Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989

101. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Geneva, November 24, 1987, 4:15–4:55 p.m.

SUBJECT

• Shultz-Shevardnadze Meeting, November 24 Afternoon

PARTICIPANTS

• • U.S.
  • George P. Shultz, Secretary of State
  • Colin Powell, National Security Advisor-designate
  • Paul Nitze, Special Advisor for Arms Control
  • Max Kampelman, Counselor of the Department of State
  • Rozanne L. Ridgway, Assistant Secretary of State, EUR
  • Jack F. Matlock, Ambassador to the USSR
  • Thomas W. Simons, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, EUR (notetaker)
  • Dimitri Zarechnak (interpreter)
  • USSR
  • Eduard Shevardnadze, Foreign Minister
  • Marshal Akhromeyev, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces
  • Anatoliy Adamishin, Deputy Foreign Minister
  • Viktor Karpov, Director, Arms Control Department, MFA
  • Vasiliy Sredin, USA/Canada Department, MFA (notetaker)
  • Mikhail Farafanov, Soviet Mission, Geneva
  • P. Palazhchenko (interpreter)

Shevardnadze asked whether the Secretary were flying that night. The Secretary said he planned to fly the next day.² For the afternoon session, he suggested they listen to the group that had been working on INF, that he then hear from Shevardnadze on START, and that they then come back to regional and human rights issues. (The ambassadors had been called.) He asked where the ambassadors were. Shevardnadze said that on such important matters there were bound to be casualties.

(There was an informal exchange on the Secretary’s experiences in the South Pacific.)³

(When the group had assembled) the Secretary said he thought the session should start with this group. They should try to finish INF. He would therefore go back to some of the questions he had raised before lunch.

First, the Secretary said, there was the question of the SS–20 and national technical means (NTM). We had studied the Soviet proposal very carefully. The problem with our proposals might be that they had addressed first on-site inspection (OSI) and then NTM inspection. What was important was to give comfort to people that we would have a rounded verification regime, so that we could say that what we had undertaken would be carried out. In the course of the discussion we had modified NTM substantially. The Soviet side had made a proposal which reduced the timespan and the number of inspections. He could say that we accepted it, but he had to say that the Soviet side had done the minimum. We would have criticism on this account. But we could see the Soviet side had struggled. We understood that. We accepted the proposal.

Turning to the issue of the U.S. site to be monitored by the Soviet side, the Secretary said this posed a different kind of problem. There was a history here. The Soviet side was in the unique situation of concurrently producing the SS–20 and the SS–25 in the same facility. These missiles were different, but similar in many respects. We had agreed that they should be monitored. In the process of negotiation it had been suggested that production should be monitored as it came out of the factory, and this had been agreed satisfactorily.

There was no comparable situation in the U.S., the Secretary continued. We were in the odd situation of seeking a place where nothing was produced; that was indeed the point. During the talks between Kampelman and Vorontsov the week before,⁴ Vorontsov had said there should be a kind of reciprocity. There was a problem of image to be handled. We had not liked it, but had seen a point there. So we had invited the Soviets to propose places. They had proposed five places. We had looked them over, and picked one: Longhorn. It does not now produce, but there would be parallel monitoring that that was so. The point was not that there is nothing interesting there, but that there is nothing there that is prohibited. We had taken it from the list the Soviet side gave us. The Soviet side did not like our choice. People in Washington were asking what was going on, why we were rolling from one thing to another.

Longhorn was by a considerable margin the facility on the Soviet list that was easiest for us to handle, the Secretary went on. That was why we had picked it, and think it the right facility, among those the Soviets had offered, to apply the correct perimeter monitoring procedures.

Shevardnadze said he had a few words of comment. It was good that the two sides had reached agreement on the first question. The Soviet side had made a step in the U.S. direction. The U.S. side knew the treaty was not addressed to ICBM’s. When the Soviet side had accepted a compromise, it had taken a big step in the U.S. direction. The Marshal and he had taken a great deal of responsibility in a very sensitive sphere of Soviet security.

On the second question, Shevardnadze said, Marshal Akhromeyev knew more than he did.

Akhromeyev said he had talked to Vorontsov after the latter returned to Moscow, and Karpov had participated too. After talking to Kampelman Vorontsov had asked Moscow to supply him with a list of U.S. production facilities. They in Moscow had supplied the list; there were five facilities on it. Of the two referring to cruise missiles, the two sides had since agreed on monitoring of one. That left three relevant to current or past production of Pershing II’s.

The Soviet side had not specified that it wanted Longhorn, Akhromeyev said. The U.S. side had proposed it for inspection. The Soviet side had proposed the Utah site. The U.S. side had said that was unacceptable. The Soviets had discussed why not among themselves. According to their information the Utah site produced portions or stages of the MX. They had thought that the MX was indeed not subject to the INF Treaty, that the U.S. was entitled to its objection.

They had discussed the issue among themselves the day before, Akhromeyev went on. After meeting at night they had decided that this had to be the reason for the U.S. decision: the Soviet side should take the same attitude as the U.S. did toward the SS–25. It had then suggested the Florida site. The U.S. side then said that was also unacceptable. It seemed to the Soviet side that the U.S. was offering one and only facility, and telling it that it must accept it, although all three were now or in the past related to Pershing II production. It was hard to understand why Orlando should not be subject to Soviet inspection.

The Secretary said our perspective was different. The Soviets had listed five sites. We had agreed to inspection of the cruise missile launch facility. It was then a question of picking one of the three remaining possibilities. We had picked the one that was easiest for us to handle. It was not particularly the MX production which troubled us. Longhorn was simply easier, and we had taken it. We did not see why we should withdraw the choice.

Akhromeyev said he would explain again. The Soviets had furnished the list not for the U.S. to select one, but as a list of three any of which the Soviet side could choose. It did not say which one it chose in turning over the list.

The Secretary said we were saying that the Soviet side gave us a list, we had picked one, and they now say we had picked the wrong one.

Ambassador Karpov said they had furnished Vorontsov the list of sites for his personal information. He had given it to the U.S. side in good faith. The Soviet side had thought Utah was the best sight, as the most analogous to Votkinsk. Then it had gone to Orlando, as a place of assembly for PII stages. Texas had not produced the PII, but the PIa, a somewhat different category. The Soviet side had proposed Orlando that day, if Utah was not acceptable.

The Secretary said this clarified matters somewhat, but this process of seeking to satisfy a need for a U.S. facility had started not because of what the facility produced, but to give a visible sense of reciprocity. We were going round in circles.

Ambassador Kampelman said he would explain his understanding of what had happened. Karpov and Akhromeyev had not been there. We had been asked to make a selection among the sites on the Soviet list. We had said this would take a few days. We were then asked when the selection would be made. We had made it over the weekend. We may have acted through a misunderstanding, but there were reasons for that misunderstanding.

General Powell said he had been the one with the painful task of working with the U.S. side’s bureaucracy on this. The one thing these facilities had in common was that Pershings were no longer produced in them. After lots of study and anguish we had offered Longhorn. We had thought it would be accepted. It had seemed a responsive offer to us.

Akhromeyev said one element was not being taken into account. Verification was a legitimate function, provided for in the treaty. In the same way that the U.S. side would verify that there was no production of SS–20’s at Votkinsk, the Soviet side would verify that there was no Pershing production. They had the right to do so whether the Pentagon liked it or not. The Soviet side did not like verification at Votkinsk either, but had agreed to have it, and the Pentagon would have to agree too. Vorontsov had not chosen Longhorn. The Soviet side had proposed a site, and the U.S. had not liked it. It had then proposed a second, and could not understand why the U.S. did not like that either. But under the treaty the Soviet side had the right to verify.

Karpov noted that U.S. data indicate that the Orlando plant is a final assembly facility.

The Secretary said the two sides wanted to wind up this matter. They should want to do so in a way that made them feel good about it. Colin Powell had been in touch with Mr. Carlucci. The U.S. side had been authorized to accept the Utah plant. But the U.S. side felt the process had put them in a bad position as negotiators. A rationale had been provided, a list had been provided, we had picked a site, and then we had had to go back. There had been a fierce struggle in our own defense establishment. We were making a concession, but we did so with reluctance. What it stood for was a desire to move forward. As negotiators we would take our lumps. But negotiators survive. In the months ahead another group would be meeting in this same way on START, dealing with harder issues, and we hoped that our acting in good faith on this occasion would be borne in mind.

Akhromeyev said both sides were in trouble; as the Russian saying went heads would be cut off when they returned to Moscow. Shevardnadze said both sides might be forced to seek asylum in neutral Switzerland. Akhromeyev said the President and the General Secretary could explain what had happened to each other. The Secretary commented he doubted either would want to hear.

The Secretary continued that that settled all INF issues. Their people should work through the afternoon and the night. There was also data to come from the Soviet side. It had not arrived yet, but the U.S. side had to have it.

Shevardnadze said he recognized that the Soviet side had given its word, but the matter had turned out to be technically not so simple.

Akhromeyev quoted the Russian proverb “when there is death there should be a payment.” This was the third time the Soviet side had promised the data. The trouble was that the Army was just not interested, traditionally, in production facilities. Perhaps there was a different relationship of the military to production in the two countries. In the Soviet Union the Army just ordered so and so many, and did not worry about stocks. Now it was trying to determine what there were. They would have the data by Thursday or Friday.⁵ They too were interested in precision.

The Secretary said we should avoid a situation when figures are given and then have to be withdrawn. The U.S. side preferred that the Soviet side take the time necessary. Precision was needed. But this did not change our impatience.

Akhromeyev said he understood. On his return to Moscow he would give every order. The thing would be done.

The Secretary said that discussion of strategic arms would have a different cast. For instance, Glitman would be out. If Shevardnadze would join a larger group, it would be good to hear his thoughts on strategic arms and the ABM Treaty. They could then return and do regional and other issues, while the group considered what Shevardnadze had said. Later they could rejoin them to hear what they had to say.

Shevardnadze said he understood what the Secretary had said to mean the two sides had completed the main body of work on INF. Akhromeyev said “congratulations and thanks.” Nitze had earned his bread. (He rose and crossed to shake Nitze’s hand, and others then shook hands as well.) The Secretary said he was thinking of inviting participants to a glass of wine after their meetings were over. Meanwhile the press was on a vigil. He suggested that Shevardnadze and he go down and say to them that we had completed all the INF issues, and then come back. Shevardnadze asked the Secretary to confirm that they would make the announcement now, and then have press conferences later. The Secretary confirmed this: the reason was that it was 5:00 in Europe, and 7:00 in Moscow, and the European press needed this news. Shevardnadze joked that they should perhaps raise a glass after the press conference.

(The principals reconvened after 10 minutes, at 5:05 p.m., in the larger downstairs conference room, with the arms control group.)

[Omitted here are the last four paragraphs of this draft memorandum, which are identical to the first four paragraphs of Document 102.]

1. Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S–IRM Records, Memoranda of Conversations Pertaining to United States and USSR Relations, 1981–1990, Lot 93D188, Geneva—11/23–24/87. Secret; Sensitive. Printed from a draft copy. No final version has been found. The meeting took place in the Ambassador’s Office.
2. Shultz flew to Brussels on November 25 to brief NATO Foreign Ministers on the INF negotiations.
3. Reference is to Shultz’s service in the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II.
4. See footnote 3, Document 91.
5. November 26 or 27.