Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986

194. Memorandum From Secretary of State Shultz to President Reagan¹

Washington, February 12, 1986

SUBJECT

• My Meeting Today With Ambassador Dobrynin

Ambassador Dobrynin came in anticipating his departure for the Soviet Union, where he will spend some three weeks or so and attend the Party Congress. His principal reason was to see what message he might take home with him, and he put this in terms of asking when we would be answering Gorbachev’s letters.

As you and I discussed earlier this afternoon, I gave him a message labeled as one he should give personally from you to Gorbachev:²

1. The President has a strong commitment to work constructively on the problems involving the U.S. and the Soviet Union and feels there has been some progress in a few areas. Parenthetically, I noted that Shcharanskiy was part of a deal which stands on its own feet but nevertheless we were glad that he was released.³

2. Our positions and our approach to the nuclear and space talks are clear and positive. We want to see results, and we are prepared for serious give and take. We are in the process of consulting with our allies, and we expect that process to be completed shortly. Our response will follow on after that is concluded. While I am therefore not in a position to provide our response at this time, I can say that the President wishes, as before, to build as much on positive aspects of the General Secretary’s initiative as he can. In that regard we consider positive the General Secretary’s effort to move toward a nuclear-free world, to address the issues of verification, and to set out INF as a subject on which an interim agreement is possible independent of the other two negotiating groups. We are prepared to work energetically on the INF issues. We were disappointed that the General Secretary’s initiative did not seem to address our November proposals in either START or in the space defense areas and I would hope for progress in these areas.

3. We notice from Shevardnadaze’s statements to Hartman and the General Secretary’s statements to Senator Kennedy that you seem to link the setting of dates for the next Summit meeting to the arms control negotiations.⁴ We do not believe this is constructive linkage and, if you feel uncomfortable with another meeting this year we should simply put it off until 1987. The President’s opinion is, however, that there is ample time to work on important issues of substance and with a reasonable prospect particularly in INF.

Dobrynin responded that linkage as such was not what they had in mind but simply a statement of the importance of some significant agreement or agreements at the next meeting. I said I thought that postponing a meeting until 1987 ran the danger of allowing too much time to pass with the consequent loss of momentum. He seemed to agree with this. He said that important meetings of this kind needed to be carefully prepared so that by the time the meeting took place we could be 85–90 percent sure of what kind of outcome there could be. He noted how important it was in the November Geneva meeting that a lot of preparatory work had been done and therefore wound up reflected in the Joint Statement. I said I agreed completely that careful preparations were essential and that a concentrated effort on areas that seemed fruitful was important. I said there was a real sense in which progress on some regional issues was more important even than arms control. I noted in this connection that the times for three of the regional discussions have now been set and the other two are moving toward agreement.

I pointed out the snow on the ground and told him that this was just a mild preparation for his time in Moscow.

1. Source: Reagan Library, George Shultz Papers, 1986 Soviet Union Feb. Secret; Sensitive. Woessner sent the memorandum to Shultz under a February 11 action memorandum. A note on the covering memorandum reads: “GPS hand delivered original to Adm. Poindexter 2/12 AM.”
2. No record of this discussion has been found.
3. See Document 193.
4. See footnote 6, Document 191 and Document 192. In telegram 2152 from Moscow, February 7, the Embassy summarized Senator Kennedy’s 3-day visit to Moscow, which included a meeting with Gorbachev on February 6. No other record of the Kennedy-Gorbachev meeting was found. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, Electronic Telegrams, D860100–0638)