218. Memorandum From Fritz Ermarth and Robert Linhard of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Carlucci)1
SUBJECT
- President’s Meeting with Shevardnadze—October 30
Attached are your memo to the President2 on his meeting with Shevardnadze, recommended talking points, your memo of mid-September cautioning against a “framework agreement”3 (it covers the matter of instructing negotiators and is still valid), and Secretary Shultz’s memo to the President.
We have conflicting evidence as to what Shevardnadze will bring regarding the key issue of Gorbachev’s conditions for a summit in the US. The Soviets have been deliberately encouraging the expectation that Gorbachev has softened his conditions and will come committed only to signing INF and to discussing thoroughly Defense/Space and START. On the other hand, in Moscow Gorbachev stated the essentiality of a “key provisions” agreement so strongly that we should not assume he has backed off, and the Soviet public line since has disguised but not altered this position. Shevardnadze may open by simply accepting a US summit which yields no more than a signed INF Treaty and continued negotiations on the rest. Or he may take another shot at “key provisions”, more artfully than Gorbachev did, and then fall back to INF only. Or we may have essentially a repeat of Moscow, with the Soviets insisting on a non-US venue for signing INF only. He will probably elaborate on Gorbachev’s new proposals about START subceilings; he may have something new to say on one or more regional issues.
The public signs indicate Soviet readiness for a late-November or early-December summit on terms we can accept. But recent Soviet tactics and current equivocations make it unwise to assume this. Such uncertainty makes it hard to script the President’s line. The talking points are aimed at Shevardnadze trying again for “key provisions” but ready to fall back. We shall have to count on near-real-time recalibration [Page 932] from early receipt of the letter, anything you can report out during the morning’s meeting, and the 1230 prebrief.
The following considerations suggest that the Soviets will try again for a significant concession on Defense & Space in this round:
SDI remains the paramount Soviet arms control target and Gorbachev’s domestic predicament requires him to give it his best shot.
The Soviets know this town is full of influential people prepared to meet him half way or more on SDI.
The evening before you met with Gorbachev, Dimitry Simes dined with Gorbachev’s foreign policy aide Chernayev who was very optimistic about compromise on SDI because of Shultz’s repeated references to the Reykjavik legacy, which, to the Soviets, means START/Space linkage, not just 50% cuts in START.
It is clear from the detailed memcon of your meeting with Gorbachev4 that your intervention on Space/SDI changed the tenor of the meeting by preventing any papering over of differences. Up to that point, Gorbachev had been saying “ABM Treaty/key provisions/ binding/essential for summit”; Shultz was saying “I want to clarify your position/you and the President must argue it out/the summit will have a full agenda.” Your intervention forced the Secretary to state what he’d been trying to avoid, that the differences are really profound and that the President won’t be sidled into a situation where he has to compromise for or at a summit. The Soviets surely saw this dynamic too.
The Soviets can be forgiven for believing that they have enough allies to warrant continued campaigning for SDI concessions as the price of a US summit. We have to be prepared.
RECOMMENDATION
That you you initial and forward the memorandum to the President (Tab I).5
- Source: Reagan Library, Ermarth Files, President’s Meeting with Foreign Minister Shevardnadze 10/30/1987 (1). Secret; Sensitive. Sent for action. Attached but not printed is a list of participants for Reagan’s 12:30 p.m. pre-brief and 1:00 p.m. meeting with Shevardnadze.↩
- Printed as Document 219.↩
- Printed as Document 206.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 215.↩
- Carlucci indicated his approval.↩