INTERVIEW WITH MR. SAGDEEV AND PROFESSOR SHULMAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301940005-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
This Week with David Brinkley STATION WJLA-TV
ABC Network
DATE November 10, 1985 11:30 A.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
Interveiw with Mr. Sagdeev and Professor Shulman
DAVID BRINKLEY: ...We'll be back with the President's
adviser on arms control, the head of Russia's space program, and
a special list in the study of the Soviet Union.
BRINKLEY: Two leaders who have never met, each well
supplied with preconceived notions about the other. Their
meetings are scheduled to last a total of eight hours. Since
neither speaks the other's language, every word will have to be
translated, which effectively gives them four hours to talk and
negotiate, not much.
But before we ask our guests what they think might
happen in these four hours, here's some background on what led up
to the summit from John Martin.
JOHN MARTIN: With barely a week before the summit,
David, the pace of maneuvering has accelerated. A series of
events, some orchestrated by the superpowers and some not, has
begun to change expectations.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: I hope my discussions with Mr.
Gorbachev in Geneva will be fruitful and will lead to future
meetings.
MARTIN: Yesterday, in a Voice of America broadcast to
the Soviet Union and the world, President Reagan stated a theme
that is starting to emerge: The summit itself may produce no
breakthrough on arms control, possibly not even a significantly
better understanding. But it is important to try.
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PRESIDENT REAGAN: Americans are a peace-loving people.
We do not threaten your nation, and never will. The American
people are tolerant, slow to anger, but staunch in defense of
their liberties and, like you, their country.
MARTIN: One event that altered the tone for the
President and his advisers was this meeting in Moscow, where
Secretary of State George Shultz and chief arms control adviser
Paul Nitze met with Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. Later,
Mr. Shultz met with Party Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and
reportedly found the Soviet leader argumentative, unfamiliar with
the rationale of American policy, at times blunt, and in no sense
yielding.
In Washington, Mr. Reagan turned the other cheek.
REPORTER: Were you disturbed by [inaudible] behavior?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Not yet.
DIMITRI SIMES: No important agreements can be reached
at the summit. Very important consequences can follow the
summit.
MARTIN: That is the assessment of Soviet-born analyst
Dimitri Simes, who has concluded that Mr. Gorbachev's bluntness
was not a negotiating ploy.
SIMES: Mr. Gorbachev is trying to do two things
simultaneously. First of all, he's trying to make very clear to
his own constituency that he is not a pushover, that he's not
naive, that he has no illusions about U.S. intentions.
Mr. Gorbachev's second objective is to communicate
essentially the same message to the United States.
MARTIN: At this week's celebration of the Bolshevik
Revolution, the traditional Moscow parade included traditonal
denunciations of American threats to peace. But some observers
said the rhetoric was muted, and no new weapons were diplayed.
This past week, the two countries adjourned their arms
control negotiations in Geneva and agreed to resume talking
early next year. They are studying proposals by Mr. Gorbachev to
reduce offensive missiles by 50 percent on both sides and by Mr.
Reagan to vary the mix of weapons reductions in a way he believes
would be safer and fairer.
Both sides now propose to limit the number of nuclear
charges to 6000, total. There is a dispute on definitions and no
agreement from the United States to renounce research into a
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defensive shield based in space that would protect against
missile attack.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: When this interview is over...
MARTIN: At one point this past week, in an interview by
Soviet reporters published in Izvestia, Mr. Reagan was quoted as
saying a space shield, called SDI, would be deployed only after
all offensive weapons were eliminated, suggesting to some the
Russians could veto it.
REPORTER: Mr. President, did you mean to give the
Soviets a veto over Star Wars the other day?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Will you forgive me if I say, "Hell
MARTIN: In his radio speech yesterday, Mr. Reagan
clarified his position.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: If and when our reseach proves that a
defensive shield against nuclear missiles is practical, I believe
our two nations and those others that have nuclear weapons should
come together and agree on how, gradually, to eliminate offensive
nuclear weapons as we make our defensive system available to all.
MARTIN: Those were the major events orchestrated by
diplomats and presidents. But there were two unexpected
episodes, both on American soil, both involving Soviet defectors,
real or imagined.
This man, Vitaly Yurchenko, turned up at the Soviet
Embassy in Washington to declare he wanted to return to Moscow.
TRANSLATOR: Here, I was kept in isolation, forced to
take some drugs, and denied the possibility to get in touch with
official Soviet representatives.
My only wish is to return as soon as possible to my
country, to my family, kin and friends.
MARTIN: For the CIA, which he said even took him to
dinner with Director William Casey, the episode suggested it had
either mismanaged a valuable defector or had been deceived by
him. It denied kidnapping or drugging him.
Meanwhile, a Soviet sailor was being sought for more
questioning after jumping ship in Louisiana, being refused asylum
and returned forcibly to his vessel. A Senate committee issued a
subpoena to question him and block his departure, even though the
State Department and President Reagan, apparently anguished but
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resigned, said the case was closed.
SENATOR JESSE HELMS: In my judgment, as soon as
that ship gets on the high seas, he's a dead duck.
MARTIN: Because of the approaching summit, the episode
created special tensions beyond concern for the sailor's safety.
When the ship was finally allowed to leave, the sailor,
Miroslav Medvid, was believed on board.
The effect of these events in just the last seven days
can't be measured easily against what might happen at the summit.
Arms control adviser Nitze reportedly is predicting there could
be an agreement on guidelines for future discussions. But the
pace and intensity of events make it impossible to say what the
complexion will be even next week, when we'll report from Geneva.
BRINKLEY: John, thank you.
Coming next Roald Sagdeev, Director of the Soviet
Union's Space Research Institute, by satellite from Geneva. And
shortly, Ambassador Paul Nitze, senior adviser to President
Reagan on arms control; and Marshall Shulman, head of Advanced
Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University.
BRINKLEY: Mr. Sagdeev, in Geneva, by satellite, thank
you very much for being with us today. A pleasure to have you
with us.
Here with us are George Will of ABC News and Sam
Donaldson, ABC News White House correspondent.
Now, Mr. Sagdeev, the Soviet Union insists that the
United States must stop work on the Strategic Defense Initiative,
or Star Wars, while the U.S. insists that the Soviet Government
has been developing the same thing for quite a long time. Now,
could you clarify that for us?
ROALD SAGDEEV: I don't know where did you get the idea
that we were developing these kinds of things during many years?
If you mean the brochure prepared by Department of Defense and
State Department, it is full of nonsense.
We are facing right now the moment of truth. It's not
the moment for the bargaining. If the main reasoning on your
side to continue SDI is the reference to the Russian efforts, we
can simply sit down for serious talks and to agree to stop any
kind of activity which you suspect on our side.
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BRINKLEY: Well, you say this is the moment of truth,
and not the time for bargaining. What exactly do you mean by
that?
SAGDEEV: I think we were having negotiations during
many years on arms reduction, on arms control. We were talking
about different legs of strategic triad. Right now we are facing
many more dangerous, much more dangerous type of arms buildup.
It is expansion into the new dimension, into the space.
If one side or both sides would bring an armament into
the earth orbit, it would be in future -- for future generations,
I hope they would be much more clever than our generation is. It
would be absolutely impossible to come back to negotiation table
to agree about the counting rules. It would be much more
difficult at that time.
GEORGE WILL: Mr. Sagdeev, in the President's speech at
the United Nations he quoted a passage, a statement from the
1960s by Mr. Kosygin in which he said that defensive systems are
not just a legitimate part of any nation's strategic arsenal, but
they are a moral part, because they do not leave the people
exposed to mass destruction.
When and why did the Soviet Union change its mind?
SAGDEEV: Probably President had in mind a very brief
instantaneous, real-time conversation which were held at
Glassboro during visit of Kosygin to United States. And I was
told by several witnesses of that meeting how conversation was
going on. And I am very proud for my leaders and for my people
that afterwards of this very brief conversation, during next few
months, few more years, we really appreciated the danger of ABM
systems. And I think both sides came in 1972 to completely clear
understanding of that danger.
WILL: Well, all right. Your answer, then, is that Mr.
Kosygin really didn't mean it.
Now let's go on to something else.
As you know, the United States has virtually no defense
against the penetration of its territory by Soviet bombers. We
have none of the surface-to-air systems that you have, and almost
no interceptor aircraft. You have more than 2000 interceptor
aircraft and more than 10,000 surface-to-air launchers.
Why is it legitimate and good for the Soviet Union to
defend against bomber-borne nuclear threats, but illegitimate and
dangerous to defend against ballistic missiles? I don't see the
point of principle here.
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SAGDEEV: You know, if you come back to air defense, it
has a very important historic routes. Never Soviet aircraft was
crossing United States territory. And we Russians were
witnessing how several times U-2 planes were flying over our
country. And finally this particular event, the shooting down
U-2 plane with pilot Powers, was the reason to end the idea for
Eisenhower's visit to Russia.
WILL: Mr. Sagdeev, forgive me. But are you saying that
you have 10,000 surface-to-air launchers and 2200 interceptor
aircraft because the United States once flew U-2s over your
territory? Clearly, you have a defensive system.
SAGDEEV: I just started -- I simply started with
historical reasons. But they are very important. They are
psychological reasons.
WILL: Why?
SAGDEEV: And behind psyhology there is a momentum,
inertia. And if you would start SDI research and development,
you will have the same type of inertia, which would influence
your next move in that direction.
WILL: Are you saying that the United States should
permit you to have this very thick defense against United States
aircraft because you have a psychological anxiety?
SAGDEEV: There is also a very important geographical
difference. Our country is surrounded with forward-based nuclear
systems, with aircraft carriers, with airfields in neighboring
countries to our country.
SAM DONALDSON: Mr. Sagdeev, let me just turn to the
Star Wars theme that the President has put forward, which is that
if this technology proves successful, he wants to share it with
the Soviet Union. The idea would be that both superpowers would
have the same protective umbrella and that it would be phased in
so that neither would have a first-strike capability while that
phase-in was underway.
What's wrong with that?
SAGDEEV: There are -- I think there are two fallacies
of this proposal. One is that you would never share technology
with us. This is not...
DONALDSON: Well, the President says we would. Are you
saying he's not telling the truth?
SAGDEEV: I mean [unintelligible] is much younger than
the President, who is much older.
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DONALDSON: When the President said that in his
interview with four Soviet journalists, of course, Izvestia cut
it out, so the Russian people wouldn't know of his offer. Why
was that done?
SAGDEEV: Anyway, you are changing Presidents every four
years. But this is not the bad idea. The bad idea [is] that
the proposal, the promise which is given by one President is not
fulfilled with the next one. It's like SALT II treaty.
But there is another reason. Suppose both sides would
possess, anyhow, by a kind of miracle, this type of leak-proof
shields. Then any physicist, any scientist could estimate
quickly that the press button and fire from one defensive system
against the other one would spend only small fraction of its
firepower to kill the neighbor's defensive shield. And then we
are coming back again to the absence-of-defense situation.
DONALDSON: So your position is, the Soviet position is
that we should continue building offensive weapons, but not have
a defensive shield against them. Is that correct?
SAGDEEV: Our position is that we should be brave enough
to come to a joint political decision to reduce offensive
weapons.
BRINKLEY: Mr. Sagdeev, thank you very much. Thank you
for being with us today. We'll see you in Geneva.
Coming next, Professor Marshall Shulman of the Harriman
Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia
University.
BRINKLEY: Professor Shulman, in New York, thank you
very much for coming in. It's always a pleasure to hear your
thoughts. Thanks for coming.
Now, the leader of the Soviet Union -- this is from your
standpoint. Tell me what you think -- Mr. Gorbachev, is rather
new in office. A new Five Year Plan is being drawn up. The
Congress meets in, what, two-three months?
MARSHALL SHULMAN: February. It meets in the last week
of February and the first week in March.
BRINKLEY: Right. So, is this a good time for him to
make any sort of deal with Mr. Reagan?
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SHULMAN: Yes, it's a very good time, as he sees it,
because his big priority is to try to repair the Soviet economy,
to improve industrial technology and to raise productivity. And
the very large diversion of their resources into the military
sector, which we estimate at 12 to 14 percent of their GNP, is an
impairment in what he regards as his main task.
WILL: Well now, I'd like to talk about his main task.
The nomenclature of the class, the elite that makes the decisions
in the Soviet Union is rather well taken care of, not
surprisingly, by those decisions. They have vacations and cars
and apartments and all the rest. Some people have said that we
have a military-industrial complex, the Soviet Union is a
military-industrial complex.
What evidence do you have that Gorbachev wants to do
anything more than make the production of military instruments
more efficient? That is, do you have any evidence that he really
wants to put a Cusinart in every Soviet apartment?
SHULMAN: No. There are two separate things involved,
Mr. Will. It isn't necessarily that he's going to transform the
life of consumers in the country. But for a long time the
Soviets have been concerned that the base of their industrial
technology has been lagging behind, and they've been trying to do
something about it. Gorbachev has made it his point that the
priority for the Soviet Union is to modernize the industrial
sector, to raise productivity. About that, I have no question
he's very serious.
WILL: He is. And his approach appears to be more order
and less vodka. Now, is that evidence of a -- what do we know
about his temperament from this? Some people say that his
emphasis on order and abstemiousness and all the rest indicates
that this is a Stalinist temperament.
SHULMAN: No, I don't think so. It's not a personal
matter with him.
The alcoholism laws, which are astonishing. I was over
there when they were passed, and it was amazing to me how much
mineral water I had to drink when I was talking to the party
people. But that's only part of the first phase of what he's
doing, which has to do with work discipline, absenteeism, and the
rest of it. That's the minor part.
The big part is apt to come after the Party Congress,
when he'll address some of the structural problems of the Soviet
economy. And they're serious. They're formidable.
Whether he's going to be able to do it or not, I think
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no one can say. But he is very serious about making an effort.
And he has made a number of personal changes, about 30 percent of
his regional party people, many of his major ministries, which
give him at least a chance that he can modernize the economy.
DONALDSON: Mr. Shulman, for a long time the U.S.
position on summits was that they ought to be carefully prepared,
that they ought to have an agreed agenda, and that they're ought
to be a reasonable prospect of success before you went into it.
Well, none of those conditions are apparently going to be met in
this summit in Geneva. And does that augur well for the outcome?
SHULMAN: It doesn't augur well for this outcome if no
positions change. The crucial point on this summit, as Sagdeev
was trying to say, but I think may not have come across very
clearly, is, from the Soviet point of view, the main question is
whether the United States proposes to go beyond fundamental
research into testing and development on the new weapons.
What worries them, I think, is not whether it's going to
work or not, but it is that on the way to the kind of priorities
that the SDI has, a period which emphasizes boost phase -- that
is, weapons in orbit over the Soviet Union that will try to catch
Soviet missiles with directed energy (lasers, particle beams,
kinetic energy) -- that, whether it succeeds or not, it is going
to produce a new generation of offensive space weapons. That's
what they're worried about.
DONALDSON: Well, the Soviet position going into the
summit is that unless we give on SDI, they will not give on
reducing offensive weapons. Do you think they'll hang tough on
that?
SHULMAN: Yes, I do. I think they have to. If our
positions were reversed, if they said to you, "We're now working
on weapons in space, and with directed energy," which they have
not been doing -- they've been doing a lot of research on other
things -- our natural response would be that we're not going to
cut our offensive missiles in the face of that kind of an action.
DONALDSON: Well, if you think they're going to hang
tough on that, it must follow that you believe for any progress
to be made on arms control, President Reagan must somehow
compromise what he has said about going forward with SDI research
and development, but stopping short of deployment.
SHULMAN: That is right. If the President were willing
to continue the program of fundamental research on SDI but draw
the time, for the time being, at development and testing, which
is provided for in the SDI program, I think then we could come
out of this summit with very substantial reductions in offensive
missiles.
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DONALDSON: What makes you think he'll do that? Or do
you think Mr. Reagan will compromise that way?
SHULMAN: I have no idea. You people in Washington
would know better than I.
BRINKLEY: Well, we'll see.
Now, Professor, I've been reading some of your writing,
and I always enjoy it. And one point you have made over and over
is that the American people do not understand or fully appreciate
that there have been changes in the Soviet Union since Joe
Stalin. The level of brutality, and so on, has been reduced.
But still, it is an aggressive and expansionist country. It is,
to some extent, in Nicaragua, Cuba, Ethiopia, Vietnam, South
Yemen, Afghanistan.
All the talk going into this summit is about arms.
Shouldn't there be some talk about this?
SHULMAN: Sure there should. It's an important part of
our relationship and it's one of the things that made the detente
in 1970 collapse, because of the Soviet activism in Africa.
Look, Mr. Brikley, there is no one, I think, who really
believes that the Soviet Union is a liberal democracy or that it
doesn't have expansionist tendencies. The point is that they've
been fairly pragmatic about where they move in and where they
don't. They make careful calculations of risks and cost. Where
we have been successful in making sure that aggression would not
be successful, they have not pushed ahead.
Now, our problem is not to give them those
opportunities.
Now, in all the Third World problems that we have to
resolve, part of our problem, the main part of our problem has to
do with the circumstances in the local areas. The reason that
they pushed into Angola was because of the collapse of the
Portugese colonial holdings while we were still attached to the
Portugese as a NATO partner. In Ethiopia it was because of a
revolution that opened the way for them.
Now, if they will do that, there's no doubt that it has
expansionist tendencies. Here's a country that is coming into a
virile phase of its development. It's going to press against the
existing configuration of power. But Gorbachev is a pragmatic
man and he's cautious. He's not going to take high risks. And
he's not a softie. He's not a liberal. The kind of changes he's
talking about are not in any sense liberalization of the country.
What he's talking about is raising productivity, improving the
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modernization of industrial technology.
For him, what he needs is relative quiescence on the
international front in order to do that. That's his priority.
DONALDSON: Why should we help him do that?
SHULMAN: Well, it's a question -- was that from Mr.
SHULMAN: Oh. All right.
Really, the question is, what do you think the long-term
prospects are? I'm not sure that we should help him at the
present time in great amount. Clearly, it makes no sense for us
to transfer high technology to the Soviet Union in the present
period. There isn't a basis of confidence or trust in either
direction. But the question is whether we should oppose it.
The main question now for us at the summit is not that
one, really. The question is, where is our best security
interest? Are we better off, in terms of our security, in having
an unregulated nuclear military competition, which will certainly
flow out of this summit as it is now likely top come about; or
would we be better off to moderate the nuclear military
competition between the two countries, even while competition in
all respects is likely to continue?
BRINKLEY: Professor Shulman, thank you. Thank you very
much for giving us your views today. Enjoyed having you with us.
Coming next, Ambassador Paul Nitze, senior adviser to
President Reagan on arms control.
BRINKLEY: Mr. Ambassador, thank you for coming in.
Happy to have you with us today.
Now, we got the news last night, I think it was, that it
has been agreed there will be no communique issued at the end of
the Geneva summit. Communiques usually, when a meeting ends,
tell what they agreed on, and perhaps sometimes they've
exaggerated a bit. In this case, no communique.
What does that mean, that we don't expect much to
happen?
PAUL NITZE: Not necessarily. But it is really a
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difficult thing to get an agreement at this time between the
Soviet Union and ourselves on the full range of subjects that we
discussed at Moscow. It really is extremely difficult. And
rather than have a communique full of their positions and our
positions, perhaps it's better not to have that kind of a long,
complicated document.
BRINKLEY: Why is it so difficult not? Any more
difficult than it always is?
NITZE: It's always difficult. But we were hopeful that
it would be possible to move together on a wide range of issues,
not necessarily soley on arms control, not necessarily solely on
space and defense arms control, but on the full range of
bilateral and regional issues.
DONALDSON: Well, does this mean we've also given up the
hope that we could produce what you called the other day some
guidelines for negotiations on arms control?
NITZE: I think not. We're still hopeful that it will
be possible to give some degree of impetus to the negotiators in
Geneva. We think the negotiation should take place at Geneva
between their negotiators and ours. The problems involved are
such that you can't get agreement that you could really rely
on just on general principles. You really ought to understand
what would happen in the future with the details, with the
implementation thereof.
DONALDSON: But do you still believe you could produce
some guidelines, or we could in Geneva, that would actually
narrow the differences rather than state both sides' positions on
the issues?
NITZE: We hope that it would be possible. Because,
after all, there is a degree of agreement between us in this
field. We also accept the idea of reductions of 50 percent. We
differ with them, and differ strongly with them, on the things
to which they associate the 50 percent reductions.
BRINKLEY: That is 50 percent of...
NITZE: But we don't differ on the 50 percent.
BRINKLEY: Fifty percent of what?
[Confusion of voices]
WILL: Let me go back just for a minute to the question
of the communique. It's well known that we submitted a draft to
the Soviet Union of a final communique and that they objected to
it. Can you give us some idea of what they had to object to?
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NITZE: There were objections to virtually every item on
the draft. We really looked upon it more as a checklist of the
issues which we wanted to discuss at Moscow. And so the
Secretary went down each one of the items in that communique to
see the degree of convergence that we could achieve. And it
turned out it wasn't that much.
WILL: You've been dealing with Russians, I suppose, as
much as anyone in American public life over the last two
generations. I would like to ask a human question. You're
immersed in the details and technicalities all the time. What is
it -- what goes through your mind as you talk to these people,
negotiating yet another agreement, knowing, as the President has
stated, that they have violated virtually every agreement they've
signed in your lifetime? And here you go to negotiate another
one. What possible way can you have of hoping to stop that with
language?
NITZE: There are certain types of agreements that we've
made in the past in which the essence of the agreement has been
abided to by both sides. If you look back, for instance, upon
the limited test ban treaty. Granted, that the main drive for
that agreement was to stop the pollution of space with the
fallout from those big tests, particularly that the Soviets were
conducting. We did achieve that. There really hasn't been any
increase in the fallout. In fact, there's been a decrease in the
nuclear fallout in the atmopshere since that agreement. So we
did achieve a result in that agreement.
I think that the nonproliferation treaty also has -- at
least it's been concurrent with a smaller degree of expansion of
the number of nuclear powers than was anticipated at the time.
WILL: But those are not the central agreements of
U.S.-Soviet...
NITZE: It's more difficult when you get to the central
agreements. Frankly, it was my view that the -- and is my view
that the ABM treaty was a useful and is a useful agreement,
provided we can get the Soviets to abide by its clear intent and
the specific requirements of its language.
WILL: Does the clear intent and specific requirements
NITZE: No. It depends what you're talking about with
respect to SDI. The word "research" is never used in the ABM
treaty. We did not think at the time we were negotiating that
treaty that it was possible in any verifiable way to limit
research. And the Soviets didn't, either. Now that we think it
is possible to devise detailed limitations upon systems based
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upon what we called other physical principles -- in other words,
technology which was then not understood. We couldn't work out
the ways of limiting the major of components of such systems
because we didn't know what they were.
WILL: But they are violating, you would agree, all the
major arms control agreements we've signed with them: SALT I,
SALT II, and the ABM treaty, not to mention Helsinski. They're
in comprehensive violation of it.
WILL: So let's go back. What goes through your mind
when you're talking to these guys? Do you say, "Here we go
again"?
NITZE: They're not violating all the provisions. They
are violating certain of the provisions.
For instance, with respect to SALT II, which,
incidentally, is not in effect. It's been not undercut by both
sides, but it is not a valid, legal agreement.
WILL: But it is being undercut by them in their
deployment of two new missiles, is it not?
NITZE: It is indeed. And it is, we think, in other
respects undercut.
WILL: Isn't our compliance unilateral at this point?
NITZE: There is a lot of the agreement which is being
complied with.
DONALDSON: Ambassador Nitze, let's go to SDI. You've
just heard Professor Shulman suggest that the Soviets won't
change their position. Will we change ours?
NITZE: I'm not at all -- I don't agree with Marshall
when he says they won't change their position. He was talking
about their positionon one aspect. I believe he was suggesting
that they wouldn't change their position on SDI. I'm not...
DONALDSON: ...framed the question to him in terms of
the Soviets have said that they will not seriously discuss
reducing offensive weapons until we make concessions on what they
see to be our drive toward deployment of SDI.
NITZE: Your question was very specific and precise.
But I think Marshall Shulman's answer was directed to not that
specific kind of question.
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DONALDSON: Well, what do you say? Forget -- I'm sorry
I raised Professor Shulman. Do you think that President Reagan
will at some point in Geneva make some sort of concessions to
ease the way toward guidelines that make sense on nuclear arms by
doing something to SDI that the Soviets will accept?
NITZE: He has already laid out certain ways in which we
could work out the valid problems that they have with SDI. He
has assured them that we would -- are anxious even now to discuss
with them the way in which the components of such a system might
be introduced, and that the forces of both sides, in a
cooperative way, would be stable at each phase.
DONALDSON: But that's after we had conducted not only
research, but development, including testing, is it not?
NITZE: It depends what kind of testing you're talking
about. There's nothing in the treaty that bars the testing of
subcomponents and sensors, for instance. What is barred in the
treaty is the testing of mobile launchers, ABM radars, and ABM...
DONALDSON: And am I correct that the President has said
now that he would abide to that restrictive, as he puts it,
interpretation of the treaty, and therefore not do that testing?
Is that correct?
NITZE: The restrictive interpretation of the treaty
does permit the testing of such components from land-based
facilities. That is permitted under the treaty on the oral
interpretation.
DONALDSON: But not into space.
NITZE: Not in space. And he doesn't propose to do
BRINKLEY: Mr. Ambassador, Richard Nixon went to Moscow
in 1972 and signed the SALT I treaty. He later said he would not
have gone to that meeting had he not had a guaranty in advance
that the summit meeting would be successful. I mean the deal was
made before he went.
No such conditions exist now for this summit, do they?
NITZE: The deal wasn't made before he went in 1972.
BRINKLEY: Well, that's what he said.
NITZE: He may have said it, but it wasn't so. The
final negotiations -- some of the important parts of that treaty
were negotiated while he was there in Moscow in 1972.
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He may have said that, but that isn't so.
BRINKLEY: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you very
much for coming in today. A pleasure to have you with us.
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