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

310. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Moscow, May 31, 1988, 9:15 a.m.–1 p.m.

SUBJECT

• Defense and Space, START

PARTICIPANTS

• U.S.

  • AMB Nitze
  • AMB Kampelman
  • AMB Hanmer
  • AMB Cooper
  • AMB Rowny
  • AS Lehman
  • ADM Howe
  • GOL Linhard
  • Mr. Castillo
  • Dr. Timbie
  • Dr. Graham
  • LTC Richardson
  • Mr. Joseph
  • Mr. Mozur (Interpreter)
  • Mr. Stafford (Notetaker)

• USSR

  • MSU Akhromeyev
  • AMB Obukhov
  • AMB Kuznetsov
  • AMB Masterkov
  • AMB Karpov
  • AMB Dubinin
  • GEN Chervov
  • GEN Starodubov
  • GEN Lebedev
  • CPT Beketov
  • Mr. Khromov
  • Mr. Batrushev (Int)

AKHROMEYEV stated that there was an objective interconnection between reductions in strategic offensive arms and limits on ABM systems. This was a question of principle. Fifty percent cuts in strategic offensive arms would be possible only if there were limits on development of ABM systems.

The joint Soviet-American statement of December 10 contained the following formulation: “the sides will comply with the ABM Treaty as signed in 1972, while conducting their research, development and testing as required, which are permitted by the ABM Treaty.” Shultz had called this formulation the bible, but practice indicated that the sides interpreted the bible in their own ways. They had a different understanding regarding activities during the nonwithdrawal period and after.

The Soviet side understood the Washington formula the way it was drafted. During the specified period, all RD&T should comply with the ABM Treaty, in particular Article V, which stated that the sides should not develop, test or deploy ABM systems or components that were sea-based, air-based, space-based, or mobile land-based.

This applied even if the systems were based on other physical principles. Deployment of fixed, ground-based ABM systems based on OPP and their components would be allowed in allowed areas, but only after discussion and agreement with the other side as called for in Agreed Statement D. The December 10 formula did not allow other interpretations.

As agreed in Washington, three years prior to the termination of the nonwithdrawal period, the sides should start intensive discussions of strategic stability. These would be carried out in a qualitatively different situation, when 50% cuts in strategic offensive arms were nearing completion. Such a situation, compared to today, would be much closer to the conditions of 1972, when the ABM Treaty was signed. The sides would be involved in a joint quest for strategic stability. They should concentrate their efforts here.

Only in the case that the sides could not agree otherwise, only after the nonwithdrawal period, could the sides have the right to determine their own courses of action. After completion of the period, the right of the sides to withdraw from the ABM Treaty would be restored. Each side would be entitled to determine whether to remain in the ABM Treaty or not. Withdrawal from the Treaty should be carried out in accordance with the procedure provided for in Article XV. There was no need for provisions replacing Article XV. Agreement on nonwithdrawal would not cancel the ABM Treaty or replace its provisions.

The U.S. side had raised the point of defending supreme interests. It insisted on including in the agreement a provision stipulating the right to withdraw if supreme interests were threatened. But the agreement being worked out was unique in nature, an agreement on nonwithdrawal from another legal instrument. The attitude of the sides toward situations that might develop during the period of deep cuts in strategic offensive arms and that might be viewed as threatening supreme interests should not imply withdrawal from the Treaty but rather a desire to avoid such situations.

The Soviet proposals were aimed at this. For example, the Soviet side agreed to cut strategic offensive arms by 50% within a period of 7 years. The sides would be doing that during the period of nonwithdrawal. If, in 4 years, the U.S. were to announce that, in connection with some circumstances, it planned to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, even though such circumstances had nothing to do with the USSR, the Soviet Union would face a situation where it was intensively cutting strategic offensive arms while the U.S. was deploying a territorial ABM system. This would seriously damage Soviet interests. The obligation not to withdraw must guarantee that a side would not face a situation such as this.

With regard to sensors, the U.S. side suggested that there be no limits on the testing and development of sensors of any type in outer space. The rationale was that sensors were useful and that it was difficult to distinguish between ABM and early warning sensors. The Soviet side could not agree.

It was difficult to oppose the use of sensors. Many had operated in space for quite some time. If there were no early warning sensors, the sides could not sit there and calmly discuss such things, because security would be impossible. But the situation was different with sensors used with functions similar to ABM radars, because under Article II, ABM radars were part of an ABM system and Article V prohibited deployment of such systems in space.

In March, at the Defense Ministers’ meeting,² Carlucci had provided Yazov a simple scheme depicting placement of sensors in space. Akhromeyev had looked through the scheme and discussed it with Soviet experts. He had concluded that, because the scheme provided for placing into orbit not one sensor that might function as an ABM radar but rather an interconnected system of such sensors including command and control, each sensor of this kind would be capable not only of detecting the existence of a warhead in space but also of determining its position at any one time.

Moreover, those sensors would be capable of transmitting information to the command and control of strike systems. The sensors could control attack systems of different types, so they could be targeted against the warheads to ensure their destruction. This would mean that a large-scale territorial ABM system was being deployed.

Of course, the Soviet side was against this, because to complete the ABM system, it would take only the addition of strike systems to these components. The sides should let their experts scrutinize this problem.

With regard to compliance, the U.S. side had mentioned Krasnoyarsk. That was a spacetrack radar, but even if it was an early warning radar, it would not be a violation since it was not yet deployed. Construction of the radar had been frozen.

The Soviet side expected, since the U.S. side mentioned Krasnoyarsk, that it would address the radar in Greenland that was deployed and that was a violation of the ABM Treaty, since it was not an early warning radar but was an ABM radar. It had been an early warning radar, but after modernization it had been converted to an ABM radar.

Agreed Statement F stipulated that phased array radars with a potential greater than 3 million watt-meters squared could be deployed only in agreed areas (testing grounds or on the periphery pointing out), for spacetrack, or for NTM. One could not categorize the deployment of the Thule radar with potential greater than 3 million into any of the allowed modes of deployment. Therefore, the deployment was not allowed and was a direct violation. This was the Soviet way of handling both concerns, Krasnoyarsk and Thule.

NITZE responded that the U.S. side would study Akhromeyev’s statement carefully and provide detailed replies. He had some preliminary comments. Akhromeyev had misstated the sense of Agreed Statement D. That statement indicated that, in the event systems or components capable of substituting for ABM components were created in the future, they would not be deployed without prior consultations and agreement. The word “create” clearly implied testing and development as part of the act of creation. There was no reference to ground-based systems in Agreed Statement D. The requirement for consultations and amendment under Article XIV was a precondition to deployment.

With regard to rights after the nonwithdrawal period, each side could choose its own course of action, as proposed in Washington by the General Secretary and agreed in the presence of both Akhromeyev and Nitze. It was clearly considered by both sides that 50% reductions would increase stability, not decrease it. It was not the U.S. view that 50% reductions would create extraordinary conditions increasing the threat to either side. The U.S. side did not envisage that reductions would entitle it to say that conditions had been created threatening its national security; its written position was specifically to the contrary.

Regarding Krasnoyarsk and Thule, Nitze’s recollection was that the ABM Treaty, in Article II, Paragraph 2, said that the ABM systems and components listed in Paragraph 1 included those that were operational as well as those under construction. There was no distinction in the applicability of the provisions between the two categories.

Agreed Statement F did not distinguish whether or not early warning radars would be phased array radars with power aperture greater than 3 X 106. Both a dish radar and a phased array radar could be an early warning radar. Certainly not all Soviet radars were dish radars.

The Thule radar was in existence at the time of signing of the ABM Treaty. Therefore, it was exempted from the locational restrictions in the Treaty. The Treaty did permit modernization of those systems already in existence.

AKHROMEYEV said the sides had not understood each other on two points. The first was whether 50% reductions could upset strategic stability. The Soviet side was working on 50% cuts. What he had meant was that, if the reductions started and, after 3–4 years, the USSR had reduced a considerable portion of its assets, and the U.S. then announced that it was withdrawing from the ABM Treaty due to a situation not connected with the USSR, this would damage strategic stability and the interests of the USSR. That was why the Soviet side was against either side using the right of withdrawal during the agreed period of time.

The second misunderstanding was on Thule. The Soviet side did not object to repair and maintenance of a radar; that was allowed by the ABM Treaty. But the U.S. modernization at Thule gave that radar new qualities. An early warning radar had been turned into an ABM radar. This was a violation of the Treaty.

NITZE replied that, concerning the second point, he believed it correct that the USSR had transformed many early warning stations from non-phased array to phased array warning stations. The question had arisen whether those early warning stations provided information to the USSR’s central information network. Therefore, these stations might have ABM capability; this was hard to determine. But the U.S. side had not raised this question. Certainly Thule fell in the same category.

AKHROMEYEV said he was not sure if this had been raised in Geneva, but Thule had acquired new qualities. If there was any doubt, the sides might pick out any early warning station in the USSR and compare its capabilities to those of Thule. Any early warning station in the USSR had only early warning qualities and nothing more. Thule had originally been an early warning station, but after modernization it had acquired ABM capabilities.

KAMPELMAN noted that the sides would not resolve this problem in this session, but they should realize that they were involved in a very important process. As part of that process, the U.S. side wanted the Soviet side to consider the following.

In 1972, when the sides signed the ABM Treaty, it was agreed that there would be further reductions in strategic offensive arms. The reductions the sides were now discussing would not take them below the level they were at in 1972. Indeed, the levels would still be higher. Had the sides performed what they had undertaken to perform in 1972, there could be theoretical arguments along the lines Akhromeyev had taken. The sides might disagree, but the logic could be understood. But he did not see Akhromeyev’s logic in this case, since the sides would, after the 50% cuts, still be in a posture above the 1972 levels.

It would seem better to go through the reductions, then continue the discussion in the defense area, and not make the reductions agreed on in 1972 dependent on this area the sides disagreed on. Unless the sides proceeded in this way, they would continue each time they met to argue without resolution the question of what the ABM Treaty meant. This question must be resolved someday, but Kampelman did not see the sides finding that resolution in a timely fashion.

AKHROMEYEV responded that there were two issues to discuss: the Thule radar and the point Kampelman had just raised. On the latter, it would take much time to make the U.S. side understand the Soviet position.

KAMPELMAN replied that the U.S. side understood the Soviet position; it just did not agree. And he thought the Soviet side understood the U.S. position.

AKHROMEYEV noted that there was the December 10 statement in which the leaders recognized the existence of linkage. Kampelman might have his point of view, but he could not avoid recognition of linkage being officially acknowledged by the U.S. side. It was impossible not to recognize linkage, because the General Secretary and the President had agreed to seek a resolution of the problem.

KAMPELMAN retorted that, certainly in the English language, there was a difference between linkage and interrelationship. The U.S. side recognized an interrelationship; there was no denying that. But linkage, where one area does not move unless the other moves, was where the sides had differences. He suggested the sides move to the more immediate crisis they faced in the strategic area.

AKHROMEYEV replied that interrelationship was the proper word. There was an objective, existing reality that had to be recognized. But he agreed to move on.

NITZE suggested the sides move to the papers worked by Hanmer and Obukhov. He understood that Obukhov wanted to restrict the papers to agreed elements and leave out the other points. The U.S. side believed the section on those points yet to be resolved was also important to transmit to Ministers. They should know the magnitude of the work yet to be done on ALCMs.

AKHROMEYEV said he understood the ALCM problem to be reflected in paragraph 3 of the Soviet document. This paragraph was detailed enough; it included all points discussed between the sides. But there were too many brackets.

OBUKHOV added that the problem was that, at this point, the U.S. side had its paper and the Soviet side had its own.

AKHROMEYEV continued that, when reporting to Ministers, the sides would need a joint document. There might be points disagreed, but the sides should have a joint paper.

NITZE noted that, in the past, the sides had done their own reports. It was not necessary to have one paper.

AKHROMEYEV replied that, if the sides could not agree, they would have to have different papers, but one paper would be better.

The rest of the meeting was spent working text of the papers on ALCMs and mobile ICBM verification. Final versions of these papers are attached.³

1. Source: Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S-IRM Records, Memorandum of Conversations Pertaining to United States and USSR Relations, 1981–1990, Lot 93D188, Moscow Summit 5/29–6/1, 1988. Secret. The meeting took place in the Foreign Ministry Guest House.
2. See footnote 3, Document 298.
3. Attached but not printed are two June 1 papers: “Elements of Common Ground on ALCMS” and “Elements of Common Ground on Mobile ICBM Verification.”