War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Thomas Simons, 1986

Begin by telling us what we talk about Reykjavik What was your role. What did you do. My role was as a member of the support team supporting the president in the first instance the secretary as far as we're concerned from the State Department and in particular ambassador Ridgeway who was my boss the assistant secretary for European Canadian affairs which means overall planning. I was on the advance groups for instance overall planning. And once you're in Reykjavik concentration on the non arms control portions of the agenda whether it's human rights regional affairs and bilateral affairs when get done when the planning is taking place for the Reykjavik summer. So the planning started taking place not long before because if you remember it was only agreed a couple of weeks before and the outcome of the dialogue ZACHER off affair. So I went I guess I came back down here but we came down from New York on September 30th or October 1st and took right off

Reykjavik to begin the preplan and there on the ground. Then I came back and when I went out again with the party it was two weeks. The Soviets had told us in interviews that they had status the Soviets initiated the idea meeting at Reykjavik is that correct. I think that's accurate. The Soviets had a real problem ever since the Geneva Summit in November of 85 where they had accepted the concept of home and home summits in 1986 and 1987 not realizing until they got back to Moscow that they had a real political requirement for knowing what the substantial result was going to be before they agreed and they were sort of hung on the horns of that dilemma having accepted but needing politically to know what the result would be without guaranteed results. So they were hung on the horns of that dilemma all through 1986 in Reykjavik and the concept of a summit in the third capital was one way to get off the horns of that and explain that a little more maybe and I think we might get away with it.

What was that Gorbachev in Geneva in November 1985 accepted unconditional. The idea that he would come to Washington in 1986 and the president would visit Moscow in 1987 perhaps not realizing how strong was the sentiment in his own political establishment for knowing that before he went to Washington that there would be a substantial arms control result because there were no guarantees of that. And so at the same time it had a bad experience in Geneva in 1985 because they had tried to make SDI U.S. concession on SDI a precondition for the success of the Geneva summer and they had to drop off that only a week before. So it was a triple dilemma. He made the commitment he needed to know what the result was that he had a guaranteed arms control resolved but he felt he could not afford to put a precondition on it because he might have to fall off of that. So in order I think the

proposal to go to Reykjavik or to some third capital because it turned out Reykjavik was a Soviet proposal but one of the motives was to back off the horns of this particular dilemma because once they'd met at Reykjavik the pressure to come to Washington was diffuse for a while. But let me remind you this is interesting. Why why why why. I just want to say I want to do that. American pressure in general. Well I think well first of all dealing adequately with the Americans is one of the telltale signs of adequate leadership. I think in the Soviet Union he's a new leader. So I think he has to prove that he can manage the relationship with the United States. That To begin I think it had a bad experience all through the early days his predecessor with that kind of take it or leave it ultimatum approach to these issues into arms control after all

they'd walked out of the arms control negotiations in Geneva in November of 1983 and they had taken a pasting for it in terms of world opinion in terms of American opinion and it had not succeeded for them and so I think that they would be very hesitant they would have been very hesitant especially having made the commitment. And in a situation where the Reagan administration was not giving them ready excuses to break that commitment they would have been very hesitant to say to wash their hands of it because they would have paid a pretty high political price for it in the Soviet Union. Is there a constituency that stands that that is seeking some kind of representative of the United States. And is there a constituency or hardliners who say don't talk to them at all much as there is in this country. You know it's a big government I think probably the range of opinion goes across the spectrum. I think what they're substantially agreeing on is that the United States is their most important foreign policy relationship. I think a lot of the speculation that they're turning to Europe or they're turning to Japan

in that bold form is probably misplaced. So they all agree that America is their main problem how to deal with America. I think there's a whole range of opinion but the kind of toughness and aggressiveness which they showed in the 1970s in terms of promoting their interests against ours and in the 1980s in terms of Stonewall hadn't worked. So I think probably there's In addition to the normal constituency of people who say well you need to negotiate give and take with the United States. I think that it's spread out to include people who are quite skeptical that over the long term you can deal adequately with the United States. But who felt that in these conditions you really needed to make a shot. Let me go back to the first and you guys are preparing for this. And let me say this is leading up to a statement that we need to ask which is that we came to the summit and the Americans came to the Senate very unprepared.

I think that's false I what had happened was that you had done a great deal of preparation not for the summer but for the Schult Shevardnadze meeting. What happened was that because of this dilemma which I describe the question of having accepted a summit but now needing assurance. The Soviets had kind of stonewalled on arms control all through the spring. And on the question of the summit that started to break in the summer in May and June when they came forward with some really serious proposals on strategic offensive weapons start. And. As that started to break we proposed that while the two sides reached agreement in late July when the deputy minister besmeared and I visited Washington that the scenario for the autumn would be very thorough review total review of all the issues and the relationship in detail at expert level in preparation for the meaning of foreign minister at the United Nations in September.

That review took place all through August. I mean you had what was called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ambassador and its seven arms control colleagues went to Moscow Soviet arms control team came here. We also did it for bilateral for human rights for regional affairs. We have the first so-called super regional with Undersecretary Armacost and First Deputy or so. So all that work has been done. The object of it was to let the foreign ministers review thoroughly the relationship to narrow down the issues to push the issues forward. And then on the basis of that they were going to determine whether a summit was worthwhile. So its kind of a Two-Step thing that they proposed in July and we basically accepted now that review some of it took place but it did get off track in New York by the whole need to manage the down of a heart of a crisis.

But the preparatory work had been done in terms of defining the issues making progress on some defining what needed to be done on others and that was available for the summit. So it's just for them to say that we did this work together and for them to say that they were prepared and we were unprepared. I think you're misreading history. Inside the State Department was the battle of business and as a business it was was there a sense that that could scrap the whole idea of a summit or was it really just viewed as a blip on the radar screen that would eventually resolve itself. Well the State Department has not been an engine for symmetry under this administration. The State Department has been an engine for dealing with issues on their merits. Recognizing that a summit can push that process forward because it provides a bureaucratic deadline so you can get decisions more easily and to the extent that you reach decisions in the summer. It's also an impulse for these huge government. So that's been the context in which we've looked at the

summit. So we didn't approach the down Zahara off thing on the basis of whether it would or would not derail a summit. We did approach it on the basis of whether it would or would not derail the kind of spirit and progress that we'd had in the relationship. It's a very crisis prone relationship. I mean the history of the Reagan years is a history of crises like this. We think that they that the Soviets have provoked them all. I recognize that the Soviets are very suspicious of the justice things start to get going and one of these crises blows up. But we're satisfied that the Korean airliner shooting Major Nicholson and the Danila off thing were not things that the U.S. initiate you give us just a sense of kind of almost like the texture of what it feels like if you're going to fly you off the plane together you talk on the way excited. What's that kind of just of it. Now I get a sense that you know the transition from here they're going the first hours in Reykjavik.

Well to begin with you're tired because you've done a lot of work so a lot of the drama that the public sees and feels is dampened for actual participants because you've done a lot of work. You're very engaged in the issue you're close to the issue and you lack the distance I think which outside observers have. That's the first thing. Second you are focused on practicality. What kind of business can be done. So that's the background. You have worked for whatever period you've been preparing in the case of right to wreck a couple of weeks short. And then you get on the plane and you're reviewing in your head what you need to do to organize these men and what sequence you want issues to come up. What flexibility if any you have in your position if it prove if the Soviets prove to be forthcoming so it's that that's the kind of thing you're concentrated on rather than the elation or the historic judgment.

What kind of day did you have forgotten what kind of day you're you go to the hotel right now. Well we flew all day we were we left in the morning here and we we came in to Reykjavik in the late afternoon and basically you had the evening to rest or to prepare and a large delegation like that does both of you need to get settled in different hotels you need to occupy the offices and the next day you had basically delegation meetings I mean with the president and among the delegations and there were a certain number of protocol things. I mean after all the Icelanders were our hosts and you had things to do with them with the meetings with Gorbachev. I think beginning beginning the next day. I mean it was Saturday and Sunday with Gorbachev and we arrived on Thursday night and I think that we see now is our That is the nature of the delegation that goes to us on a pretty consistent that is as it is a country of Representatives of the State

Department and the various specialties and the Joint Chiefs are at work. Is there no pattern too. Or is it. Well we've had we've had two now three under this administration. Reykjavik was a little special. It was a small team because Reykjavik is a small town but the normal pattern which was reflected in petto I mean small format in Reykjavik is that all the major agencies are represented and represented that to the extent possible at authoritative level. That's also been the practice of the foreign ministers meeting between Chilson Shevardnadze since early 1995 when we agreed to go back into arms control that was the first time when you had all the players represented on the delegation. So it's consistent up and Sylvias come in with a series of proposals what we started by those proposals are we surprised that what there.

You said earlier that the Soviets need Reykjavik in order to get assurances about what would be substantive summits in Washington Mary. And yet my impression was to get off of that problem. In other words they could take something less by going to a third country. They could take something less than the full and then the whole hog which they would have needed to come to Washington. In other words less than a treaty signed sealed and delivered on a major arms control topic which is the way they were define it therefore it was possible to do a lot of work at Reykjavik without being it being a make or break political question within the Soviet Union because it was the Washington summit which they were defined. We weren't defined I mean the president's invitation was open. So is there a political problem meeting they resolve by going to Reykjavik. They could get less than the four resolved and still have a productive meeting. That was the Boulia and that was what happened. And then he did go to Washington or not depending what happens at Reykjavik.

Haven't you had a little time having had a summit you had a little time to prepare and to work for the next. Well it wasn't the first meeting between the president. When did that take. It was that well it took place on Saturday morning and they met privately first and then they called in their foreign minister and it was a review of relations across the board and after general comments on where we are which I think is proper when two leaders meet at that level they had a discussion of human rights which is always at the top of the president's agenda. And Secretary Schultz I mean something the United States always raises if not for very close to her and then Gorbachev began his his presentation on his package of arms control proposals. Now that was surprising to us for its scope because it was comprehensive.

And because with regard to strategic offensive weapons. Well surprising for two reasons. First the Soviets had been hinting that they wanted to concentrate on Iran. And they came forward with a comprehensive package in which I was locked and the words everything had to be solved in order for Iran to be stopped. That was the first telling second However with regard to strategic offensive weapons and the way the trend of the negotiations up to them had been for reductions less than 50 percent although in principle the two leaders had agreed to Geneva in November of 85 on 50 percent reductions that had been shaved down. And in the intervening months to something in the 30s that percentage reductions in the 30s and Gorbachev at that meeting returned Foursquare to 50 percent reductions as the basis for further negotiations. Now both of those

the one surprise the real linkage of Iran have further confirmation of the linkage to Iran that was unpleasant. The 50 percent reductions it was a very pleasant surprise indeed. All this happened in the first meeting sketches it out. I mean it does not go into detail but all the elements were that when you say it privately you don't mean you interpret it with a drivers note takers. I mean just this little See if you got I mean how many are you there. No I wasn't there in that meeting and I was there in that afternoon's meeting and Sunday afternoon I was the note taker and others were in the earlier me. Do you have any sense of the personal chemistry between these two men. I mean is it is there any sense of a personal relationship. Oh yeah. No no they. No I think they feel they've gotten to know each other. They respect each other. Discussion is intense and it's direct and it's respectful. I mean they really don't pound the table or yell and scream and the kind

of forensic tricks which can in fact negotiations at any level are notably absent. Speaking during the evening was hard to reconcile from the imagery from the outsiders point of view. This is a big leap right now. Isn't that it is that is the rhetoric that the president used to at the beginning of his administration's evil empire. You know I mean really hearing the bad guys were bad guys and yet we all have a sense that there was a there wasn't as you said it was a personal report. You said how the president how that works in the president's mind. Well don't forget that Gorbachev didn't become general secretary until March of 85 and they didn't meet until November of 85. You need a larger answer and you want a larger answer. It's a larger answer because it's a major question. What changed over the course of the administration to get us where we are now.

And I think you have to go back to the basics to deal with that by the end of the 1970s. There were a couple of things that were clear about U.S.-Soviet relations which were on the rocks in terms of American politics. First was that the American people wanted two things and the electorate wanted two things from its government in terms of dealing with the Soviets. They wanted strength. They want us to be clear eyed and if necessary hurry and and they wanted consistent negotiation. They wanted negotiations on all the topics. Now that's something new I think in terms of the American political tradition in dealing with adversaries because traditionally we've been strong we haven't seen the need to negotiate words unconditional surrender is really the American paradigm. And if we have negotiated and there's always been a suspicion of weakness and that was one of the things that afflicted the detente policy I mean detente was associated

in the 1970s I think unfairly but very clearly in conjunction with Watergate and Vietnam and inadequate defense budgets. Detente was associated with weakness. So they wanted strength and they wanted negotiation. The other thing that was apparent was that most Americans always feel that there is a Soviet threat but the shape that that threat takes for them changes over time. Sometimes it's the threat of nuclear war or the Soviet military buildup. They tend to be late sometimes it's Soviet expansion and third area is Afghanistan in the late 70s. Sometimes it's the way they treat their own population. The human rights issue it varies and it's not easy to predict how it's going to vary. Now another of the defects of detente was that it had a fairly narrow agenda and there were reasons for that because we were new at negotiating for the Soviet and you identified the nuclear issue

as the one issue on which the elites of both countries felt that the two countries had something in common. If you couldn't agree on other things you could at least agree that we needed to work to reduce the risk of nuclear war. But that narrow agenda primarily nuclear arms control and some economic relations and a little respect in the conditions in the 70s proved too narrow to capture a stable consensus in American politics. So the Reagan administration when it came in from the beginning really tried to do two things. First was to build a policy an actual policy on the makings of that consensus both strength and negotiation. And second to try to do this by putting forth a so-called broad agenda the four party agenda which included not only arms control but also regional issues as they're now called they began by being called geo political issues a little hard to say. There are now regional issues human rights not as a bilateral issue but as an issue of international order and the whole range of

bilateral issues. So you started off and you've got something like that in place really late 81 82 but it has to be said that the administration came into power almost overwhelmed by the sense of American weakness. So even though the negotiation track was there in terms of the policy the administration really spent its first years building up strength. You did that in a whole variety of ways because when you're talking about strength you're talking about not just re-armament you're talking in the first instance because the administration was very domestically oriented. I mean its main priorities were domestic. You're talking about economic recovery which will underpin a re-armament effort but it is much broader. It also has a moral aspect. You're talking about repairing and consolidating relations with friends and allies because

one of the charges was that we had rewarded our enemies and penalized our friends in the 1970s so you wanted to rectify that and Soviet policy really came only as a residual in a way in those first years of the major priority effort on those three other fronts. So the breakpoint was not 1984 the election year. I can say that looking back because I experienced that it was 1983 because it was in the middle of 1983 that the administration looked out at its priorities economic recovery rearmament repairing relations with friends and allies and observed that it hadn't gotten everything it wanted. But by golly it was not doing badly. You had a degree of economic recovery underway. The defense budget had not become a political target. That was one of the mysterious secrets of the first two years of the administration and relations after the Williamsburgh summit. Relations with allies remember after the gas pipeline controversy

were substantially better maybe better than we deserve. But substantially better in any case than we'd expected. And you could feel the terrain change around this town when it came to Salvina fair because as a result of having been able to set objectives and to make some progress toward objectives the administration looked out and said to itself Hey maybe now we can negotiate with the Soviet. So it was in the summer of 83 that you got a whole series of small steps forward which would have been impossible the year before we got agreement to move forward on reopening consulate's to negotiate a new cultural exchanges agreement. You got some movement and both started and I have small but significant and that showed a new Wednesday and the recovery of confidence to be able to negotiate with the Soviets. Now the president reflected that because one of the elements of building strength I mentioned it was

military was economic and it was also moral. In other words one of the president's main purposes in those first years was was to tell Americans that they were a good and decent people and that included a very unfavorable comparison with our adversary. If I may put it so chastely at this point but moral rearmament was also a part of the program. And I think more than anything that explains the rhetoric now once you get into negotiations you don't cut your rhetoric in order to facilitate negotiations. You cut your rhetoric because you feel stronger and you feel more confident and you don't need that rhetoric anymore as you engage with the Soviets so I think basically that's what happened how 83 was a big year. Let me interrupt your. And ask a question that begins to go with. I've said I don't ask questions

some good. OK well I think that there were two and two telltale signs that somewhere that this was happening and the landscape was shifting. One was happenstance on the middle of June 1983. Secretary Schultz was called on to give a presentation to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And the timing was happenstance because it had been scheduled for earlier in the year by chairman then chairman person. He'd agreed to do it and then was it was deferred because of the Middle East activity. So the timing just came up and the presentation in which we prepared had no political signal at all. It was absolutely flat and accurate. It had strength that had realism and had negotiation. It had slow steady work and had the four part agenda human rights and regional and arms control and bilateral. So it was not intended to signal and it was reported in

exactly opposite directions by the New York Times and The Washington Post the next day the Washington Post picked out what was hard and headlined Shulz signals tougher stance toward the Soviet Union and the New York Times picked out what was once they saw what was more flexible and said Shulz signals new flexibility vis a vis the Soviet Union. And we had to decide how to breed who was right. I heard a journalist call me you say what was your boss saying. And at that point we decided that indeed we had recovered our confidence to the point where we were going to remain tough and we were going to call. We were going to be very clear eyed and very realistic and we were going to keep talking about the things that the Soviet Union did that we thought were dangerous or irresponsible and things we didn't like about Soviet domestic arrangements which under this administration are

considered a part of the reason why the Soviets are not a good partner in world affairs. But basically we were ready to negotiate. So that was that's one anecdote of how it happened and I think it also shows you the very uncertain balance of that time. But it was in that somewhere as I say through diplomatic channels and we've got a number of things going on. And of course that was brought to a very abrupt halt by the Khail shoot down about that what does it feel like that happens and what what happens here what happens is that you have task forces immediately formed at various levels which are simply trying to get a handle on the situation which are getting vast amounts of disparate information and in a situation of very high passion in the State Department by habit attempts to sort of manage all those elements into a framework which fits with the policy. And it is high bureaucratic battle because something as outrageous

as this murder of a 269 innocent civilians is something that simply galvanizes it reminds everyone of what is monstrous about the Soviet Union and when the lead world outrage at the incident when we were talking a rhetoric. It was probably the highest pitch of American rhetoric led by the president and it was justified. At the same time for me looking ahead trying to look at this with some perspective and some distance the way we handled it was a proof that we had indeed recovered our confidence because unlike Afghanistan and unlike even Poland in terms of a sanctions program the president decided very early that as we lead this worldwide outrage and this effort to reprimand and to hold the Soviet Union up to the bar of international morality we were going to limit our

sanctions the specific sanctions that we took to things that were directly related to the reasons why world opinion was outraged and that had to do with the safety of peaceful aircraft. So our sanctions were limited to the transportation field. I mean we pulled back a co-operative agreement on transportation for renewal. We mobilize the cow. I mean we carried forward an effort to make sure that this could never happen again to assign blame but it really was within the transportation field and at the same time against the advice to the contrary from some quarters the president decided to send back to the negotiating table as arms control negotiators and really to pursue these objectives and relations with the Soviets which we had behind our own interests. I mean we felt that an eye enough solution a zero zero option and at that time I think it was an interim solution even and I was in our interest. So you don't stop pursuing that interest because something

terrible happens in another field you try to deal with that on its merits. So I think those two episodes I mean really were sort of proof that by after two years by mid 1983 the United States had recovered confidence enough politically had a policy in place which enjoyed broad acceptance and could then begin to negotiate seriously with the Soviets. Now after that the difficulty was that actual transactions with the Soviets stopped through the fall and both sides concentrated really on the IMF battle in Europe and there wasn't much energy for anything else. By the time you came out of that by the time we had deployed and the Soviets had walked out and had unsuccessfully tried to gin up a war scare which was their reaction in November and December they stopped in mid December because I think it was having repercussions on their own public opinion.

But by the time you arrived at the New Year and the president reaffirmed in his speech of January 1994 which is really the key presidential document on US-Soviet relations his willingness to negotiate on the basis of the four four point agenda to move forward his desire that it was an election and everyone was saying that Ronald Reagan is only doing this for electoral purposes it's not the real Ronald Reagan and it was very hard to test that in an election year although we continue to do so. It's interesting you say reaffirming the January 4th speech and now I guess is technically correct. The 14th you know Turkey Day whatever the day whatever that is I've got that speech and that's correct in the sense that you know if you look back at the record that the president never said he wasn't willing to talk but none kind of record speaking. And that felt to me looking at the record the first time the president really had the sense I got as an interviewer that he genuinely was talking about well I was saying we have to

build up first and then we'll talk he wasn't saying that he was saying Now we should talk. Well maybe I'm to state department maybe I'm too interested in the framework because in that sense there was a reaffirmation I mean the elements of it had been there before and it reaffirmed them. It's also true however as you say that there was kind of a new spirit and a new buoyancy to it. The difficulty when you do that in an election year although I think it was there may have been some electoral interest but it was basically an affirmation of what had been a consistent presidential approach. What a change was the new confidence was that it was impossible to prove that to anyone because it was an election year. But what we did during that year was really to implement the president's line and that new and. I mean we put so much on the table in the course of 1994 both before and after the Soviet Olympic boycott that

by midsummer at a time when the whole press was saying that the Soviets won't deal with Ronald Reagan ever and certainly not before the election. The Soviets actually sort of released the bilateral side of the relationship and allowed things to go forward and to start again. And that of course was really registered that was Mr. gunmakers visit to Washington willing to talk to the United States although it was no action. So I think perhaps our effort to put things on the table to prove what the president said in January was sincere. May also have had some impact on them and sometimes they watch us more closely than the American media. This is curious to me. I'm curious do you think that heading into the KLA we might have gotten this whole process started prior to putting this was an integral part of the trouble. I think I think we would have done some of it. Now how far would have gone and whether it would actually have counterbalanced or avoided the kind of political struggle

you had over I and half I mean a political struggle was inevitable. Whether this is the enrichment of the agenda of transactions you know other areas could have leached out of some of its venom or I doubt it would prevent it but it could have been a different ball. The other thing of course that happens is that the president we invade Grenada which becomes kind of I guess a symbol of what Krauthammer Jesus did. The Reagan doctrine that is the notion that not only will we not tolerate the extension of Marxist Leninist regimes that we will actually work to roll back those Marxist Leninist regimes where we can do so. So he goes to Afghanistan I guess it's already been going against him and he's been going to the Nicaraguan Contras El Salvador and government is being helped by his mission in Grenada. Well I think that's a that's a part of two things. It's part of the strength of you know increasing

American strength and showing the will to use it. And it's part of you know our original approach which from the beginning in other words more apparent early on in words I think rather than Deeds was that our approach to these regional conflicts has been that we recognize that the roots of these conflicts are usually indigenous. I mean they're caused by social economic political tensions in an area. The problem has been a pattern of Soviet exploitation of these conflicts through military means either directly as in Afghanistan or through what used to be called proxies. But anyway close Soviet friends and allies to impose political solutions which are against our interests. I mean that's that's the objection. Our response to that has been that we want to work with the parties to a conflict to encourage

them to get together and solve it themselves. In other words it's not something that the U.S. and the Soviet Union can decide together and impose. I mean it really has to be the parties and that's true in the Middle East Afghanistan Central America southern Africa. We're willing to help if the Soviet Union is willing to join in that effort constructively. We welcome that. But if they don't we're going to do it ourselves. And that includes supporting forces indigenous forces which are resisting this use of military power supplied tolerated. Some places Afghanistan and conducted by the Soviet Union to impose these political solution. So that's kind of the theory of it but it has been consistent now 1983 you had in the first years of the administration this very curious argument because most of these are arguments about America mind you. Not so much about the Soviet Union. There's a very curious argument of the some elements of the Department of Defense who felt that we had grown so weak relatively in

the 1970s that until we had fully recovered our military strength we could not afford to confront Soviet expansionism even at the extremities of its tentacles and that therefore we had to concentrate on economic pressure. It was an odd argument because it said we're we're too weak militarily to confront. But they are so weak economically that we can bring them to their knees by a fairly gentle push like a gas pipeline. Well that and you had the State Department you know the diplomats these people who are famous for negotiating and any price saying no. We have a range of instruments to deal with the Soviet Union military diplomacy. I can write a whole bunch of things and we are strong enough so that we can afford to use our our military power in some instances to put a stop to this expansionism and you know Grenada was a case of that. Now what effect that had on the

Soviet Union. It's a little bit like SDI. It's mixed. On the one hand it's very alarming for them because to the extent they felt that the Reagan administration was a cowboy power it frightened them. And I'm willing to accept that a certain amount of that fear was genuine. On the other hand I think the main effect of it was to show them that America was bad and that the cause of the kind of adventurism taking advantage exploiting opportunities in the third world that they had kind of systematically indulged in in the 1970s was getting higher and higher and higher and so they really ought to look more carefully at the costs and risks of the kind of international conduct which had become normal for them in the 70s and I think there's been a certain amount that we are kind of just out there in like September 84 when Ego comes first time and there is there kids and the

president. I wonder if recollecting. Was there any time in which people did say inside the process is going to be a and we trained them. It's only a question of time. Or was it always kind of even up to Geneva was it was it was it kind of in the air. I mean well he was up in the air and in particular ways I was confident there was going to be a summit when the Soviets finally agreed to a summit and that was in July of 1985. I think before that there were a number of tasks a number of steps right after the election my words after the presidents victory in 1984 we immediately reaffirm our desire to get things going again. And I think that had an effect on the Soviet leadership because of course many of them had been dealing with the theory that all this is an electoral sham so re-affirming that immediately after the election has some credibility then you had the meeting in January of 85 in Geneva.

Secretary Schultz and Shevardnadze are in Gromyko ad which it was agreed to begin arms control negotiations again and that started in March then in March. Mr. Chen Yinka died and Gorbachev succeeded him as general secretary. And you begin and you begin to get the infiltration of the new spirit into the Soviet approach to some of these issues. But it was not until July where you had the rearrangement of the Politburo and Gorbachev really got himself some solid support in the top leadership and they agreed definitively to the summit within days actually within hours of that leadership reshuffle that I was confident that we were going to have a comment now that said they had a problem all the way through as I mentioned earlier up until a week

before Geneva with what to do with SDI. And they tried for a very long time to make it a precondition for a successful summit. In other words they said we will have a summit but it will not be successful unless the United States makes this concession on SDI. I think they learned in that process a couple things which is that direct pressure on SDI tends to increase support for the converse is not necessarily true. In other words reducing pressure and doesnt necessarily reduce support and they've been dealing with that kind of problem but that they learn. And I think the second thing they learned was that there is some mileage in adopting the four part agenda. In other words being willing to talk to us about everything and being practical delic says that the outcome of the Geneva Summit the substantive outcome the Geneva Summit which was build

was Reagan's stated desire to eliminate nuclear was that it didn't come up in Geneva in that way too. I wasn't. I had a year off and so I knew that was not my year. I know there was agreement on the proposition that nuclear war cannot be fired it cannot be won and must never be fired. The president does have a long term vision of a world without nuclear terror. He expressed that to get Meeka you'll need to check out whether it's actually in the Geneva Summit document. But I think the Soviets also learned at Geneva that the president is not going to be driven off SDI per se and they have respected that really ever since. I mean we think of the kinds of assurances that the Soviets are requiring with regard to strategic defense are designed to have the political effect of killing SDI but their stated position. And you

have to take it at face value that they recognize that the president will not be talked off yesterday and they are not talking about stopping the SDI program and they are talking about putting it within the agreed limits which permit the two sides to take these 50 percent reductions in offensive weapons. And I would say I have a lot of admiration for Mr. Velie cough but I still feel free to differ from him. I would say that the major achievement of the Geneva Summit was agreement on that 50 percent reductions in strategic offensive. Now obviously the Soviets have their own view. And so so that the how shall I say the distrust of nuclear weapons which the president feels may have been important to them because then it served as the programmatic basis for their own approach to arms control which was Gorbachev's January 15th 1986 program for eliminating nuclear weapons

by the year 2000 and that has been the basis to which they have referred. At every step of the way and I think its because its a leadership agreed basis just before their party congress which was then blessed that the party congress. And for them it has the value of a leadership decision document supported and the most solemn fashion by the leader and by the party. And therefore they're stuck with. It's interesting because this next lesson God says also he says we need to suppose and the president was totally unprepared for them. But I think you're right they didn't make any that Reykjavik that went beyond what they had he said in January. I think that's right. And moreover part of the what you got into it Reykjavik you had Saturday morning and for these fabulous

reductions offered. I mean these 50 percent reductions. Have you had an offer on I have which was inadequate and which has subsequently been overtaken but it was impressive and you had the idea of the they came down to 10 years of commitment not to withdraw from the ABM treaty with some definitions as to what that meant. That's a fabulous offer but what it does is if you say 10 years of non withdraw from the ABM Treaty and 50 percent reductions on the offensive side within five years that gives you a framework for what to do on oftens what to do on defense which defines the relationship between offense and defense which had been agreed in principle on January of 85 which the two sides had never had a practical way of wrestling with or grappling with the problem at that point became what to do

with the extra five years on the offensive side. Ten years difference five years off and that left a hole in what the president did was he went back to the proposal that he had made in his letter of late July to Gorbachev which was a treaty for the elimination of all ballistic missiles within 10 years. So he wasn't even needed. Not only was Gorbachev not doing anything fundamentally. But the president himself was also using a guidance which had been debated clear and controversial in some ways within the government but which had been debated clear and decided. So it was an elaboration of things that had gone before. And I don't know maybe you missed Mr. Volkoff should be familiar with this but I feel confident that what he gave you gave you seems to me to be a

misreading of what actually happened because as you mentioned the they will take place on Saturday. Did the president leave the meeting go back and come back. Tell us a little bit about that. Scientist did it correct me if I'm wrong. The Soviets come in and they say do you think that Mr. datagrams were five here that a 10 year ban on space based systems. But then they will right and then and then in the afternoon you really had an elaboration of what that 50 percent offer meant on the offensive side. And we in turn explained our position on the offensive side and you set up this working group at night and you set up the other working group which covered human rights and regional and bilateral issues. They met all night and you came back the next morning and you basically did two things we had developed a bilateral work program 10 or 12 or 13 steps that the two sides ought to be taking. The

two leaders bless that and that turned out to be an important accomplishment because with the breakdown of the arms control thing that gave a certain underpinning to moving forward with the relationship even though you were having trouble on the arms control side and then they talked mainly about Iran. I spent the rest of the morning talking principally about Sunday. And it was at that meeting that you got the Soviets having satisfied themselves. Because I think it took that long satisfied themselves that the president was genuinely sincere in being willing to eliminate our missiles in Europe. They were very skeptical about that. They thought that even if he were sincere dark forces in the United States or the allies would prevent him from doing that. So it was very important for them to assure themselves that he was sincere. I think it was on Sunday morning that they agreed to go down to 100 outside Europe.

I mean we didn't agree where they would be you know where their arms would be in Alaska. And as you know we've since gone beyond that. But that that took most of Sunday morning Sunday afternoon. We came back briefly with some numbers I mean you reached agreement on the six thousand sixteen hundred numbers early Sunday afternoon and then most of the rest of the time was spent talking about the ABM Treaty and of course it was on that that the meeting broke but that was the general said the impression you get from reading the press at the time and also you think that little Pleydell platelet is that Americans in some confusion and disarray and scribbling notes in the bathroom and trying to somehow counter the Soviets together solid supposing that there was a sense of disorganization and confusion. Well yeah I think there was there was more urgency and uncertainty probably on our side because the Soviets

had come with a comprehensive vetted I'm sure a politburo approved document which is what they were working against. Now that gave them trouble in the aftermath and I'd like to describe that for the Americans as I say we're surprised at the magnitude of the return to 50 percent and had to deal with some proposals which they hadn't expected. This question of laboratory testing on SDI. So there was more work to be done for us because the Soviets basically laid out this thing and then sort of stuck by it. They also made some some movement on the bomber accounting rule on the during the course of the night between that and ocker me. So they weren't totally without flexibility. Basically they had their matrix there and they stuck. But the effect of that afterwards was that the two sides had different political problems. And my feeling is that Gorbachev's political problem was not it was more

difficult than ours because he came in with all or nothing instructions. Our political problems Sunday night at Reykjavik was that we needed to do we needed somehow to avoid having SDI identify him as the single obstacle to progress in arms control. And it was clear that the Soviets were going to try to pin that charge on. I think Gorbachev problem was more severe because he had all or nothing construction of words either and you get your SDI concession or all of these fabulous offers go off the bore go off the negotiating table they become null and void. So when he faced the press that evening the world press. But also he was speaking to the Soviet Union. He had to decide whether to take everything off the board and basically return in political terms to the situation in

November 1983 where they'd walked out and walked out of Geneva because of enough deployments. Now he was going to take all that stuff off the table would have been a walkout because he didn't get the concession he needed on SDI. He decided not to do that. He decided to say it all remains on the table but SDI is still the single obstacle. And they tried to square that little circle because the truth is we've made progress in some areas and there were differences in other areas of which the question of strict observance and laboratory testing were only two. But they tried it through Vienna really until the start of 1980 7. They tried to stick to the they had to square that circle and having everything on the table but trying to define SDI as the only obstacle. And that was the content of the Vienna meeting between Schultz and Shevardnadze when we

proposed that we put together two documents which outline the agreement and the differences and they refused and walked out and said SDI is the only obstacle. I think they really didn't make the decision to come off of that until early in 87. At that point we were in Iran Contra. It was not until Mr. Baker and Mr. Carlucci. Took over at the White House that they do like time and again within hours it was the converse of 1985 when some hours after gunmaker was elevated to the chairmanship of the Council of State we got agreement on the summit. In this case it was some hours after Mr. Baker and Mr. Carlucci took over at the White House that Gorbachev knee length eye enough and allowed that negotiation to go forward. So there are in a relationship to these things but I have to say that I think that

the policy quandary propose in principle the elimination of ballistic missiles with a five year period I think 10 years 10 years. Yeah he proposed that in his letter of late July 1986 to Gorbachev a treaty to eliminate all ballistic missiles within 10 years. And he reaffirmed that basically that reykjavík as a way of filling you know what to do with that extra five years when you agreed to do 50 percent reductions of all strategic offensive weapons in five years and you had a 10 year ABM. That was a Soviet or given the fact that our security has been based on the notion of our triad which ballistic missile is significant one of the legs that triad and that we get always as I understand American policy has been that our

nuclear capability was a way of redressing that only as a way of deterring not only a nuclear strike but a conventional strike that is we have. Read about that. That seems like a strange proposal for us to make. It's like if I try and I'm not making sense. Well you are and I don't have a good answer because I'm not a good strategic thinker. I mean I'm probably not the fellow to pose a question to. And what I say would be speculation. I think probably it has to do with the increasing vulnerability of our land based ICBMs because of technological development accuracy those kinds of things which was a problem well identified in the 70s still exists and the prospect of eliminating all Soviet ballistic missiles even at the cost of offering that lay of our triad

seemed worth it contemplate who had the meeting with the end of the meeting. You know it's just just narratively what happens at the end of this day. Well they had the last period that was really focused on this question of laboratory testing as all that would be permitted beyond research for the SDI program. And it was very urgent and intense respectful I mean again there was no screaming and shouting in the meeting but very urgent and intense. The two leaders recognized that the stakes were considerable. And in the end it was deadlock. I mean it was it was gridlocked on that issue. Both leaders felt that they could not return to their capitals having made a concession on that issue

and they tried. I mean they you know they urged each other to make that one concession and after a while after quite awhile it became apparent that that was not going to be possible. So at a certain point the books were closed and they stood up and left. Now the question has been posed as to why they didn't roll it over. I mean why they didn't come back the next day and talk about it. Actually the proposal had been made that the that issue be deferred to other for I mean either to a Washington summit or to the negotiators in Geneva. But I think because it was part of Gorbachev's approve matrix package I speculated that in any case Gorbachev was unwilling to entertain that kind of remanding to another four.

And the president was unwilling to make that concession which he considered and I think the right line if not technically and politically would have crippled or gutted the SDI program. And so I don't think he would have done any good. I mean I don't think that there was a fix even as a diplomat. I mean I sat there we went to diplomats these deadlock emerge and he becomes uncomfortable. And I was in that situation but I didn't think that there was a fix that could be accomplished overnight or by coming back the next day. So I thought it was probably politically accurate in that way and the media although I think both sides had built up such a quick beginning Saturday. I mean you had a period of 24 hours. And really was was it was 24 hours because we hadn't slept and where the consciousness that all these things that you've been talking about for years could become real.

I think we had become more and more convinced of the reality of what we were doing and the magnitude of what we were doing. So the psychological let down was considerable. But what both sides recoup because for different reasons which I've described Gorbachev's problem are probably both Secretary Shultz when he briefed that night and Gorbachev and his length of briefing basically asserted that everything that's been offered is on the table and that was the key result which has allowed us to go which allowed us to go on despite that psychological of this is a very good effort. Does Reagan close his brief close is the first step is Gorbachev grab his briefcase and walk out. Do they stay together. Mr. President I'm afraid we can't find one. No I did. I don't I don't have a clear enough memory. That was not a dramatic moment. It was all over dramatic but it was dramatic.

Lakoff and and Gerasim and others in the Soviet delegation there complain that the U.S. delegation spoke with many voices. In fact they said more specifically that although they had the feeling that agreed at the highest levels were possible I guess they met between the president over Joffe that at the lower levels a lot of people didn't he said did not want to make progress and brought up all kinds of accusations. Well that's just the oldest of Soviet old thinking the Soviets always go to the top and they always complain about the guys down the line and they always blame evil counselors. You know dark forces I mean the ruling circles or the military industrial complex or unrealistically thinking people if they don't get what they want. So I don't I mean those are

guys who represent purport to represent the newest of new thinking. And it's a little disillusioning to hear them so spectacularly engaged in all thinking with that kind of charge. He seemed particularly exercised by the Prince of Darkness for the Pentagon to that although one of the secrets of the progress that we've made was that beginning in January 1985 assistant secretary Perle was part of the team and he was constructive. I mean he's very skeptical of arms control as you know. I mean soporific and that's. Once again it's mainly the effect on the Americans rather than the effect on the Russians that worries. And he's more pessimistic about the capacity of this country that's politic to defend and promote its interests with the Soviet Union than I am. But that said he is an original and creative and constructive member of a negotiating team. And of course they're blinded to that.

So how do to tell his side that they are fastened to a recession with a whole bunch of Soviets and a whole bunch of American Soviets on the one that he of them was the most interesting person and this is a room full of interesting Americans that it was Burrough really. Well he's a real man. And they can't figure him out because they want to type him. Yeah. And they wanted to but they they sense that there's something more to it than they've been told them that they feel and so they they kind of keep digging. Of course he loves them. I think you've asked me just ask it again to make sure I don't have anything to it that Reagan come out. Just garbage of the like that is that they look exhausted. They look quote depressed unquote. They had that final thing. They go back in the plane. And by the time he almost took it back to the States a whole new complex put on the events any kind of. Well first they were exhausting. Everybody was exhausted. Gorbachev didn't look too brusque and snappy at his press conference either. I mean we were all time second. There was this psychological sort of walking off the

cliff that I've mentioned because all these things which had sort of been in the nature of negotiating possessions more or less sincere over the years were becoming real. But it didn't happen just on Saturday morning. It happened Saturday morning and then it built for a whole day of sort of urgency and tension. So I think the the the failure to reach agreement was it was more severe had that impact which was which was apparent but politically human I think you looked down and you had more time on the plane. We had a particular problem because the secretary and some of the rest of us were going to Brussels and the president was returning to address the nation without high level State Department company. And what this psychological impact and I have to say that the line the

president took that night with I think it was a joint session it wasn't not it was a television address I forget was his life. I think that he can go the line that the president took that night at the joint session was his line. He was the one who developed that himself. I mean Secretary Schultz was in Brussels briefing the North Atlantic Council and so that was the president's line and it was absolutely consistent with everything as I have argued throughout this interview that the president has represented and has wanted throughout his tenure since January 20th 1981. So it is seen as a public relations coup. You know something that the wordsmiths of the great communicators you know somehow put together to mask a real failure. I would say that it is the dawning of reality after sort of an urgent and turbulent

experience as to what had been accomplished how how how little indeed but also how much trying to put that in balance and then trying to move forward that you're saying is that it's like a let down. If you give a performance player something you know when the players only feel very depressed you know and then you get to reduce the rave reviews you that again but there's an emotional at the end of an intense experience. But it didn't it didn't depend on the reviews because negative reviews were negative and you knew you were going to have to go on within an hour. So you didn't you couldn't wait till the next night you had to do it right there. And for for the secretary was briefing because he briefed on the plan and brief the allies the next morning for the president it was appearing before a joint session of Congress and they reached exactly the same conclusion with questions that we were getting there. Prelutsky says he was there

was there wasn't. You may not know the answer to that. OK. Do you think that that he said that he felt that we were at historic moment that place it was followed up in Washington that was really represent a fundamental breakthrough in American relations. Still I think it's overstating it because of the Soviet habit of looking for sharp and radical changes. You know it has to be all black or all white. And if you're in a positive mood everything has to be positive and why are you raising these negative things with me. And if it's negative as in 1983 84 everything has to be negative. We can't talk about anything constructive with you I mean that's just a Soviet psychological habit. I think it's partly Russian I think it's partly when you get a very centralized dictatorial system.

I think it was an important move forward. I mean I think it was the most I think we've made we made more progress in Reykjavik on the most difficult issues than any other time during this administration and in a way probably since it was concluded. But I don't think it was a breakthrough. I don't think we're headed for a new era. I don't think we're going back to day time. Let me put it that way. I mean I hope we're heading for a new era in U.S. soviet relations. But it will be an era which will be different from day time because you will be dealing with all the issues between the countries positive and negative. You will be dealing with a comprehensive agenda rather than the narrow detente agenda so that you will have a political base in this country which will sustain both progress and setbacks because there are going to be setbacks. So if that's a breakthrough. I agree with him but I don't think that's what Mr. Wilonsky was talking about. And I think an attempt to break back to the past to break

back to the 1970s would be suicidal in terms of the kind of breakthrough that I'm talking to which is on the back of 1945 but that's the way I look at it. You clearly don't understand dialectical thinking as I understand it better than they do in that comparison in that comparison because simply returning to a golden era is not dialectic. I mean I think we've taken the fruits of daytime. What's good about the day time and but we're trying to go beyond it to something that's better and more solid. That's dialectic. Finally in Reykjavik many people have said that leaders should not go to summits to negotiate that the negotiations should be done before and leaders should go to a summit to ratify some obscure book from Churchill I can't recall where he says we've got to negotiate into some big trouble I think. I don't think there's any hard and fast rule. In other words I don't think there are rules for summitry that apply summits or

events in a political process which depends on the political situation. I mean you know history is circumstantial you make it as you go along. And I don't think you can draw that kind of lesson from it under this administration with the style of presidential leadership which we have. I think it's also true of the Soviets. You know they are collegial in a way but hierarchical where you've had a period of really intense mistrust and suspicion lasting years where you have huge governments and huge bureaucracy which have been engaged with each other more or less and less engaged in some previous periods. But when they haven't been engaged even in negotiation they have been adversarial. I mean they do not have the habit of reaching agreement even on a very hard and sort of clear eyed basis. I think that negotiation at high level is

necessary to move things forward. We may get back to a point as U.S.-Soviet relations and East-West relations proceed where the lower levels can do more work. And where were the top leaders are not required to negotiate under pressure. But I think Reykjavik was as I say one of the most productive meetings in U.S.-Soviet history although it didn't do everything and didn't solve all problems and didn't introduce us into nirvana. There may be other presidents and other presidencies where you'd like to do it different. History is now over. What I don't. Know if that is almost up. OK you said that twice before you get it right. I just want to reflect on garbage. I mean the man explodes on the state you're on the world stage.

I mean for Christmas of 80 for whatever 84 percent say boy becomes figure is the great dynamism almost wins the peace race with Reagan for a period of time in Western Europe terms significant change or less significant change or new window dressing for the same old Soviet significant change but not much yet. Obviously a man who enjoys leadership who is different from his predecessors as leaders. That's partly personal. I think it's partly generational which means he represents a different kind of people. People who are more educated people who came of age after the Soviet after mass terror was an acceptable political instrument in the Soviet Union and who came of age in a period where experimentalism was accepted but where extreme

experimentalism brought the fall of the man who introduced it. Mr. Khrushchev. So it's a particular political generation but in a collective leadership which represents the man ought to represent this man of interests including conservative interest and both movement and inertia a country which has tremendous problem. So gridlocks and deadlocks and musclebound that's rigid it's difficult to move forward. Moreover as you move forward you bring resistance. I mean you success increases resistance in a way that's the law. I think of political life. A man moreover has spent 23 years in a provincial town working his way up through the Soviet apparatus who came to power in a traditional way because people liked him and the elders and betters considered him a worthy man to promote and

eventually to be a successor. Very Russian I think he likes to work and with big ideas. He likes to be philosophical. He likes to talk he likes to exchange ideas but there are elements of sitting around the samovar in dealing with him and he remains he's learning about the outside world he wants to learn about the outside world and I think he does want to take into account the way others see things and the desires of others I take seriously the concept of mutual security which is introduced but who remain who has lots of blindspot who works within an intellectual framework which make it hard for him to understand the outside world. I was struck after Reykjavik that I think he had a sense that it was difficult for President Reagan to make decisions of this magnitude on a volcanic island in the middle of the North Atlantic. Even though he had all these senior advisers around him.

But when he tried to express that it came out as the military industrial complex which is one of the most traditional ways for the Soviets looking at the way the American political system shapes itself and moves forward. So I think a complex man an attractive man in a very mixed situation. And so I go back to what I originally said the directions that he is trying to take the openings and the flexibility the willingness to take the views and interests of others into account. Those are all good things. But he has a long way to go.