June 1984–October 1984
“Sitting on Mountains of Nuclear Weapons”: The
Reagan-Gromyko Meeting
233. Memorandum From Secretary of State Shultz to President Reagan
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Country File, Europe and Soviet Union, USSR (05/24/84–06/01/84); NLR–748–25A–3–5–1. Top Secret; Sensitive. Drafted by Shultz. A typed note on another copy of the document filed without the attachments reads: “Original carried by GPS to the President on June 29.” (George Shultz Papers, Box 5, Secretary’s Meetings with the President, 06/29/1984–07/23/1984) According to the President’s Daily Diary, Reagan met with Shultz in the Oval Office from 1:55 to 2:25 p.m. (Reagan Library, President’s Daily Diary) Reagan wrote in his diary for June 29: “Met with George Shultz & Bud & came to an agreement on our statement to the Soviets.” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, vol. I, January 1981–October 1985, p. 363)
234. Letter From President Reagan to Soviet General Secretary Chernenko
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, USSR: General Secretary Chernenko (8490757, 8490769, 8490793). No classification marking. In their meeting on July 3, Shultz gave the letter to Dobrynin for transmission to Chernenko. (see Document 236). In a July 2 briefing memorandum to Shultz for his meeting with Dobrynin, Kelly noted that the Senior Arms Control Planning Group meeting “was almost entirely devoted to working out the text of the letter and your talking points. The spirit was unusually cooperative. There is no controversy about our basic line, i.e., lack of preconditions. There was the usual concern that we not go too far on ASAT, but a consensus that we will be able to do something substantive on ASAT.” (Reagan Library, George Shultz Papers, Box 21, 1984 July–December, Mtgs. w/A. Dobrynin) In a covering memorandum to Reagan forwarding the letter, Poindexter indicated Matlock drafted the final version of the letter, and that the letter was cleared by Shultz, Ikle, and Moreau in the JCS. (Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, USSR: General Secretary Chernenko (8490757, 8490769, 8490793))
235. Memorandum From the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (Iklé) to Secretary of Defense Weinberger
Source: Reagan Library, Fred Ikle Files, 1984—Arms Control. Secret; Eyes Only. A copy was sent to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
236. Memorandum From Secretary of State Shultz to President Reagan
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Country File, Europe and Soviet Union, USSR (06/19/84–06/27/84); NLR–748–25A–5–3–1. Secret; Sensitive. Reagan initialed the memorandum on July 4, indicating he saw it. A copy of this memorandum was sent to Hartman in Moscow in telegram 196102, July 3. (Reagan Library, George Shultz Papers, Box 21, 1984 July–December, Mtgs. w/A. Dobrynin)
237. National Security Decision Directive 142
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC National Security Decision Directives (NSDD), NSDD 142 [Arms Limitation Talks, September 1984]. Confidential. In a July 2 memorandum to McFarlane forwarding the NSDD, Linhard and Rye wrote: “At this juncture, we are in a very strong position. We should take every step to keep the pressure on the Soviet Union. To do this, we should: —We should not characterize the U.S. intent to discuss our full agenda as a precondition to meeting in September. But, we should also not agree that we will only discuss the Soviet agenda. Rather, we should continue to make it clear that we agree to meet in September in Vienna, and at that meeting, we intend to discuss all items in these areas. —We should not accept a Soviet no. No matter what the initial Soviet response, we should visibly press on with our internal preparations for the September talks and press the Soviets for a positive response without preconditions on the agenda. The attached NSDD should help us in this regard.” Matlock initialed his concurrence. They attached a memorandum for McFarlane to forward the NSDD to Reagan for signature, which McFarlane sent and Reagan signed on July 5.
238. Memorandum From Jack Matlock of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane)
Source: Reagan Library, Jack Matlock Files, Chronological File, 1980–1986, Matlock Chron July 1984 [07/01/1984–07/14/1984. Secret; Sensitive. Eyes Only McFarlane and Poindexter. Sent for information. McFarlane wrote in the margin: “I agree with your points, especially in re Gromyko & the need to find another way. What measures could we try? Bud.”
239. Personal Note Prepared by the Deputy Secretary of State (Dam)
Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–I Records, Deputy Secretary Dam’s Official Files: Lot 85D308, Personal Notes of Deputy Secretary—Kenneth W. Dam—Oct. 1982–Sept. 1983. No classification marking. Dictated by Dam on July 6.
240. Letter From Soviet General Secretary Chernenko to President Reagan
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, USSR: General Secretary Chernenko (8490757, 8490769, 8490793). Secret; Sensitive. Printed from an unofficial translation. The text of the letter, translated from Russian, was provided by the Soviet Embassy. In a July 7 memorandum to Reagan, Acting Secretary Dam noted that Soviet Chargé Isakov delivered the letter during a July 7 meeting with Burt. (Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S, Sensitive and Super Sensitive Documents, Lot 92D52, July–December, 1984 Super Sensitive Documents)
241. Memorandum From Acting Secretary of State Dam to President Reagan
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, USSR: General Secretary Chernenko (8490757, 8490769, 8490793). Secret; Sensitive. Drafted by Burt.
242. Personal Note Prepared by the Deputy Secretary of State (Dam)
Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–I Records, Deputy Secretary Dam’s Official Files: Lot 85D308, Personal Notes of Deputy Secretary—Kenneth W. Dam—Oct. 1983–Sept. 1984. No classification marking, Dictated by Dam on July 9.
243. Personal Note Prepared by the Deputy Secretary of State (Dam)
Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–I Records, Deputy Secretary Dam’s Official Files: Lot 85D308, Personal Notes of Deputy Secretary—Kenneth W. Dam—Oct. 1983–Sept. 1984, Personal Notes of Deputy Secretary Kenneth W. Dam. No classification marking. Dictated by Dam on July 10.
244. Memorandum From Jack Matlock of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane)
Source: Reagan Library, Jack Matlock Files, Chronological File, 1980–1986, Matlock Chron July 1984 (07/01/1984–07/14/1984). Secret; Sensitive; Eyes Only. Sent for information. On an attached routing slip, Poindexter wrote: “Bud, I opt for Jack trying to meet with Zagladin.” McFarlane replied in the margin: “I think we should seek to arrive at option 1 outcome (ie Matlock Zagladin) by pursuing option 2. Ty [Cobb] could see Zagladin & make clear our interest.”
245. Memorandum From Walter Raymond of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane)
Source: Reagan Library, System IV Intelligence Files, 1984, 400684. Secret; Eyes Only. Sent for action.
246. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane) to Secretary of Defense Weinberger
Source: Reagan Library, Fred Ikle Files, 1984—Arms Control. Top Secret; Sensitive; Eyes Only.
247. Letter From President Reagan to Soviet General Secretary Chernenko
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, USSR: General Secretary Chernenko (8490757, 8490769, 8490793). No classification marking. In his personal notes for July 16, Dam described the drafting process: “We also met today to decide what we would recommend to the President should be his response to the letter from Chernenko on the proposed Vienna talks. This is something we have met a great deal on, and we have a draft response which we sent out to the Secretary on his trip. There are many bureaucratic ins and outs to the drafting of Presidential correspondence, and in fact we sent a copy of the draft response to the National Security Council staff, where Bud McFarlane drafted several of the paragraphs of what we now plan to send back to the National Security Council as our proposed response. The real problem here is getting Defense and specifically Cap Weinberger to sign off on our response without setting the precedent that Presidential correspondence is drafted by an interagency committee. The big problem in the proposed Vienna talks is that it is unacceptable to Cap Weinberger, and probably to the President too, to say that we are prepared to negotiate on the Strategic Defense Initiative. Yet without a fairly forthcoming position on that, it is unlikely that the Soviets would be prepared to negotiate on what we want to negotiate, namely, on offensive strategic weapons.” (Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–I Records, Deputy Secretary Dam’s Official Files: Lot 85D308, Personal Notes of Deputy Secretary—Kenneth W. Dam—Oct. 1983–Sept. 1984)
248. Memorandum From Director of Central Intelligence Casey to President Reagan
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Country File, Europe and the Soviet Union, USSR (07/03/84–07/07/84); NLR–748–25A–8–9–2. Secret. Reagan initialed the memorandum, indicating he saw it. Casey also sent a copy of this memorandum to Shultz; the copy is stamped with Shultz’s initials, indicating he saw it. (Reagan Library, George Shultz Files, Executive Secretariat Sensitive (07/25/1984–07/26/1984); NLR–775–12–15–11–0)
249. Memorandum From Robert Linhard, Ronald Lehman, Jack Matlock, and Sven Kraemer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane)
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Country File, Europe and Soviet Union, USSR (07/03/84–07/07/84); NLR–748–25A–8–7–4. Secret. Sent for action.
250. Personal Note Prepared by the Deputy Secretary of State (Dam)
Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–I Records, Deputy Secretary Dam’s Official Files: Lot 85D308, Personal Notes of Deputy Secretary—Kenneth W. Dam—Oct. 1983–Sept. 1984, No classification marking. Dictated by Dam on July 23.
251. Memorandum From Secretary of State Shultz to President Reagan
Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S, Sensitive and Super Sensitive Documents, Lot 92D52, July–December, 1984 Super Sensitive Documents Secret; Sensitive. According to the covering memorandum from Burt to Shultz, this memorandum was drafted by Pascoe and cleared by Palmer. It is unsigned, but a note in the margin on the covering memorandum reads: “original of Sec Pres delivered by J. Crawley/S to McFarlane.” A stamped notation reading “GPS” appears on the covering memorandum, indicating Shultz saw it.
252. Letter From Soviet General Secretary Chernenko to President Reagan
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, USSR: General Secretary Chernenko (84900829). Secret; Sensitive. The original Russian language text is attached. Sokolov provided Dam with the text translated from Russian. In a covering memorandum to Reagan, Shultz wrote: “Soviet Charge Sokolov, under the impression I was out of town, came in today to hand over to Ken Dam a new letter from Chernenko on Vienna. The letter takes a tough line. It claims our response to their proposed announcement ‘does not tally’ with the statement in your letter that you accept their proposal and leaves ‘no doubt whatsoever’ that we are ‘not prepared to conduct negotiations with the aim of preventing the militarization of outer space.’ Chernenko says that they ‘regret that the current American position makes it impossible to conduct the negotiations,’ that they would be ready to ‘return to consideration of the issue’ should we change our position, and that the Soviet position of June 29 remains in force.” See also footnote 3, Document 253.
253. Information Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs (Burt) to Secretary of State Shultz
Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S, Sensitive and Super Sensitive Documents, Lot 92D52, July 1–July 31, 1984 Super Sensitive Documents. Secret; Sensitive. Copies were sent to Dam, Armacost, and Chain. McKinley’s handwritten initials are on the top of the memorandum, indicating he saw it on July 26.
254. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council (Rodman) to Secretary of State Shultz
Source: Department of State, S/P, Memoranda/Correspondence from the Director of the Policy Planning Staff, Lot 89D149, S/P Chrons PW 7/16–31/84. Secret; Sensitive.
255. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Policy Planning Council (Rodman) to Secretary of State Shultz
Source: Department of State, S/P, Memoranda/Correspondence from the Director of the Policy Planning Staff, Lot 89D149, S/P Chrons PW 7/15–31/84. Secret; Sensitive. Not for the System. Shultz’s handwritten initials are on the memorandum, indicating he saw it, and McKinley’s handwritten initials are in the upper right-hand corner, indicating he saw it on July 27
256. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, USSR: General Secretary Chernenko (8490829). Secret; Niact Immediate; Nodis.
257. Letter From Soviet General Secretary Chernenko to President Reagan
Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Head of State File, USSR: General Secretary Chernenko (8490847, 8491054). Secret; Sensitive. Sokolov delivered the letter to Dam on July 31. See Document 258. Printed from an unofficial translation. The text of the letter, translated from Russian, was provided by the Soviet Embassy. The oral statement is not attached to this copy of the letter in the Head of State File; however, it is attached to a copy in the Matlock Files. (Reagan Library, Jack Matlock Files, US-USSR Summits, E.3, President/Chernenko Correspondence (1/2))
258. Memorandum of Conversation
Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–I Records, Deputy Secretary Dam’s Official Files: Lot 85D308, Memoranda of Conversation 1984. Secret. Drafted on August 1. There is no other drafting information on the memorandum of conversation. The meeting took place in Dam’s office. Dam’s handwritten initials are to the right of the list of participants, indicating he saw it. McKinley’s handwritten initials are in the upper right-hand corner, indicating he saw it on August 1,
259. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State
Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, N840009–0359. Confidential; Immediate; Nodis. A copy was sent for information to Shultz, who was on vacation in California. (Telegram 224320/Tosec 80009, July 31; Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, N840009–0362)
260. Paper Prepared in the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs
Source: Reagan Library, Ronald Lehman Files, Subject File, Vienna Talks 08/04/1984–08/27/1984. Secret; Sensitive. Drafted by Vershbow and Simons; cleared by Palmer and Burt. In a covering note to Shultz on a July 25 draft of this paper, Burt wrote: “Attached is our long-awaited paper that attempts to analyze the context of East-West relations over the next four years, and sets forth a strategy for dealing with the Soviets.” (Department of State, EUR Records, Records of Ambassador Thomas W. Simons, Jr., (Chrons), Lot 03D256, July–August, 1984) In an August 1 memorandum to Shultz, Rodman provided a “status report on the Looking Ahead exercise and the preparation for the August 7 meeting,” noting that “EUR is doing a redraft of its paper on ‘East-West Relations: The Next Four Years.’ The July 25 draft, which you already have, was subjected to the constructive critique of the Seventh Floor ‘Looking Ahead’ Wise Men on Tuesday. EUR will now refine the paper, which we will get to you later this week.” (Reagan Library, George Shultz Papers, Executive Secretariat Sensitive (08/01/1984–08/05/1984) In an August 6 memorandum to McFarlane, Sestanovich provided a summary of the paper, commenting: “This analysis may be correct, but with so few specifics it’s hard to judge. If our entire policy depends on arms control (to win domestic support) and could crumble on its own, what terms will Moscow accept? And can we really combine arms control so easily with tough policies elsewhere? Maybe, but it’s a much bigger challenge than EUR admits. Finally, regular summits may be possible if we make progress; they don’t produce progress.” (Reagan Library, Ronald Lehman Files, Subject File, Vienna Talks 08/04/1984–08/27/1984) In an August 7 PROFs note to Matlock, Poindexter wrote: “This morning you received a Sestanovich paper that forwarded to Bud an EUR long range planning paper. Please consider that a privileged paper for your eyes only. Don’t acknowledge that you have seen it. Don will be meeting with you soon on the long range planning process.” (Ibid.) The paper was used for the August 7 meeting held at Shultz’s residence in Palo Alto, California, to discuss “Looking Ahead in Foreign Policy.” See Document 262.
261. Letter From Secretary of Defense Weinberger to President Reagan
Source: Reagan Library, Robert McFarlane Files, Subject File, Soviet Union—Sensitive File—1984 (7/27/1984–9/27/1984); NLR–362–3–22–2–0. No classification marking; Eyes Only.
262. Memorandum of Conversation
Source: Reagan Library, George Shultz Papers, Box 18, 1984 Aug. 13, Mtg. w/ the Pres. Secret; Sensitive. Drafted on August 10. There is no other drafting information on the memorandum of conversation. This meeting took place at Shultz’s residence.