87. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union1
333863. For Ambassador Matlock from the Secretary. Subject: Points for Shevardnadze Meeting.
1. I appreciated the fast report on your conversation with Bessmertnykh, which reinforced my own impression that there was a disconnect of some sort during the Friday meeting.2 I understand that you and Dick Solomon may have an opportunity tomorrow to see Shevard [Page 488] nadze.3 You should use that meeting to make the following points, which you may say reflect my personal views.
2. Begin points:
—We considered the Moscow meeting to be genuinely productive in an active and accelerating series of contacts.
—We were therefore puzzled by the General Secretary’s reluctance to set dates for a summit, as had been agreed in Washington. We have therefore been cautious in our public characterization of the Soviet position.
—We continue to believe that an INF agreement is worthy of signing by our top leaders.
—We do not view an INF Treaty as a substitute for progress in other areas, or believe that its signature should be the sole reason for a summit meeting.
—On the contrary, as the Secretary repeatedly made clear in Moscow, we are as interested as the Soviet side in codifying in treaty form the Reykjavik agreement to reduce strategic offensive arms by 50 [percent?].
—Nor are we seeking to avoid a discussion of the role of defense in an environment of decreasing offensive arms.
—The Secretary provided in Moscow some ideas on how our Geneva delegations might address these issues in preparation for a meeting between the President and Gorbachev. Soviet proposals in Moscow and Washington have also given our experts material to work on.
—Such work could pave the way for a serious and potentially productive discussion between the two leaders on these vital problems this year, as the General Secretary said he would like.
—As the Secretary said to the General Secretary, we are convinced that, in the final analysis, the key decisions relating to this complex of issues will have to be made by our leaders themselves.
—But there is no reason why a successful, substantive Washington meeting of the type I have described could not be followed—as you have suggested—by a spring visit to Moscow, where a START Treaty could be signed.
[Page 489]—Obviously, for any of this to occur, we need to preserve the atmosphere of trust and mutual responsibility which the General Secretary cited as among our post-Geneva achievements.
—The kind of unpredictable changes of course which we experienced in Moscow last week can only undermine such achievements.
—It leads to suspicions that one side is seeking to extract last-minute concessions from the other, or using procedural enticements to gain substantive gains. These tactics won’t work.
—At this point, we have avoided drawing hasty conclusions as to Soviet motives.
—We believe it is in our mutual interests to put the dialogue back on a positive track as quickly as possible, and take seriously the General Secretary’s repeated statements that he still wants to visit Washington this year.
—We hope that the General Secretary’s message to the President will clarify Soviet intentions and reestablish the basis for continued concrete progress of the type we achieved in Washington and Moscow.
—As the Secretary said in Moscow, time is already working against us.
End points.
3. FYI: In using above material, Secretary wants you to be sure not to convey any sense whatever that we are ready to deal on defense and space.
- Source: Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, N870009–0189. Secret; Niact; Immediate; Nodis. Drafted by Parris; cleared by C. Thomas (EUR) and Levitsky; approved by Shultz.↩
- See Documents 86 and 84, respectively.↩
- Solomon and Matlock met with Shevardnadze on October 28. In telegram 419 from Moscow, October 28, Matlock commented: “Despite his imminent departure for the Warsaw Pact Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Prague the next morning, Shevardnadze presented the image of being relaxed and unhurried, if somewhat tired. He took notes on Solomon’s report on the planning dialogue, and his extemporaneous remarks imparted a clear message of concern about the impressions of erratic or manipulative Soviet behavior that the Secretary might have taken away from his visit to Moscow the preceding week.” (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D870887–0215)↩