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TOP-SECRET:Perestroika and the Transformation of U.S.-Soviet Relations
President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the first Summit in Geneva, November 19, 1985 (Photo – Ronald Reagan Library)
Washington D.C. August 17, 2011 – Twenty years ago this week the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union concluded their Geneva Summit, which became the first step on the road to transforming the entire system of international relations. Unlike the summits of the 1970s, it did not produce any major treaties, and was not seen as a breakthrough at the time, but as President Ronald Reagan himself stated at its conclusion, “The real report card will not come in for months or even years.” The movement toward the summit became possible as a result of change in the leadership in the Soviet Union. On March 11, 1985, the Politburo of the USSR Communist Party Central Committee elected Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev as its new General Secretary. This event symbolized the beginning of the internal transformation of the Soviet Union.
Today, twenty years after those seminal events, the National Security Archive is posting a series of newly declassified Soviet and U.S. documents which allow one to appreciate the depth and the speed of change occurring both inside the Soviet Union and in U.S.-Soviet relations in the pivotal year of 1985. Most documents below are being published for the first time.
Upon coming to power, the new Soviet leader initiated a series of reforms, beginning with acceleration of the economy, the anti-alcohol campaign, and the new policy of glasnost (openness), which became known later as perestroika. Although unnoticed by most Western observers, early significant changes were taking place in the internal political discourse of the Communist party with less ceremony and more open discussion at the sessions of the Politburo and the Central Committee Plenums. In the hierarchical Soviet system, the power of appointment allowed the top leader to build an effective political coalition to implement his new ideas. Gorbachev used his position as General Secretary to bring in officials who shared his worldview as key advisers and promoted them to the Central Committee and the Politburo. In 1985, two of the most important figures Gorbachev brought into the inner circle were Alexander Yakovlev and Eduard Shevardnadze. Already by the end of the year, in a memorandum to Gorbachev, Yakovlev proposed democratization of the party, genuine multi-candidate elections to the Supreme Soviet, and even the need to split the party into two parts to introduce competition into the political system.
In the sphere of U.S.-Soviet relations, the first year of perestroika was one of building trust and of intense learning for both Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. Although public rhetoric did not change to any significant degree, the unprecedented exchange of letters between the two leaders gave them an opportunity to engage in a serious dialog about the issues each saw as the most important ones, and prepared the ground for their face-to-face meeting in Geneva. One of the most important issues that came up repeatedly in the letters was the need to prevent nuclear war by way of reducing the level of armaments to reasonable sufficiency, where each side would enjoy equal security without striving for superiority. In this still tentative journey to find the right approach to each other, both leaders relied on the advice and good offices of another world leader for whom they had great respect and trust-Margaret Thatcher. (See memoranda of Margaret Thatcher’s Conversations with Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan as well as their correspondence at the Archive of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation).
Both sides had relatively low expectations going into the Geneva Summit. No draft of a final statement was prepared, partly due to the very different agendas each leader had. Both, however, believed that they would be able to persuade the other during the course of their personal encounter. Gorbachev was hoping to convince Reagan to reaffirm Washington’s commitment to the SALT II treaty, which had never been ratified, and to return to the traditional interpretation of the ABM treaty, which in essence would have meant abandoning SDI. He succeeded in neither of those efforts, but he did obtain a joint statement in which both sides pledged that they would not seek strategic superiority, and most importantly, stated that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Upon returning home, the Soviet leader repeatedly emphasized this anti-war aspect of the joint statement and played down the sharp disagreements on SDI and space weapons which transpired during the discussions. Reagan, upon returning to the United States, presented the summit as his victory, in which he did not give in to Gorbachev’s pressure to abandon SDI, but in turn was able to pressure the Soviet leader on human rights.
In reality, in addition to agreeing in principle to the idea of a 50 percent reduction in strategic arms and an “interim” agreement on INF, the main significance of the Geneva Summit was that it served as a fundamental learning experience for both sides. Gorbachev realized that strategic defense was a matter of Reagan’s personal conviction and that most likely it was rooted not in the needs of the military-industrial complex but in the President’s deepest abhorrence of nuclear war. Reagan, on the other hand, had a chance to appreciate the genuine, repeatedly expressed concern of the Soviet leader about the possibility of putting nuclear weapons in space, which was the essence of Gorbachev’s fears over SDI. Reagan also could sense Gorbachev’s sincere eagerness to proceed with very deep arms reductions on the basis of equal security, not superiority. Reagan also sensed in Gorbachev a willingness to make concessions in order to move forward on arms control.
In view of Reagan’s insistence on developing the SDI, and his suggestions that the United States would share it when it was completed, and to open the laboratories in the process, many observers felt that Gorbachev had missed a crucial opportunity to take Reagan at his word and to press him for a written commitment on this issue. Ambassador Jack Matlock believes that was a “strategic error” on Gorbachev’s part. (Note 1) Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin also felt that Gorbachev missed an opportunity by getting “unreasonably fixated” on space weapons, and making it a “precondition for summit success.” (Note 2)
Both leaders came out of the summit with a new appreciation of each other as a partner. They succeeded in building trust and opening a dialog, which in very short order made possible such breakthroughs as Gorbachev’s Program on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons by the Year 2000 (January 15, 1986) and the INF and the START Treaties.
Documents
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.Document 1: Politburo Session March 11, 1985 Gorbachev ElectionMikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary at a special Politburo session convened less than 24 hours after Konstantin Chernenko’s death. According to most Russian sources, the election was pre-decided the day before when he was named the head of the funeral commission. At the Politburo itself, Gorbachev’s name was proposed by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who was at the moment the most senior Politburo member and one the core members of the Brezhnev inner circle. Gromyko’s speech praised Gorbachev’s human and of business qualities, and his experience of work in the party apparatus, in terms that were less formal than similar speeches at the elections of previous general secretaries. There were no dissenting voices at the session, partly because of Gromyko’s firm endorsement, and partly because three potential opponents–First Secretary of Kazakhstan Dinmukhamed Kunaev, First Secretary of Ukraine Vladimir Shcherbitsky, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia Vitaly Vorotnikov–were abroad and could not make it to Moscow on such a short notice.
Document 2: Reagan Letter to Gorbachev, March 11, 1985
In his first letter to the new leader of the Soviet Union, President Reagan states his hope for the improvement of bilateral relations and extends an invitation for Mikhail Gorbachev to visit him in Washington. He also expresses his hope that the arms control negotiations “provide us with a genuine chance to make progress toward our common ultimate goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.”
Document 3: Alexander Yakovlev, On Reagan. Memorandum prepared on request from M.S. Gorbachev and handed to him on March 12, 1985
In this memorandum, which Gorbachev requested and Yakovlev prepared the day after Gorbachev’s election as general secretary, Yakovlev analyzed President Ronald Reagan’s positions on a variety of issues. The analysis is notable for its non-ideological tone, suggesting that meeting with the U.S. president was in the Soviet Union’s national interest, and that Reagan’s positions were far from clear-cut, indicating some potential for improving U.S.-Soviet relations.
Document 4: Memorandum of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Conversation with Babrak Karmal, March 14, 1985
In his first conversation with the leader of Afghanistan, who was brought in by the Soviet troops in December of 1979, Gorbachev underscored two main points: first that “the Soviet troops cannot stay in Afghanistan forever,” and second, that the Afghan revolution was presently in its “national-democratic” stage, whereas its socialist stage was only “a course of the future.” He also encouraged the Afghan leader to expand the base of the regime to unite all the “progressive forces.” In no uncertain terms, Karmal was told that the Soviet troops would be leaving soon and that his government would have to rely on its own forces.
Document 5: Minutes of Gorbachev’s Meeting with CC CPSU Secretaries, March 15, 1985
Gorbachev discusses the results of his meetings with foreign leaders during Konstantin Chernenko’s funeral at the conference of the Central Committee Secretaries. He notes the speeches made by the socialist allies, especially Gustav Husak, Jaruzelski’s suggestion to meet more often and informally, and Ceausescu’s opposition to the renewal of the Warsaw Pact for another 20 years. Among his meetings with Western leaders, Gorbachev speaks very highly about his meeting with Margaret Thatcher, which had “a slightly different character” than his meetings with other Westerners. A two-hour meeting with Vice President George Bush and Secretary of State George Shultz left only a “mediocre” impression, but an invitation to visit the United States was noted. Describing his meeting with President of Pakistan Zia Ul Hak, Gorbachev for the first time used a phrase usually dated to the XXVI party congress: he called the war in Afghanistan “a bleeding wound.”
Document 6: Gorbachev Letter to Reagan, March 24, 1985
In his first letter to the U.S. President, Gorbachev emphasizes the need to improve relations between the two countries on the basis of peaceful competition and respect for each other’s economic and social choice. He notes the responsibility of the two superpowers and their common interest “not to let things come to the outbreak of nuclear war, which would inevitably have catastrophic consequences for both sides.” Underscoring the importance of building trust, the Soviet leader accepts Reagan’s invitation in the March 11 letter to visit at the highest level and proposes that such visit should “not necessarily be concluded by signing some major documents.” Rather, “it should be a meeting to search for mutual understanding.”
Document 7: Reagan Letter to Gorbachev, April 4, 1985
In response to Gorbachev’s March 24 letter, Reagan stresses the common goal of elimination of nuclear weapons, the need to improve relations, and specifically mentions humanitarian and regional issues. He calls Gorbachev’s attention to the recent killing of Major Nicholson in East Germany and describes that as “an example of a Soviet military action which threatens to undo our best efforts to fashion a sustainable, more constructive relationship in the long term.”
Document 8: Minutes of the Politburo Session on launching the anti-alcohol campaign, April 4, 1985
The Politburo session discussed the issue of “drunkenness and alcoholism”-and adopted one of the most controversial resolutions of all the perestroika period, which when implemented became the source of great public outcry and resulted in significant losses of productivity in wine-producing areas in Southern Russia, Moldavia and Georgia. Vitaly Solomentsev made the official presentation to the Politburo producing shocking statistics of the level of alcoholism in the Soviet Union. In an unprecedented fashion, even though the main presentation was strongly supported by the General Secretary, there was opposition among the Politburo members. Notably, Deputy Finance Minister Dementsev spoke about how a radical cut in the level of production of alcoholic drinks could affect the Soviet economy, and prophetically stated that “a significant decrease in the production of vodka and alcohol products might lead to the growth of moonshine production, as well as stealing of technological alcohol, and would also cause the additional sugar consumption.” The discussion also reveals the sad state of the Soviet economy, incapable of providing goods for the money held by the population if vodka production were to be cut.
Document 9: Reagan letter to Gorbachev, April 30, 1985
In this letter, Reagan gives a detailed response to Gorbachev’s letter of March 24. After drawing Gorbachev’s attention to the situation with the use of lethal force by Soviet forces in East Germany, Reagan also touches on most difficult points in US.-Soviet relations, such as the war in Afghanistan, and issues surrounding strategic defenses. The President mentions that he was struck by Gorbachev’s characterization of the Strategic Defense Initiative as having “an offensive purpose for an attack on the Soviet Union.” The rest of the letter provides a detailed explanation of Reagan’s view of SDI as providing the means of moving to the total abolition of nuclear weapons.
Document 10: Gorbachev letter to Reagan, June 10, 1985In his response to Reagan’s letter of April 30, the Soviet leader raises the issue of equality and reciprocity in U.S.-Soviet relations, noting that it is the Soviet Union that is “surrounded by American military bases stuffed also by nuclear weapons, rather than U.S.-by Soviet bases.” This letter shows Gorbachev’s deep apprehensions about Reagan’s position on the strategic defenses. The Soviet leader believes that a development of ABM systems would lead to a radical destabilization of the situation and the militarization of space. It is clear from this letter, that at the heart of the Soviet rejection of the SDI is the image of “attack space weapons capable of performing purely offensive missions.”
Document 11: Minutes of the Politburo session, June 29, 1985. Shevardnadze appointment
This Politburo session became the first one of many where Gorbachev used his power of appointment to quickly and decisively bring his supporters into the inner circle of the Politburo, and to retire those apparatchiks, who, in Gorbachev’s view could not be counted on to implement the new reforms. At this historic session, it was decided to promote Andrei Gromyko to the position of Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, replacing him with the relatively unknown Eduard Shevardnadze, send Grigory Romanov into retirement, and promote Boris Yeltsin to head the Construction Department of the CC CPSU in addition to many other personnel changes in the highest echelon of power. Gorbachev dealt with each promotion or replacement in a quick and business-like manner, which did not leave any space for opposing voices.
Document 12: Excerpt from Minutes of the Politburo Session, August 29, 1985
As an example of still slow and uneven progress of perestroika in its first year, the Politburo discusses a request from the exiled Academician Andrei Sakharov to allow his wife to travel abroad for medical treatment. The highly ideological discussion was dominated by KGB Chairman Viktor Chebrikov, who describes Yelena Bonner’s “100% influence” over Sakharov. Mikhail Zimyanin called her “a beast in a skirt, an imperialist plant.” However, the issue of whether to allow Bonner to go abroad is discussed in the framework of its potential impact on the Soviet image in the West, and especially in the light of the forthcoming Gorbachev meeting with Presidents Reagan and Mitterand.
Document 13: Gorbachev’s Economic Agenda : Promises, Potentials, and Pitfalls. An Intelligence Assessment, September 1985
This intelligence analysis presents a dire picture of the Soviet economic situation that the new Soviet leader had to face after his election, and calls his new economic agenda “the most agressive since the Khrushchev era.” Gorbachev is expected to show willingness to reduce the Soviet resource commitment to defense, legalize private-sector activity in the sphere of cunsumer services, and try to break the monopoly of foreign trade apparatus. However, the assessment is very cautious, suggesting that if Gorbachev continues to rely on “marginal tinkering,” it would mean that he “like Brezhnev before him, has succumbed to a politically expedient but economically ineffective approach.”
Document 14: CIA Assessment: Gorbachev’s Personal Agenda for the November Meeting
The analysis correctly notes that Gorbachev’s expectations going to Geneva were very low. According to the CIA, the Soviet leader would be primarily seeking to explore Reagan’s personal commitment to improving relations and arms control. Gorbachev was also expected to reaffirm commitment to SALT II and persuade Reagan to agree to a mutual reaffirmation of the ABM treaty. The analysis predicted a possibility of Gorbachev taking an aggressive posture to emphasize Soviet equality with the U.S. administration on such issues as the Soviet role in the regional disputes and human rights.
Document 15: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 19, 1985 10:20-11:20 a.m. First Private Meeting
In their first private meeting Reagan and Gorbachev both spoke about the mistrust and suspicions of the past and of the need to begin a new stage in U.S.-Soviet relations. Gorbachev described his view of the international situation to Reagan, stressing the need to end the arms race. Reagan expressed his concern with Soviet activity in the third world helping the socialist revolutions in the developing countries. Gorbachev did not challenge the President’s assertion actively but replied jokingly that he did not wake up “every day” thinking about “which country he would like to arrange a revolution in.”
Document 16: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 19, 1985 11:27 a.m.-12:15 p.m. First Plenary Session
At this session, Gorbachev gives a quite assertive and ideological performance, explaining his views of how the U.S. military-industrial complex is profiting from the arms race and indicating that the Soviet side is aware of the advice that conservative think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, give the President-that “they had been saying that the United States should use the arms race to frustrate Gorbachev’s plans, to weaken the Soviet Union.” He also challenges Reagan on what the Soviet side viewed as a unilateral definition of U.S. national interests. Reagan’s response raises the need to build trust and rejects Gorbachev’s insistence that the interests of the military-industrial complex define the policy of the United States.
Document 17: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 19, 1985 2:30-3:40 p.m. Second Plenary Meeting
In response to Reagan’s discussion of the SDI, and the need for strategic defense if a madman got his hands on nuclear weapons, Gorbachev lays out a Soviet response to a U.S. effort to actually build an SDI system : there will be no reduction of strategic weapons, and the Soviet Union would respond. “This response will not be a mirror image of your program, but a simpler, more effective system.” In his response, Reagan talks about regional issues, particularly Vietnam, Cambodia and Nicaragua. On SDI, the U.S. President makes a promise that “SDI will never be used by the U.S. to improve its offensive capability or to launch a first strike.” Gorbachev seems to be so focused on the issue of strategic defenses that he is not willing to enage in serious discussion of other issues.
Document 18: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 19, 1985 3:34-4:40 p.m. Mrs. Reagan’s Tea for Mrs. Gorbacheva
Document 19: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 19, 1985 3:40-4:45 p.m. Second Private Meeting
In their private meeting the two leaders discussed the idea of a 50 percent reduction in the levels of strategic nuclear weapons. Gorbachev’s firm position is that such an agreement cannot be negotiated apart from the issues of strategic defense and that it should be tied to a reconfirmation of the traditional understanding of the 1972 ABM treaty. Reagan does not see the defensive weapons as part of the arms race and therefore does not see the need to include them in the Geneva negotiations. Reagan is surprised that Gorbachev “kept on speaking on space weapons.” Gorbachev admits that, on a human level, he could understand that the “idea of strategic defense had captivated the President’s imagination.” In this conversation both sides come close to learning the key concern of the other-Reagan’s sincere belief that a strategic defense system could prevent nuclear war, and Gorbachev’s abhorrence of putting weapons in space.
Document 20: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 19, 1985 8-10:30 p.m. Dinner Hosted by the Gorbachevs
During the dinner Gorbachev used a quote from the Bible that there was a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones which have been cast in the past to indicate that now the President and he should move to resolve their practical disagreements in the last day of meetings remaining. In his response, Reagan stated that “if the people of the world were to find out that there was some alien life form that was going to attack the Earth aproaching on Halley’s Comet, then that knowledge would unite all peoples of the world.”
Document 21: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 20, 1985 11:30 a.m.-12:40 p.m. Third Plenary Meeting
At this meeting Reagan presented a detailed U.S. program on strategic arms reductions and a notion of an interim INF agreement. Gorbachev agreed to the idea of reductions, but emphasized that the Soviet Union could not agree to proposals that would jeopardize Soviet security, meaning Reagan’s insistence on the SDI. The main focus of Gorbachev’s talk was once again on the SDI and on why Reagan should be so focused on it if the other side found it unacceptable. To that, Reagan responded with a proposal that whoever developed a feasible defense system should share it, and that way the threat would be eliminated. Gorbachev gave his agreement to a separate INF agreement and to deep cuts under the condition that the United States would not develop a strategic defense system because that would mean bulding a new class of weapons to be put in space.
Document 22: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 20, 1985, 2:45-3:30 p.m. Fourth Plenary Meeting
At this meeting the leaders discussed the possibility of producing a joint statement on the result of the Summit. In contrast to previous U.S.-Soviet summits, no draft of such a statement was prepared before due to U.S. objections to such a draft.
Document 23: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 20, 1985, 4:00-5:15 p.m. Mrs. Gorbacheva’s Tea for Mrs. Reagan
Document 24: Geneva Summit Memorandum of Conversation. November 20, 1985, 8:00-10:30 p.m. Dinner Hosted by President and Mrs. Reagan
At the final dinner both sides emphasized that here at Geneva they started something that would lead them to more significant steps in improving bilateral relations and the global situation, “with mutual understanding and a sense of responsibility.” In the conversation after dinner Reagan and Gorbachev discussed the prepared joint statement and their respective statements, which should express their strong support for the ideas expressed in that document.
Document 25: Yakovlev’s handwritten notes from Geneva
Alexander Yakovlev’s notes emphasize the main points of the Geneva discussions, the new elements of U.S.-Soviet dialog. He notes the need of improvement in all aspects of bilateral relations, Gorbachev’s statement that the USSR would be satisfied by a lower level of security for the United States, underscoring the need for equal security, and his call for both countries to show good will in bilateral relations. Yakovlev gives particular attention to the discussion of the SDI in his notes, and to the differences in the U.S. and Soviet views on strategic defense.
Document 26: Excerpt from Anatoly Chernyaev’s Diary, November 24, 1985
Anatoly Chernyaev as Deputy Head of the International Department of the CC CPSU was involved in drafting Soviet positions for the Geneva Summit. He learned about the results of the summit from Boris Ponomarev. In his diary he noted the cardinal nature of the change-nothing has changed in the military balance, and yet a turning point was noticeable, the leaders came to the understanding that nobody would start a nuclear war. He notes also that although initially Reagan was not responsive to Gorbachev’s efforts, in the end the President “did crack open after all.”
Document 27: Gorbachev Speech at the CC CPSU Conference, November 28, 1985
In his post-Geneva speech to the conference of the CC CPSU Gorbachev gives an ambivalent analysis of the summit. Noting that the U.S. main positions have not changed, and that Reagan is “maneuvering,” he also emphasized the fact that the administration could not but respond to public pressure and start making steps forward in the direction of Soviet proposals. Generally, Gorbachev’s remarks here are very cautious, because he is speaking to a wider audience than the Politburo, and still they are less ideological than might be expected in his analysis of U.S.-Soviet relations. He also touches upon the need to keep up defenses and the importance, indeed the “sacred” character, of the defense industry.
Document 28: Gorbachev letter to Reagan, December 5, 1985
In this first post-Geneva letter to the U.S. President, Gorbachev is calling for building on the spirit of Geneva with concrete actions. The Soviet leader talks about the need to stop all nuclear testing, and invites the United States to join the Soviet moratorium, which was due to expire in January 1986. As a new step, he proposes a system of international control and inspections, which in a significant break with the past would allow U.S. observers to inspect locations of “questionable” activities on a mutual basis. The tone of the letter is completely non-ideological and provides an interesting contrast with Gorbachev’s report on the summit to the Central Committee conference.
Document 29: Reagan letter to Gorbachev, early December 1985
In this letter to Gorbachev Reagan is trying to build on the spirit of Geneva, underscoring the new understanding that the two leaders found during the discussions. Importantly, Reagan notes two main differences, which left a profound impression on his thinking. First, that he was “struck by [Gorbachev’s] conviction that … [the SDI] is somehow designed to secure a strategic advantage-even to permit a first strike capability.” He tries to assuage that concern. The second issue raised in the letter is the issue of regional conflict, where the U.S. President suggests that a significant step in improving U.S.-Soviet relations would be a Soviet decision to “withdraw your forces from Afghanistan.” He suggests that the two leaders should set themselves a private goal-to find a practical way to solve the two issues he had mentioned in the letter.
Document 30: Alexander Yakovlev Memorandum to Mikhail Gorbachev, “The Imperative of Political Development,” December 25, 1985
In this memorandum to Gorbachev, Yakovlev outlines his view of the much-needed transformation of the political system of the Soviet Union. Yakovlev writes in his memoir that he prepared this document in several drafts earlier in the year but hesitated to present it to Gorbachev because he believed his own official standing at the time was still too junior. Yakovlev’s approach here is thoroughly based on a perceived need for democratization, starting with intra-party democratization. The memo suggests introducing several truly ground-breaking reforms, including genuine multi-candidate elections, free discussion of political positions, a division of power between the legislative and executive branches, independence of the judicial branch, and real guarantees of human rights and freedoms.
Notes1. Jack F. Matlock, Jr. Reagan and Gorbachev : How the Cold War Ended (New York : Random House, 2004), p. 168.
2. Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986). (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 591.
TOP-SECRET: The INF Treaty and the Washington Summit
Washington D.C., August, 2011 – Previously secret Soviet Politburo records and declassified American transcripts of the Washington summit 20 years ago between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev show that Gorbachev was willing to go much further than the Americans expected or were able to reciprocate on arms cuts and resolving regional conflicts, according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
Today’s posting includes the internal Soviet deliberations leading up to the summit, full transcripts of the two leaders’ discussions, the Soviet record of negotiations with top American diplomats, and other historic records being published for the first time.
The documents show that the Soviet Union made significant changes to its initial position to accommodate the U.S. demands, beginning with “untying the package” of strategic arms, missile defense, and INF in February 1987 and then agreeing to eliminate its newly deployed OKA/SS-23 missiles, while pressing the U.S. leadership to agree on substantial reductions of strategic nuclear weapons. Gorbachev’s goal was to prepare and sign the START Treaty on the basis of 50 percent reductions of strategic offensive weapons in 1988 before the Reagan administration left office. In the course of negotiations, the Soviet Union also proposed cutting conventional forces in Europe by 25% and starting negotiations to eliminate chemical weapons.
The documents also detail Gorbachev’s desire for genuine collaboration with the U.S. in resolving regional conflicts, especially the Iran-Iraq War, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Nicaragua. However, the documents show that the U.S. side was unwilling and unable to pursue many of the Soviet initiatives at the time due to political struggles within the Reagan administration. Reading these documents one gets a visceral sense of missed opportunities for achieving even deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals, resolving regional conflicts, and ending the Cold War even earlier.
The documents paint the fullest declassified portrait yet available of the Washington summit which ended 20 years ago today and centered on the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty – the only treaty of its kind in actually eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons. By eliminating mainly the missiles based in Europe, the treaty lowered the threat of nuclear war in Europe substantially and cleared the way for negotiations on tactical nuclear and chemical weapons, as well as negotiations on conventional forces in Europe.
Under the Treaty, the Soviet Union destroyed 889 of its intermediate-range missiles and 957 shorter-range missiles, and the U.S. destroyed 677 and 169 respectively. These were the missiles with very short flight time to targets in the Soviet Union, which made them “most likely to spur escalation to general nuclear war from any local hostilities that might erupt.” (Note 1) These weapons were perceived as most threatening by the Soviet leadership, which is why the Soviet military supported the Treaty, even though there was a significant opposition among them to including the shorter-range weapons.
The Treaty included remarkably extensive and intrusive verification inspection and monitoring arrangements, based on the “any time and place” proposal of March 1987, which was accepted by the Soviets to the Americans’ surprise; and the documents show that the Soviets were willing to go beyond the American position in the depth of verification regime. The new Soviet position on verification not only removed the hurdle that seemed insurmountable, but according to then-U.S. Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock, became a symbol of the new trust developing in U.S.-Soviet relations, which made the treaty and further progress on arms control possible.
The documents published here for the first time give the reader a unique and never-previously-available opportunity to look into the process of internal deliberations on both sides and the negotiations both before and during the summit in December 1987.
Read the Documents
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.February 4, 1987
Record of Conversation of Chief of General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces Marshal of the Soviet Union S.F. Akhromeev and H. Brown, C. Vance, H. Kissinger, and D. Jones.This meeting takes place during the visit of the Council on Foreign Relations Group, to Moscow on February 2-6. In addition to meeting with Marshal Akhromeev, the members of the group also met with Mikhail Gorbachev and Alexander Yakovlev. Marshal Akhromeev discusses problems of U.S.-Soviet arms control process, which has slowed down considerably after the Reykjavik summit and criticizes the U.S. side for backtracking after the summit, especially on the issue of deep cuts in strategic offensive weapons. He expresses doubts that any progress could be achieved in the last two years of the Reagan administration in Geneva, but also emphasized the Soviet willingness to move ahead, however on the basis of “package,” i.e. linkage between INF, strategic offensive weapons and the ABM systems. Members of the Council on Foreign Relations Group express their disagreement with the idea of elimination of offensive ballistic missiles and total elimination of nuclear weapons proposed by Reagan in Reykjavik on the grounds of security, citing Soviet superiority in conventional weapons in Europe (Kissinger and Jones) and also arguing that if the agreement was reached, the U.S. Congress would have never ratified that agreement. The U.S. representatives suggest that further progress would be impossible on the basis of the Soviet “package” approach, and that to make it possible, negotiations should proceed on separate issues without linking them with each other. The conversation also involves detailed discussion of Soviet objections to SDI and the balance of conventional weapons in Europe, on which Akhromeev reminds the Americans of the Soviet proposal of June 1986 to reduce conventional weapons in Europe by 25%, to which they received no response.
February 25, 1987
Alexander Yakovlev, Memorandum for Gorbachev
“Toward an Analysis of the Fact of the Visit of Prominent American Political Leaders to the USSR (Kissinger, Vance, Kirkpatrick, Brown, and others)This long memorandum analyzes the statements and impressions of members of the group of the Council on Foreign Relations, which visited the Soviet Union earlier in the month, and provides recommendations for Gorbachev on next Soviet moves in arms control and Soviet-American relations. The document contains the single most powerful argument for “untying the package” of INF strategic offensive weapons and ABM systems, which was the basis of the Soviet arms control position in Reykjavik. Surprisingly, Yakovlev does not argue from positions of Soviet security or linkage to the SDI. His argument concerns mainly the domestic political situation in the United States, with right-wing forces running the show in the administration and the fact that the Irangate scandal has weakened President Reagan significantly. If the Soviet Union is to have any chance to achieve any arms control agreements in the next two years, before the end of the Reagan term, it needs major new initiatives, which would persuade the U.S. administration to engage in serious arms control. Therefore, the timing is ripe for untying the package to show the seriousness of Soviet intentions. He implies that the Soviet side must be ready to make concessions, but that they would not affect Soviet security. The second argument, which makes the timing even more important is that the resumption of Soviet nuclear testing (with the first test coming on February 26, 1987) would damage the image of Soviet perestroika in Europe. An announcement of a major new initiative such as untying the package would counteract the damage produced by the resumption of testing. This memorandum shows the impact of the visit of the representatives of the Council on Foreign relations on policymakers in the Soviet Union, and the attentiveness of the Soviet leaders to the perceptions of perestroika abroad.
February 26, 1987
Politburo Session [Excerpt]At this Politburo session the historic decision to “untie the package” is made ostensibly following the proposal by Gromyko (most likely the preliminary decision had already been made in the Walnut Room before the session started). Gorbachev argued strongly for this decision as the only way to jumpstart the negotiations that had been “stuck” in Geneva. Here he also proposes to invite George Shultz to Moscow, and to proceed to a quick conclusion of the agreement on INF and then on strategic offensive weapons. He shows his frustration with U.S. backtracking on arms control after Reykjavik. All present Politburo members speak in favor “untying the package,” including Yegor Ligachev and Defense Minister Yuri Sokolov, who later criticized the treaty and concessionary. Shevardnadze makes an argument about timing linking the decision to the need to restore trust in European public opinion after the resumption of Soviet nuclear tests. Gorbachev and Shevardnadze’s arguments follow very closely the argument presented in the Yakovlev memo of the day before (see Document 2).
April 14, 1987
Memorandum of Conversation between M. S. Gorbachev and U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. Excerpt.During this meeting with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze (joined by Marshal Akhromeev after the break), Shultz presses Gorbachev for inclusion of shorter-range nuclear missiles into the treaty, and specifically for inclusion of the new Soviet OKA/SS-23 missile, which according to the Soviet side had a range of only 400 km (as a result of the INF agreement, the USSR had to destroy 239 of these modern, newly deployed and highly mobile missiles, which allowed for the breakthrough in the negotiations but resulted in heavy criticism among the military). Shultz also insists on the principle of “equality,” which would allow the United States to match the number of Soviet SRINF even though the U.S. did not have those at the time. Gorbachev tries very hard to counteract this argument and persuade Shultz that since the Soviet Union was willing to eliminate all weapons of that class, the U.S. should reserve for itself the right to develop those. Gorbachev also expresses Soviet agreement with the U.S. idea of global double zero on INF and SRINF for the first time, but Shultz does not seem to grasp it most likely because his instructions did not give him a mandate to pursue that proposal. To Shultz’s expressed concern about issues of verification, Gorbachev offers the deepest and most comprehensive verification regime going beyond what the U.S. was prepared to. In discussion of strategic offensive weapons, Shultz raises the issue of sub-ceiling for elements of the strategic triad, and Gorbachev emotionally accuses him of backtracking on the Reykjavik understandings—to cut the strategic triad by half. Gorbachev raises the linkage between SDI and strategic offensive weapons but offers a new Soviet understanding of laboratory testing, which would be permitted in the treaty. This meeting signified a real breakthrough in INF negotiations due to three major new Soviet initiatives: agreement to include SRINF, comprehensive verification regime, and willingness to accept the U.S. principle of “equality.”
April 10, 1987
Letter from President Reagan to General Secretary GorbachevApril 9, 1987
Rejected Draft of Letter from President Reagan to General Secretary GorbachevPresident Reagan’s deputy national security adviser Colin Powell forwarded a 10-page draft to Secretary of State Shultz and Secretary of Defense Weinberger on April 9, but the actual 2-page letter signed by President Reagan and carried by Shultz to Moscow, dated April 10, contained only a few phrases carried over from the draft. Especially notable is the muted language in the final letter about the then-raging espionage controversy over the U.S. Embassy’s Marine guards – which led to a U.S. Senate resolution urging Shultz not to go to Moscow, but ultimately proved to be based on coerced false confessions by the guards. The President downplayed the problems in his Los Angeles speech of April 10, when he said “If I had to characterize U.S.-Soviet relations in one word, it would be this: proceeding. No great cause for excitement; no great cause for alarm.” The same day, Gorbachev proposed to deal with the shorter-range INF issue by freezing and then cutting these systems.
April 16, 1987
Politburo session.Gorbachev informs the Politburo about his conversation with Shultz. The surprising assessment is that “conversation was good but empty—we did not move anywhere.” He accuses Shultz as being focused on extracting concessions from the Soviet Union. Nothing is said of specific Soviet concessions on shorter-range nuclear missiles. Shevardnadze shares Gorbachev’s frustration with American abandonment of the Reykjavik position saying “the general tendency is hardening on all directions after Reykjavik—they want to keep 100 units and are against the global zero. However, Gorbachev makes it very clear that the treaty and more radical progress on arms control are in Soviet interests and that he would continue to press the American leaders in this direction.
May 1987
Plan of Conversation
Between M.S. Gorbachev and the President of the United States R. Reagan before the first trip to Washington. May 1987.
(A draft dictated by Gorbachev to his adviser Anatoly Chernyaev)In this draft Gorbachev outlines his ideas for the first one-on-one conversation he will have with Reagan. He is coming with a very ambitious agenda—not limited to the INF treaty but in fact looking far beyond it. In the very first conversation, he is prepared to engage Reagan on START, chemical weapons, conventional weapons and regional problems. The scope of issues mentioned in this draft and the solutions proposed on each of them show what a monumental opportunity the summit could be with the Soviet leadership willing to be flexible on practically all the issues that before represented stumbling blocks not only in U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations but in resolving regional conflicts such as the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq war and the situation in Central America. Gorbachev shows unbendable optimism in his and Reagan’s ability to deal with all these issues decisively and successfully.
May 7, 1987
National Security Decision Directive Number 271: Instructions for the Eighth NST Negotiating RoundThis directive signed by President Reagan two days after the beginning of the eighth round of the Nuclear and Space Talks (NST) in Geneva provided specific instructions for each of the three U.S. negotiating teams. The INF instructions in particular represented a holding pattern (“Washington is currently examining the Soviet proposal”) on the issue of shorter-range missiles (SRINF), even though both Gorbachev and Shultz at different points in the April discussions had embraced the idea of a “double zero” for these missiles. In other respects, the instructions moved backward from the Reykjavik summit positions, with a seven-year as opposed to a ten-year period for non-withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and resurrection of the “sublimits” approach to counting nuclear weapons.
June 13, 1987
National Security Decision Directive Number 278: Establishing a U.S. Negotiating Position on SRINF MissilesThis directive essentially codified the “double zero” agreement announced formally the previous day at the semiannual NATO ministerial meeting, after a period of heated debate among NATO leaders, with West Germany’s Kohl most in favor of the approach and Britain’s Thatcher most dubious. But the document’s second paragraph ends with what would become the sticking point to the negotiations – the status of the Pershing missiles belonging to West Germany. Ultimately, after what President Reagan described in his memoirs as his own private plea to Kohl, the West German leader would announce on August 26 that the German Pershings would be eliminated once the U.S. and Soviet missiles were.
July 9, 1987
Politburo Session.Gorbachev formally announces to the Politburo that the Soviet Union adopts the double global zero platform agreeing to destroy its intermediate-range missiles in Asia (formal announcement would be made on July 23). He also formally announces the decision to add tactical missiles (like SS-23/OKA) to be covered in the INF Treaty justifying that step by saying that it would “deliver a blow” to “Pershings IB” stationed in the FRG. He calls for a third zero—eliminating tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. What is striking here is that he already made the exact same proposals to Shultz in April, but Shultz was not able at the time to respond to them, and only after NATO formally adopted the global double zero position on June 12, Gorbachev announces it as his new position at the Politburo. Gorbachev is sensitive to the criticism of his own military about the Soviet disproportionate cuts under the INF treaty—therefore he raises the issue of the imbalance, but noting that even disproportionate cuts would be justified since the intention is to “clear Europe from nuclear weapons.”
August 11, 1987
Department of State Briefing Papers: Nuclear and Space Talks, START, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, Defense and Space, Nuclear Testing, Compliance Issues, ABM Treaty Interpretation, Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers, Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Documents 4a, 4b, 4c, 4d and 4e)These State Department briefing papers provide a snapshot of U.S. negotiating positions across the range of U.S.-Soviet issues going into the fall discussions that would produce the INF Treaty and the Washington summit. From internal evidence (repeated references to “as of August 11”), the typed text appears to date from August 11, but the handwritten notes and editing comments were added subsequent to Chancellor Kohl’s August 26 offer to eliminate the German Pershings.
September 5, 1987
GRIP 27D [“Should the U.S. change its current stance on U.S. warheads on FRG Pershing IA missiles?”]Written by National Security Council staff, this memorandum bears the codeword GRIP signifying the particular secrecy compartment used for NSC documents on U.S.-Soviet arms discussions in 1987 and 1988 (there would ultimately be at least 96 separate GRIP items, according to the finding aide to the Robert Linhard Papers at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library). The issue of U.S. warheads on the German Pershings came up in June 1987 when the U.S. Defense Department responded to the “double zero” consensus by proposing the conversion of Pershing IIs into shorter range Pe-1Bs for turnover to the West Germans, much to the Soviets’ dismay. Even after Kohl’s August 26 announcement on elimination of the German Pershings, the Soviets suspected backsliding when the U.S. would not commit in writing to destroy the Pershing warheads; but this memo outlined the position that the U.S. would take: sticking to the principle of not negotiating about an ally’s weapons, while reassuring the Soviets that the warheads would not be used in some other configuration.
September 8, 1987
Meeting with the National Security Planning Group [Briefing Memorandum for President Reagan from National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci]This briefing memo and attached talking points were drafted by NSC staffers Linton Brooks and Will Tobey and forwarded by the national security adviser, Frank Carlucci, to President Reagan to prepare him for a key NSPG meeting on the upcoming visit by Soviet foreign minister Shevardnadze to Washington. Although the memo suggests there would be a debate over how flexible the U.S. negotiating positions should be on START and SDI, the outcome of the NSPG meeting was that President Reagan sided with defense secretary Weinberger against any change in those positions (Weinberger had separately argued for keeping some non-nuclear-tipped INF missiles, but Reagan overruled him).
September 10, 1987
Letter from General Secretary Gorbachev to President Reagan, Russian and English versions [Documents 7a and 7b]Foreign minister Shevardnadze arrives in Washington on September 15 bearing this five-page letter from Gorbachev to Reagan (8 pages in the unofficial translation given to the President). Together with a plea for progress on INF and arms reductions generally, the letter contains an interesting distinction related to the issue that had derailed the Reykjavik summit, the Strategic Defense Initiative. Gorbachev refers to “strategic offensive weapons in space” as the problem for the Soviets – the fear that U.S. development of the SDI would create the capacity for a Hitler-style blitzkrieg from space. Reagan had always insisted the U.S. was not seeking this capacity, but as Raymond Garthoff has noted, the President missed the opening to combine constraints on such weapons with the cooperative SDI program he always envisioned with the Soviets. The Shultz-Shevardnadze talks during this visit ultimately produce only an agreement in principle on the INF Treaty and on a subsequent summit in Washington with a date to be determined later.
October 23, 1987
Memorandum of conversation between M. S. Gorbachev and U.S. Secretary of State G. Shultz. Excerpt.In this long and fascinating conversation Gorbachev was trying to show the new Soviet flexibility to move closer to the U.S. position on the issues of sub-ceilings on elements of the strategic triad, including willingness to have a lower level of Soviet heavy ICBMs, laboratory testing of SDI elements, and verification. At the same time, he notes that the U.S. side tries to “squeeze as much as possible out of us.” Gorbachev’s main objective for the meeting is to get Shultz to agree to draft key provisions for the START treaty that could be discussed in Washington during his visit. However, Shultz’s response to this proposal is inconclusive—he would prefer delegations in Geneva to work more on clarifying the issues under dispute and leave the “key provisions” for the principals to discuss at the summit. Gorbachev vents his frustration calling Shultz’ position “foggy, “ complains about U.S. lack of willingness to move on arms control, and doubts U.S. support for Soviet domestic changes. No decisions on “key provisions” were achieved and even dates of the summit were left undecided. The document also contains a fascinating discussion of U.S.-Soviet collaboration in trying to resolve the Iran-Iraq conflict.
October 28, 1987
Gorbachev Letter to Reagan.This letter is Gorbachev’s final call for progress in discussions of the key provisions of START treaty so that the principals could agree on those in Washington. The last obstacle to such agreement is the period of non-withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, which the Soviet Union proposed to be ten years and to which Shultz did not agree in Moscow. Gorbachev proposes to open a direct channel through the Ambassadors to discuss this issue before the summit to find a speedy solution. Gorbachev believes that it is realistic to achieve an agreement on strategic weapons and to start discussion on banning chemical weapons. He suggests that “we want to crown your visit to the Soviet Union with concluding an agreement on strategic offensive weapons” referring to the planned Reagan visit to Moscow in May-June 1988. In the letter, Gorbachev also gives final dates of his visit to Washington—during the first ten days of December 1987.
October 30, 1987
Memorandum For: The President From: George P. Shultz [Secretary of State] Subject: Gorbachev’s LetterThe Secretary of State summarizes for the President the contents of Gorbachev’s “fairly positive” letter, which would be hand delivered to Reagan by Shevardnadze later that day. Shultz remarks on the Soviet agreement for an early December summit in Washington, and notes the flexibility in various of Gorbachev’s proposals. After formally receiving the letter from Shevardnadze, Reagan would announce the summit agreement in the White House press room, with Shultz and Shevardnadze at his side.
The top U.S. public relations official proposes in this memo that Reagan fly to Europe and attend a NATO summit immediately after the one with Gorbachev in Washington – a suggestion that would not be accepted. But the memo provides interesting inside detail about the President’s standing in European public opinion: “Our own polling of European publics continues to show by overwhelming margins that Gorbachev is viewed more favorably than President Reagan (e.g. Britain (83%), Germany (80%), Italy (76%) and France (51%), and more the advocate of peace and arms control.”
November 10, 1987
National Security Decision Directive Number 288: My Objectives at the SummitThis directive written in the first person summarizes President Reagan’s expectations for the Washington summit, and perhaps most strikingly asserts that the summit “must in no way complicate our efforts to maintain a strong defense budget and key programs like SDI” and the Reagan doctrine support to anticommunist armed forces abroad. Frances Fitzgerald commented in her book Way Out There in the Blue (p. 434) that “Both of these policies were history in the Hollywood sense of the word, yet administration officials followed the guidance quite faithfully” to the point of missing Gorbachev’s offer on Central America for both the U.S. and the USSR to stop shipping arms there if the peace plan proposed by Costa Rica’s Oscar Arias was accepted. Since the U.S. Congress was not going to approve more arms anyway, given the Iran-contra scandal, Gorbachev’s offer amounted to exactly the cessation of Soviet arms that the U.S. claimed it sought.
November 24, 1987
Memorandum Subject: Gorbachev’s Gameplan: The Long View [By Robert M. Gates, Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency]On the eve of the Washington summit, the top U.S. intelligence analyst on the Soviet Union – Robert M. Gates, then the deputy director of CIA – gets Gorbachev almost completely wrong. In this memo (forwarded by the CIA director William Webster to Vice President Bush and other top officials), Gates predicts that the Soviet reforms are merely a “breathing space” before the resumption of the “further increase in Soviet military power and political influence.” Gates misses the Soviet recognition that the Stalinist economic system had failed; he incorrectly predicts that Gorbachev will only agree to arms reductions that “protect existing Soviet advantages”; he claims the Soviets are still committed to the protection of their Third World clients – only three months later, Gorbachev would announce the pullout from Afghanistan; and Gates sees any Gorbachev force reductions as a threat to “Alliance cohesion” rather than a gain for security in Europe. This hard-line assessment of Gorbachev is not shared by President Reagan, who would rescind his “evil empire” rhetoric while standing in Red Square in May 1988.
November 28, 1987
Information Memorandum TO: The Secretary, From: INR- Morton I. Abramowitz, Subject: Gorbachev’s Private Summit AgendaThis two-page cover memo from the head of the State Department’s intelligence and research bureau to Secretary Shultz summarizes a seven-page INR study looking at “what might be some of the ‘wild cards’ on the summit agenda.” While generally accurate in its assessment of Gorbachev’s intentions, even the State Department analysts closest to the Shultz view of Soviet behavior do not predict several of the Gorbachev surprises during the summit such as the offer on Central America and on conventional forces in Europe. The prediction of “something splashy on Afghanistan” would be off by a few months, but the memo’s anticipation of a possible SDI compromise would be only slightly behind Gorbachev’s own thinking.
December 7, 1987
Memo: National Security Decision Directive (NSDD-290) on Arms Control Position for the US-USSR SummitOn the Friday before the Washington summit, President Reagan signs this directive setting out what journalist Don Oberdorfer later described as “seemingly impossible” negotiating goals on SDI with Gorbachev, including explicit Soviet approval of tests in space, and Soviet approval of US deployment of strategic defenses after the end of an agreed period of non-withdrawal from ABM Treaty. Gorbachev had rejected both of these ideas repeatedly in earlier meetings, but would surprise the Americans at the Washington summit with his tactics if not his underlying posture on SDI.
December 8, 1987
Memo of Conversation between President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev, 10:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.December 8, 1987
Memo of Conversation between President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev, 2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.December 8, 1987
Record of Conversation
Between S.F. Akhromeev and P. Nitze at the U.S. State DepartmentIn the first conversations of military experts Marshal Akhromeev outlines the Soviet position on the strategic nuclear weapons negotiations. The main point remained the linkage between ABM compliance and START issues. The other remaining issue is verification, on which now Soviets were prepared to go further than the Americans in reversal of the traditional positions. When Akhromeev offers on-site inspections to count the number of bombs deployed on each bomber, Nitze responds: “We cannot agree to that.” The discussion also covers issues of counting Soviet “Backfire” bomber and U.S. sea-launched cruise missiles.
December 9, 1987
Memo of Conversation between President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev, 10:35 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.December 9, 1987
Draft Memo of Conversation between President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev, 10:55 a.m. – 12:35 p.m.December 9, 1987
Record of Conversations between Sergey Fyodorovich Akhromeev and Paul Nitze at the U.S. State Department. Excerpt.In this excerpt of a very long conversation of military experts Akhromeev shows his frustration with the Americans’ unwillingness to meet the Soviet delegation halfway even after all the flexibility shown by the Soviet side on reducing heavy ICBMs and counting heavy bombers. When he suggests that the draft of key provisions should contain a commitment of both sides to reduce the total throw-weight of the sides’ ICBMs and SLBMs by 50%, Nitze replies that this paragraph should be recorded only as a “unilateral statement.”
December 9, 1987
Record of Conversation
Between S.F. Akhromeev and F. Carlucci at the PentagonAkhromeev and Carlucci discuss issues of possible cooperation on SDI research during the period of non-withdrawal and non-deployment of SDI systems. Carlucci makes a very strong argument in defense of the SDI saying that it is widely supported in the country and that there was no chance for a strategic offensive weapons treaty to be ratified by the U.S. Congress “regardless of how great it was if only it was said that it undermined the concept of SDI.” Akhromeev counters with questioning the SDI feasibility and suggesting that the Soviet Union was capable of producing an asymmetrical response to the program.
December 10, 1987
Draft Memo of Conversation between President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.December 10, 1987
Memo of Conversation between President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev at a Working Luncheon, 12:40 p.m. – 2:10 p.mAkhromeev and members of U.S. JCS discuss measures of cooperation between representatives of U.S. and Soviet armed forces as means of building trust between the two militaries. Akhromeev proposes more human contacts between the officers, visits to bases, exchanges of basketball teams or military bands. The conversation also involves the issues of reductions of conventional weapons in Europe, including dual-use weapons. During the discussion of conventional weapons Akhromeev for the first time admits that there are “imbalances” in the European theater, including the Soviet advantage in tanks and U.S. advantage in combat aircraft. Verification and nuclear safety centers are also discussed.
December 12, 1987
Telegram: Secretary’s 12/11 NAC Briefing on Washington SummitThis telegram summarizes Secretary of State Shultz’s briefing to the North Atlantic Council immediately after the Washington summit, and provides talking points for U.S. diplomats around the world to use when briefing their host governments on the summit. Sent by the deputy secretary of state (acting secretary in Shultz’s absence) John Whitehead, the cable says the Washington summit “has taken us a gigantic step forward” on strategic arms, and hails the INF Treaty as a “bipartisan achievement for the U.S.”
December 16, 1987
Anatoly Chernyaev Memorandum to Gorbachev.In this memorandum prepared for Gorbachev’s report to the Politburo on the results of the Washington summit Chernyaev lists all the accomplishments of the summit—primarily in dealing with negotiations on strategic nuclear weapons. According to Chernyaev, there was a real danger that the summit results would have been limited to the INF treaty without progress on START issues. He notes progress in finding solutions to the following difficult issues: provision on compliance with the AMB treaty, limits for warheads on strategic missiles and for warheads on sea-launched cruise missiles. Chernyaev also discusses Reagan’s negotiating style “his incompetence,” pointing that the real power “rests with the group of Bush, Carlucci and others around him”—but Gorbachev decides not to use this part of memo in his actual Politburo presentation and spoke about Reagan very favorably in his report on December 17.
December 17, 1987
Politburo Session.At this Politburo session devoted to the results of Gorbachev’s visit to Washington, Gorbachev gives a very high assessment of the summit and the INF treaty. He considers the Washington summit as “bigger than Geneva or Reykjavik” in terms of building mutual understanding with the U.S. leadership. He notes the change in Reagan’s behavior and emphasizes that the principals were speaking “as equals and seriously each keeping his ideology to himself.” Gorbachev stresses the historic nature of the INF treaty and the full Politburo support for it, because “the entire development of Soviet-American relations and the normalization of international situation in general” depended on the outcome of this issue. He also informs members of the Politburo about his and the delegation’s meetings with Americans of all ways of life and describes strong support for perestroika in the United States.
December 29, 1987
National Security Decision Directive Number 292: Organizing for the INF Ratification Effort [Document 23]This directive signed by President Reagan sets up the White House teams working for Senate ratification of the INF Treaty. This was not a hard sell politically: On December 15th the Washington Post published the first post-summit poll, showing Reagan’s approval ratings at their highest since the Iran-contra scandal broke in November 1986, up from 50 to 58%, with 61% having a “favorable impression” of Reagan. Remarkably, 65% had a “favorable impression” of Gorbachev! Yet a chorus of critics (including former President Nixon, former secretary of state Kissinger, and former – and future – national security adviser Scowcroft) were attacking the INF treaty for removing nuclear weapons from Europe while leaving a large Soviet conventional arms advantage. Unbeknownst to the critics, in part because Reagan was unprepared to take up the conventional forces issue when Gorbachev raised it during the summit, the Soviets were ready to move on major cuts in non-nuclear forces as well, and Gorbachev would announce such cuts in his United Nations speech less than a year later.
Note
1. Raymond Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. (The Brookings Institution: Washington, D.C. 1994), p. 327.
TOP-SECRET: ORGINAL DOCUMENTS FROM PRESIDENT JOHN F KENNEDY “ICH BIN EIN BERLINER” SPEECH
“There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future.
Let them come to Berlin.”
–President John F. Kennedy, Berlin, Germany, June 26, 1963
The cold war is the term for the rivalry between the two blocs of contending states that emerged following World War II. It was a series of confrontations and tests of wills between the non-Communist states, led by the United States and Great Britain, and the Communist bloc, led by the Soviet Union, that lasted 45 years and, at one point, drew the world to the brink of nuclear war.
In August 1961 the Soviets erected the Berlin Wall to stop the mass exodus of people fleeing Soviet East Berlin for West Berlin and the non-Communist world. The wall was a mass of concrete, barbed wire, and stone that cut into the heart of the city, separating families and friends. For 28 years, it stood as a grim symbol of the gulf between the Communist East and the non-Communist West. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, signalling the end of the cold war.
National Archives,
John F. Kennedy Library
(NLK-29248)
On June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech that electrified an adoring crowd gathered in the shadow of the Berlin Wall. As he paid tribute to the spirit of Berliners and to their quest for freedom, the crowd roared with approval upon hearing the the President’s dramatic pronouncement, “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner).
AU Format (297K)
One of President Kennedy’s speech card from his remarks in Berlin
The speech was peppered with German and one sentence in Latin, written phonetically on one of the speech cards here.
National Archives, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts
Twenty-four years after President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Berlin, as tensions between the two superpowers eased, President Ronald Reagan made a historic appearance at the Berlin Wall. He spoke passionately about the advance of human liberty and challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” the ultimate symbol of Communist suppression and thus demonstrate a commitment to profound change.
TOP SECRET: The Reykjavik File
President Reagan greets Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev at Hofdi House during the Reykjavik Summit, Iceland (Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library) [Click image for larger version.]
Previously Secret Documents from U.S. and Soviet Archives on the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev Summit
Washington, D.C. and Reykjavik, Iceland – President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev almost achieved a deal 20 years ago at the 1986 Reykjavik summit to abolish nuclear weapons, but the agreement would have required “an exceptional level of trust” that neither side had yet developed, according to previously secret U.S. and Soviet documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive of George Washington University and presented on October 12 in Reykjavik directly to Gorbachev and the president of Iceland.
The two leaders in conversation at Hofdi House, 11 October 1986 (Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library) [Click image for larger version.] The documents include Gorbachev’s initial letter to Reagan from 15 September 1986 asking for “a quick one-on-one meeting, let us say in Iceland or in London,” newly translated Gorbachev discussions with his aides and with the Politburo preparing for the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz’s briefing book for the summit, the complete U.S. and Soviet transcripts of the Reykjavik summit, and the internal recriminations and reflections by both sides after the meeting failed to reach agreement.
Archive director Thomas Blanton, Archive director of Russia programs Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya, and Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer Dr. William Taubman presented the documents to Gorbachev at a state dinner in the residence of President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson of Iceland on October 12 marking the 20th anniversary of the summit, which Grimsson commented had put Iceland on the map as a meeting place for international dialogue.
The documents show that U.S. analysis of Gorbachev’s goals for the summit completely missed the Soviet leader’s emphasis on “liquidation” of nuclear weapons, a dream Gorbachev shared with Reagan and which the two leaders turned to repeatedly during the intense discussions at Reykjavik in October 1986. But the epitaph for the summit came from Soviet aide Gyorgy Arbatov, who at one point during staff discussions told U.S. official Paul Nitze that the U.S. proposals (continued testing of missile defenses in the Strategic Defense Initiative or SDI while proceeding over 10 years to eliminate all ballistic missiles, leading to the ultimate abolition of all offensive nuclear weapons) would require “an exceptional level of trust” and therefore “we cannot accept your position.”
Gorbachev and Reagan during a one-on-one session at Hofdi House. U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock is seated to Reagan’s left. (Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library) [Click image for larger version.]
Politburo notes from October 30, two weeks after the summit, show that Gorbachev by then had largely accepted Reagan’s formulation for further SDI research, but by that point it was too late for a deal. The Iran-Contra scandal was about to break, causing Reagan’s approval ratings to plummet and removing key Reagan aides like national security adviser John Poindexter, whose replacement was not interested in the ambitious nuclear abolition dreams the two leaders shared at Reykjavik. The documents show that even the more limited notion of abolishing ballistic missiles foundered on opposition from the U.S. military which presented huge estimates of needed additional conventional spending to make up for not having the missiles.
The U.S. documents were obtained by the Archive through Freedom of Information Act requests to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the U.S. Department of State. The Soviet documents came to the Archive courtesy of top Gorbachev aide Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev, who has donated his diary and notes of Politburo and other Gorbachev discussions to the Archive, and from the Volkogonov collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.
Reagan and Gorbachev following a final, unscheduled session held in hopes of reaching agreement, 12 October 1986. Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin (center) and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze (far right) look on. (Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library) [Click image for larger version.] The Reykjavik File: Previously Secret U.S. and Soviet Documents on the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev SummitFrom the Collections of the National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., October 2006
[The U.S. documents were obtained by the Archive through Freedom of Information Act requests and Mandatory Declassification Review Requests to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the U.S. Department of State. The Soviet documents came to the Archive courtesy of top Gorbachev aide Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev, who has donated his diary and notes of Politburo and other Gorbachev discussions to the Archive, and from the Volkogonov collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.]
Note: The documents cited in this Electronic Briefing Book are in PDF format. You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1: “Dear Mr. President,” Mikhail Gorbachev letter to Ronald Reagan, 15 September 1986 (unofficial translation with signed Russian original, proposing “a quick one-on-one meeting, let us say in Iceland or in London”), 6 pp. with 4 pp. Russian original
This letter, carried by Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze to Washington, initiated the Reykjavik summit meeting when Gorbachev proposed “a quick one-on-one meeting, let us say in Iceland or in London,” in order to break out of the cycle of spy-versus-spy posturing and inconclusive diplomatic negotiations after the 1985 Geneva summit. The English translation includes underlining by Reagan himself, who marked the sentence accusing the U.S. of deliberately finding a “pretext” to “aggravate” relations, and the two sentences about making “no start” on implementing the Geneva agreements and not “an inch closer to an agreement on arms reduction.”
Document 2: USSR CC CPSU Politburo discussion of Reagan’s response to Gorbachev’s initiative to meet in Reykjavik and strategic disarmament proposals, 22 September 1986, 2 pp.
Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze reports to the Politburo on his talks in Washington and informs the Soviet leadership about Reagan’s decision to accept Gorbachev’s invitation to meet in Reykjavik on the condition that 25 Soviet dissidents including Yury Orlov and Nicholas Daniloff, accused of spying, are released. Gorbachev accepts the conditions and sets forth his main ideas for the summit. The Soviet position, according to him, should be based on acceptance of U.S. security interests, otherwise negotiations would be unproductive. Gorbachev is aiming at a serious improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations.
Document 3: Gorbachev discussion with assistants on preparations for Reykjavik, 29 September 1986, 1p.
At this Politburo meeting Gorbachev stresses once again the importance of taking U.S. interests into account and the fact that his new policy is creating a positive dynamic for disarmament in Europe. He emphasizes the need for an “offensive” and the active nature of new Soviet initiatives for Reykjavik.
Document 4: Memorandum to the President, Secretary of State George Shultz, “Subject: Reykjavik,” 2 October 1986, 4 pp.
This briefing memo from Shultz to Reagan, labeled “Super Sensitive” as well as formally classified as “Secret/Sensitive,” shows that the U.S. did not expect any actual agreement at Reykjavik, but rather, mere preparations for a future summit in the U.S. Shultz talks here about ceilings on ballistic missiles but fails to predict Gorbachev’s dramatic agreements to 50% cuts and a process leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons. Ironically, Shultz says one of the U.S. goals is to emphasize progress “without permitting the impression that Reykjavik itself was a Summit,” when history now sees Reykjavik as in many ways the most dramatic summit meeting of the Cold War.
Document 5: Gorbachev’s instructions for the group preparing for Reykjavik, 4 October 1986, 5 pp.
Gorbachev explains his top priorities and specific proposals to the group charged with preparing for Reykjavik. He calls for preparing a position with a “breakthrough potential,” which would take into account U.S. interests and put strategic weapons, not issues of nuclear testing, at the forefront. Gorbachev’s ultimate goal for Reykjavik-he reiterates it several times during the meeting-is total liquidation of nuclear weapons based on the Soviet 15 January 1986 Program of Liquidation of Nuclear Weapons by the Year 2000. Whereas Gorbachev sees the value in making concessions in hopes of achieving a breakthrough, his Politburo colleagues (including Chebrikov) warn him against using this word in the negotiations. In the evening Gorbachev gives additional instructions to Chernyaev on human rights and on the matter of Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa Maksimovna, accompanying him to Iceland.
Document 6: “Gorbachev’s Goals and Tactics at Reykjavik,” National Security Council (Stephen Sestanovich), 4 October 1986, 2 pp. (plus cover page from John M. Poindexter [National Security Adviser to the President] to Shultz)
This briefing memo prepared (on the same day as Gorbachev’s Politburo discussion above) by one of the National Security Council’s senior Soviet experts, completely mis-predicts Gorbachev’s behavior at the Reykjavik summit. Far from being “coy” or “undecided” about a future U.S. summit, Gorbachev was already planning major concessions and breakthroughs. Far from having to “smoke” Gorbachev out during the talks, Reagan would be faced with an extraordinarily ambitious set of possible agreements.
Document 7: “The President’s Trip to Reykjavik, Iceland, October 9-12, 1986 – Issues Checklist for the Secretary,” U.S. Department of State, 7 October 1986, 23 pp. (first 2 sections only, Checklist and Walk-through)
This detailed briefing book for Secretary Shultz provides a one-stop-shopping portrait of the state of U.S.-Soviet relations and negotiations on the eve of the Reykjavik summit. The complete table of contents gives the list of briefing papers and backgrounders that are also available in the collections of the National Security Archive (from FOIA requests to the State Department), but posted here are only the first two sections of the briefing book: the “Checklist” of U.S.-Soviet issues, and the “Walk-Through” of subjects for the Reykjavik agenda. Notable is the very first item on the latter, which presupposes that the best they will achieve is some agreement on a number of ballistic missile warheads between the U.S. proposal of 5500 and the Soviet proposal of 6400, rather than the radical cuts that wound up on the table at Reykjavik.
Document 8: USSR CC CPSU Politburo session on preparations for Reykjavik, 8 October 1986, 6 pp.
In this last Politburo session before the delegation departed for Reykjavik, Gorbachev goes over the final details of the Soviet proposals. He allows for the possibility that the meeting could be a failure, and suggests making “concessions on intermediate range missiles,” and French and British nuclear weapons. Gorbachev believes there should be no “intermediate” positions or agreements, driving for his maximum program even if concessions would have to be made. Shevardnadze sounds most optimistic predicting that the U.S. side could agree with the Soviet non-withdrawal period on the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and on 50% cuts of the nuclear triad (missiles, bombers, submarines) and intermediate-range missiles.
Reagan and Gorbachev depart Hofdi House after the conclusion of the summit, 12 October 1986. (Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library) [Click image for larger version.]
Document 9: U.S. Memorandum of Conversation, Reagan-Gorbachev, First Meeting, 11 October 1986, 10:40 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., 8 pp.
Document 10: Russian transcript of Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Reykjavik, 11 October 1986 (morning), published in FBIS-USR-93-061, 17 May 1993, 5 pp.
Document 11: U.S. Memorandum of Conversation, Reagan-Gorbachev, Second Meeting, 11 October 1986, 3:30 p.m. – 5:40 p.m., 15 pp.
Document 12: Russian transcript of Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Reykjavik, 11 October 1986 (afternoon), published in FBIS-USR-93-087, 12 July 1993, 6 pp.
Document 13: U.S. Memorandum of Conversation, Reagan-Gorbachev, Third Meeting, 12 October 1986, 10:00 a.m. – 1:35 p.m., 21 pp.
Document 14: Russian transcript of Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Reykjavik, 12 October 1986 (morning), published in FBIS-USR-93-113, 30 August 1993, 11 pp.
Document 15: U.S. Memorandum of Conversation, Reagan-Gorbachev, Final Meeting, 12 October 1986, 3:25 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. – 6:50 p.m., 16 pp.
Document 16: Russian transcript of Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Reykjavik, 12 October 1986 (afternoon), published in FBIS-USR-93-121, 20 September 1993, 7 pp.
This side-by-side presentation of the official U.S. transcripts of the Reykjavik summit meetings and the Soviet transcripts as published in Moscow in 1993 and translated by the U.S. government’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service puts the reader inside the bullet-proof glass over the windows of Hofdi House as Reagan, Gorbachev, their translators, and their foreign ministers discuss radical changes in both U.S. and Soviet national security thinking.
The two sets of transcripts are remarkably congruent, with each version providing slightly different wording and detail but no direct contradictions. Reagan and Gorbachev eloquently express their shared vision of nuclear abolition, and heatedly debate their widely divergent views of missile defenses. For Reagan, SDI was the ultimate insurance policy against a madman blackmailing the world with nuclear-tipped missiles in a future where all the superpowers’ missiles and nuclear weapons had been destroyed. Reagan comes back again and again to the metaphor of keeping your gas masks even after banning chemical weapons, but Gorbachev feels as if Reagan is lecturing him, and says “that’s the 10th time you talked about gas masks.”
For Gorbachev, SDI was a U.S. attempt to take the arms race into space and potentially launch a first-strike attack on the Soviet Union – the ultimate nightmare for Soviet leaders seared into their consciousnesses by Hitler’s blitzkrieg. But Gorbachev’s scientists had already told him that missile defenses could be easily and cheaply countered with multiple warheads and decoys even if the defenses ever worked (which was unlikely).
The great “what if” question suggested by the Reykjavik transcripts is what would have happened if Gorbachev had simply accepted Reagan’s apparently sincere offer to share SDI technology rather than dismissing this as ridiculous when the U.S. would not even share “milking machines.” If Gorbachev had “pocketed” Reagan’s offer, then the pressure would have been on the U.S. to deliver, in the face of a probable firestorm of opposition from the U.S. military and foreign policy establishment. Working in the opposite direction in favor of the deal would have been overwhelming public support for these dramatic changes, both in the U.S. and in the Soviet Union, and especially in Europe.
Perhaps most evocative is the Russian version’s closing words, which are not included in the U.S. transcript. This exchange comes after Reagan asks for a personal “favor” from Gorbachev of accepting the offer on SDI and ABM, and Gorbachev replies by saying this is not a favor but a matter of principle. The U.S. version has Reagan standing at that point to leave the room and a brief polite exchange about regards to Nancy Reagan. But the Russian version has Reagan saying, “I think you didn’t want to achieve an agreement anyway” and “I don’t know when we’ll ever have another chance like this and whether we will meet soon.”
Document 17: Russian transcript of Negotiations in the Working Group on Military Issues, headed by Nitze and Akhromeev, 11-12 October 1986, 52 pp.
In the all-night negotiations of Soviet and U.S. military experts during the middle of the Reykjavik summit, the Soviet delegation led by Marshal Sergei Akhromeev starts from the new Soviet program, just outlined by Gorbachev in his meeting with Reagan earlier in the day-proposing 50% cuts of strategic weapons across the board, a zero option on intermediate-range missiles in Europe, and a 10-year period of non-withdrawal from the ABM treaty. At the same time, the U.S. delegation led by Paul Nitze conducts the discussion practically disregarding the new Soviet proposals and negotiating on the basis of U.S. proposals of 18 January 1986, which by now are overtaken by the latest developments in the Reagan-Gorbachev talks. Responding to U.S. proposals on allowing development of SDI while proceeding with deep cuts in strategic weapons, member of the Soviet delegation Georgy Arbatov comments “what you are offering requires an exceptional level of trust. We cannot accept your position,” directly implying that the necessary level of trust was not there. This document, prepared as a result of the all-night discussion, outlined the disagreements but failed to integrate the understandings achieved by the two leaders on October 11 or approached again on October 12.
Document 18: “Lessons of Reykjavik,” U.S. Department of State, c. 12 October 1986, 1 p. (plus cover sheet from Shultz briefing book for media events October 17, but text seems to have been written on last day of summit, October 12)
This remarkable one-page summary of the summit’s lessons seems to have been written on the last day of Reykjavik, given the mention of “today’s” discussions, but leaves a dramatically positive view of the summit in contrast to the leaders’ faces as they left Hofdi House, as well as to Shultz’s downbeat presentation at the press briefing immediately following the summit. It is unclear who authored this document, although the text says that “I have been pointing out these advantages [of thinking big] in a theoretical sense for some time.” This document plus Gorbachev’s own very positive press briefing commentary immediately following the summit were included in Secretary Shultz’s briefing book for his subsequent media appearances.
Document 19: Gorbachev’s reflections on Reykjavik on the flight to Moscow, 12 October 1986, 2 pp.
In his remarks on the way back from Reykjavik, written down by Chernyaev, Gorbachev gives a very positive assessment of the summit. He proclaims that he is now “even more of an optimist after Reykjavik,” that he understood Reagan’s domestic problems and that the U.S. President was not completely free in making his decisions. He understands Reykjavik as signifying a new stage in the process of disarmament-from limitations to total abolition.
Document 20: “Iceland Chronology,” U.S. Department of State, 14 October 1986, 11 pp.
This blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute chronology sums up not only the discussions given in detail in the transcripts above, but also all the preparatory meetings and discussions and logistics on the U.S. side.
Document 21: USSR CC CPSU Politburo session on results of the Reykjavik Summit, 14 October 1986, 12 pp.
In the first Politburo meeting after Reykjavik, Gorbachev reports on the results, starting with a standard ideological criticism of Reagan as a class enemy who showed “extreme primitivism, a caveman outlook and intellectual impotence.” He goes on, however, to describe the summit as a breakthrough, and the attainment of a new “higher level from which now we have to begin a struggle for liquidation and complete ban on nuclear armaments.” The Politburo agrees with the assessment and approves the General Secretary’s tough posturing.
Document 22: USSR CC CPSU Politburo session on measures in connection with the expulsion of Soviet diplomats from the USA, 22 October 1986, 2 pp.
Reacting to the U.S. decision to expel Soviet diplomats, the Politburo discusses the perceived American retreat from the understandings reached at Reykjavik and decides to press Reagan to follow through with the disarmament agenda on the basis of the summit.
Document 23: USSR CC CPSU Politburo session. Reykjavik assessment and instructions for Soviet delegation for negotiations in Geneva, 30 October 1986, 5 pp.
At this Politburo session Gorbachev and Shevardnadze discuss whether and when to reveal the new Soviet position on SDI testing, which would allow “testing in the air, on the test sites on the ground, but not in space.” This is a significant step in the direction of the U.S. position and is seen as a serious concession on the Soviet part by Foreign Minister Gromyko. Gorbachev is very concerned that the U.S. administration is “perverting and revising Reykjavik, retreating from it.” He places a great deal of hope in Shevardnadze-Shultz talks in terms of returning to and expanding the Reykjavik agenda.
Document 24: Memorandum for the President, John M. Poindexter, “Subject: Guidance for Post-Reykjavik Follow-up Activities,” 1 November 1986, 1 p.
This cover memo describes the process of developing National Security Decision Directive 250 (next document) on Post-Reykjavik follow-up, led by National Security Adviser John Poindexter. The most striking aspect of this memo is Poindexter’s own claim that he has incorporated as much as he can (accounting for the President’s expressed bottom lines) of the Pentagon’s and other objections, and that he needs to brief Reagan about remaining objections on matters that simply would not fit with the President’s program.
Document 25: National Security Decision Directive Number 250, “Post-Reykjavik Follow-Up,” 3 November 1986 (signed by Ronald Reagan), 14 pp.
Largely the work of NSC staffer Robert Linhard, who participated at Reykjavik, NSDD 250 attempts to keep the U.S. national security bureaucracy focused on President Reagan’s goal of eliminating ballistic missiles while walking back from Reagan’s expressed intent at Reykjavik to eliminate all offensive nuclear weapons. In fact, the NSDD’s version of Reykjavik completely leaves out the Reagan and Shultz statements to Gorbachev about welcoming the abolition of nuclear weapons. Yet even this limited effort did not succeed in moving the U.S. bureaucracy towards realistic planning, and in fact the Joint Chiefs of Staff promptly weighed in with National Security Adviser Poindexter to the effect that eliminating missiles would require large increases in conventional military spending.
Document 26: USSR CC CPSU Politburo session. About discussions between Shevardnadze and Shultz in Vienna, 13 November 1986, 3 pp.
Here the Politburo discusses the results of the Shevardnadze-Shultz talks in Geneva, where Shultz refused to discuss new Shevardnadze’s proposals concerning what is allowed and not allowed under the ABM treaty. Shultz’s position notwithstanding, Gorbachev emphasizes the need to press the U.S. to move forward on the basis of Reykjavik. Gorbachev stresses that “we have not yet truly understood what Reykjavik means,” referring to its significance as a new level of disarmament dialogue.
Document 27: Gorbachev Conversation with Chernyaev about Reykjavik, 17 November 1986, 1 p.
In a conversation with Chernyaev, Gorbachev talks about Soviet next steps in countering the U.S. attempts to circumvent Reykjavik. He stresses that “we cannot go below Reykjavik,” and is concerned that “the Americans will not go above Reykjavik.”
Document 28: Gorbachev Conference with Politburo Members and Secretaries of the Central Committee, 1 December 1986, 4 pp.
In a Politburo discussion of the Reagan decision to abandon the SALT II treaty, Gorbachev angrily states that the Americans are not doing anything in the spirit of Reykjavik and that the recent position of the Reagan administration was related to the domestic political crisis over Iran-Contra. Yegor Ligachev agrees with Gorbachev that after Reykjavik the Soviet positions only became stronger. Gorbachev speaks about his awareness of growing opposition to his disarmament proposals among the generals, who are “hissing among themselves.”
Document 29: Meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Alton G. Keel [Executive Secretary of the National Security Council], 18 December 1986 [for meeting on 19 December to discuss NSDD 250 and other topics], 7 pp. with staff attachments and talking points
This set of documents demonstrates how the proposals on the table at Reykjavik had fallen off the table in Washington after the Iran-Contra scandal and Poindexter’s departure, and as the result of the U.S. military’s opposition. NSC senior staffer Alton Keel sets up an agenda for President Reagan’s meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff that includes the elimination of ballistic missiles together with routine briefings about military exercises and anti-drug efforts in Bolivia, and alerts the President to the military’s insistence on large spending increases. But he does not forward the striking talking points prepared by the NSC staff (under Poindexter) that would have expressed to the top U.S. military what Reagan had said at Reykjavik to Gorbachev.
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