light of the kind of changed political conditions and developments we’ve seen.

If you go back almost a year when Presidents Bush and Gorbachev exchanged letters⁴ on the requirements for strategic stability you could see that there is in fact a fair amount of common ground. When I look at the informal discussions that Ambassadors Burt and Nazarkin have had, it also seems to me that we see some basis on which to be thinking about strategic stability, and how we make it greater, both in the current START treaty and in the follow-on discussions. We see in these discussions a recognition by both the United States and Soviet Union that the threat to stability posed by land-based MIRV systems will have to be addressed. It seems to be a view we both share. As we move to the final stages of negotiations and look at the political developments that seem to have overtaken our arms control efforts, President Bush asked me to share with you some ideas we have developed for resolving issues in START but in a way that would boost the stabilizing effects of the current treaty and lay the basis for a follow-on agreement. I would like to present them to you now so that you will have a chance to consider them before you come to Washington.

Shevardnadze: Thanks, that is very important.

Baker: These ideas are known to only a very few people in our government, and we hope to keep this quiet. I know it is contrary sometimes to our usual practice, but I think if we can keep this private we can facilitate the consideration of these ideas. Before I mention them, I do want to emphasize that we do not want to do anything that would delay our two Presidents from initialing a START agreement at the Summit. That is an overriding concern for us. Our approach has two elements focused on land-based MIRVs.

The first element is a total ban on mobile MIRVed ICBMs. This element could be incorporated into our current START agreement. We would be banning mobile MIRVs. We would cancel our rail garrison system in exchange for your eliminating your mobile SS–24s. I realize that you have deployed several SS–24 trains but you should know that we have a developed system, we have a budget to deploy rapidly and we have the political ability to proceed if necessary. I have got two additional comments.

First, it makes sense to eliminate MIRV mobiles before so much is invested in them that it becomes difficult to ban them. Second, banning mobile MIRVs does not prevent either of us from seeking stability through the deployment of single warhead missiles. For example, your SS–25 program would not be affected by this ban.

The second element of the proposal is that we would agree to eliminate over a longer period of time the remaining land-based MIRVs, namely, those MIRVed missiles in silos. We recognize that this part of the proposal would require very extensive negotiations, but if we are able to jointly agree to this two step approach on de-MIRVing, I believe that it would be possible for us to side-step the remaining difficulties and differences that we have had on heavy missiles in the current negotiations. I think this should make it easier for you.

If you see any merit in this approach, we could work out the details either before or during the Washington Ministerial and then Presidents Bush and Gorbachev could announce after the Ministerial that there has been agreement to (1) ban mobile MIRVs in START; (2) initial a START agreement at the June Summit; (3) follow-on negotiations would turn immediately to the longer term goal of eliminating land-based MIRVs.

On the other hand, if you can’t agree on a ban on mobile MIRVs in the current START treaty, perhaps we could still announce that we would like to begin talks immediately after the two Presidents initial a START agreement at the Summit to eliminate mobile MIRVs and eventually land-based MIRV systems as well.

Lastly, let me just say that we think this could be seen as a major step toward enhancing strategic stability and it could answer the critics who claim that the current START really now amounts to business as usual and does not really reflect the changes that have been taking place in the world. But I want you to know that the very last thing we want to do is to delay the completion of START. So if you have no interest in this, let us know because we just don’t want to do anything that would stand in the way of completing START. I think that a ban on mobile MIRVs would really help bring stability and I know it would also mean significant economic savings for both of us as well.

Shevardnadze: Let me respond in this way. Certainly the discussions on strategic stability are very important and are of special concern to us and I believe that our Ministerial in Washington and in our ministerials after that we are going to need at least one session for discussion of the prospects for strategic stability.

Second, let me agree that whatever suggestions or ideas will be drawn up, they should not impede the completion of the START treaty. Our first objective is the completion of the START treaty.

My next point on which you propose is, I just want to say, is that you probably did not expect an immediate positive or negative answer right now.

Baker: No, no, no. I expect you to take it back and have a chance to take a look at it.

Shevardnadze: Thank you. The proposal is quite clear and I should also let you know that we have been having talks within the Soviet Union and we have been thinking quite a bit, at least I have been with my colleagues, about how we can make strategic stability more certain and if we are going to achieve greater strategic stability we are going to need some major tradeoffs between our two countries. Without major tradeoffs, there would not be forward movement. The guideline for us ought to be that these tradeoffs should be done on the basis of equivalency. I would like to emphasize that we also have been developing some ideas but they haven’t taken a final form yet, so I would not rule out the possibility that when I come to Washington I will not only have a response to what you have outlined, but I may have some ideas of ours as well.

Let me say, now, however, how much I value the fact that you brought new ideas and that you presented them in this fashion.

Baker: Well, we want to do it this way because we thought it might be easier for you. Let me just tell you that President Bush will send a letter to President Gorbachev⁵ outlining the ideas I have just presented to you. Let me add that if you do have any new ideas, if you could get them to me before the Ministerial, it would be easier for me to be able to give you a reaction. In any case, the ideas that I presented to you will remain private.

Shevardnadze: I agree that we must keep these discussions private and very confidential. We really shouldn’t expand the groups of people who know about this; it really ought to be limited just to the people who have a need to know. At this phase each of our military people are getting a little emotional. I must say that it is true in our society, not only for our military people, but also in the Supreme Soviet; they are really scrutinizing everything that we are doing and they also tend to get emotional.

Baker: I know that. That’s why I presented this in this way. I can’t guarantee there won’t be any leaks; you understand, of course, that we have shared this proposal with some of our top military but not many people know about it and I am sensitive to the fact that your military and ours tend to get nervous about new ideas.

[Omitted here is discussion not related to START.]

1. Source: Department of State, Policy Planning Staff, Lot 03D012, Dennis Ross Files, US/Soviet Memos of Conversation—1989/1990. Secret.
2. Not found.
3. April 6.
4. See footnote 2, Document 34.
5. See Document 90.