(UNTITLED)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T01017R000505350001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: January 12, 2017
• Document Release Date: April 26, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 3, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/04/26: CIA-RDP86T01017R000505350001-2
Central Intelligence Agency
DATE (Q ,~ ( LCD
DOC NOS U }'1 -do l U S,C
OIR d)
P $PD I
3 November 1986
SUBJECT: Shevardnadze's Approach at Vienna on Strategic Arms
/L
Moscow probably views the Vienna meeting between Secretary Shultz and
Foreign Minister Shevardnadze as an opportunity to push further for US
consideration of a framework for offensive force reductions and limitations on
SDI. Shevardnadze may reiterate Gorbachev's suggestion that an agreed formula
be worked out to serve as joint guidance to the Geneva negotiating teams. He
could propose additional meetings of experts or another ministerial meeting in
order to provide an impetus to the Geneva talks.
We doubt that Shevardnadze will take an aggressive or confrontational
approach. Moscow views the Vienna meeting as a
continuation o Reykjavik. Moreover, the Soviets probably calculate that a
continued effort to engage Washington in discussions stands a better chance-of
generating West European pressure on the United States for greater flexibility
"
"
on SDI than a
take it or leave it
approach.
-- In a press conference on 30 October, Foreign Ministry press spokesman
Gennadiy Gerasimov said that the Soviets would not be going to the
Vienna meeting with "empty hands," but he declined to speculate
whether the USSR would make changes to its Reykjavik proposals.
-- In an interview in Der Spiegel on 18 October, Valentin Falin, a former
Soviet ambassador tine who now heads the Novosti news agency, said
it was "very probable" that the USSR would unveil a new initiative in
a few weeks.
Focus on SDI
Shevardnadze probably will try to keep the discussions focused on SDI,
especially by seeking US agreement to negotiate on how to interpret the ABM
Treaty. His strategy may be to claim that the two sides' differences on SDI
result largely from Washington's failure to understand the Soviet proposal for
strengthening the ABM Treaty, and he may attempt to clarify alleged US
"misconceptions" along the following lines.
SOV M 86-20105X
25X1
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-- The USSR is not asking the United States to give up SDI, only to
observe the provisions of the ABM Treaty.
-- The Soviets do not want to change or amend the treaty, only to clarify
its obligations.
-- The Soviet position does not foreclose the possibility of SDI
deployment in the future.
-- The USSR is not seeking to prevent all ABM testing and acknowledges
that testing of fixed land-based ABM systems is permitted by the ABM
Treaty.
Since the Reykjavik meeting, a number of Soviet officials have suggested
that there is flexibility in the Soviet position on SDI testing and that
Shevardn adze might bring some new proposals on this subject to Vienna. In an
interview on Hungarian television on 29 October, Georgiy Arbatov said that
mutual understandings on things such as how to define "laboratory" could be
worked out between the two sides.
Moscow probably hopes that if nothing else is achieved on this issue, the
meeting will serve to portray SDI as the main impediment to reaching an
agreement.
START and INF
We doubt that Shevardnadze will bring new proposals in the area of
strategic and intermediate-range nuclear arms reductions. He will stress that
there can be no strategic offensive force reductions without agreement on
SDI*._ He is likely to focus any discussion of strategic offensive reductions
on ,how reductions of fifty percent would be structured and to la down
second-phase reductions to any kind of a "zero" outcome.
Shevardnadze
a so is Tike y to charge that the United States has been distorting the mutual
understandings reached in Reykjavik and to assert that the President agreed
there to eliminate all strategic nuclear weapons and not just ballistic
missiles. He also will deny there was an understanding that allowed the
United States to build up its SRINF missiles in Europe to Soviet levels.
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25X1
2bA-i
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Shevardnadze almost certainly will maintain that the Reykjavik proposals
are a package and that Soviet concessions are attainable only if agreement is
reached on all elements. The Soviets probably will reserve the right to
withdraw their concessions, claiming they were predicated upon the original
formulation of the package. If pressed on the issue of INF linkage to the
rest of the package, however, Shevardnadze may indicate that a separate INF
interim agreement is possible on the basis of the previous Soviet proposal of
100 warheads each in Europe and a freeze on SS-20s in Asia. Moscow may
calculate that such a tactic could serve to bring pressure on Washington from
its allies in the Far East over the SDI issue.
Nuclear Testing
While the Soviets will want to keep the discussion focused on the ABM
Treaty and SDI, Shevardnadze may raise the nuclear testing issue, proposing
that official negotiations on nuclear.testing be opened with the aim of
achieving a comprehensive test ban. Since the Soviets have said that
agreements can be worked out in all areas even though they would have to be
considered as a package, their linkage position would not seem to preclude the
opening of such negotiations--a longstanding Soviet objective.
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External Distribution:
Mr. John Van Oudenaren
Policy Planning Staff
Room 7316
Department of State
Mr. Darnell Whitt
Room 4E830
Pentagon
Mr. Robert Ashdown
US Arms Control and Disarrpament Agency
Room 5923
Department of State
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