Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XI, START I

290. Memorandum of Conversation for the Record¹

Washington, April 11, 1988, 3:30 p.m.

SUBJECT

• April 21 Moscow Foreign Ministers’ Meeting

PARTICIPANTS

• Secretary Shultz
• Admiral Crowe
• Admiral Howe
• Ambassador Nitze
• Ambassador Kampelman
• Ambassador Holmes

Admiral Crowe: The NST process was moving much too fast. He had decreed that the Chiefs would meet every morning at 8:00 a.m. on the subject in order to make progress as rapidly as possible.

Secretary Shultz: He was going to see Shevardnadze on Thursday, April 14th.² In addition to signing the Afghanistan document,³ he had an hour scheduled with Shevardnadze on NST. They would discuss the schedule for ministerial meetings, including the ministerial in April, probably one in early May and then the Summit. Pressure has emerged regarding START. The President wishes us to push for an agreement, but he wants a good agreement; he would reject anything that was not. He suggested we should look at what the situation would be if there were no agreement and we could write our own ticket.

Admiral Crowe: Setting a deadline is wrong. He had a long list of unresolved problems; we were not really making progress on them. This was not really a matter of resources. To achieve a concensus an evolutionary process. Two years ago no one thought on-site inspection was possible, but thinking has evolved; the Chiefs moved gradually and now accept it.

But not only must we solve the list of crucial problems; we must also restudy some of the things we have already tabled. Also there are 1200 brackets in the Joint Draft Text which have been negotiated in Geneva. Some are technical and some need substantial movement on both sides.

Shultz: We need something that is clear on defense and space. We support three theses: 1) the sensors go free; 2) that there be a test range in space; and maybe 3) as a part of the predictability measures each side would lay out its test program for the other.

Crowe: The Chiefs had a three-four hour meeting on defense and space recently.⁴ It turned out that the Soviets cannot use the same ranges as we. Their launch areas are further north. We have come up with a sphere idea. This is made necessary because we have black satellites in the area where our test range might be. We might have to announce what is there. Bob Herres is the one who knows most about these problems. The test range idea is a good example of something that needs further study.

Nitze: When do you think you would be in shape to approve of a position on a test range in space which we could use at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting?

Crowe: I asked them to have something ready 10 days from last Friday.⁵

The NSC has been making decisions without digging into the facts. We sent instructions to Geneva based upon such NSC decisions and our delegation in Geneva has come back and asked a number of questions similar to the ones that the Chiefs have asked.

Mobiles are our most overlooked problem. Congress has not told us what they will give us. Many of them say that if you negotiate a limit on my mobiles, I will not vote for your treaty. Each has his favorite type of mobile. As a result, we do not know what the Congress will vote for.

Shultz: Congress has lost its taste for financing fixed ICBMs.

Crowe: As a result of not knowing what would be acceptable to the Congress, we are trying for a deal which allows the Soviets and us to have both road mobiles and garrison rail mobiles and either MIRVed or single missiles.

Shultz: If they came in with a proposal limiting mobiles to X number of single RV missiles, they would have a winner. Many take the position that verification of mobiles is bound to have some uncertainties but that uncertainty would have greater importance if MIRVed missiles are permitted.

Crowe: I think verification of mobiles has made progress. It is not necessarily a treaty stopper. But Congress is not strapped by deadlines and will proceed at its own pace.

The Chiefs are coming up with a regime permitting rail and road mobiles with single or MIRVed RVs. The number of RVs on mobile missiles which the Chiefs like is around 1000. We could, of course, de-MIRV some of our MIRVed missiles.

Shultz: Why not do it?

Crowe: We might be forced to deploy a train with a single warhead.

Shultz: We should look at the implications of no agreement versus an agreement. In the START area, we now live in an unconstrained field. What would happen if we continue in that way? The best we will have is a few rail mobile MXs.

Crowe: We need a meeting with the Congress regarding this issue and come to a consensus. The Congress wants 500 midgetmen; Carlucci wants 500 rail mobile MXs. Both together would be 1000 re-entry vehicles. Something around 1500 might be the right number. The Soviets are building all types and are working on MIRVed SS–25s. In the absence of an agreement, we see a modest rise in numbers of Soviets RVs with an increase in the number of those that are mobile.

Shultz: If you can’t work all the problems by May, we probably cannot do so by the middle of October either.

Crowe: We should think now about how to solve all these problems. The JCS are for START but the process will be complex, and the result of a protracted process.

Shultz: If we do not make it, we want to be in a posture that we have good positions but could not get Soviet agreement on them. On SDI we can have good positions; there we can be alright. But on SLCMs we are not in such a good position.

Crowe: Here is a partial list⁶ of what needs to be done. The problem is how are we going to cast this? If we come to a framework agreement, we must do it with specificity.

Shultz: Can we draw something from all of this that has some public impact. Perhaps some limit on numbers. We have a tougher SDI position than they. SLCMs are different.

Crowe: We are not ready to put up with excessive intrusiveness. With respect to the suggestion that the Navy give up nuclears except for SLBMs, it would take at least a year to work out a change in the philosophy we have had for a number of years.

Shultz: The Soviets want to interfere with the Navy.

Crowe: Let’s not let them. The TLAM (tomahawk land to air missile) gives us a real reason to keep nuclears at sea. Because of the INF elimination, they are needed at sea to support NATO. This is at the forefront of the Chiefs’ consideration not to give up nuclear SLCMs and bring us down to their level. They do not know where our SLCMs are or on what ship. [less than 1 line not declassified] We have kept them out of the 6,000 figure. The military rationale for nuclear armed SLCMs is a sound one.

Shultz: We have said we would declare a ceiling on the number of our nuclear armed SLCMs.

Crowe: We would like to see them go free. We are looking for a figure around 1500 but don’t see a solution. The Defense Science Board says it would take more than a year to work things out. It would be a network system and elaborate, if solveable at all. The Navy has not done what is necessary to see what intrusiveness they can put up with. The Soviet scheme for verification at a distance is merely to indicate whether they need on-site inspection of a ship or not. The test is to see how much intrusiveness we can tolerate. We do not see a scheme we can live with at this juncture.

Kampelman: There is a difference between declaring a ceiling which would be permanent, and a declaration which one can change from time to time.

Crowe: We made a commitment to the Congress not to jeopardize conventional cruise missiles. Ahkromeyev wants to throttle them as well. The Soviets believe they are at a disadvantage in this field.

Shultz: Let us discuss the ALCM counting rule.

Crowe: The Chiefs have now moved. The Air Force is prepared to let all present long-range nuclear missiles count as being nuclear. In the future all conventional ones will be structurally different and distinguishable from other missiles. The present ones are not interchangeable from one to another. The Air Force is willing to count the conventional ones as if they are nuclear because we now have so few conventional ones. It would take severals years to get distinguishable ALCMs deployed. Aircraft with presently designed long-range ALCMs would be based at given fields. New conventional ALCMs would be distinguishable from them.

So far I have talked only about distinguishability. Another question is the number that would be attributed to each heavy bomber carrying ALCMs. We said 10. We have said there would be various types of bombers, those carrying nuclear ALCMs, those in transition, and those carrying only conventionals. When we deploy the new ALCMs, both the planes and the conventional ALCMs will be different and distinguishable from nuclear ALCMs and their planes.

We can thus avoid inspection of the nuclear ALCMs altogether. One only counts the planes capable of carrying them. We will need some inspection on the conventional planes. There is a big disagreement between us and the Soviets concerning what different types of planes can carry and on how to count them, particularly on the ALCMs plus one for bombers carrying both ALCMs and gravity bombs and SRAMs.

Nitze: I have recently reviewed the record of the Reykjavik all-night session.⁷ It shows that I asked Ahkromeyev some questions that bear on the counting rule. I asked him what a bomber carrying only SRAMs and gravity bombs would count; he answered, one. And, what such a bomber also carrying one long-range ALCM would count; he answered, two.

I had assumed that certain of the long range bombers we plan to have in the future would be dedicated to stand-off bombing with long-range cruise missiles while others would be assigned to the role of penetrating the defenses. I had further assumed that the stand-off bomber would not need SRAMs and gravity bombers. Furthermore, I do not understand the sentence in your memorandum⁸ wherein you say that to accept the ALCMs plus one counting rule would cost us 1400 weapons. If we had 80 ALCM carriers they would count at 11 which equal 880. This would leave us room for 220 bombers not carrying ALCMs. Each one of those could carry a large number of SRAMs and gravity bombs.

Shultz interrupted to say he had a note saying that he should change the Thursday meeting of the Chiefs to Friday.⁹ Crowe agreed.

Crowe: By that time I will try to get something on why we can’t get something done by May.

Shultz: Do we want to say it is too complicated and leave it there? It would be a bad public relations problem. Gorbachev is delighted with reporting that I had said the U.S. Navy won’t permit inspection on its ships.

Crowe: Maybe the Navy will change its mind.

Shultz: Let’s not leave this meeting with impression we can’t get there.

Crowe: Inspection protocol; no department agrees with what was tabled. Tagging is wrong. If not May 29, it won’t be the end of the world.

Shultz: True.

1. Source: Reagan Library, Linhard Files, JCS Breakfast, April 15, 1988. Secret; Sensitive. The memorandum, which is stamped “Draft,” was drafted on April 12. The meeting took place in Shultz’s office.
2. On April 14, Shultz and Shevardnadze met at the Residence of the Soviet Minister to the United Nations in Geneva from 4:30–6:05 p.m., following the signing that morning of accords of Afghanistan. Discussions in the afternoon meeting focused on planning the agenda for Shultz’s planned visit to Moscow, and the need to make progress on SLCMs, ALCM counting, and mobile ICBMs in advance of the Moscow Summit scheduled for the end of May. (Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S-IRM Records, Memorandum of Conversations Pertaining to United States and USSR Relations, 1981–1990, Lot 93D188, Shultz—Shev (Geneva—4/14/88.) (S) The memorandum of conversation is in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 142.
3. For Shultz’s statement on the signing of the April 14 Geneva Accords as well as text of the agreements, see Department of State Bulletin, June 1988, pp. 55–61.
4. No minutes were found.
5. April 8.
6. Not found.
7. See Document 159.
8. Not further identified.
9. April 15.