219. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Carlucci) to
President Reagan1
Washington, October 29, 1987
MEETING WITH FOREIGN MINISTER
SHEVARDNADZE
I. PURPOSE
To meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze and reach acceptable
agreement on summit substance, venue, and dates.
II. BACKGROUND
In effect, the Soviets have asked for overtime on the Moscow ministerial
because it went badly for them. Gorbachev attempted to exploit your eagerness for
progress on START and perceived
eagerness for a US summit to promote a binding “key provisions”
agreement to be signed with INF this
fall, a mechanism by which he seeks to impose crippling constraints on
SDI. At Tab D is an earlier
memo2 from me detailing the pitfalls of
this. We were prepared and rebuffed this attempt. Gorbachev saw our
disappointment bordering on anger, which could jeopardize any summit at
all and his continued ability to lobby you against SDI. Moreover, his maneuver was criticized
widely in the West as blundering or “too clever by half”, not an image
he wants to endure.
The Soviets appear ready to close rapidly on the remaining INF details in Geneva, although there may
yet be end-game ploys. Gorbachev has some inhibitions about coming to a US
summit, perhaps for internal political reasons, and he is still
reluctant to come for INF alone. In
Moscow, even after our differences over SDI and the ABM Treaty
were starkly portrayed, he insisted that those differences must be
overcome in a “key provisions” pact of some kind that addresses both 50%
reductions in START and Defense and
Space. The prospect and then occurrence of a summit with you is his best
leverage for continuing to pursue that goal. Shevardnadze’s sudden visit
keeps the game going. Our task is to force it to closure on terms
acceptable to you.
George has sent you his view of the meeting and how he plans to handle
Shevardnadze (Tabs A and B).3 I agree with it in all
essentials.
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Shevardnadze will arrive in Washington at 1:00 a.m.; we are trying to get
the letter from Gorbachev at that early point. He will meet with George
and me on Friday4 morning
for several hours. I shall try to give you advance notice through
General Powell on how things are going. George and I shall brief you
around 1230, following which Shevardnadze will come in to meet with you.
George has told the Soviets that your departure in early afternoon
requires key decisions to be reached by around mid-day and to be
promptly announced. We have several press scenarios in mind depending on
the outcome, with you announcing success.
My recommendation is that, unless we’ve already reached agreement, you
force Shevardnadze to fish or cut bait with respect to the substance,
timing, and venue of the next summit. You should insist that we shall
commit to no more substance than a) signing INF, b) a full review of the agenda, including c) as much
progress as possible on START and
Space negotiations to be recorded in a communique or other document as
instructions to negotiators in pursuing final treaties, NOT in a “key
provisions” or “framework agreement” which could be seen as a free
standing political commitment that constrains SDI without delivering START reductions. The timing is, of course, late fall, as
previously agreed. And the venue is, of course, the United States,
including a Washington signing of INF.
These important bottom lines are in your talking points at Tab A, which
may have to be adjusted on the basis of what Shevardnadze brings and our
morning meeting. Time permitting, I believe a word or two on Iran-Iraq
and Afghanistan would be in order; they are provided.
Continued Soviet maneuvering about this combination of summit venue,
timing, and substance erode your image of being in control of the
dialogue, could damage our ability to ratify INF, and could undermine our ability to pursue START sensibly. This ministerial round
robin must now end.
III. PARTICIPANTS (See Tab
E)5
IV. PRESS PLAN
Pool photo op in the Oval Office. Post-meeting press plan depends on
outcome.
V. SEQUENCE
12:30–1:00 p.m. Secretary’s pre-brief. 1:00–1:05 p.m. Secretary greets
Shevardnadze West Wing. 1:00–1:05 p.m. welcome photo op. 1:10–2:00 p.m.
meeting with Shevardnadze in Cabinet Room.
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Attachment
Memorandum From Secretary of State Shultz to
President Reagan6
Washington, October 29, 1987
SUBJECT
Gorbachev’s dramatic
decision to send Shevardnadze here this week suggests the Soviets
may now be ready to fill in the blank on summit dates. But as we
have seen, there are no guarantees, so we should maintain the stance
that has served us well over the past few months and especially in
the last few days: If Gorbachev is ready to come here, fine; if not, the
U.S. is ready to keep working on the issues.
We covered arms control, human rights, regional and bilateral matters
exhaustively in Washington last month and in Moscow last week. Thus,
I see no reason why Shevardnadze’s visit this week need go beyond a
single day of intense discussions. We will seek to:
—Extract essential Soviet compromises on remaining INF issues, particularly regarding
inspection.
—Turn Gorbachev’s
proposal on START sublimits
to our advantage by placing the proposed Soviet numbers into the
sublimit structure we prefer.
—Reiterate our willingness to address the concerns they have
expressed on the need for greater predictability on strategic
defense, without limiting our freedom to conduct a vigorous
SDI program now and in the
future.
—Depending on what Shevardnadze brings, set dates for Gorbachev’s visit to
the United States, and discuss in general terms programmatic
options for the visit.
The Agenda Beyond Arms Control
We do not need to repeat our in-depth discussions in Moscow on human
rights, regional and bilateral issues, but we can use Shevardnadze’s
visit to tie up a few loose ends.
—I would like to set dates for Under Secretary Armacost and Deputy Foreign
Minister Vorontsov to review regional issues. This would pave the
way for your own treatment of such issues as Afghanistan at a
summit.
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—I will also try to firm up Shevardnadze’s commitment to resolve
additional cases on our human rights representation lists and to
permit expanded emigration. I will press for resolution of the four
remaining cases on your “short list” and the remaining separated
spouses cases—especially by the time of a summit.
—The Soviets appear ready to wrap up arrangements for the operation
of our Embassy in Moscow in the wake of the withdrawal last fall of
Soviet local employees. These understandings would guarantee our
Embassy’s access to essential services and ensure our ability to get
technical personnel in and out of Moscow.
Arms Control
Despite the productive sessions this fall in Washington, Geneva and
Moscow, much remains to be done. Shevardnadze will be accompanied by
Deputy Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh and Ambassador Karpov, who are
competent to deal with the full range of issues being addressed in
the Nuclear and Space Talks. I would welcome Frank Carlucci’s active
participation in my meetings with Shevardnadze.
On INF, our
Geneva delegation has been working intensively on the remaining
areas, largely in verification, where Soviet movement is necessary.
Key outstanding issues are procedures for conducting inspections,
and the extent to which the Soviets could destroy their systems by
launching them. Ambassador Glitman will update us regularly on developments in
Geneva. We will make clear to Shevardnadze that we are not
interested in the INF deployment
moratorium that Gorbachev proposed in Moscow.
On START,
the prospect finally exists for engaging on sublimits and a major
goal during Shevardnadze’s visit will be to turn the Soviet
proposals to our advantage. Gorbachev’s sublimits suggest the Soviets could live
with a force structure that is compatible with the U.S. proposed
sublimits. In their current form, however, the Soviet sublimits
package would unacceptably reduce and limit our SLBM force, and thus would do to us
precisely what the Soviets have complained we are trying to do them,
i.e., restructure our deterrent. We will make the case to
Shevardnadze that, on the basis of Gorbachev’s proposals, a
sublimit regime such as we have proposed should be acceptable to
them.
On Defense and Space (D&S), I stressed to Gorbachev that this was an
issue which ultimately you and he would have to settle. Frank Carlucci succinctly
summed up the issue when he told Gorbachev that the
question to be faced was: Is it possible to find a formulation which
would give the Soviets the assurances they needed while preserving
the strength and thrust of your SDI
program?
Shevardnadze’s mission may be more to assess our seriousness about
looking for such a formulation than to identify now what that
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formula might be, although
he almost certainly will press for a response to the proposals they
presented here in September. In his talks this week with Jack Matlock, Shevardnadze
also suggested that Gorbachev is softening his demand for a commitment
that a summit achieve a framework agreement on START and D&S. We won’t know for sure until we see the letter
Shevardnadze is bringing.
We should underscore to Shevardnadze that we are interested in a
comprehensive agreement at Geneva that encompasses both offense and
defense, and which thus gets at the question Frank posed to
Gorbachev in
Moscow. I hope you will also emphasize to Shevardnadze that you want
to take up these issues with Gorbachev personally—that your summit objective is
not just to sign an INF agreement,
but to use the event to find the way forward on strategic issues as
well.
Shevardnadze may repeat Gorbachev’s moratorium on Krasnoyarsk construction.
We should acknowledge that halting construction is a constructive
first step, and that they should now go on to remove this violation
by destroying the structure. We should continue rejecting any
linkage to our own radars in Greenland and the UK.
Scenario
We have suggested that the Soviets provide us with a copy of
Gorbachev’s
letter upon Shevardnadze’s arrival late Thursday7 evening, so that we can get
as much as possible done the next day. I will open my own
discussions at 9:00 Friday morning to get the talks off to a running
start.
If all goes well, your own meeting would be the occasion for
resolving any outstanding issues, agreeing on summit dates, and
getting a discussion going on arrangements and advance work. You and
Shevardnadze would then be able to make an announcement on the
summit at the conclusion of the meeting. I could wrap up any loose
ends that afternoon, working as necessary into the evening.
Discussions with Shevardnadze could continue over into Saturday if
absolutely required.
If it seems useful, Shevardnadze and I could meet in Geneva before a
summit here.
Documentation
Experience indicates that Shevardnadze may suggest—or even present—a
draft summit communique, and that it will contain loose formulations
or declarations of principles. If he does, our response should be
that we can look as we go along this fall at ways to record
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the results of a summit,
but there is no need for communique drafting at this point. We can
also lay down a marker that we have little interest in ambiguous
declarations of principles but would be willing to consider
documents that describe concrete agreements and aim at guiding the
two governments to tackle practical problems in the months
ahead.
