U.S.-SOVIET SUMMIT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301950005-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 21
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO N REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
PROGRAM Meet the Press STATION WRC-TV
NBC Network
DATE November 17, 1985 11:00 A.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT U.S.-Soviet Summit
MARVIN KALB: Forty-eight hours from now, President
Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev will open the first
U.S.-Soviet summit in more than six years. Their agenda is
crowded with complicated problems. Bilateral relations: A new
cultural exchange agreement may be signed. Geographical trouble
spots, such as Afghanistan and Nicaragua. Human rights
violations. And perhaps most important of all, the continuing
nuclear arms race. No major breakthrough of any kind is expected
at this time. So, why this summit, and what are its prospects?
He have an interesting cross-section of guests, Ameri-
can, Soviet, European, here to shed some light on different
aspects of this summit: Michael Deaver, who comes to us live
from Phoenix, has packaged and polished the President's image for
many years, in the White House till last spring, now as an
adviser on summit preparations. Julien Semyonov (?), one of the
Soviet Union's most popular novelists, but for this summit a
member of the Soviet delegation and adviser to Gorbachev.
Semyonov has often been compared to Norman Mailer. Helmut
Schmidt, former Chancellor of West Germany, who comes to us live
from Hamburg, his home town. Few West Europeans are better able
to judge the impact of the summit blitz on the chances for a more
stable East-West relationship. Senator Sam Nunn, the Democrat
from Georgia, who comes to us from Washington, D.C. Nunn, a
leading Democratic expert on defense, is one of the handful of
U.S. Senators who's alreaedy met Gorbachev. Dr. Roald Sagdeev,
who is here with us in Geneva, is Director of the Soviet Insti-
tute for Space Research, a leading member of the Soviet Academy
of Sciences, also an adviser to Gorbachev. And also here in
Geneva, Robert McFarlane, the President's National Security
Adviser. At the White House, along with Chief of Staff Donald
Regan, he has chaired the key committee preparing the President
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Joining me for this series of interviews are my
colleagues Tom Brokaw, the anchorman for NBC Nightly News, and
John Chancellor, the senior commentator for NBC, both veterans of
earlier summits.
First, let's get the latest on the two 'main characters
at this summit, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Chris
Wallace covers Presidsent Reagan for NBC News.
CHRIS WALLACE: Marvin, Ronald Reagan's first day in
Geneva was spent meeting with advisers and resting, mostly
resting. But whatever they did today, the President and his men
couldn't get away from the Weinberger letter, hard-line advice to
Mr. Reagan that was leaked to several newspapers.
This morning Mr. Reagan left the Eighteenth Century
mansion where he is staying and went to a half-hour meeting with
top advisers. Those advisers were trying to play down the
Weinberger flap, saying it's the President, not the Secretary of
Defense, who sets policy.
Mr. Reagan denied an aide's charge yesterday that
someone was trying to sabotage the summit.
REPORTER: Are you going to fire Weinberger?
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Do you want a two-word answer or one?
REPORTER: Two.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Hell no.
WALLACE: Inside the meeting, the President seemed even
more upset about the summit being upstaged, especially when asked
about that official who cried sabotage.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: I'm wondering if that individual is
not the figment of someone in the press's imagination.
WALLACE: With the unpleasant questions out of the way,
the Reagans walked in the elaborate garden of their residence.
And later the President inspected the mansion where he will meet
Gorbachev for the first time Tuesday.
But the Weinberger letter would not go away. A top
Soviet official, Georgi Arbatov, said Weinberger's hard-line
advice not to reaffirm the SALT II and ABM treaties at the summit
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was an attempt to torpedo arms control.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes tried again to play
the issue down.
LARRY SPEAKES: I'd be willing to put five bucks right
here that General Secretary Gorbachev will not say, "What about
the Weinberger letter?"
WALLACE: Gorbachev may not mention the letter, and the
President may keep trying to play it down, but it looks like
Weinberger's hard-line advice may carry the day. U.S. officials
now say that there is no reason to reaffirm the SALT II and ABM
treaties at this summit.
KALB: Thank you, Chris.
Now to Steve Hurst, NBC's Moscow correspondent, who has
just come into Geneva, who is standing by at a press center.
STEVE HURST: Marvin, Mr. Gorbachev may not mention the
letter, but he certainly was sitting in his office today
relishing it. It plays right into Soviet hands. It allows him
to say, "You see, we were right all along. The Americans don't
want arms control, don't want to live by past agreements or
negotiate new ones."
And it, as Chris reported, lent ammo for Mr. Arbatov in
his briefing this morning.
The brouhaha broke out much too late to be in the Soviet
press this morning, but they were still full of attacks on the
Reagan Administration, across the board, and focused on Star
Wars. And you can be sure that when the papers hit the streets
tomorrow, they will be full of the Weinberger letter.
KALB: Thank you very much, Steve.
We'll begin our interviews with Michael Deaver, the man
who spins presidential images, when Meet the Press returns from
Geneva right after these messages.
KALB: Perhaps because the last U.S.-Soviet summit took
place more than six years ago, this one is beying ballyhooed by
one Soviet official as the most important summit in history, and
byu a string of American officials seeking lower expectations as
nothing more than very important.
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On both sides, the buildup has been a classic study in
public diplomacy, what in less polite times was called propa-
ganda. Gorbachev quickly demonstrated in a Time magazine
interview that he is up to the challenge; in a series of Kremlin
meetings that he is a formidable adversary, sharp, intelligent,
combative; in a visit Paris that he is at home with a hundred
inquiring lenses, selling, always selling his vision of the
future.
President Reagan, for his part, has not beern sitting at
home knitting. He journeyed to the United Nations, where he
unveiled a new proposal to cool global trouble spots, and
conferred with his major allies. He gave one interview after
another, a panel of Soviet journalists among them. And his top
advisers, Shultz, McFarlane, Nitze, briefed reporters on every
aspect of the summit, leaving little to the imagination.
Welcome to Meet the Press, Mr. Deaver. It's an old
saying in diplomacy that if it's not secret, it can't be terribly
important, it can't be terribly substantive. Well, in the last
month of preparation for this summit, there really hasn't been
terribly much that is secret, including the leaking just a couple
of days ago of the Weinberger letter.
Can you tell us, in your view, whether the President is
deeply upset by the leaking of that letter?
MICHAEL DEAVER: I have no way to know. I haven't seen
him since before he left. So all I have are the accounts, like
all the rest of us, of reading it in the newspaper.
KALE: Do you think it could upset the President's
timing, his preparation for the summit?
DEAVER: No, I don't think so. I think the President
obviously is upset by any kind of leakage of confidential
information, particularly a private letter. But I don't think
this will later one way or the other the President's attitudes or
desires going into the summit.
JOHN CHANCELLOR: Mr. Deaver, you've been advising the
Presidsent leading up to the summit. Is there something
different about this one? The White House talks about
fundamental differences. Can you describe the way that this
summit might work the way past summits haven't?
DEAVER: Well, really, this is -- you know, so much of
any summit is the chemistry of the two men. So it's very hard to
compare this summit with any other summit. You've got the
chemistry of two new fellows on the block. And after all the
ballyhoo and the public relations and the speculation by the
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media, it really boils down to what happens when the two of them
get behind those two doors and the doors shut.
CHANCELLOR: Yeah. But with all respect, they're not
going on a date. They're representing countries with hundreds of
advisers who have policies and plans and programs and proposals
and all of that. I must say that when you do hear what the White
House is talking about, the chemistry of the two men, where's the
substance in all this?
DEAVER: Well, there's no question there's a good deal
of substance in all of this. And I can only talk from the
American side and tell you that I believe that Ronald Reagan has
been preparing for this meeting for a decade or more. It isn't
just the preparation and cramming that has come in the last three
or four weeks. This man wants the meeting, has always wanted
this meeting, and is readying up for it.
TOM BROKAW: Mr. Deaver, the President has a long and
well-publicized record of a personal disdain and suspicion of the
Soviets and their system. And yet, as I understand it, he's
going to attempt to persuade Gorbachev that the United States,
and he personally, is not hostile to the Soviets. Do you think
that he personally can rewrite his own history?
DEAVER: Oh, I wouldn't sell Ronald Reagan short on
being persuasive on any subject with anybody. And I think he
feels very secure in his ability to be persuasive and communicate
his real feelings to this Soviet leader.
BROKAW: But the Russians generally, and Gorbachev
particularly, have always made it clear that they look after
their own national interest. It was just about a year ago that
Gorbachev was saying that great powers don't have allies, they
have national interests. And isn't that what he's going to be
looking to, as the President will be as well?
DEAVER: Well, I suppose so. I think that is one of
the
great
differences between the two men. If Mr. Gorbachev said
the
great
powers don't have allies, that simply isn't true with
the
West.
We have the strongest alliance we've had in 20 years
with
this
President going into this summit.
So, we'll just have to wait and see.
KALB: Mr. Deaver, did the President get prepped for
this summit in much the same way that he got prepped, for
example, for a presidential debate?
DEAVER: No. No, he didn't. And really, there wasn't
the need for the kind of preparation that you need for a stand-up
debate, where all kinds of questions come from all different
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kinds of people. As I said before, the President has been
preparing for this meeting for a long time and he's had daily
briefings and discussions and meetings for 4 1/2 years on this
subject. There hasn't been a subject that's more important to
him.
So, it didn't take a great deal of cramming to go into
this summit.
KALE: Mr. Deaver, if he was preparing for this meeting
for ten years, why did it take him 4 1/2 years to get to it?
DEAVER: Well, I think you might have to ask the Soviet
leadership that. Ronald Reagan was willing from the very first
time he came into office, in fact wrote Brezhnev when he was in
the hospital after he was shot suggesting such a meeting, and has
been willing and has suggested that with every Soviet leader that
he's served opposite with.
So, I can't answer that. Ronald Reagan's been willing
to go any place to have any kind of a meeting with the Soviet
leaders since he took office.
KALB: Okay, Mr. Deaver. Thank you very much.
There is, naturally, another side to this story of
public diplomacy. It is the Soviet side. We're delighted to
have Julien Semyonov with us. He is one of the Soviet Union's
most popular novelists. But at this summit he's a member of
the Gorbachev team.
So, Mr. Semyonov, I want to begin with a very obvious
question. You are a novelist. You're a very good one. What are
you doing here performing as a diplomat?
JULIEN SEMYONOV: Well, I'd say so. I'm here for some
reasons. First, I have a teacher in literature. He's American.
His name, Ernest Hemingway. And he visited [unintelligible] in
'21, when [unintelligible], our Minister of Foreign Affairs, and
Germany [unintelligible] signed a peaceful agreement, first.
Second one, I am not a politician, I'm a writer, thank
God. That's why. I am more emotional than politicians. And you
know, writers' emotions, they are greater than other emotions and
nearby women's emotions. That's why it's possible for me to
analyze situation from side. You see, I'm absolutely
open-minded.
Third one, I'm going -- well, I'm going later to write a
book. And, of course, because I do very like my leader, and I'm
sure that this summit, it's the only chance to preserve ourself,
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to save civilization, that's why I'm here.
BROKAW: Mr. Semyonov, as a writer, you must have a very
fundamental understanding of fundamental human rights.
SEMYONOV: Don't like machine gun. Slowly, please.
BROKAW: All right. Yeah. No machine gun. One at a
SEMYONOV: Yeah, good.
BROKAW: As a writer, you have a fundamental
understanding, I would think, of fundamental human rights. One
of the great puzzles in our country is why in your system the
people who want to leave the Soviet Union just aren't free to do
so when they want to go.
SEMYONOV: Well, it's a special theme for discussion.
How many minutes I do have?
[Confusion of voices]
SEMYONOV: I'll answer you this question. Tomorrow
we'll have a press conference about this subject in press center
of Geneva. But, you know, you know, there's a lot of speculation
about the subject. And today, if you'd been in press center, you
saw this scandal when one woman -- I do not know here -- began to
cry, and so on and so on. It's another part of diplomacy, you
know. It's a kind of provocation.
CHANCELLOR: Mr. Semyonov, let me ask you one brief
question, as one journalist writer to a literary writer. Why
should we trust the Russians? Why should we trust the Soviet
regime?
SEMYONOV: Well, okay. Because we were allies during
our war against Nazi. It's for remaining govern -- we were
alliance. Before that, we had Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who is
very popular in my country.
Third reason. Because most popular Soviet writers is
Ernest Hemingway, Faulker, Gore Vidal, and so on and so on. And
Russian like Americans, you know, as well.
KALB: I have to break in. I want to thank you for
being with us, and I appreciate the time that you've taken.
If one of the main targets for all of this public
diplomacy has been opinion in Western Europe, let us now turn to
one of the foremost statesmen of Western Europe, Helmut Schmidt,
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the former Chancellor of West Germany, former Finance Minister,
Defense Minister, and ask for his opinion.
Mr. Schmidt, I'd like to ask you your opinion of the
whole impact of this public diplomacy. Is it viewed with
seriousness in Western Europe?
HELMUT SCHMIDT: Well, it seems to me that so far there
has been too much publicity, too much propaganda, public attacks
and condemnations on each other, which makes it rather difficult
to reach prudent compromises. Less spectacular media warfare
would be advantageous to the probability of positive results of
the meeting.
From a European point of view, it's high time that the
two leaders get together. And the least that the Europeans are
entitled to ask for is that the two superpowers do obey the
treaties that they have undertaken -- namely, in the first place,
the nonproliferation treaty, where in Article 36 the two
superpowers have undertaken to diminish their nuclear arsenals,
which they haven't done so far; and, secondly, the anti-ballistic
missile treaty, where you nowadays have divergencies in
interpretation of the treaty, divergencies between Moscow and
Washington, but even inside Washington, as it seems to appear.
Secondly, the European interests, of course, have to be
taken care of in these negotiations. And there are some
differences of interest between the European powers. You have
the nuclear powers, like France and Britain, and then you have
the great majorities of non-nuclear European states. And it is
not going to be easy for President Reagan to pursue the American
interest, as well as these differeing European interests.
BROKAW: Mr. Schmidt, as you know, Defense Secretary
Weinberger has advised the President not to extend the SALT II
agreement and to be very careful about any changes in the ABM
treaty that would not let the Administration go forward with
research on SDI. Do you think it would be a good idea for the
President not to agree on extension of the ABM treaty, and also
of the 1972 SALT treaty?
SCHMIDT: Well, I think that these treaties, so far,
have been the pillars on which the whole enterprise of limiting
the nuclear arms race and eventually stopping the arms race has
been based upon. It would be very dangerous to let these
treaties, especially the nonproliferation treaty and the ABM
treaty, elapse or let them decay.
I think what is necessary is a joint interpretation in
order to avoid the mutual accusations which have been hearing.
The Americans have accused the Russians of violating the ABM
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treaty. The Russians do accuse the Americans of having the
intention to violate the treaty. I think a joint interpretation
is what the world does need in this field.
And, of course, the treaty is rather to be amended than
to let it decay.
CHANCELLOR: Herr Schmidt, if the summit at Geneva
should break down and no progress is made here, some of us
believe it is likely that the Soviets will mount an intensified
public relations political campaign in Western Europe and Japan,
trying to make their point in Japan and Western Europe, a point
that they might not have been able to make to the Ameicans here.
If they did that, how well would they do, sir?
SCHMIDT: I do not think that it is very likely that we
see a breakdown of the negotiations in Geneva. I think the full
impact of this meeting between the two heads of state, or heads
of the party and the head of state, the full impact will only be
seen in the later course of January, once the two arms limitation
delegations get together again in Geneva. I think this will be
after the 15th of January. And whether they agree on something
new at the present summit meeting or not, they will certainly
have to make it appear as being a meeting that has contributed to
further progress in the field of arms limitation.
A breakdown, of course, would be a disaster. And not
only for the two superpowers and their population, but also of
course for the Europeans. In case of a breakdown, it would of
course be of enormous importance as regards the question who is
responsible for the breakdown.
But I would like to repeat, I do not calculate with a
breakdown. I think they have both too big interests at stake,
and that they will avoid a breakdown.
KALE: Mr. Schmidt, in the 30 seconds that we have left
for this part of the interview, could you tell us whether you
believe that President Reagan should make some major compromise
on strategic defense in order to get a major agreement?
SCHMIDT: I think both sides have to make compromises,
both sides have to be willing for compromise, and both sides
should make the compromises within the framework of the existing
treaty, which covers SDI as much as any other method of shooting
down the adversary's missiles.
KALB: Mr. Schmidt, thank you very much for being our
guest.
In a moment, we'll focus on the key problem of arms
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control with Senator Sam Nunn and Dr. Roald Sagdeev, and then
later in the program with Robert McFarlane, the President's
National Security Adviser.
KALB: Call it what you will, the Strategic Defense
Initiative, SDI, Star Wars, it has become the central point of
contention here in Geneva, one way of measuring whatever success
could be achieved at this summit.
Throughout the tumultuous Seventies, the Soviet Union
pursued a two-track policy: signing arms control agreements at a
succession of summits, while building up a significant force of
long-range offensive missiles, some of them on display only last
week at the Red Square celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Soviet buildup challenged America's strategic lead,
persuading the Reagan Administration to pump billions into a new
rearmament program and to go one step beyond that and test the
President's concept of creating a space shield against incoming
Soviet warheads.
Gorbachev saw Star Wars as a slick way for the U.S. to
gain a first-strike advantage, and he demanded in a hundred
different ways that this program be stopped as his price for a
new arms control agreement, a demand the President has rejected.
It is now time for Senator Sam Nunn in Washington and
Dr. Roald Sagdeev here in Geneva. Let's start with Senator Nunn.
Senator Nunn, do you think that the leaking of that
Weinberger letter is going to complicate the President's efforts
here at the summit?
SENATOR SAM NUNN: Well, I see that letter as like the
thirteenth chime of a clock. It not only is a bizarre sound
coming at this point, but it also casts considerable doubt on
everything else emanating from that source. I think the
intention of the leak probably was to reduce the President's
flexibility. I think the result of the leak has been very
damaging because it feeds right into the Soviet propaganda
machine.
CHANCELLOR: Senator, let me ask you about the overall
negotiations here. The Soviets have made quite an offer. Some
people are saying it's the most forthcoming offer on arms control
the Soviet Union has ever made. It involves a wide range of
weapons.
Shouldn't we, in the face of this offer, be a little
more flexible on the Strategic Defense Initiative, on Star Wars?
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What's your view?
SENATOR NUNN: I think both sides have to be more
flexible on defense. I think we have to have offensive and
defensive discussions together. Certainly the offensive progress
will affect, or should affect, our defensive plans. Because if
we can get the Soviets to cut back very substantially on their
large MIRVed ICBMs, it certainly will affect our defensive needs
and plans.
The Soviets have been very rigid in interpreting the ABM
treaty very narrowly for their own purposes. And we've gone in
the opposite direction. The logical point for both sides is to
interpret the ABM treaty as it was originally intended by the
parties.
BROKAW: Senator, I was just going to ask whether you
think that we ought to have an extension of the SALT II, which
lapses at the end of this year, and whether there ought to be a
common agreement on the interpretation of the ABM treaty.
SENATOR NUNN: Well, on the latter point, definitely.
If the two sides could instruct the negotiators in Geneva to
search for a common interpretation of the ABM treaty, I think it
would be a very substantial and positive gain at the summit.
On the question of SALT II extension, the President
really has already made that decision. He made it in the summer.
Now, that does not mean it's going to be extended for a long
time. But that was the strange thing about the Weinberger
letter, to me, because he was rehasing arguments that the
Pentagon, or at least the Secretary of Defense, lost in the
summer debate. The question is whether we extend it through '86
and '87. The argument in that Weinberger letter was the damage
that would be done if we extended it thorugh 1991. And no one's
even talking about that.
BROKAW: Dr. Sagdeev, is that a good idea, for the
negotiators here in Geneva to agree on a common interpretation of
ABM?
ROALD SAGDEEV: Yes, that would be very good idea. And
I think it would be very good to come back to the original period
of that treaty, because, thank God, we can benefit from the
people who really invented this treaty.
CHANCELLOR: But Dr. Sagdeev, the Soviet Union, in the
view of many people, not just Americans, has violated the treaty
itself. And I refer to the big phased-array radar at Krasnoyarsk
in the Soviet Union, which seems to be in violation of the
treaty.
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SAGDEEV: Let me give as an answer a few lines. First
of all, what is seen now from the space, it's just a very large
part of concrete, which could be interpreted as a future
phased-array radar, maybe from five or six years from now. And
this type of technology also could be used for peaceful purposes.
We are having now very heavy traffic in the orbits, a lot of
satellites. So why not produce a spin-off from military to
civilian space area?
BROKAW: Dr. Sagdeev, do you think that the President's
idea of switching from a nuclear equation that relies on
offensive weapons to defensive systems is a good idea?
SAGDEEV: Well, personally, I have spent a lot of my
time during last several years, and it is my very deep personal
belief that it is not so.
KALB: Dr. Sagdeev, is there any room for compromise, in
your view, in the view of the other members of the Soviet
delegation, on the issue of Star Wars? In other words, would you
agree to some kind of deal struck here in Geneva according to
which the United States could continue to test those weapons
systems now being tested and put a cap on new weapons systems to
be tested?
SAGDEEV: This is a very complicated issue, if you would
like to go into the details. So...
KALB: We don't have time for too many of the details,
but if you could...
SAGDEEV: I think it would be very bad for all of us,
not only for Russians, for Americans also, and for rest of the
world, to compromise on the extent of common security.
CHANCELLOR: Dr. Sagdeev, the International Institute of
Strategic Studies in London, which is an independent, if Western,
study group, says that the Soviet Union has an active strategic
defense program that's ongoing. Can you tell the American people
on this program what that consists of? You people say it's not
threatening. But what does it consist of?
SAGDEEV: What's really going on is a continuation of
activity comletely under the umbrella of formal ABM treaty, which
means defense, anti-ballistic defense of the local area which was
specified in that agreement.
CHANCELLOR: Would that be directed-energy weapons or
kinetic-energy weapons involved in that?
SAGDEEV: It is based on kinetic energy, on the
interceptors, rocket interceptors.
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CHANCELLOR: From the ground or in the air?
SAGDEEV: From the ground.
KALE: Dr. Sagdeev, Mr. McFarlane, who will be on this
program very shortly, says that the Soviet Union has the most
advanced Star Wars/SDI program in the entire world. Now, you're
there in the midst of that. Is he expressing what is true?
SAGDEEV: You know, usually I am following what my
colleagues, scientists, are saying. So I would like to refer to,
at this particular time, the reference to the statement from
George Keyworth, who is, as I understand, the chief scientific
counselor to the government. He said that...
CHANCELLOR: That's George Keyworth, the President's
BROKAW: In the United States. Right.
SAGDEEV: And he said quite recently -- and I can quote
his sayings during several speeches -- that the Russians are far
behind Americans in the technology related to SDI area.
CHANCELLOR: Marvin, could I put a question to Senator
CHANCELLOR: Senator, if things don't go well here and
in the subsequent negotiations in Geneva, and we don't really get
an agreement on the terminology of the ABM treaty and on these
wepaons, what's down the road for both countries?
SENATOR NUNN: Well, I hope that, even though I don't
expect a breakthrough at the summit, I hope we don't have a
breakdown and I hope that we have modest and useful progress.
And I think that is the most likely course.
But if you anticipate a complete breakdown of all
negotiations, I think you would have an offensive and defensive
race, and it would be more intense than anything we've seen in
the past. I think that would be very grave for the world and I
think it would have very severe implications on the economic
systems of both countries.
KALE: Senator, you have talked to Gorbachev. You're
one of the few senators who has. Do you believe that Gorbachev,
one, understands that very point you've just made? And do you
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feel that he's ready for some kind of major agreement on arms
control at this summit?
SENATOR NUNN: Well, I think he's ready for an agreement
on his terms. He's going to have to change the Soviet proposals
considerably. He's going to have to correct the Soviet
violations, like the radar in Central Siberia. He's going to
have to go back to the old definitions of what strategic systems
are. He's going to have to change the ALCOM (?) limitation.
He's got to do a lot of changing. But if he does that, then
we've got to be more flexible also, and we've got to have, I
think, the kind of timing and sense of timing to take advantage
of a considerable opportunity.
We have more leverage now than we've had in the past.
And I think both sides have more mutual interest in serious arms
control than in the past.
KALB: Gentlemen, we have to move along.
KALB: We are back on Meet the Press from Geneva with
Robert McFarlane, the President's National Security Adviser.
Earlier today you expressed optimism -- and I just want
to find out exactly what that expression was aimed at -- at
certain issues of a bilateral nature between the U.S. and the
Soviet Union. I want to be sure that we understand. You're
talking about the strong, what, probability, likelihood of a
cultural exchange agreement?
ROBERT MCFARLANE: Marvin, I was referring to President
Reagan's feelings of hopefulness and, yes, optimism for progress
across the board.
KALB: But you were talking about bilateral relations.
And I just want to clear up the specific issues.
MCFARLANE: There has been a measure of progress in
recent days on bilateral issues.
KALB: Cultural agreement?
MCFARLANE: Yes.
KALB: Consular agreement?
MCFARLANE: Some.
KALB: Some.
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MCFARLANE: Yes.
KALE: And what about the airline agreement, which
seemed to hold up the other two at one point a week ago?
MCFARLANE: Again, some modest progress. I am not
predicting that there will be final closure on any or all, but we
remain hopeful. And I think it's within reach.
KALB: All three of those agreements?
MCFARLANE: If we try hard, I think so.
KALB: And you are trying hard. And the Russians?
MCFARLANE: The Secretary of State, all of us are trying
BROKAW: Mr. McFarlane, there's this continuing flap
over Secretary of Defense Weinberger's letter that appeared in
both the Washington Post and the New York Times, in which he
advised the President not to extend the SALT II treaty beyond
December 31st of this year. And he talked about the ABM treaty,
not to make any changes in that that would restrict American work
on SDI or Star Wars. When a senior Administration official was
asked if this was an attempt to sabotage the summit, he
responded, "Sure, it was," as I understand it.
Were you that senior Administration official? There's
been a lot of speculation about that?
MCFARLANE: There's been a lot of inappropriate emphasis
and comment on it, I think, Tom. I'm afraid that it's typical of
you all, that you become preoccupied with what is a very
transitory issue and miss, in the process, the historical
significance of this meeting.
The letter, the report was requested by the President.
It is part of many elements that will go into his decision on our
policy with regard tao the SALT II treaty, and most importantly
will be his own reaction, I think, to the discussions that he has
here in Geneva with General Secretary Gorbachev.
BROKAW: But with all due respect, sir, if in fact a
senior Administration official said that it was an attempt to
sabotage the summit by the Defense Secretary of the United States
in a letter that appears in public without the President's
knowledge beforehand, that's not just us making something of it.
That represents, it seems to me, very serious conflict within the
Administration.
MCFARLANE: There's absolutely zero conflict on the
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commitment of the President and every one of his advisers to deep
reductions in offensive nuclear weapons, to making progress in
the resolution of regional disputes, to expanding cooperation in
bilateral areas, and to making our case on human rights issues.
We're here as a team, and there is no one who doesn't feel very
strongly in support of the President's position on every one of
those issues.
CHANCELLOR: Mr. McFarlane, let me take you to the
substance of the negotiations here. Two questions.
One is, are they negotiations in the real sense of the
word, or are we doing something at this summit, the Americans and
the Soviets, that hasn't been done at summits before?
MCFARLANE: I think we are. If the President is able to
persuade Mr. Gorbachev of the deep conviction with which he
believes right now, there is the opportunity for setting a course
for stable, peaceful discourse on all of the various disagree-
ments we have that this can be a different kind of summit.
It really is 40 years in the making, where we have
adopted policies for dealing with the Soviet Union that have been
based on assumptions that haven't proven out. Now, on the basis
of that history and realism, the President's convinced we can
make progress. And he's right.
CHANCELLOR: Is eight hours at the summit enough to do
MCFARLANE: Eight hours can enable the two leaders to
exchange views on fundamentals and to begin to chart a framework,
a progress that must surely continue beyond this meeting. But,
y-G, it is a very important opportunity to make a beginning.
It's not an end, it is a beginning.
CHANCELLOR: It doesn't really sound like a negotiation
on specific points.
CHANCELLOR: Dotting the i's and crossing the t's. You
don't see that.
MCFARLANE: No, I don't think that's what summits are
KALB: An awful lot of other summits have been just for
that. You, yourself, participated as an aide to Henry Kissinger
back in 1972, working on a summit that produced an agreement a
day, almost like an apple a day. So summits have been known to
do that.
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MCFARLANE: Well, I think that summits may again do
that. But given the enormous change underway in the Soviet Union
in the past four years, it's unrealistic to expect that they
would have been ready for that kind of thing. And they haven't
been. Only now do you see the General Secretary really able to
focus at all on foreign affairs. We welcome that. But it is a
beginning.
KALE: Mr. McFarlane, I want to address the possibility
that the President and General Secretary Gorbachev may even talk
past each other. The Secretary of State, you, at that meeting
with Gorbachev ten days or so ago in Moscow, were surprised that
Gorbachev placed so much emphasis on the importance of the
military-industrial complex in the United States, surprised by
what seemed to you to be rather simplistic views of the United
States.
How can the President of the United States, in the eight
hours that John was referring to a moment ago, turn around in the
kind of historic way that you're looking forward to now the views
of a man raised in the Soviet system, believing deeply in
communism? How is that even possible, remotely so?
MCFARLANE: That's a very good point, Marvin. And
that's really at the core of President Reagan's different
approach. And that is to acknowledge that there are very
profound differences and that they will not change.
However, that's not to say that there isn't a way,
acknowledging the differences, to talk to each other about
solving them where they hold the potential for violence and
confrontation, whether it's in Afghanistan, Southern Africa,
Indochina, or on arms control.
So, yes, let's acknowledge the differences. And that is
different from ten years ago, where we used to have the rather
naive notion that they were changing, that their goals were
different, that they were no longe expansionist.
BROKAW: The President has had some strong things to say
about the Soviet Union in the past. He's had the support of the
American people -- he's won two very large elections in this
country, as the President of the United States -- when he has
said on the campaign trail and while in office that he believes
that communism is in its final days, that it will be relegated to
the ash heap of history, that he believes that the Soviet system
is the focus of evil in the world.
Has he (A) modified his views at all? And if that is
thrown back at him by Gorbachev in this meeting, how will he
respond to that?
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MCFARLANE: Well, Tom, the President has also always
acknowledged that the Soviet Union has great military power and
the ability to expand by power, military subversion, if it
chooses. And he believes that acknowledging those differences,
but at the same time recognizing that we intend to maintain the
strength, ourselves, to defend against that effort, and to also
say there are areas where we can cooperate to mutual benefit is
not incompatible with what he's said before.
President Reagan's concern is that this competition,
which we welcome, be a peaceful one. And we can do that.
CHANCELLOR: Mr. McFarlane, let me try a couple of ideas
on you. On this program earlier this morning, Helmut Schmidt of
West Germany and Sam Nunn of Georgia both said that they thought
one useful thing would be for the Soviets and the Americans on a
common interpretation of language in the ABM treaty: what does
it actually mean? Do you see anything like that coming out of
this summit, or anything like that being set in train because of
this summit?
MCFARLANE: Well, I think that an important outcome of
this meeting could be agreement to sit down and begin seriously
to talk about the relationship between offense and defense, and
how we can move away from such exclusive reliance on offense and
toward greater reliance upon non-nuclear defensive systems.
CHANCELLOR: Could you do that under the aegis of the
ABM treaty, or would you have to have separate negotiations?
MCFARLANE: The ABM treaty establishes a framework
within which all of our programs are being carried out.
CHANCELLOR: Then is the United States willing to
discuss with the Soviet Union the language and terminology of the
ABM treaty, specifically?
MCFARLANE: The United States has always been willing to
talk about what the ABM treaty authorizes. The Soviet Union has
taken a much more expansive view of what it authorizes, from its
inception. In their own ratification process, you're familiar,
John, with Marshal Grechko's statements that it provides no
limitations whatsoever upon research and experimentation of
systems that can deal with ballistic missile defense.
CHANCELLOR: I guess what I'm asking, Marvin -- just one
last question -- is there a possibility of a working group, or
something like that, the two countries getting together on the
language of the ABM treaty so that they could come out of it a
year from now, say, with an agreed interpretation of what it
means?
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MCFARLANE: Well, John, well before that, we have to get
Soviet serious engagement upon what is the proper relationship
between offense and defense. After all, they are the ones that
expanded this enormous interest in strategic defense many, many
years ago.
We do see, and President Reagan believes strongly, that
defense can provide a way to avoid this ever-spiraling expansion
of nuclear weapons. And that's what he hopes to persuade the
General Secretary of here.
KALE: Mr. McFarlane, at this summit, is the President
prepared to say to Gorbachev, yes, the United States is ready to
extend the life of the SALT II treaty?
MCFARLANE: The President, in setting our current policy
last June, stated that future policy would be based upon Soviet
compliance, upon their building programs, upon the pace and
quality of how they negotiate in Geneval, and I think, obviously,
on the outcome of these sessions. And until all of that is
behind us and he's absorbed it, it's premature to judge that.
KALB: Okay. Premature, perhaps. But here's the
Defense Secretary laying out in his letter the strongest
arguments for not going along with an extension of SALT II; and,
in effect, for abrogating the ABM treaty. That is his view, I
understand that. It is now a public view.
Do you feel that if the President were to continue with
SALT II, that Weinberger could remain in that Cabinet?
MCFARLANE: Marvin, you're really distorting what the
Secretary said.
MCFARLANE: Well, I think you are.
What the Secretary said was that there have been
violations...
MCFARLANE: That is true. He was stating an accurate
record of the past.
KALE: And he also said that if the United States were
to go along with an extension of SALT II, that would inhibit
programs that the United States must have. He did say that.
MCFARLANE: All of these possibilities are premised upon
Soviet compliance. Now, that is undeniable.
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With regard to the ABM treaty, in no sense did he say we
should abrogate that treaty. So you're misinterpreting what
Secretary Weinberger said.
All of us, the President on down, believe that realism
requires you tell it like it is. Don't ignore violations. That
is an important element in our policy.
The Soviets should know that agreeing to future START,
INF, SALT IIIs will have little effect unless they understand the
importance of compliance. And that's an important point to be
made.
We're here, the President's here to say, "That's our
record. Can't we improve upon it and move toward reductions?"
CHANCELLOR: Mr. McFarlane, it seems to us who've read
the various proposals that you could get to a position in
negotiating on ICBMs where the American ICBMs would be protected
much more than they are now against first strikes and all of
that. Isn't it tempting to give a little bit on SDI if you could
protect our own missiles more?
MCFARLANE: Well, John, you seem to imply that what has
always been the formula for arms control, which is trading
offense for offense, isn't a good formula. I think it is. In
fact, those weapons exist. SDI doesn't. So let's get busy
getting rid of the real clear and present danger and move toward
a non-nuclear substitute.
KALB: Mr. McFarlane, thanks very much for being our
guest once again on Meet the Press.
MCFARLANE: Glad to be here.
KALB: Tom Brokaw, John Chancellor, and I will be back
with some concluding thoughts when Meet the Press returns from
Geneva right after these messages.
KALE: Gentlemen, let's discuss what we've heard. And
we've heard a great deal.
I have the impression, listening to Mr. McFarlane and a
number of the other people on this program and others here in
Geneva, that we are now, all of us, at some kind of a major
turning point in arms control. I have heard European academi-
cians say that the era of arms control that began at Glassboro in
1967 is now ending in Geneva in 1985, that some new system for
containing weapons or using weapons is going to have to be
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devised by the superpowers. And I'm just willing to state right
out I have a strong suspicion that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev do not really know what is going to succeed this
particular regimen of arms control. And that's why there is an
element of danger that hangs over the entire process.
CHANCELLOR: I think if they don't make some kind of an
agreement on the offensive nuclear weapons that both sides have
-- and remember, Marvin and Tom, both the United States and the
Soviet Union have made very far-reaching proposals, and their
numbers aren't that far apart. Yes, they're saying cut back on
certain things; we're saying no. But it just seems to me that
what could e wasted here at this summit would be a long wrangle
over Star Wars and ballistic missile defense, when there are big
and very important fish to fry in terms of offensive nuclear
weapons.
Is there a way, Tom, in your view, is there a way of
aoviding Star Wars? It seems to be at the heart of the issue.
BROKAW: No, I don't think it is avoidable here.
However, I think that the whole concept of turning this big
apparatus around, which takes a long time, I think that the
process will begin here, that this will turn out to be a seminal
meeting, that what we'll do here is to begin to understand each
other a little more and have a better definition of what we're
talking about in terms of what is a defensive system and how do
we reduce the offensive weapons that we already have in place.
And John is quite right. When the talk, both sides,
now, about limiting the number of nuclear warheads that we have
out there, they're only 600 warheads apart. And ultimately, I
think that they'll leave here working toward a better definition
of those things.
CHANCELLOR: Yeah, but the problem is that one side
says, "We want to talk about Star Wars," and the other sides,
"We're not going to do any dealing at all with Star Wars." And I
guess what we're all saying is, wouldn't it be nice if you could
just take Star Wars out of the mix for eight hours and see if you
could get some sort of rational negotiation started on these big
weapons?
KALB: I have a feeling that it cannot be done, that you
cannot remove Star Wars; it's at the heart of the effort.
In any case, we'll be all much smarter in about
two-three days.
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