311. Editorial Note
From 2:20–3:25 p.m. on May 31, 1988, Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze heard reports from the Working Groups on arms control and regional issues. Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Arms Control Matters Paul Nitze “led off with a report on the arms control working group, stating that the two sides had long, extensive, and productive discussions on the issues. On ALCM’s, the two sides had reached a large measure of agreement and had produced a paper which recorded the areas of agreement. Similarly, there was a large measure of agreement on mobile ICBM’s, and a paper on these areas of agreement was prepared.” Nitze then outlined the remaining issues: “SLCM’s were discussed at length, but no progress was made. There was also discussion about the relationship between the ABM Treaty and offensive arms reductions. There had been some progress in the clarification of views, but no substantive progress had been achieved.” Nitze also “noted that the U.S. side had stressed its concerns over Soviet violations of the ABM Treaty and had demanded the dismantlement of the Krasnoyarsk radar facility prior to the ABM Treaty review scheduled for October [Page 1445] this year.” Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Akhromeyev, Nitze’s counterpart on the arms control working group, “agreed that good work had been done. Work had practically concluded on the issue of notification of Ballistic Missile Launchers. The two sides continued to work toward solutions on the relationship between the ABM Treaty and the future. On mobile ICBM’s, Akhromeyev agreed that headway had been made on verification, creating a basis for more specific agreement on numbers. Looking ahead, Akhromeyev said that the two sides would try to do something on the relationship between the ABM Treaty and a Strategic Arms Treaty as a basis for the main document.” In response, Shultz and Shevardnadze agreed “that if the entire report was not incorporated in the Joint Statement, the heads of the working group could initial their agreed reports as the basis for future work.” (Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S-IRM Records, Memoranda of Conversations Pertaining to United States and USSR Relations, 1981–1990, Lot 93D188, Moscow Summit 5/29–6/1, 1988) The memorandum of conversation is printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 161.
On the evening of May 31, President Ronald Reagan hosted the Soviet delegation at Spaso House. In a memorandum for the record, drafted June 9, President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs Colin Powell summarized his dinner conversation with Akhromeyev: “I began the conversation by asking Marshal Akhromeyev for a better insight into Soviet thinking on the issue of ALCM’s and SLCM’s. With respect to ALCM’s, Marshal Akhromeyev said the simple problem was that the Soviets could not accept the position that our nuclear ALCM-carrying bombers would only be counted, under START rules, as carrying half as many warheads than they are actually equipped to carry. He said that they could not accept the discounting concept with respect to ALCM’s. He reaffirmed the long-standing Soviet view that a START agreement which did not constrain SLCM’s is unacceptable since SLCM’s are an easy way to circumvent START limits.” (Reagan Library, Ledsky Files, USSR 1988 Memos. Letters (05/24/1988–06/15/1988)
“From that basic restatement of Soviet positions,” Powell went on to recall, “he then launched into a long dissertation on why the Soviets had such concerns over nuclear cruise missiles. He said that the Soviets see themselves boxed in in both the Atlantic and Pacific, as well as the Mediterranean and in the northern seas by a powerful US Navy with the ability to deliver sea-launched cruise missiles. As if this wasn’t bad enough, they had to be concerned with over-the-pole threats from US nuclear bombers. To illustrate his point he said that every morning when he went to the office, the first thing he was briefed on was the location of US Navy ships, P–3 Orion surveillance aircraft, and aircraft carriers. He singled out the US Navy as being a particularly difficult [Page 1446] threat to deal with as well as the bureaucratic impediment in coming to a solution on the SLCM problem. The fact that the Navy does not want to find a solution to the SLCM verification problem is evidence for the Soviet argument that such a system must be constrained.” Powell “pointed out to him that the difficulties we’ve had with their verification ideas and thought that he was overstating the strategic threat that the Soviets faced from nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles.” Akhromeyev “disagreed and repeated his position that nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles simply had to be constrained for the reasons he had already given.” Powell and Akhromeyev then discussed “Soviet claims of a new doctrine of defense sufficiency,” and Akhromeyev’s upcoming trip to the United States at the invitation of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William Crowe. (Ibid.)
The following morning, in a 10:05–11:20 a.m. meeting at St. Catherine’s Hall in the Kremlin, Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev discussed arms control, bilateral affairs, regional affairs, and human rights. Shultz, having read aloud the portions of the draft joint summit statement about a potential Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms, stated that “there had been no progress in Moscow on the issue of sea-launched cruise missiles. On defense and space, the discussions this week helped establish a better understanding of how we should go about clarifying the meaning of the statement at the Washington Summit. The talks did not, however, identify anything special to report to Ministers at this time.” (Department of State, Executive Secretariat, S/S-IRM Records, Memoranda of Conversations Pertaining to United States and USSR Relations, 1981–1990, Lot 93D188, Moscow Summit 5/29–6/1, 1988) (declass) The memorandum of conversation is printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 162.
On June 1, the United States and Soviet Union issued a joint statement to mark the conclusion of the Moscow Summit. A section of it, “Nuclear and Space Talks,” reads in part: “The joint draft treaty on reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms reflects the earlier understanding on establishing ceilings of no more than 1,600 strategic offensive delivery systems and 6,000 warheads as well as agreement on subceilings of 4,900 on the aggregate of ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] and SLBM [submarine-launched ballistic missile] warheads and 1,540 warheads on 154 heavy missiles. The draft treaty also records the sides’ agreement that a result of the reductions the aggregate throw-weight of the Soviet Union’s ICBMs and SLBMs will be reduced to a level approximately 50% below the existing level and this level will not be exceeded. During the negotiations the two sides have also achieved understanding that in future work on the treaty they will act on the understanding that on deployed ICBMs and SLBMs of existing [Page 1447] types the counting rule will include the number of warheads referred to in the joint statement of December 10, 1987, and the number of warheads which will be attributed to each new types of ballistic missile will be subject to negotiation.” (All brackets are in the original text) The joint statement went on to discuss data exchanges, and note discussions on ALCM counting and SLCMs, and note that Reagan and Gorbachev had instructed their delegations to return to Geneva on July 12. (“Joint Statement, Moscow, June 1, 1988,” Department of State Bulletin, August 1988, pp. 26–27)