An Impossible Dream by Guillaume Serina

Author:Guillaume Serina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2019-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

A Tense, Historic Final Round

Three twenty-five that afternoon

The negotiations have started up again, nearly half an hour late. This is the last round, a tight one, with Shevardnadze and Shultz around the table. Mikhail Gorbachev speaks first, pinpointing the problem.

“Concerning the ABM Treaty, I would like to make a proposal which combines your approach and ours. . . . Our formula is as follows: ‘The USSR and the U.S. would pledge not to exercise their right to withdraw from the ABM treaty for ten years, and to comply strictly with all its provisions during that period. Testing of all components of ABM defense in space shall be prohibited except for laboratory research and testing. During the first five years of this ten-year period (through 1991), the strategic offensive weapons of the two sides shall be reduced by 50 percent. During the following five years of this period the remaining 50 percent of the two sides’ strategic offensive weapons shall be reduced. In this way, by the end of 1996, all the strategic offensive weapons of the USSR and the U.S. will have been eliminated.”

The Soviets have come right out with it. Here is a text that both sides can now use as the basis for an accord. Then Ronald Reagan presents the American plan. “Our position offers a somewhat different formulation,” he says. “I hope that we can eliminate the difference in the course of our talks.”

The American text stipulates: “The two sides agree to limit themselves to research, development, and testing permitted by the ABM Treaty for a period of five years until 1991 inclusive, during which time a 50 percent reduction in strategic nuclear arsenals will be carried out. After that, both sides will continue to reduce the remaining offensive ballistic missiles at the same rate with the aim of completely eliminating offensive ballistic missiles by the end of the second five-year period. The same restrictions in connection with the ABM Treaty will remain in force while the reductions continue at the corresponding rates. At the end of this period, the two sides shall have the right to deploy defensive systems.”

Gorbachev seems disappointed with the American formulation. He asserts that it fails “to meet our position halfway.” For him, the Americans “are not strengthening” the ABM Treaty during its ten-year period. “What we are talking about primarily is the renunciation of testing any space components of ABM defense in space. . . . I want to emphasize once more that what is prohibited according to our formula does not affect laboratory testing and leaves open the possibility for the American side, like the Soviet side, to conduct any laboratory research relating to space, including SDI research. We are not undermining your idea of SDI. We are permitting that kind of activity, which is already being conducted by the United States and which is impossible to monitor anyway. We are only placing the system within the framework of laboratory research. I think the U.S. could go along with this, especially considering the major steps the Soviet Union has made.

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