HISTORICAL RESEARCH PROJECT NO. 1454 UNITED STATES-SOVIET SUMMITS 1972-1979

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 138
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: October 28, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
E XECUTIVE SECRETARIAT
ROUTING SLR
TO
Remarks
:
ACTION
INFO
DATE
INITIAL
1
DC1
X
2
DDCI _
X
3
EXDIR
4
D/ICS
5001
-DDA
X
61
1 DC.,0
,
j8 ODS&T
9 Chm/N4C
10 GC
11 IG
12 Compt
13 D/OLL
14 D/PAO
15 VC/NIC
16 DiSOVA/DI
X
17 NIO/USSR
X
18 C/ACTS
X
19 ES
_X
20
21
/12
1 SUSPENSE
\c-- Date
3637 (10-81)
Cu lye ecretary
8 OCT 85
Date
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
25X1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
4 .
UNCLASSIFIED when blank - TOP SECRET when attached to Top Secret Document - Automatically downgraded or
declassified when filled in form is detached from the controlled document.
CONTROL AND COVER SHEET FOR TOP SECRET DOCUMENT (COLLATERAL)
CIA T.S. C ONTROL NUMBER
ER TS0177/85
CIA COPY NUMBER
8
DOCUMENT DATE
.46 016e /9A3?
DATE RECEIVED
28 October 1985
NO. PAGES
NO. OF ATTACHMENTS (CIA T.S. # of Attachment)
BRANCH, BADGE #, OR LOCATION
ER
LOGGED BY
TSCO/ER
_
SUBJECT:
Study of Soviet US Summits
CIA SOURCE INFORMATION
EXTERNAL SOURCE INFORMATION
ORIGINATOR
- ORIGINATOR
DIRECTORATE
DCl/ES
OFFICE/BRANCH
AGENCY
CONTROL NUMBER
COPY NO.
ATTENTION: This form will be placed on top of and attached to each Top Secret document received by the Central Intelligence Agency or
classified Top Secret within the CIA and will remain attached to the document until such time as it is downgraded, destroyed, or transmitted
outside of CIA. Access to Top Secret matter is limited to Top Secret Control personnel and those individuals whose official duties relate to the
matter. Top Secret Control Officers who receive and/or release the attached Top Secret material will sign this form and indicate period of
custody in the left-hand columns provided. Each individual who sees the Top Secret document will sign and indicate the date of handling in the
right-hand columns.
REFERRED TO
RECEIVED
RELEASED
SEEN BY
OFFICE
SIGNATURE
DATE
TIME
DATE
TIME
SIGNATURE
OFFICE/DIV.
DATE
ER
When this form is detached from Top Secret material it shall be completed in the appropriate spaces below and forwarded to the Agency Top
Secret Control Office.
DOWNGRADED
DESTROYED
DISPATCHED (Outside CIA)
TO
BY (Signature)
TO
BY (Signature)
WITNESSED BY (Signature)
BY (Signature)
DIRECTORATE & AREA OFFICE
DIRECTORATE & AREA OFFICE
DIRECTORATE & AREA OFFICE
DATE
DATE
DATE
FORM rAL OBSOLETE PREVIOUS TOP SECRET
8-82 AV EDITIONS
(40)
/7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
0
Q/C AcllAAR
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
United States Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
October 26, 1985
TOP SECRET/NODIS
(CONFIDENTIAL Upon Removal of Attachments)
MEMORANDUM FOR:
NSC - Mr. William Martin
SUBJECT: Study of U.S.-Soviet Summits, 1972-1979
Attached is a classified study of U.S.-Soviet Summits,
1972-1979, prepared by the Office of the Historian. It
takes into account comments on an earlier draft completed
in July, as well as information developed in the course
of personal interviews.
by/Nicholas P1 at
Executive Secretary
Attachment:
Study on U.S.-Soviet Summits, 1972-1979
TOP SECRET/NODIS
DECL:OADR
25X1
ER TS0177/85
Copyre ofc55' Copies
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
ffice
of the
Historian
TOP SECRET/NODIS
United States Department of State
Bureau of Public Affairs
rj.
Historical Research Project No. 145/4
UNITED STATES-SOVIET SUMMITS
1972-1979
OCTOBER 1985
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
PREFACE
This study is based on official records of the
Department of State. Most of these records remain classified
at this time. Published memoirs and selected personal
interviews provided supplementary information. Information
from Presidential records was not available at the time of
preparation of this study and is not reflected in it.
The participants listed for each summit meeting include
all U.S. and Soviet delegation members named in the final
meeting communique together with additional selected names
of delegation staff members derived from official records.
A previous study by this Office deals with U.S.-Soviet
summit meetings between 1955 and 1967.
The study was prepared by official Department historians
Nina J. Noring, David W. Mabon, Ronald D. Landa, Harriet D.
Schwar, Nina D. Howland, James E. Miller, and David S.
Patterson. It was reviewed by Ms. Noring under the overall
direction of Paul Claussen, Chief of the Policy Studies
Division.
William Z. Slany
The Historian
Office of the Historian
Bureau of Public Affairs
October 1985
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
CONFIDENTIAL
CONTENTS
OVERVIEW
NIXON AND BREZHNEV AT MOSCOW, MAY 22-30, 1972
Initiative: U.S. Pressure in a Context of Linkage and
Increasing Soviet Receptivity
Preparations: Dual-Channel Negotiations, a Secret Visit,
and the Mining of Haiphong Harbor
Discussions: Catch As Catch Can
Results: Substantial Achievement Marred by Considerable
Confusion
Participants
Notes
NIXON AND BREZHNEV AT WASHINGTON, CAMP DAVID, AND SAN CLEMENTE,
JUNE 18-25, 1973
Initiative: Uncertain Aftermath of the 1972 Summit
Preparations: NSC Oversight
The Meetings: Fanfare and Modest Expectations
Results: Regularizing the Relationship
Participants
Notes
NIXON AND BREZHNEV AT MOSCOW, JUNE 27-JULY 3, 1974
Initiative: Hope of Bolstering Detente
Preparations: No Agreement on SALT
Discussions: Harmony for Its Own Sake
Results: Keeping Detente Alive
Participants
Notes
FORD AND BREZHNEV AT VLADIVOSTOK, NOVEMBER 23-24, 1974
Initiative: Sizing Up a New President
Preparations: Coming Closer Together on SALT
Discussions: Putting a Cap on the Arms Race
Results: Disappointing Aftermath
Participants
Notes
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
CONFIDENTIAL
2
FORD AND BREZHNEV AT HELSINKI, JULY 30-AUGUST 2, 1975
Initiative: Resuscitating Detente
Preparations: SALT and the Future of Detente
Discussions: Progress on Detente and Deadlock on SALT
Results: A Domestic Setback for the President and Detente
Participants
Notes
CARTER AND BREZHNEV AT VIENNA, JUNE 15-18, 1979
Initiative: Linkage with SALT II
Preparations: Many Issues, Few Prospects for Agreements
Discussions: Verbal Stalemate
Results: The Unraveling of Detente
Participants
Notes
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
,
MaIAllaA0
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
UNITED STATES-SOVIET SUMMITS, 1972-1979:
AN OVERVIEW
Between 1972 and 1979, United States and Soviet leaders
held six summit meetings. President Nixon's three summits with
Soviet General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev (Moscow, May 22-30,
1972; Washington, June 18-25, 1973; and Moscow, June 28-July 3,
1974) were of longer duration than the others and included
extensive side trips, photo opportunities, and ceremonial
aspects. A programmed informality characterized these
meetings, with occasions for the two leaders to socialize in a
relaxed setting.
President Ford's two summits with Brezhnev (Vladivostok,
November 23-24, 1974; and Helsinki, July 30 and August 2, 1975)
were arranged in response to specific circumstances--Ford's
assumption of the presidency and the signing of the Helsinki
Accords. Hence, they were shorter, less ceremonial, involved
less socializing, and dealt with fewer issues than the previous
three summits.
President Carter's summit with Brezhnev (Vienna, June
15-18, 1979) was more formal in tone than the other summits.
There were opportunities for informal conversation between the
two leaders at the introductory session, short luncheons and
dinners, and an evening at the opera, but none in a casual
setting. Most business was conducted in plenary session;
Carter and Brezhnev met privately only once. The discussions
were substantively wide-ranging, but Brezhnev's failing health
limited the length of the sessions.
In all cases, U.S. officials anticipated constructive but
limited achievements from the summits. Conscious efforts were
made to insure there would be positive results from the
meetings that would enhance the President's image as a world
leader and build support for his policies. Extensive
U.S.-Soviet negotiations preceded all six meetings, not only to
set the agenda and negotiate a joint communique, but also to
narrow and reconcile differences on substantive issues so that
specific agreements could be announced at the summit.
Arms control was the dominant issue discussed at all the
summits. Summit consideration supplemented and crystallized
rather than replaced ongoing negotiations on this issue. Two
SALT treaties and several other agreements and joint statements
relating to arms control were completed at the meetings. A
limited number of negotiating deadlocks on arms control were
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
? Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
2
resolved at the summits. At the 1972 meeting, differences were
resolved on several subsidiary issues; in June 1974 a threshold
test ban treaty was concluded; and in November 1974 important
Soviet concessions were obtained regarding SALT.
Geopolitical issues, particularly the Middle East, were
also a central concern at the summits. Discussions served
mainly to restate existing positions rather than break new
ground. The Soviet Union raised the subject of the People's
Republic of China at all of the meetings. This reflected
Soviet concern over China's nuclear capability and over the
resumption of Sino-American relations.
Summit discussions also focused on trade, cultural and
scientific exchange, and other bilateral interests. Numerous
agreements on these subjects were signed at the three summits
held during the Nixon administration. Certain bilateral
questions were raised at the Ford and Carter administration
summits, but less emphasis was placed on them and no agreements
were signed.
NIXON AND BREZHNEV AT MOSCOW, MAY 22-30, 1972
In 1970 the United States took initiatives which after
substantial negotiations eventuated two years later in the
first Moscow Summit of May 1972. Both countries had high
expectations for this summit and these were largely fulfilled,
at least in the short run.
The two principal achievements of the summit were the
establishment of a personal relationship between President
Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev
and the signature of the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement
on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT I). Some
last-minute negotiation on these agreements took place at the
summit. Also signed in Moscow were prenegotiated agreements on
the Basic Principles of U.S.-Soviet Relations, Prevention of
Incidents at Sea, Cooperation in Space, Medical Science and
Public Health, Environmental Protection, and Science and
Technology. Of these, the Agreement on Basic Principles was of
great importance to the Soviets, who saw it as a U.S.
recognition of their full equality as a superpower.
Discussions at the summit also affected significant
developments in Europe and the Middle East, trade expansion,
and a lend-lease settlement. In subsequent years some of the
roughnesses in the negotiating process before, during, and
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
DEAaME.J.
3
after this summit, particularly as they affected the SALT I
agreements and the international grain trade, provided an
opening for opponents of detente to criticize its viability.
NIXON AND BREZHNEV AT WASHINGTON,
CAMP DAVID, AND SAN CLEMENTE,
JUNE 18-25, 1973
The Brezhnev visit to the United States (June 18-25),
undertaken more at Soviet initiative than American, took place
amidst much fanfare but under the cloud of the Watergate
hearings. Preparations were conducted primarily by a special
interagency committee under the National Security Council's
Senior Review Group, although some details were smoothed out by
National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger during a May visit
to the Soviet Union. Like Khrushchev's visit in 1959,
Brezhnev's was marked by public demonstrations, mainly by
Jewish groups critical of restrictive Soviet emigration
policies. During the visit ten agreements were signed, the
most important of which was an understanding on the prevention
of nuclear war. In several private talks with Nixon at Camp
David and San Clemente, Brezhnev also emphasized his anxiety
over improving U.S.-Chinese ties, and he tried unsuccessfully
to draw Nixon and Kissinger into an implied alliance against
the Chinese. In their final meeting at San Clemente, Brezhnev
also tried to bully Nixon into a secret deal to end the Middle
Eastern conflict.
FORD AND BREZHNEV AT VLADIVOSTOK, NOVEMBER 23-24, 1974
The Vladivostok meeting between President Gerald R. Ford
and Soviet leader Brezhnev took place only five months after
the Moscow summit, primarily because Brezhnev was eager to
establish contact with the new U.S. President. The summit was
more ad hoc than the three previous ones and focused almost
entiii-ri-OT the strategic arms limitations talks (SALT). The
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE),
Cyprus, and the Middle East were dealt with briefly but nothing
of substance was achieved on any of these issues. Mutual and
balanced force reduction (MBFR) was mentioned only in the
prenegotiated joint communiqu?In part because of the
groundwork laid by Secretary of State Kissinger during his
October trip to Moscow and to Soviet hopes of establishing a
constructive relationship with the new U.S. President, a
breakthrough on SALT did take place at Vladivostok. The two
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIARDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
4
sides reached agreement in principle and the resulting SALT
accord provided the basis for the SALT It treaty later signed
by Preeident Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev in Vienna in June 1979.
It met the demands of the U.S. Congress and the Defense
Department for equal aggregates and involved significant Soviet
concessions, including abandonment of their previous demand
that Forward Based Systems (FBS), such as U.S. weapons based in
Western Europe, had to be included in the U.S. total. Ford and
Kissinger returned home feeling triumphant and claiming that
they had put a cap on the arms race. Their hopes were dashed,
however, by the subsequent inability of the two sides to agree
upon whether such weapons as the Soviet Backfire bomber and
U.S. cruise missiles were to be included in the totals agreed
upon at Vladivostok.
' FORD AND BREZHNEV AT HELSINKI, JULY 30-AUGUST 2, 1975
The 1975 Helsinki summit between President Ford and Soviet
General Secretary Brezhnev took place on July 30 and August 2,
1975, immediately prior to and following the ceremonies closing
the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).
The United States gave top priority to two issues:
-- Strengthening cooperation between the great powers
-- Concluding a SALT II agreement
The results of the Ford-Brezhnev meeting were
unsatisfactory. No substantive progress was made on SALT
although the atmosphere which surrounded meetings of the two
leaders was frank and cooperative. Public reaction to the
meeting was strongly negative and contributed to the subsequent
deterioration in U.S.-Soviet relations during the remainder of
the Ford administration and weakened the President's political
position.
CARTER AND BREZHNEV AT VIENNA, JUNE 15-18, 1979
The only U.S.-Soviet summit conference held during the
Carter administration opened in Vienna on June 15, 1979, and
continued through June 18, with five plenary meetings as well
as a private meeting between President Carter and Soviet
General Secretary Brezhnev. Discussions focused on the
following subjects:
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
5
1. Strategic Arms Limitation treaty (SALT II)
2. SALT III and other arms control issues
3.. International issues
4. Bilateral and trade issues.
The major achievement at Vienna was the signing of the SALT
II Treaty on strategic arms. Other issues were discussed and
positions clarified, but little movement toward specific
agreements resulted. Subsequently, the Soviet Union reacted
negatively to the NATO two-track decision in mid-December 1979
to deploy intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Western
Europe while simultaneously pursuing arms control talks with
the Soviet Union. The invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet armed
forces later that month removed all hopes for progress toward a
rapprochement in U.S.-Soviet relations. President Carter asked
the Senate to delay further consideration of the SALT II Treaty
from further Senate consideration; it has still not been
ratified.
Office of The Historian
October 1985
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
NIXON AND BREZHNEV AT MOSCOW, MAY 22-30, 1972
In 1970 the United States took initiatives which after
substantial negotiations eventuated two years later in the first
Moscow Summit of May 1972. Both countries had high expectations
for the summit and these were largely fulfilled, at least for the
short run.
The two principal achievements of the summit were the
establishment of a personal relationship between President Richard
Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev and the
signature of the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement on the
Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT I). Some last-minute
negotiation on these agreements took place at the summit. Also
signed in Moscow were prenegotiated agreements on the Basic
Principles of U.S.-Soviet Relations, Prevention of Incidents at
Sea, Cooperation in Space, Medical Science and Public Health,
Environmental Protection, and Science and Technology. Of these,
the Agreement on Basic Principles was of great importance to the
Soviets, who saw it as a U.S. recognition of their full equality
as a superpower.
Discussions at the summit also affected significant
developments in Europe and the Middle East, trade expansion, and a
lend-lease settlement. In subsequent years some of the
roughnesses in the negotiating process before, during, and after
this summit, particularly as they affected the SALT I agreements
and the international grain trade, gave an opening for opponents
of detente to criticize its viability.
Initiative: U.S. Pressure in a Context of Linkage and Increasing
Soviet Receptivity
President Richard Nixon's approach to summit meetings was a
blend of two strategies which were in partial conflict. On the
one hand he wanted summits to be substantive meetings which would
be held only after careful advance preparation and would mark the
conclusion of significant agreements of major benefit to the
United States; for this reason he resisited both Soviet and
domestic suggestions that he open, his presidency with a summit.
On the other hand, he felt the need to manipulate the prestige and
results of summit meetings to his domestic political advantage, a
consideration which influenced the timing of his summit
initiatives.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
2
At President Nixon's first meeting with Soviet Ambassador
Anatoly Dobrynin on February 17, 1969, the Ambassador hinted at
the possibility of a summit meeting. The President replied by
stressing that a summit should be linked to progress on such
issues as the Middle East, Vietnam, and arms talks. Nixon thus
put forth at the outset the first of his strategies. The procedure
which he enunciated to Dobrynin was followed faithfully during the
first year of his presidency. A summit would take place only when
enough substantive ground had been broken, and enough concrete
progress had been made so that the meeting when held would be
assured of success in advance. There was little progress toward
detente during 1969, and so when Dobrynin mentioned a summit to
Kissinger in January 1970, the latter by his own account "threw
cold water on the idea."1
In April 1970, Nixon introduced for the first time the
second consideration in his approach to summits. The invasion of
Cambodia by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces which Nixon ordered
that month brought about a sharp drop in his domestic popularity
and in his prestige worldwide. According to Kissinger, Nixon was
"tormented by antiwar agitators" and "thought he could paralyze
them by a dramatic peace move."2
By this time Nixon had already established the practice of
placing discussion of the most important issues between the United
States and the Soviet Union in the Kissinger-Dobrynin "special
channel," bypassing the entire Department of State. Accordingly,
it was Kissinger, not Secretary of State William P. Rogers, who
probed Dobrynin about Soviet willingness to go to the summit.
Over the spring and summer of 1970 Dobrynin stalled, raising
various issues--the Middle East, SALT, Southeast Asia, and a
conference on European security--progress on which Kissinger
regarded as Soviet "prices" for a summit. Kissinger later wrote
that "they were playing our game of 1969" and that "only the
eternal Soviet eagerness to squeeze one-sided gains from a
negotiation saved us" from the "serious difficulties" which he
believed would have resulted from a premature summit. The Soviets
set such high "prices" that Nixon was not tempted. In June 1970,
the Soviets informally proposed, via the SALT delegation then in
Vienna, an agreement ostensibly aimed at preventing accidental
wars which would in actuality have been directed against China.
Nixon promptly rejected this overture.3
From 1970 on, Nixon's interest in an eventual summit did not
waver, but rather intensified as the election year of 1972
approached. During 1971 a breakthrough in the SALT negotiations
and Nixon's opening to China cleared the way for an agreement
reached in August to hold a summit in Moscow in late May of 1972.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
3
In January 1971, Kissinger proposed to Nixon that
substantive talks on two important issues should be put into the
Kissinger-Dobrynin channel. One was the question of a new
agreement on Western access rights to West Berlin, on which formal
Four-Power negotiations had been underway for some time. The
other was SALT, for which formal bilateral talks alternated
between Helsinki and Vienna. Both negotiations would now,
therefore, be in dual channels. Kissinger wrote later: "And I
proposed linking the Berlin negotiations to.progress in SALT;
SALT, in turn, we would make depend on Soviet willingness to
freeze its offensive buildup. Nixon approved."4
The back-channel SALT negotiation lasted for 4 months. The
pace of the talks quickened after Dobrynin returned in April from
the'24th Congess of the Soviet Communist Party, at which Brezhnev
launched an active policy of seeking detente. On May 20, the two
countries announced an understanding that an Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty and an agreement on the limitation of
offensive strategic missiles would be concluded simultaneously.
Hitherto the Soviets had wished an ABM Treaty to be concluded
first. The Administration, reflecting the views of the Department
of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), considered the new
arrangement to represent considerable Soviet concession, although
the chief SALT negotiator, Gerard C. Smith, believed prior
negotiation of an ABM Treaty would confer certain advantages. For
reasons which are unclear, Kissinger chose not to stress in the
talks leading up to the understanding the inclusion of
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) in the contemplated
arrangement on offensive weapons, an omission which later
necessitated considerable additional negotiation.5
After conclusion of the May 20 agreement, Kissinger pressed
Dobrynin harder on a summit, telling him on June 8 that "we had
now been talking about a Summit for 14 months." He demanded an
answer by the end of the month. Dobrynin tried, as he had
previously that spring, to link the summit to progress on Berlin,
but agreed to get instructions.6 Kissinger was not as desperate
as he had intentionally sounded. Unknown to the Soviets, he was
already planning to leave July 1 on a trip which would include a
secret visit to China to plan a summit which had been agreed upon
in May.
Regardless of the Soviet answer to Kissinger's plea, there
could be no more discussions in the channel until his return.
While in Peking, however, the Chinese agreed the summit would be
held in February 1972. This sequence of developments enabled
Nixon and Kissinger to maintain correctly that they had been
negotiating in good faith toward a Soviet summit, and not
rejecting Moscow while wooing Peking. They could still hold
summits in the order they preferred: Peking first, Moscow second.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
4
Nixon publicly revealed Kissinger's trip in San Clemente,
where the two consulted before Kissinger's return to Washington.
With more cards in his hand, Kissinger told Dobrynin that "we
believe we have made an unending series of overtures. The Soviet
response has been grudging and petty, especially on the Summit
Meeting....Dobrynin in reply was almost beside himself with
protestations of goodwill."'
Kissinger obviously believed his trip had had the desired
effect. He urged Nixon to open personal communication with
Brezhnev, but not mention a summit; Nixon followed this plan in a
letter to Brezhnev of August 6. Brezhnev's reply invited Nixon to
Moscow in the spring of 1972. Later in August Kissinger and
Dobrynin set the arrival for May 22. The public announcement was
released on October 12, during a visit of Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko. Since Rogers was not apprised of the secret,
Nixon and Kissinger pretended to him that the invitation had been
formally extended by Gromyko during his October visit.8
Kissinger was well satisfied with the result, writing later
that it would have been unfortunate if the Soviets had agreed to
an earlier date as the United States would not have been
well-prepared.9
Arkady N. Shevchenko, a high-level Soviet defector who
worked on the Soviet Foreign Office team set up to prepare for the
summit, has written that by 1971-1972 the Soviet Union wanted the
summit at least as much as the United States, partly because of
the U.S. opening to China but also because a new generation of
Soviet military leaders understood that SALT treaties could reduce
the level of expenditure for strategic armaments and give the
Soviet Union a "breathing space" in which it would work to narrow
the technological gap. Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who participated in
the summit as an NSC staffer, notes that Soviet arms expenditures
never leveled off, but agrees with Shevchenko (and Kissinger) that
the China initiative was of supreme importance in hastening the
summit. 10
Preparations: Dual-Channel Negotiations, a Secret Visit, and the
Mining of Haiphong Harbor.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union spent many
months in preparation for the summit, and many agreements on major
and minor matters alike were worked out in advance. Nonetheless,
the North Vietnamese offensive of March 1972, and the nature of
the U.S. response, made the outcome doubtful until days before the
summit took place.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
5
In January Brezhnev, in a letter to Nixon, outlined items
for discussion at the summit. They included the proposed
Conference on European Security and Cooperation (CSCE), the
situations in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and the SALT
negotiations. Brezhnev called for "positive decisions" on
bilateral trade and economic relations at the summit and proposed
prenegotiation of several minor agreements for signature during
the meeting. In presenting the letter to Kissinger on January 21,
Dobrynin added that the Kremlin was "eager" for trade and SALT
agreements to be signed at the summit. Kissinger ducked on the
specific question of a trade agreement, but said "we would do our
best" to meet the target on SALT.11
Secretary of State Rogers tried to take personal charge of
summit preparations but Nixon ruled otherwise on March 17 when he
pointedly told Dobrynin that Kissinger was in complete charge of
the summit and would parcel out assignments on the lesser items to
individuals within the bureaucracy. The Agreement on the
Prevention of Incidents at Sea was worked out almost exclusively
by U.S. and Soviet naval officials; the other minor agreements
were negotiated on the U.S. side by the appropriate agencies, but
with Department of State participation. State also prepared
extensive briefing materials on all topics. Yet, as Nixon had
already explained in a letter to Brezhnev, big issues such as the
Middle East, Vietnam, SALT, and the drafting of the communique
would remain in the Kissinger-Dobrynin channe1.12
Of all these issues, SALT was the centerpiece so far as the
summit was concerned. While front channel SALT negotiations
continued in Vienna and Helsinki, Kissinger and Dobrynin, unknown
to at least the U.S. SALT delegation, discussed three issues in
the winter and spring of 1972: the number and type of ABM sites
each side should have, the duration of the freeze on offensive
weapons, and the potential inclusion of SLBMs in the freeze.
Their talks on the first item were inconclusive. On the second,
the United States wanted a duration of 5 years. Kissinger
succeeded by late March in getting the Soviets to move from
18 months to 3 years. With regard to SLBMs, he started with a
suggestion that each side be allowed 41 missile submarines, that
being the current U.S. total, which was within the estimated range
of Soviet boats. New boats could replace old ones.13 (The U.S.
total was not scheduled to rise anyway, since the Navy was
advocating a program of qualititative, not quantitative,
improvements in SLBMs.)
In February Kissinger agreed to "gear the conversations [on
SALT] to an agreement at the summit." Dobrynin, according to
Kissinger's memorandum of the meeting, wanted to know why a
submarine missile freeze "would not simply be a device for
stopping an ongoing Soviet program while giving the United States
TOP SECRET/NOD/S
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
6
the opportunity to tool up for a new [Trident] submarine
progriim....He thought our program was neatly timed to start right
after the expiration date." Shortly thereafter Kissinger started
to show flexibility, and in mid-March he raised the possibility of
allowing the Soviets more boats if they traded in old land
missiles (ICBMs) for SLBMs. Under these circumstances, he
offered, "it might go as high as the middle 50s as against our
41." At that point, according to Kissinger:
"Dobrynin said he could not understand our
eagerness to get an agreement which was so
unequal. How would we justify a Soviet
preponderance in this to our public? I said we
would have to explain it on the ground that the
Soviets could keep a smaller number deployed at
any given number of submarines. Dobrynin said,
'There must be some angle. What is it?' I said
there was no angle 4 but there was serious concern
about submarines."14
The Department of Defense knew about the idea of land for
sea missiles, for Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird had endorsed
it. There is no evidence, however, that the proposal of unequal
numbers was shared this early with any of the Departments any more
than it was with the SALT delegation.
From the end of March, the North Vietnamese offensive in
South Vietnam crowded the summit preparations out of the talks in
the special channel. For months the Soviets had been urging, in
the interest of symmetry and great-power equality, that Kissinger
make a "secret" pre-summit visit to Moscow to balance the "secret"
pre-summit visit to Peking. In April Nixon finally agreed to this
trip, with Vietnam talks primarily in mind. Kissinger was in
Moscow from April 20 to 24. Although his written instructions
called for discussion in Moscow of both Vietnam and summit
preparations, Kissinger received several messages from Nixon while
en route and in Moscow not to discuss other issues if the Vietnam
talks proved unsatisfactory, which they did.-5
Kissinger chose to disregard the followup instructions and
to discuss SALT and other summit business. Brezhnev met the U.S.
desire for a 5-year duration of the missile freeze. He proposed a
ceiling of 950 launchers (and 62 submarines) on the Soviet SLBM
program with the U.S. numbers to be substantially smaller at 656
and 41. The "baseline" above which old missiles would have to be
traded in for the Soviets to reach their ceiling was discussed,
but no figure was agreed on. On ABMs Brezhnev repeated a formula
then under discussion at Helsinki, which would give each country
the right to have two sites--one to protect a missile field and
the other to protect its national command authority (NCA).
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
7
Kissinger also reviewed with Brezhnev and Gromyko drafts of the
agreement on "Basic Principles of U.S.-Soviet Relations", a
document of great importance to the Soviets, which implied that
the two countries were of equal weight in world affairs and
emphasized the need for restraint and calm in the approach to
world crises."
Upon Kissinger's return Nixon, despite his anger at
Kissinger's behavior, accepted the results of the visit.
Kissinger believed the Soviet acceptance of an SLBM freeze was a
significant concession, even with unequal numbers, because the
Soviets, by his estimates, would have on duty at any one time a
far smaller proportion of their total number of boats. Nixon
supported this conclusion, and so, after the Navy's request for an
accelerated Trident program was met, did Admiral Thomas Moorer,
Chairman of the JCS. The ABM formula was also acceptable, as the
administration had been moving toward it for some time.17
Secretary Rogers and Gerard Smith were less satisfied with
the SLBM formula. Rogers felt the acceptance of inequality would
have a bad psychological effect, given the fact that the United
States would be adding its acceptance of inequality of numbers in
an area where it was roughly equal to its acceptance of de facto
inequality in the freeze on ICBM launchers. Smith thougWE?CEWE?
"we should try to improve the Soviet offer and only if we did not
succeed consider whether or not to refuse it." Otherwise, he
believed, the United States "might be better off without an SLBM
freeze." Both men were well aware of the U.S. lead in other
strategic nuclear capabilities areas not covered by the freeze.
Their concern was not that the SLBM proposal was a bad deal, but
that it would look bad.18
Smith strove for the inclusion of procedural language in the
reply to Brezhnev's SLBM proposal which would leave room for
maneuver in later negotiation. According to Smith, "the President
said 'Bullshit.'" Nixon felt a change in procedural language was
irrelevant. The final reply stated that the United States "could
agree in principle to the general approach" in Brezhnev's
proposals and raised no objections to the suggested SLBM
ceilings 19
The summit itself, however, appeared to be in jeopardy.
Kissinger and Nixon agreed in early May on the need for decisive
action to blunt North Vietnam's spring offensive. Kissinger
believed intensification of the bombing of North Vietnam would
cause a Soviet cancellation of the summit, and proposed that the
United States cancel, using the excuse that the Soviets were
supplying materiel to North Vietnam, in order to avoid the
humiliation of having the Russians cancel it first. Nixon at
first inclined to this view, but Secretary of the Treasury John
Connally convinced both Nixon and Kissinger not to cancel on the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS '
8
ground that if the United States initiated cancellation, it would
bear the domestic as well as the international onus for it.2?
On May 8, Nixon announced resumption of the bombing of
Hanoi-Haiphong and the mining of Haiphong harbor. Suspense did
not last long. On May 11, Nixon met with the Soviet Minister of
Foreign Trade, whose response when Nixon mentioned the summit
indicated the meeting was still on. According to Shevchenko, the
Soviet leaders were so committed by this time to a summit that
they never seriously considered cancellation.21
By the time Air Force One left for Europe on May 20 it was
clear that at least five minor bilateral agreements (all described
under "Results") had been fully negotiated and were ready for
signature. The ABM Treaty needed minor, and the Interim
Agreement, major, additional negotiation. The agenda prepared by
the Department of State called for detailed discussion of numerous
economic issues: lend-lease settlement, expanded bilateral trade,
the possible U.S. grant of MFN (most-favored-nation) treatment to
the Soviet Union, U.S. grain sales to the Soviet Union, and
possible U.S. aid in the development of Siberian natural gas.
Kissinger had discouraged conclusive negotiation in all these
areas because of his predilection for putting economic agreements
last in the linkage chain. As he saw it at this time, most
economic dealings were pure favors to the Soviets.
Pre-summit talks on Vietnam had, of course, been fruitless,
and those on the Middle East inconclusive. Both sides nonetheless
expected to discuss these issues in Moscow.
Discussions: Catch As Catch Can
The Course of the Summit. The Presidential party left
Washington on May 20 and, after stops in Austria and Poland,
arrived in Moscow on the afternoon of May 22. All negotiations
were conducted in the capital, but Nixon made side trips to
Leningrad (May 27), where he visited a cemetary for war victims,
and Kiev (May 29-30). On Sunday the 28th he attended services at
a Baptist church and delivered, from the Kremlin, a television
address to the Soviet people. Thoughout his visit he received
maximum exposure from the Soviet media. The communique was issued
on the 29th and on May 30 the White House delgation left Kiev for
Teheran, where the Shah received Nixon for a state visit.
The Moscow Milieu. Nixon, Kissinger, Chief of Staff
H.R. ("Bob") Haldeman, and a number of other White House aides
were Brezhnev's guests in the Kremlin. The Secretary of State,
his staff, and specialists from other agencies were quartered in
the then-new Rossiya Hotel, a 5-minute walk away. Accommodations
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
9
thus reflected the subordinate role which the Department had
played in the preparations and continued to play during the summit
itself. The White House and Department of State teams maintained
separate communications centers in their respective quarters. The
U.S. Embassy was busy as a communications center during the talks,
but the "Moscow White House," as it became known, did not avail
itself of the expertise of Ambassador Jacob Beam or invite him to
sit in at any but plenary sessions, despite the fact he had been
chosen for the post by Nixon personally. Beam's only opportunity
to talk with the President was at a wreath-laying ceremony. 22
The format of the talks was subject to considerable change
from day to day. This was partly because the remote relationship
between Nixon and Rogers, and Nixon's desire to keep the most
important items out of Roger's hands, prevented the U.S.
formulation of proposals for a formal agenda, as opposed to an
understanding of the topics to be discussed. Rogers sat with
Nixon only at the formal plenary sessions, of which there were
four, signing ceremonies, and banquets. The Soviets for their
part made numerous unpredictable changes of schedule. At one
point Kissinger cabled Gerard Smith in Helsinki: "You should
understand that we are operating in a situation where we never
know from hour to hour with whom we are meeting or what the topic
will be." While Kissinger believed that the Soviets intended to
throw the U.S. delegation off balance, some of his aides believe
that the ragged schedule was caused by Brezhnev's need to consult
the Politburo and by the fact that the Soviet elite's work
schedule is normally irregular.23
Smith's very presence in Helsinki was another complicating
factor. Nixon didn't want Smith and the SALT delegation in Moscow
because he was determined, by Kissinger's account, that Smith not
receive much credit for the SALT treaties. Kissinger wrote in his
memoirs:
"In retrospect it would have been better to have
brought both delegations to Moscow and let them continue
their work there in synchronization with the summit. Given
Nixon's feelings about who should get credit, I doubt that
he would have agreed if I had proposed it. We shall never
know because I did not put forward the idea, not
uninfluenced by vanity and the desire to control the final
negotiation. "24
Since the final negotiations on SALT were largely in Nixon's and
Kissinger's hands in Moscow, all decisions had to be relayed to
Helsinki for transformation into treaty language, with attendant
confusion. Nixon had achieved the curious feat of turning the
summit into a back channel negotiation.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
10
Several problems occurred in the preparation of the
Conference record. Rogers had strongly advised Nixon to
have a U.S. translator at all sessions. Nixon refused, for
this would have allowed the Department to receive copies of
all talks. There were, however, no translators attached to
the White House. Various substitutes were tried, all more
or less unsatisfactory. At Nixon's first meeting with
Brezhnev, the record was prepared by the only other person
present, a Soviet interpreter. The record of at least one
SALT discussion between Nixon and Brezhnev suffered when the
Russian-speaking NSC rapporteur was drawn into the substance
of the discussion.25
Varieties of Discussion. The summit talks fell into several
different categories. There were only four plenary meetings,
interesting for atmospherics, but at which little business was
transacted. Nixon was dealing with a triumvirate in which one
member, General Secretary Brezhnev, was clearly dominant to the
other two, Alexei Kosygin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers,
and Nikolai Podgorny, President of the Supreme Soviet. Nixon had
one meeting alone with Brezhnev, and several at which Kissinger
and Gromyko were in attendance. The main subject of Nixon's
smaller meetings was SALT. Details of SALT were hammered out in
sessions between Kissinger, his staff, Gromyko, and Soviet
technical expert Dmitri Smirnov. Kosygin handled most of the
economic talks on the Soviet side and met several times with
Rogers and Peter Flanigan of the White House Staff. Because the
summit was characterized by small group meetings with a variety of
principals, the description below is presented topically, not
chronologically, except for the opening and closing sessions.
Nixon's First Talk With Brezhnev (May 22). In this
afternoon talk Brezhnev told Nixon that it had not been easy for
him to continue with the summit despite U.S. action in Vietnam.
This remark was to be repeated many times by Soviet leaders in the
following week, but this ritual does not seem to have interfered
with substantive business. The two men then talked about the need
for building a personal relationship. They exchanged jokes about
the slowness and technical preoccupations of their bureaucracies.
"They would simply bury us in paper," said Brezhnev. Nixon
avoided the subject of Vietnam, but agreed to discuss the Middle
East during the summit. He agreed in principle to the holding of
a CSCE. Toward the close of the session Brezhnev mentioned that
he would have to bring Kosygin and Podgorny to many meetings.
Nixon reciprocated in spirit when he revealed to Brezhnev that he
had not yet told Rogers about the "Basic Principles" agreement;
Brezhnev sympathetically arranged to have the draft surfaced in a
way which would not embarrass Nixon.26
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
11
The First Plenary Session (May 23). At this morning meeting
Nixon and Brezhnev agreed to let Kissinger and Gromyko plan each
day's agenda, and arranged to sign an agreement each day in order
to maximize publicity.
The memorandum of this meeting indicates the tone Nixon
wished to set at the summit:
"The President said that he has a strong belief in
our system but at the same time he ,respects those
who believe just as strongly in their system.
There must be room in this world for two great
nations with different systems to live together
and work together. We cannot do this however, by
mushy sentimentality or glossing over differences
which exist. We can do it only by working out
real problems in a concrete fashion, determined to
place our common interests above our differences."
Brezhnev in his rejoinder talked of the need for far-reaching
decisions worthy of the stature of the two nations.
Nixon referred to his reputation as a cold warrior and
pleasantries were exchanged. Later, when Nixon brought up
improvement of trade and commercial relations, he linked them to
SALT by saying that his reputation would help him get
congressional support "for mutually beneficial matters, assuming
there is progress in other areas."
Regarding the SALT negotiations, Nixon said they were only a
beginning. Nixon and Kosygin agreed that it was best to limit
nuclear arms now when no other power was a serious nuclear
threat. Nixon observed that "potential great powers" could make
advances that would threaten "both the U.S. and the Soviet
Union...particularly China and Japan."
Nixon expressed preference for discussing SALT in a small
forum, and then "asked" for which day signature of the SALT
agreements had been scheduled, implying both that he intended to
sign no matter what and that he had either little control over, or
little knowledge of, the scheduling.
Nixon again endorsed a CSCE, but said it would have to be
held after the U.S. elections and that it should be related to
Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks. The topic was
referred to Rogers and Gromyko.27
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIARDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
12
Final SALT Negotiations. It seemed clear at the plenary
session that both siaes had made up their minds to resolve
remaining SALT matters in time for signature at the summit.
Failure of SALT would have meant failure at the summit.
Nonetheless, there was considerable bargaining on several issues.
They were of secondary strategic, but great psychological and
political importance and were highly technical.
There was only one remaining issue on the ABM Treaty. The
United States wanted each side's two sites to be as far apart as
possible so that they could not be used for a de facto area
defense. At his evening session with Nixon and Kissinger on the
23d, Brezhnev accepted the American proposal of 1,500 kilometers
distance, unaware that the two delegations at Helsinki had already
compromised on 1,300 kilometers. The 1,300 figure stood.28
Completion of the Interim Agreement presented more
challenging problems. First there was the U.S. desire to have
limits on the size of land-based missile replacements. Already
negotiated was a clause saying that the parties undertook not to
convert launchers (in this case silos) for "light" ICBMs into
launchers for "heavy" ICBMs. The number of "heavy" ICBMs, as well
as the total number of silos, would, therefore, be frozen. There
was no precise definition of a "heavy" ICBM. At Helsinki and at
previous rounds the Soviet delegation had resisted such a
definition. Could one be worked out now?
Related, but not identical, was the issue of silo
dimensions. The United States had originally wanted the freeze to
prohibit such increases. The SALT delegations had reached a
compromise prohibiting a "significant" increase in missile size.
Could "significant" be further defined?
At the first small meeting on the afternoon of the 23d,
Brezhnev astonished Kissinger by implying that he would accept a
freeze on Ea increase in either silo dimension or missile size.
During a recess, Kissinger advised Nixon not to accept, despite
the fact Brezhnev appeared to have accepted an American
negotiating position of some months ago, because not increasing
missile volume might prevent the MIRVing of U.S. Minuteman
missiles. Instead, Nixon and Kissinger proposed in the following
session that the "no significant increase" formula be applied to
missiles as well as silos, and that "significant" be defined as
over 15 percent. "Brezhnev seemed to go along with that as well,"
Kissinger later commented. When this news reached Gerard Smith in
Helsinki, he consulted his military adviser, who "immediately
pointed out that under the proposed formula the United States
would have to halt its Minuteman III program...the Moscow
TOP SECRET/NODIS
nna-Inecifiari in Part - Sanitized Com/ Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
13
negotiators were about to stumble into a partial MIRV ban." Smith
got word to Kissinger that the proposal, to be acceptable, would
need to refer to a 15 percent increase in volume "beyond that of
the largest light ICBM currently displayed by either side." The
Soviet SS-11 was the largest such missile, and the formula left
ample margin for MIRVing Minuteman.29
Kissinger believed that Brezhnev and Nixon were both too
unaware of the technical side of SALT (as the U.S. SALT delegation
in turn, believed Kissinger to be) to negotiate successfully.
Later he wrote: "The meeting demonstrated that heads of
government should not negotiate complex subjects."3? He got his
chance to conclude the negotiation when Nixon and Brezhnev agreed,
after their second session on the 23d, to leave further
exploration to Kissinger and Gromyko. This got under way at 1:15
a.mt on the 24th. Gromyko distributed papers which in effect
withdrew all the concessions Brezhnev had made--a Politburo
meeting had intervened--and returned to the position the
delegations had reached at Helsinki: There was no Soviet offer on
missile volume, but silo dimensions could not be "significantly"
increased--no percentage was mentioned. Over the next 24 hours
Kissinger does not appear to have made any attempt to pursue the
definition of a "heavy" missile, perhaps reasoning that this would
be fruitless. His memoirs are silent on this point. He was
aware, however, that the Soviets were planning a new missile, the
SS-19, which would not have met the 15 percent increase in volume
limitation, but which would fit in a silo only 15 percent larger.
(Since silos have both length and width, the actual volume
increase under the "15 percent" formula proved to be 32 percent, a
consideration Kissinger was not aware of at the time.)31
Kissinger continued to hold out for the limitation to
15 percent of increases in silo volume.
The most important SALT issue discussed at the conference
was the replacement formula for SLBMs. The Soviet Union wanted 30
missiles on H-class (older nuclear) and 60 on G-class (diesel)
submarines not to count toward replacement, but to be in addition
to the 950 missile limit Brezhnev had proposed in April. In his
discussions with Dobrynin in the special channel just before the
summit, Kissinger had argued that the missiles on H and G-class
boats should count. While the summit was in progress, Smith
cabled from Helsinki that he continued to believe that it was
better to exclude SLBMs from the Interim Agreement altogether
rather than make a poor deal. Kissinger fought hard for the
inclusion of H and G-class boats but felt two considerations were
paramount. One was that it was more important to bring about the
removal of old land-based missiles under an SLBM replacement
formula than to worry too much about missiles on boats which had
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA;RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
14
not been deployed within range of the United States for several
years. The other was that with no SLBM agreement, the Soviets
would be capable of building up to 80 submarines by the end of the
freeze rather than the 62 Brezhnev had proposed. (Many analysts
have subsequently believed this projection to be too high.)34
Matters were further complicated when a news leak on May
24th revealed the basic numbers under consideration for the SLBM
Protocol. Kissinger's deputy, Alexander Haig, cabled that
Senators Goldwater and Jackson were expressing alarm and that the
Joint Chiefs were threatening to stray from the reservation.
Kissinger took the news to Nixon, who later described his decision:
"'The hell with the political consequences,' I
said. 'We are going to make an agreement on our
terms regardless of the political consequences if
the Pentagon won't go along.' I determined not to
allow either the Pentagon on the right or the
Soviets on the left to drive me away from the
position I believed was in the best interests of
the country."33
After prolonged haggling during at least three meetings held
from early on the 24th to early on the 25th, Kissinger won Soviet
consent to include the H-class boats in the replacement formula,
and then offered to exclude G-class vessels unless the Soviets
chose to refit them with more modern missiles. Nixon and
Kissinger also agreed not to trade in missiles to build up to the
U.S. cap of 710 tubes for the duration of the 5-year freeze.34
One last SLBM issue was negotiated--the number of boats and
tubes each side would be allowed as a "base line" above which it
would have to retire older missiles if it was to build up to its
SLBM limit. Kissinger succeeded in getting Smirnov to reduce the
Soviet base line from 768 to 740; the United States base line was
656.
In the early morning of the 26th, Kissinger, Gromyko, and
Smirnov adjourned. Only the silo dimension and G-class
modernization issues prevented full agreement. Kissinger stated
there would be no further concessions on the U.S. side. The
signing ceremony had been tentatively postponed to Sunday, should
agreement be reached.
The next morning, the Soviets accepted the U.S. position on
silo dimension and the status of the G-class tubes, but insisted
that a signing take place that very evening. Enormous confusion
ensued as the SALT delegations worked out a final draft on the way
to Moscow. The SALT Agreements were signed right on schedule, but
the texts contained errors. Nixon and Brezhnev signed corrected
revisions in private the next day.35
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
15
European Questions. At the plenary meeting the morning of
May 24, Brezhnev made much of Soviet willingness to include the
United States "in all matters relating to the European
continent...even though the U.S. was not a European nation." This
attitude was proof "that the Soviet Union was willing to let the
United States defend its own interests in Europe." He then made a
lengthy presentation on the desirability of convening the CSCE
early.
Nixon emphasized that not only the United States, but
several European countries would be preoccupied with elections in
1972. Fencing ensued as to whether CSCE matters could be dealt
with apart from or in advance of MBFR, Nixon being determined not
to let CSCE overshadow or replace MBFR. The matter was referred
to Rogers and Gromyko.
The meeting ended on a jovial note, with Nixon joking that
he did not want to irritate such Soviet friends as the Albanians,
and Brezhnev protesting that "the USSR heeded the voice of
Luxembourg as well."38
Rogers, Gromyko, and their aides, including Dobrynin, met in
the afternoon of the 25th. Gromyko probed to see whether there
was any give in the U.S. position on the convening of the CSCE.
Rogers allowed that bilateral consultations might take place
during 1972, but vetoed convening even a preliminary conference
until after the November elections. Of the Soviet-suggested
agenda topics, which included territorial integrity, inviolability
of borders, and nonapplication of force, Rogers was lukewarm on
"the inviolability of borders," stating that one must ask "which
borders." Gromyko assured him they were thinking of a principle,
"not with specific application to border disputes."
Rogers presented a number of possible scenarios for
coordinating MBFR with the CSCE. All had as a common denominator
the linkage of results in MBFR with progress on the Soviet CSCE
agenda. The Secretary did agree with Gromyko that while MBFR
might be discussed at the CSCE, it was not itself the forum at
which the MBFR should be negotiated.37
There European matters apparently rested. The communiqu?
mentioned the CSCE but set no date, saying it should be convened
"without undue delay." Kissinger states in his memoirs, "Our
strategy was to tie the European Security Conference to talks on
troop reductions and both of them to an end of the Vietnam
War. "38
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
? Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRETMODIS
16
The Middle East. At a meeting with Gromyko on the afternoon
of the 25th, the Foreign Minister told Rogers that unless the
United States had new proposals, "a discussion of the Middle East
probably would not be necessary." On Friday, the 25th, Kissinger
succeeded in getting "the blandest possible" language on the
Middle East put in the communique. The two sides "reaffirmed
their support for a peaceful settlement" in accordance with UN
Resolution 242, endorsed the mission of UN Special Representative
Gunnar Jarring, and called for "a military relaxation in the
area." It was Kissinger's belief that the blander the communique,
the more the radical Arab States would become disenchanted with
Moscow. This section of the communiqu?lso comported with
Rogers' objectives, for the Secretary did not believe "that any
terms we might be able to agree on with Moscow would be acceptable
to Israel." On Sunday, the 27th, contrary to what he had told
Rogers, Gromyko spent 4 hours with Kissinger, reaching what
Kissinger later described as "tentative agreement" on "general
working principles" for the Middle East which were to be fleshed
out later between himself and Dobrynin, but never were. "Their
practical consequence was to confirm the deadlock," Kissinger
wrote later. Also germane to the Middle East was the statement
of "Basic Principles," signed and published on May 29, which spoke
of "presenting situations capable of causing a dangerous
exacerbation of their relations" and avoiding conflicts or
situations" which would "increase international tensions."39
Vietnam. The only notable discussion of Vietnam was staged
to appear impromptu. After Nixon's two meetings on SALT with
Brezhnev on the 24th, Brezhnev propelled Nixon out of the room and
into his limousine. After a high-speed ride to Brezhnev's country
dacha, with U.S. Secret Service men and Henry Kissinger bringing
up the rear, the General Secretary treated the President to a boat
ride.
At a pre-dinner meeting, joviality ended when Nixon remarked
that the collateral issue of Vietnam should not mar detente. The
three Soviet leaders then took turns lambasting him. Brezhnev, in
a bullying tone, spoke of the cruelty of the bombing of the North,
and charged that the opening to China was meant to induce the
Soviets to intervene with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Kosygin, described by Kissinger as more correct but also more
aggressive, predicted U.S. failure, complained about damage to
Soviet ships in Haiphong harbor, and described Nguyen Van Thieu as
a "mercenary President so-called." When Nixon asked who chose Ho
Chi Minh, Kosygin replied: "The entire people."
Podgorny was polite, but "just as tough," Nixon later
wrote. When he had finished, it was almost 11 p.m. (dinner had
been scheduled for 8 p.m.). Kissinger believed, "We were
participants in a charade." The meeting was to make "a transcript
to send to Hanoi."
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
17
Nixon, in reply, said that although Moscow had helped
reconvene the Paris talks, they had gotten nowhere; that Hanoi,
not Washington, had rejected Brezhnev's cease-fire offer; and that
30,000 South Vietnamese civilians had been killed by Soviet
equipment in that spring's offensive. He offered to take up
Vietnam later in the week. Shortly thereafter the meeting broke
up 40
In his last private meeting with Nixon on Monday the 29th,
Brezhnev offered to send Podgorny to Hanoi if it would be
helpful. Nixon assented and undertook not to bomb Hanoi and
Haiphong during the visit--as long as Podgorny didn't stay too
long. Kissinger commented later that he and Nixon knew in advance
the trip would be more of a report to Hanoi on the summit than a
sincere mediating attempt, but that there had been no way to
refuse the offer.41
Overall, Vietnam was a very subsidiary issue at the summit.
Kissinger rejected, during sessions held May 27 and 28, Gromyko's
attempts to get the United States to endorse a coalition
government and to agree to joint language in the communique. The
final communiqu?ontained separate statements by each side which
rehashed long-held positions on Indochina.42
Economic Talks. No economic agreements were reached at the
summit, but several items were discussed on which agreement was
reached a few months later.
In a conversation with Trade Minister N. S. Patolichev on
May 23 following the initial plenary meeting, Rogers continued the
linkage theme when he remarked that "if we could get rid of some
of the main political problems then we could move to some large
deals." Patolichev outlined Soviet terms for a grain deal--$750
million in purchases over 3 years ($200 million the first year)
with a credit line of $500 million. The credit terms the Soviets
wanted were too liberal for the Department. When Patolichev asked
for "more agreeable proposals," Rogers replied: "Our suitcases
are empty." Patolichev then claimed the Soviet harvest wasn't as
bad as advertised.
The conferees agreed to draft language setting up a Joint
Trade Commission, to be included in the communique.43
There was some mention of outstanding Soviet lend-lease
debts to the United States, a subject to which Kosygin and Rogers
returned on May 25. Rogers stated the U.S. position: $750
million in principal plus $250 million in interest. Kosygin
retorted that the figure was "not realistic" and emphasized that
the Soviet loss of MFN treatment (for restoration of which a
lend-lease settlement was the American price) had damaged the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 CIA7RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
18
Soviet Union: "U.S. should pay those damages." The Soviet offer
was $200 million. Kosygin said it shouldbe discussed with
Nixon.44
Later that day at a plenary meeting Nixon and Kosygin set
the principal at $500 million.45 Meeting again with Rogers on
the 26th, Kosygin objected to interest of more than 2 percent and
held out for a 50-year payment schedule, to match that given the
British many years previously. Rogers pointed out that Congress
would not accept such terms. Kosygin held out grain sales as a
bait, but Rogers would not respond. Toward the end of the talk,
Kosygin accused Rogers of undercutting the Preiident. Rogers
commented that it wasn't necessary to settle during the summit
because there was "no rush." Kosygin wanted to go back to Nixon,
but this apparently was not done. In a final go-round on
lend-lease on the 28th, Kosygin agreed that Rogers could tell the
Congress progress had been made, that the lend-lease talks were
not deadlocked, and that there would be further discussions. In a
contradictory vein, however, Kosygin reserved the right to reopen
the question of the principal amount."
Another topic of discussion was U.S. private development of
Siberian natural gas. In a talk on the 26th, Kosygin hinted his
desire for U.S. Government underwriting. Rogers did not respond,
perhaps aware that this idea was far down on Kissinger's linkage
list.47
The communiqu?eflected the discussions, saying the
countries were working for a trade agreement which would be
negotiated concurrently with a lend-lease settlement.48
Final Meetings. At the final private meeting mentioned in
the section on Vietnam, the atmosphere was relaxed. Brezhnev also
brought up the idea of an agreement by the United States and the
Soviet Union on the non-use of atomic weapons against each other.
Nixon sidestepped by saying discussion should continue in the
special channel; he and Kissinger thought the proposal was bound
to bring trouble with NATO and with China. Kissinger wrote:
"Brezhnev then delicately introduced what may well
have been the Kremlin's deepest interest in detente.
He hinted that both countries might usefully keep an
eye on the nuclear aspirations of Peking. Nixon gave
him no encouragement."
At the end
"commitment that
directed against
cautioned: "But
channel."49
of the meeting, Nixon told Brezhnev he had his
privately or publicly I will take no steps
the interests of the Soviet Union." Then he
you should rely on what I say in the private
TOP SECRET/NODIS
nni-laccifiinri in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
19
The last plenary session, held at midday on May 29, was
devoted to generalities about the progress made on all fronts and
to a good deal of good-humored banter. Nixon and Brezhnev
re-enacted the invitation and acceptance for a return summit in
Washington which had already been written into the communique (the
date was not yet set). The summit then ended with a touch of
hyperbole when Nixon suggested that the leaders set as a goal for
their next meeting the establishment of peace everywhere in the
world. "50
Results: Substantial Achievement Marred by Considerable Confusion
General Considerations. The 1972 summit presents many
contradictions. It benefited from substantial advance planning
but suffered from last-minute, helter-skelter decisions. Nixon
and the Soviet leaders established a personal relationship but
some meetings were acrimonious. Several of the supposed successes
of the summit were actually-negotiated in advance. The
achievements which culminated in the summit gave considerable
impetus to d?nte, but their flaws and the manner of their
achievement generated controversy which would later help undermine
detente.
One problem faced in evaluating the summit is to disentangle
the results of the summit per se from those of the peculiar
foreign policy apparatus of the early Nixon administration. If,
for instance, there were deficiencies in the SALT treaties, should
they be attributed to summit pressures or to the frequent use of
the back channel in resolving difficulties for over a year prior
to the summit? Conversely, if the back channel had not been in
operation, would there have been any SALT agreement at all?
A related question is whether the very expectation of a
summit distorted the negotiating process. Gerard Smith commented
that once a summit is agreed on, a major negotiation connected
with it is unlikely to be concluded before the summit takes
place. At the same time, he also noted, it also imposes pressure
to reach some kind of agreement, in this case "more pressure on
the visitor than on the host, especially as the visitor would face
a presidential election 6 months later." Kissinger on the other
hand was proud of his role in the conclusion of SALT, pointing out
that the time from the initiation of the negotiation to its
conclusion was only 2 1/2 years, compared with the 4 years needed
for the nonproliferation treaty. The implication was that a
deadline could be useful.51
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA:RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
20
The Highfloint of Detente. Certainly the single most
important meaning of this summit meeting was that it marked a
period of increased U.S.-Soviet contacts and generally improved
relations. Moscow's decision to go ahead with the summit despite
the U.S. bombing and minings in North Vietnam was a signal that
the Soviet Union would at least temporarily put great power
relationships ahead of "wars of liberation." The U.S. opening to
China no doubt reinforced this Soviet tendency. Nixon and
Brezhnev established considerable personal rapport. Shevchenko
states that although the Soviet leaders "never really felt at ease
with Nixon" and distrusted him, they did "find, in his behavior
definite similarities to their own," such as his "natural
inclination towards secret arrangements," and "concluded that it
might be possible to deal with him in the world of
realpolitik. "52
Nixon and Brezhnev met two times more before Nixon
resigned. Brezhnev and President Gerald Ford met twice in the
latter's brief administration, so that five meetings were held in
4 years, compared with five in the preceeding 27 years.
The SALT Agreements. In analyzing the impact of the SALT
negotiations at the summit, as distinct from the viability of the
SALT agreements as a whole, it is clear that:
1) There had been no anticipation before the summit that
the Soviets would agree to define a "heavy" missile. Therefore,
when the prospect of such a definition initially held out by
Brezhnev was withdrawn, there was no net loss.
2) On silo dimensions, Kissinger obtained what he thought
was a favorable concession at the time. Any flaw in the expected
result was not a result of the summit bargaining process, but of
his knowledge of the subject.
3) Concerning the distance between ABM sites, the withdrawal
of Brezhnev's "concession" merely put the result back to what had
been achieved at Helsinki.
4) SLBM ceilings had been agreed to before the summit. The
baseline and the replacement formula had not. The combination of
the high Soviet ceiling and the replacement formula concluded at
the summit occasioned much criticism from Senator Jackson and
other congressional defense specialists. The Soviets were said to
be getting a "free ride" because they probably didn't have as many
missile submarines as the SLBM launcher baseline assumed and
because they could retain the 60 G-class missiles. Kissinger's
retort to such criticisms was that the agreement kept the Soviets
from building more submarines than they would have otherwise
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
21
during the 5-year freeze period, and that the United States had no
plans to deploy new submarines during the same period (the Ohio
class would not be ready until 1978).
5) Other greatly criticized aspects of the 1972 SALT
agreements were, from the left, that they did not address the MIKV
problem, and from the right, that they did not reduce the Soviet
advantages in throw weight or total number of launchers. These
supposed flaws, however, were in no way related to the summit,
growing instead out of the nature of the U.S. defense posture, the
Nixon administration's overall approach to arms control, and the
negotiating techniques of the two SALT delegations.
Thus, despite the extreme confusion--"the fog of
negotiation," as Smith put it--of the Moscow talks, the summit did
not fundamentally alter the already emergent nuclear agreements.
The ABM Treaty required ratification, and the Interim
Agreement, under the Arms Control Act, needed the approval of both
Houses of Congress. The Interim Agreement was accompanied by an
amendment introduced by Senator Jackson and co-sponsored by 42
other Senators, which requested "the President to seek a future
treaty that...would not limit the United States to levels of
intercontinental strategic forces inferior to the limits provided
for the Soviet Union."5i The Jackson amendment was inspired by
the fact that the Interim Agreement froze the existing inequality
in ICBM launches and allowed the Soviets to obtain a numerical
superiority in SLBM launchers. Yet, even Jackson, after exacting
his price, voted for both instruments. Another part of his price
became apparent in the months that followed: Most of the leading
figures in ACDA and the SALT delegation resigned or were
transferred to other duties. Smith wrote that "somebody had to
hold the bag for criticism of the agreements, and there were only
two candidates--the White House or ACDA."54
More than 2 years after the summit, two documents connected
with it became public in a way which injured the credibility of
the arms control process. In June 1972, Dobrynin gave Kissinger
an interpretation of the SLBM replacement provisions which would
have included G-class boats in the base line. Apparently the
Soviets, having second thoughts, had decided they would rather
forego the extra SLBMs represented by the G-class tubes than
dismantle 60 ICBMs. Nixon and Kissinger held them to the original
agreement (also a second-thought turnabout) and an
"Interpretation" to this effect was signed by Kissinger and
Dobrynin on July 21. Because of the way the interpretation was
drafted, however, it would through an oversight have allowed the
Soviet Union to retrofit the G-class boats, if it had so chosen
(it did not) with an entirely new type of missile without
including them in the cap of 935: The "Interpretation" was not
made public and was not made known to the SALT delegation.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
1-N--1.-,?ifin,ri Darf - Aniti7ed CODV Approved for Release 2013/10/24 CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
22
The other document was Nixon's letter to Brezhnev of May 28,
in which the President stated he had no plans to trade in Titans
for new SLBM tubes during the freeze. In effect this meant the
United States was frozen at 41 SLBM submarines rather than the 44
specified in the protocol. (The United States had no plans to
build three more Poseidon submarines anyway.) This document too
was closely held. The fact that Kissinger stated at a
congressional hearing on June 15, 1972, that there had been "no
secret understandings" made at Moscow on arms control helped to
maximize the impact of the Nixon letter when it became public.55
When the existence of these two documents was revealed in a
newspaper account in June 1974, Senator Jackson argued that at the
summit Kissinger had "secretly" given the Soviets a 124 missile
advantage--the 54 unbuilt U.S. SLBMs plus the 60 to 70 Soviet
G-class tubes. Kissinger was able in subsequent testimony to
satisfy most critics,50 but the legend of a summit sell-out
persisted in a way that added momentum to the arguments of
skeptics of the arms control process. The manner, more than the
matter, of the summit and post-summit back channel SALT
negotiations damaged arms control.
The Basic Principles of Relations Between the United States
of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In
addition to the provisions cited previously, the "Basic
Principles" explicitly endorsed "peaceful coexistence" and
committed each party not "to obtain unilateral advantage at the
cpense of the other," "to widen the juridical basis of their
mutual relations," to continue "efforts to limit armaments,"
especially "strategic armaments," to expand commercial ties, and
to "recognize the sovereign equality of all states." It
concluded: "The development of U.S.-Soviet relations is not
directed against third countries and their interests."
The principal practical impact of this document was on
Soviet-Egyptian relations. Kissinger and Middle East specialists
believe that the "Basic Principles" and the communiqu? language
on the Middle East were of great importance in President Anwar
Sadat's decision in the summer of 1972 to expel Soviet advisers
from Egypt, a conclusion confirmed by Sadat's own memoirs. The
Soviet presence there became a casualty of detente.57 The
"Basic Principles" also caused a brief flurry in the NATO
capitals, where some government officials worried that the use of
the term "peaceful coexistence" in a formal understanding might
weaken the U.S. resolve to defend Western Europe, however much
they might regard peaceful coexistence as something to be striven
for.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
23
Podgorny's Visit to Vietnam. Podgorny arrived in Hanoi in
mid-June and during his stay the United States did not bomb Hanoi
or Haiphong. In a letter to Nixon dated June 21, Brezhnev stated
that North Vietnamese leaders were "attentive" to the information
Podgorny gave them about the American position as stated during
the summit and "spoke of their readiness" to resume the Paris
talks. Brezhnev proposed that Nixon suggest a date; according to
Kissinger, he had already done so on June 12. Talks resumed on
July 13. Podgorny's trip does not appear to have played much of a
role in the resumption.
The Agreement on Prevention of Incidents at Sea. Of the
"minor" agreements negotiated in preparation for the summit, this
one has proven the longest lasting and most useful. It
established procedures for the avoidance of incidents involving
U.S. and Soviet vessels which might occur in the course of their
close surveillance of each other, and for the exchange of
information on incidents which did occur. A joint commission
established later under the agreement meets once a year to monitor
its operation. The navies of both nations have found this
agreement to be of great practical value.
Other Minor Agreements. The Agreement on Cooperation in
Space provided for the docking of a U.S. and a Soviet spacecraft
which took place several years later. The Agreements on Medical
Science and Public Health, Environmental Protection, and Science
and Technology each provided for exchange of specialists and
information, and the planning of joint programs, in their
respective fields.
CSCE. The North Atlantic Council held a Ministerial Session
in Bonn immediately following the Moscow summit on May 30-31,
1972. In their communiqu?the Ministers noted the imminent
signing of the Final Protocol to the Quadripartite Agreement on
Berlin (June 3) to which they linked their agreement to initiate
"the necessary arrangements for beginning the multilateral
preparatory talks."50 Also in the communiqu?as language
warning against unilateral force reductions which "would
jeopardize the prospects for mutual and balanced force
reductions." Parallel MBFR and CSCE talks eventually got under
way in Helsinki in late October 1973.
Economic Measures. Soon after the summit, officials from
the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Commerce signed in
Washington with a Soviet official an agreement providing the
Soviet Union with $750 million in credits over 3 years, the same
figure which had been on the table in Moscow. Simultaneously,
however, the Soviets were buying up at low prices over $1 billion
in grain from different U.S. grain companies, soaking up most of
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
- -- ----., ---..-
24
the American surplus and driving up domestic prices. Even
Kissinger admitted that in this matter the "Soviet Union played a
cool hand and outwitted us at the summit." He claimed that the
administration had no knowledge of the "catastrophic" nature of
the Soviet crop failure. Indications to the contrary have been
widely publicized. It is probably the case that the
administration had considerable knowledge of the Soviet grain
problem but not of its full extent or of the extent to which the
Soviets would be dependent on American supplies rather than those
of other exporters.
Nixon and Kissinger were determined not to let Soviet sharp
practice on the grain deal stand in the way of expanded trade
relationships now that the Berlin Agreements had been finalized.
The United States had gained at Soviet expense in the Middle East,
the SALT process was continuing, and the Soviet Union had
indicated the limits of its involvement with Hanoi. A lend-lease
settlement which Kissinger reached with Brezhnev during a visit to
Moscow in September 1972 (for a total of $722 million including
interest--even Kissinger noted that "it was not a famous victory")
cleared the way for a trade agreement which would grant MFN status
to the Soviet Union. In August, however, the Soviets placed an
exit tax on Jewish emigrants, and the implementation of the
U.S.-Soviet Trade Agreement signed in Washington on October 18,
1972 became tied, via a series of Congressional maneuvers in which
Senator Jackson took the lead, to the removal of the tax and the
expansion of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. The MFN
provisions of the agreement have never gone into effect."
PA/HO:DWMabon
10/2/85 632-3518
RP 1454 WANG 0001t
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
25
Appendix
U.S.-SOVIET MEETING AT MOSCOW
MAY 22-30, 1972
PARTICIPANTS
United States
Richard Nixon, President of the United States
William P. Rogers, Secretary of State
Jacob D. Beam, Ambassador to the Soviet Union
Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
Peter M. Flanigan, Assistant to the President
Ronald L. Ziegler, Press Secretary to the President
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, National Security Council Staff
Winston Lord, National Security Council Staff
William Hyland, National Security Council Staff
Peter W. Rodman, National Security Council Staff
Martin J. Hillenbrand, Assistant Secretary of State for
European Affairs
Jack F. Matlock, Director for Soviet Affairs, Department
of State
William D. Krimer, Interpreter, Department of State
Soviet Union
L.I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party
N.V. Podgorny, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet
A.N. Kosygin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers
L.V. Smirnov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers
N.F. Baibakov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers
A.A. Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs
N.S. Patolichev, Minister of Foreign Trade
V.V. Kuznetsov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
A.F. Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador to the United States
L.M. Zamyatin, Director General of TASS
A.M. Aleksandrov-Agentov, Assistant to the General Secretary
G.M. Korniyenko, Chief, USA Division, Ministry
of Foreign Affairs
V.M. Sukhodrev, Interpreter
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA;RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
26
NOTES
1. Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little
Brown, 1979) (hereafter Kissinger I), pp. 112-114, 143-144,
552.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., pp. 552-557.
4. Ibid., p. 802; Office of the Historian, RP No. 1035,
September 1977, SECRET, pp. 290-350.
5. Kissinger I, pp. 810-822; Gerard C. Smith, Doubletalk: The
Story of the First Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (New
York: Doubleday, 1980) (hereafter Smith) pp. 194-198,
222-225; Memoranda by Kissinger of Conversations with
Dobrynin, April 23, April 27, May 5 and May 12-13, 1971,
and Letter from Nixon to Brezhnev, May 20, 1971, all in
Department of State, Kissinger files (hereafter DOS
Kissinger), Folder April-June 1971. (All
TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only) Smith believed the
back channel procedure unnecessary because his Soviet
counterpart, Vladimir S. Semenov, had in December 1970
already signaled the Soviet Union's willingness to
negotiate offensive and defensive limitation in parallel.
He later wrote that "it is difficult to understand why it
took from January to May to reach a consensus along the
lines which the Soviets had suggested so clearly in
December 1970." (Smith, p. 198).
6. Memorandum from Kissinger to Nixon enclosing memorandum by
Kissinger of conversation with Dobrynin, June 8 (DOS
Kissinger, Folder April-June 1971)
(TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only); Kissinger I, p. 833.
7. Memorandum by Kissinger of conversation held with Dobrynin
July 19, 1971, forms enclosure to memorandum from Kissinger
to Nixon, July 17, 1971 (DOS Kissinger, Folder
July-September 1971) (both TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes
Only).
8. Kissinger I, pp. 833-841.
9. Ibid., p. 835.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
27
10. Arkady N. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (New York:
Knopf, 1985), pp. 199-204; Memorandum of Interview with
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, September 26, 1985.
11. Letter from Brezhnev to Nixon, January 17, 1971; Letter
from Nixon to Brezhnev, January 25, 1972; Memorandum by
Kissinger of conversation held with Dobrynin January 21,
1972 (DOS Kissinger, Folder January-March 1972)
(TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only).
12. Memorandum by Kissinger of conversation between Nixon and
Dobrynin (TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only); Letter from
Nixon to Brezhnev, February 15, 1972 (both ibid.)
13. Kissinger I, pp. 1128-1129.
14. Memoranda by Kissinger of conversations held with Dobrynin
January 28, February 15, and March 10, 1972 (all DOS
Kissinger, Folder January-March 1972)
(TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only).
15. Kissinger I, pp. 1135-1137; 1148.
16. Ibid., 1148-1154. Shevchenko points out that the "Basic
Principles" meant much more to the Soviets than to the
United States, for the U.S. acceptance of the principle of
equality was a "powerful boost to Soviet egos." Breaking
with Moscow, P. 206. One source believes that Kissinger
and Nixon were forthcoming on this matter in the hope that
it might be an avenue to obtaining Soviet help in getting
out of Vietnam gracefully. Memorandum of Interview with
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, September 26, 1985.
17. Ibid., 1154-1164; Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard
Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978) (hereafter RN),
PP. 591-592; Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger
in the Nixon White House (New York: Summit books, 1983),
pp. 535-539.
18. Smith, pp. 372-373.
19. Ibid., pp. 375-376; Hersh, pp. 539-541; John Newhouse, Cold
Dawn: The Story of SALT (New York, HAW, 1973), pp. 245-247T
Note handed to Dobrynin May 1, 1972 forms attachment to
memorandum for the record by Haig, same date. (DOS
Kissinger, Folder April-June 1972)
20. Kissinger I, pp. 1174-1188; RN, pp. 600-602.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA7RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
28
21. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, pp. 212-213.
22. Kissinger I, pp. 1206-1207; Hersh, p. 539.
23. Smith, p. 417; Memoranda of Interview with Peter Rodman
and Helmut Sonnenfeldt, September 4 and September 26, 1985,
respectively.
24. Kissinger I, p. 1230.
25. Ibid., pp. 1208; 1219-1220.
26. Ibid., pp. 1207-1209; RN, pp. 609-610.
27. Memorandum by W. Krimer of First Plenary Session at 11
a.m., May 23 (Department of State, S/S Files, Lot 74 D 473,
Folder 7210810) (hereafter DOS 7210810) (S/NODIS).
28. Ibid., pp. 1221-1222; Smith, p. 412-413.
29. Kissinger I, pp. 1220-1224; Smith, pp. 414-415.
30. Kissinger I, p. 1220.
31. Kissinger I, pp. 1233-1235; Hersh, p. 547.
32. Memorandum by Kissinger of conversation held with Dobrynin
May 14 (DOS Kissinger Files, Folder April-June 1972)
(TS/Sensitive/Excusively Eyes Only); Smith, p. 420;
Kissinger I, pp. 1236-1238; Raymond Garthoff, "Negotiating
with the Russians: Some Lessons from SALT," International
Security 1:4, Spring 1977 (3-24), p. 15.
33. Kissinger I, pp. 1232-1233, 1240; RN, p. 615.
34. Letter from Nixon to Brezhnev, May 28, 1972 (text forms
attachment to memorandum from Helmut Sonnenfeldt to
Kissinger, July 17, 1974, Sonnenfeldt Files, Lot 81 D 286,
Control 7414085); Smith, p. 428. Though Nixon's letter is
dated May 28, it may have been agreed to earlier, since the
Interim Agreement was signed on May 26.
35. Kissinger I, pp. 1239-1242.
36. Memorandum by Martin J. Hillenbrand of Plenary Session at
11 a.m. (DOS 7210810) (S/NODIS).
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
29
37. Telegram 5041 from Moscow (Secto 40), May 27, 1972 (DOS
7210810) (S/NODIS).
38. Department of State Bulletin, June 26, 1972, P. 901;
Kissinger I, pp. 1249-1250. The linkage to troop
reductions is confirmed by the available conference
documents; that to the Vietnam War is not.
39. Telegram 5074 from Moscow (Secto 53), May 29, 1972 (DOS
7210810) (C/NODIS), Kissinger I, pp. 1246-1248, 1494;
Department of State Bulletin, June 26,-1%72, pp. 898-899,
902; Office of the Historian, RP No. 976-C, November 1976
(TS/NODIS), pp. 69-70.
40. RN, pp. 612-614; Kissinger I, pp. 1222-1228.
41: Ibid., p. 1251; RN, p. 617.
42. Department of State Bulletin, June 26, 1972, p. 902.
43. Telegram 4935 from Moscow (Secto 15), May 24, 1972 (DOS
7210810) (S/NODIS).
44. Memorandum of conversation by Flanigan, May 25, 1972
(ibid.) (S/NODIS).
45. Memorandum by Flanigan of Plenary Session at 2 p.m. May 25,
1972 (ibid.) (S/NODIS).
46. Telegram 5054 from London (Secto 86), June 1, 1972, and
memorandum of conversation held May 28, 1972, by Deane R.
Hinton and Lewis W. Bowden (both ibid.) (both S/NODIS).
47. Telegram 1000 from Berlin (Secto 110), June 3, 1972 (ibid.).
48. Department of State Bulletin, June 26, 1972, p. 900.
49. Kissinger I, pp. 1251-1252; RN, p. 617.
50. Memorandum by J. F. Matlock of Final Plenary Session held
May 29, 1972, at 12:50 p.m. (S/NODIS).
51. Smith, p. 319; Marvin and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger, (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1974), pp. 116-117.
52. Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow, pp. 215-216.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
30
53. Department of State, Documents on Disarmament, 1972, p. 653.
54. Smith, p. 444.
55. Note handed to Kissinger by Dobrynin on June 14, 1972,
forms attachment to letter from Haig to Dobrynin, June 15,
1972 (DOS Kissinger, Folder April-June 1972);
"Clarification of Interpretation of the Protocol to the
Interim Agreement...with Respect to the Limitation of
Strategic Offensive Arms," July 24, 1972 (text forms
attachment to memorandum from Sonnenfeldt to Kissinger,
July 17, 1974, Sonnefeldt files, Lot 81 D 286, Control
7414085); U.S. Congress, House Committee on Foreign
Affairs, Special Studies Series on Foreign Affairs Issues,
Volume I, Soviet Diplomacy and Negotiating Behavior:
Emerging New Context for U.S. Diplomacy (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1979), P. 471.
56. Henry A. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1982), pp. 1144-1151.
57. William B. Quandt, Decade of Decisions: American Policy
Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967-1976 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1977), p. 151; Anwar
el-Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (New
York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 229.
58. Richard P. Stebbins and Elaine P. Adam, eds., American
Foreign Relations, 1972: A Documentary Record New York:
New York University Press, 1976), pp. 156-157.
59. Kissinger I, p. 1269-1273; Hersh, pp. 531-535; Richard P.
Stebbins and Elaine P. Adam, eds., American Foreign
Relations, 1973: A Documentary Record (New York: New York
University Press, 1976), pp. 91-93.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
im,,ninecifiori in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
NIXON AND BREZHNEV AT WASHINGTON,
CAMP DAVID, AND SAN CLEMENTE,
JUNE 18-25, 1973
The Brezhnev visit to the United States (June 18-25),
undertaken more at Soviet initiative than American, took place
amidst much fanfare but under the cloud of the Watergate
hearings. Preparations were conducted primarily by a special
interagency committee under the National Security Council's
Senior Review Group, although some details were smoothed out by
National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger during a May visit
to the Soviet Union. Like Khrushchev's visit in 1959,
Brezhnev's was marked by public demonstrations, mainly by
Jewish groups critical of restrictive Soviet emigration
policies. During the visit ten agreements were signed, the
most important of which was an understanding on the prevention
of nuclear war. In several private talks with Nixon at Camp
David and San Clemente, Brezhnev also emphasized his anxiety
over improving U.S.-Chinese ties and tried unsuccessfully to
draw Nixon and Kissinger into an implied alliance against the
Chinese. In their final meeting at San Clemente, Brezhnev also
tried to bully Nixon into a secret deal to end the Middle
Eastern conflict.
Initiative: Uncertain Aftermath of the 1972 Summit
The final communique of the May 1972 Moscow summit referred
to another summit meeting to be held in Washington, but the
date was not stipulated. In the fall of 1972 the Soviets
evinced little interest in another summit, indicating that in
the absence of a nuclear agreement the Soviet Union preferred
November 1973 as a date. The United States wanted to postpone
the meeting for different reasons: to finish the Year of Europe
and further to improve relations with China.1
In February 1973, the Soviet Union showed new interest in a
meeting. Brezhnev wrote to Nixon using the ploy of rejecting
May as the date for a summit (a date never proposed) and
offering to push the meeting back to June. In the letter
Brezhnev suggested goals for the summit: progress on SALT, the
signing of the agreement on nonuse of nuclear weapons, and the
signing of accords on trade, science and technology, health,
and peaceful uses of atomic energy. The Soviet leader also
expressed interest in discussing the Middle East and various
European issues.2
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
2
Prospects for the summit were complicated by two domestic
developments in the United States. The first was the
introduction in April 1973 of the Jackson amendment to the
Trade Reform Act, by which the grant of most-favored-nation
(MFN) status to the Soviet Union would be linked to Jewish
emigration. Soviet suspension of the exit tax on emigrants,
which the White House belatedly communicated to Senate leaders
and Brezhnev's personal assurances in Moscow to a group of
visiting Senators, failed to stop introduction of the
amendment. The second event was the beginning of the Senate
Watergate hearings in May. White House aide John Dean was
scheduled to testify on June 18, the day Brezhnev was to arrive
in the United States. Under pressure from the Senate
leadership, Committee Chairman Sam Ervin postponed Dean's
testimony a week, until after Brezhnev's departure.3
The summit agenda, and a draft text of the agreement on the
prevention of nuclear war, -were ironed out during the visit of
National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to the Soviet Union
May 6-9. As part of the sounding out of each side's position
on the various issues, Kissinger also discussed the issue of
Jewish emigration. He gave Brezhnev a list compiled by
American Jewish leaders of 1,000 Jews who wanted to leave the
Soviet Union and were considered "hardship' cases. Not only
did Brezhnev promise to look into these cases, but he indicated
that the Soviet Union would try to maintain the annual level of
Jewish emigration at about 40,000. The Soviet leader made
clear to Kissinger that new U.S. SALT proposals for freezing
testing and deployment of MIRV'd missiles, which the Soviet
Union had not yet even begun testing but which the United
States had been deploying for three years, were unacceptable.
On the other hand, the United States opposed the Soviet
proposal advanced in the spring of 1973 for a ban on testing
and deployment of all new strategic systems. As one writer has
observed, "SALT thus remained at a stalemate" and there was
little room for maneuver at the summit on the issue of arms
control .4
The agreement on the prevention of nuclear war had been
discussed inconclusively at the Moscow 1972 summit and had been
raised again by the Soviets in the fall of that year in the
Kissinger-Dobrynin channel and during Gromyko's visit to
Washington in October. Nixon and Kissinger, who were never
that enthusiastic about the agreement because of the appearence
of a Soviet-American "condominium", used it to "keep Brezhnev
on the hook" so as to win concessions for the United States in
.other areas. Responsibility for drafting the agreement was
left entirely to Kissinger. Not even the Secretary of State or
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA;RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
3
Secretary of Defense knew of the agreement. Kissinger,
however, consulted extensively with the British expert on
Soviet affairs, Sir Thomas Brimelow, who eventually helped
draft the text that was agreed to by Kissinger and Brezhnev in
May. For the United States, the advantage of Brimelow's draft
was that it removed from the Soviet text implications of the
preeminence of Soviet-American relations over U.S. relations
with its allies and focused more on the threat of force with
any kind of weapon as contrasted to the Soviet emphasis on
nuclear weapons.5
Preparations: NSC Oversight
In the spring of 1973, the United States and the Soviet
Union were in the process of negotiating bilateral agreements
in several areas: transportation, oceanography, contacts and
exchanges, taxation, peaceful uses of atomic energy,
agriculture, and civil aviation. By late May agreed texts for
all but the last two had been achieved and it was considered
possible that agreement would be reached on those two during
the visit.6
The President directed the NSC's Senior Review Group headed
by Kissinger to oversee preparations for the visit. Within the
Senior Review Group framework, an ad hoc interagency committee
chaired by Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs
Walter J. Stoessel was established to assist with preparations
and coordination. Various working groups were also set up to
deal with substantive preparations, administrative and protocol
arrangements, press arrangements, security, and
communications.7
The substantive briefing papers on various issues were
condensed into a "basic memorandum" from Kissinger to the
President, which reviewed the major issues likely to be
discussed and provided the President with talking points on
each. In the memorandum Kissinger indicated that Brezhnev had
invested much personal prestige in the success of detente and
therefore wanted the visit to provide tangible signs of
economic benefits to the U.S.S.R. and improvement in
U.S.-Soviet relations. He was also concerned about the public
imagery associated with the visit and, in contrast to how
Khrushchev had appeared during his 1959 visit, did not want to
be the object of public demonstrations or to play the part of
the tourist. Kissinger felt that Brezhnev would be "more
confident and self-assured" than he had been at the 1972 summit
when he was uncertain about meeting the President and had just
gone through a major confrontation in the Politburo over his
policies and position. His health was slipping a little and he
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
4
was expected to rely more on Gromyko for details than he had
the previous year. Brezhnev was also expected to be "vague or
rhetorical" on all issues except the military-related
ones--SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), Mutual Balanced
Force Reductions (MBFR), and the nuclear agreement.
China was Brezhnev's great frustration and he had spoken
ominously to Kissinger during his visit in May about the
Chinese, claiming that the United States would make a mistake
in trusting them. He obviously wanted to wean the United
States away from the Chinese, but didn't know' how to do it.
There was little doubt, according to Kissinger, that the Soviet
Union had "contemplated military action against the Chinese,
but this was an agonizing decision without knowledge of the
U.S. course of action." Kissinger foresaw that one of the
major post-summit problems would be how to manage the
U.S.-Soviet-Chinese triangle, because the Soviet Union would
try to convince China and other countries that a
Soviet-American condominium was being establshed.
Kissinger did not believe Brezhnev would try to take
advantage of Nixon's Watergate troubles:
If Brezhnev believes that the present situation in the US
provides him with unusual opportunities for unilateral
gains -- because of our alleged need for a foreign policy
'success' -- this has not been evident in the summit
preparations. In all the negotiations on the various
agreements to be signed the Soviets have, if anything,
yielded on more points than we have.8
The Meetings: Fanfare and Modest Expectations
Brezhnev and his party arrived in the United States on June
16. Because of the General Secretary's concern about the
effects of jet lag and for reasons of prestige, he rested for
two days at Camp Davie before a formal arrival ceremony was
held at the White House on the morning of June 18. The Soviet
party also included Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Minister
of Foreign Trade Nikolai S. Patolichev, and Minister of Civil
Aviation Boris P. Bugayev, among others. During the visit the
President and Brezhnev spent 47 hours together--more than 9
hours in private meetings, another 9 hours in formal sessions,
and nearly 29 hours at informal gatherings, social functions,
and signing ceremonies.10 Meetings were held in Washington,
Camp David, and at San Clemente.
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
5
?
In addition to formal dinners at the White House and at the
Soviet Embassy, Brezhnev met on June 19 with members of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to whom he made a spirited
defense of Soviet emigration policy, and on June 22 with
American business leaders. These included Secretary of the
Treasury George P. Shultz, Secretary of Commerce Frederick
Dent, officers of various business organizations, and
representatives of more than 40 banks and companies that were
already doing business with the Soviet Union or planned to do
so. Later that evening he met at the Soviet Embassy with
officials of the Communist Party of the United States.11
U. Alexis Johnson, chief U.S. negotiator on SALT who
returned to Washington during the summit, found the deference
shown to Brezhnev "quite repellent". No friendly chief of
state, in his view, had ever received such lavish hospitality.
He felt that such extravagant treatment would neither moderate
Brezhnev's behavior nor reassure Allied leaders, many of whom
Johnson felt were treated cavalierly during their visits to
Washington 12
The Soviets proposed that the agreements all be signed on
June 19, the second day of the visit, but the Department of
State objected since it would create the impression the
agreements were not the result of the summit but were "part of
a public presentation prepared and canned in advance."
Moreover, spreading the signing ceremonies over several days
would maximize press attention to the agreements.13 As a
result the signing of the nine agreements was spread out over a
five-day period from June 19-23.
The first substantive meeting took place on June 18 at the
White House immediately after the arrival ceremony on the South
Lawn, during which Brezhnev broke ranks with the official party
and rushed over to the front row of onlookers "to shake hands
like an American politician on the campaign trail." Although
the first meeting was supposed to include the two leaders and
several of their aides, Nixon and Brezhnev posed alone for
photographs and then met privately for an hour with only Soviet
translator Victor Sukhodrev present. In later conversations
with Dobrynin, Kissinger got the impression that the
conversation was general and no agreements were reached, but
Sukhodrev never gave Kissinger the record of the conversation
as he had promised.14 Nixon recalled in his memoirs that he
and Brezhnev reviewed their general schedule and the agenda for
the meetings. Brezhnev, who became very animated during the
meeting and several times grabbed Nixon's arm to emphasize a
SECRET
neclassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
6
point, spoke about the special responsibilities the United
States' and the Soviet Union had:
We know that as far as power and influence are concerned,
the only two nations in the world that really matter are
the Soviet Union and the United States. Anything that we
decide between us, other nations in the world will have to
follow our lead, even though they may disagree with it.
Nixon reminded Brezhnev that both countries had allies, all of
whom were proud nations and "we must never act in such a way
that appears to ignore their interests."15
The first formal gathering, which lasted nearly 3 hours
during the early afternoon on June 18, was also attended by
Secretary of State William Rogers, Kissinger, NSC staff member
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Gromyko, Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin, and
Sukhodrev. Brezhnev spent much of the meeting summarizing the
history of Soviet-American relations. Nixon was not prepared
for a long meeting. The briefing paper supplied by Kissinger's
staff suggested that he agree on an agenda for the remaining
meetings and disabuse Brezhnev of any idea that the United
States would accept a condominium arrangement in world
affairs 16
The second day's talks, on June 19, lasted from the early
afternoon until evening and were concluded on board the
Presidential yacht Secluoia.. On June 20 and 21, the talks were
continued at Camp David. According to Nixon, during these
initial talks in Washington Brezhnev expressed disappointment
at the withholding of Most-Favored-Nation status, but he was
careful to blame Congress and not the President for the
decision. Although Brezhnev opposed limiting the number of
Soviet MIRVed missiles, he did reluctantly agree to set the end
of 1974 instead of 1975 as a deadline for reaching a permanent
SALT accord. At Camp David there were long sessions on SALT,
European security, and MBFR. Perhaps the high point of the
summit was Nixon's and Brezhnev's signing on June 22, in a
formal ceremony at the White House, of the Agreement for the
Prevention of Nuclear War, which provided for consultation in
situations that posed the threat of nuclear weapons. Both
nations renounced the use or threat of force against each other
and against the other's allies. According to one of
Kissinger's aides, the President and his National Security
Adviser felt they had "defanged" the agreement of its
potentially harmful language.17
The most significant meetings, in Kissinger's view, took
place at San Clemente on June 23 and were unscheduled. At
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA:RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
7
around noon that day, Nixon and Kissinger met with Brezhnev,
with the Soviet translator the only other person present.
Brezhnev launched into a tirade about the Chinese, chastising
their perfidy and moral degeneracy and implying that Mao Zedong
was insane. He then proposed a secret exchange of views on
China. Brezhnev said that he did not object to the state of
U.S.-Chinese relations, but a Sino-American military
understanding would only confuse world public opinion. Nixon
was noncommittal on the Chinese, but offered to stay in touch
through the Kissinger-Dobrynin channel on any subject Brezhnev
might wish to raise. Nixon turned the conversation to
Cambodia, arguing that renewed North Vietnamese activity there
was a threat to world peace. The President chided Brezhnev by
pointing out that many Americans would believe Soviet arms made
this threat possible. Brezhnev heatedly denied that any new
Soviet military equipment had been shipped to the North
Vietnamese and that the Soviet Government, which desired a
quick end to the war in Laos and Cambodia, would convey this
view to Hanoi. The General Secretary suggested that the
Chinese were responsible for circulating falsehoods about who
was arming the North Vietnamese and that it was probably the
Chinese themselves who were supplying the weapons.18
A few hours later, Gromyko took Kissinger aside and
expressed concern that Brezhnev had not been explicit enough.
Gromyko said he wanted to reaffirm unambiguously that any
military agreement between the United States and China would
lead to war. Kissinger said that he understood what the
Foreign Minister was saying, although Kissinger was
non-committal as to contemplated U.S. actions.18
The final meeting of the summit occurred at San Clemente
late in the evening of June 23 at Brezhnev's insistence. At 10
p.m. the Soviets got Nixon out of bed to meet on an unspecified
subject in what Kissinger regarded as "a transparent ploy to
catch Nixon off guard and with luck to separate him from his
advisers." At the meeting, also attended by Kissinger,
Dobrynin, Gromyko, and Sukhodrev, Brezhnev proposed that the
United States and the Soviet Union immediately agree to a
Middle East settlement based on total Israeli withdrawal to the
1967 borders in exchange for non-belligerency. A final peace
treaty would then be worked out between Israel and the
Palestinians and would be guaranteed by the Soviet Union and
the United States. According to Kissinger, this was nothing
more than the standard Arab position, which the United States
had consistently rejected in the past. Brezhnev said the
agreement would be secret and confined only to the people in
the room. He proceeded to threaten the President with a Middle
Eastern war if Nixon did not accept the Soviet proposal.
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
8
Kissinger felt it was an obvious attempt to exploit Nixon's
Watergate difficulties. After an hour and a half of Brezhnev's
diatribe, Nixon ended the meeting by stating that the matter
was not that simple and that the U.S. Government would submit a
counterdraft to the principles put forward by the Soviet Union
that spring for resolving the Middle Eastern crisis. The
following morning, when Brezhnev bade Nixon farewell, he showed
no signs of the bluster of the previous night. His thanks were
profuse and he invited the President for another visit to the
Soviet Union the following year.2?
A negative result of the summit was the irritation felt by
some U.S. allies when they learned of the agreement on the
prevention of nuclear war. Kissinger had kept the British,
French, and West German Governments informed, but only at the
very highest level. NATO representatives in Brussels, and
ambassadors in Washington of Japan, Israel, Egypt, and other
countries were not notified of the agreement until just before
it was signed. There ensued a stormy discussion in the NATO
Council. Even a special meeting between Kissinger and NATO
representatives at San Clemente at the end of June failed to
dispel altogether the irritation.21
Results: Consolidating or Weakening the Relationship
No one expected the summit to produce "breakthroughs" like
the arms limitations agreements concluded in Moscow the
previous year. In a press briefing, Kissinger said the United
States considered the summit as another step along the road
toward a "new and more peaceful system" and suggested that
regular meetings would be a positive development: "as these
meetings become a regular feature of international life, and as
we come to take them more and more for granted, the results
will follow paths that will come to seem more and more natural,
and we would consider that one of the best signs that a
peaceful world is coming into being." Nixon felt that the
various bilateral accords continued the process begun in 1972
of "building an interlocking web of relationships to increase
the Soviets' stake in stability and cooperation." The
President also felt he got to know Brezhnev better. He found
the General Secretary "more interesting and impressive" than he
had during the 1972 summit and also felt that Brezhnev had
gained a far better understanding of the United States and
American life than he could have from any briefing books.22
There were doubts, however, about the summit's utility. In
his memoirs, Kissinger showed little enthusiasm for the
centerpiece--the agreement on the prevention of nuclear
war--which he said was "marginally useful." He was not sure
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
9
whether it had been worth the effort: "the result was too
subtle; the negotiation too secret; the effort too protracted;
the necessary explanation to allies and China too complex to
have the desired impact." U. Alexis Johnson later wrote that
"nothing of substance" emerged from the summit. On SALT, the
only progress was that Brezhnev told Kissinger that he would
deal with SALT personally and would make a counter-proposal
through Dobrynin to Kissinger. Perhaps the most that can be
said is that the second Nixon-Brezhnev summit represented "the
consolidation of a new phase in the building of a continuing
relationship of detente between the two "powers."23
On the other hand, the domestic atmosphere in which the
summit was held may have weakened detente. In his memoirs,
Kissinger bemoaned the effect of Watergate on the summit and on
,the Soviet-American relationship. As a result of the "internal
disarray" dramatically demonstrated by Watergate, Soviet
leaders began to conclude that Nixon's problems were
"terminal". Although this perception probably did not
encourage Soviet adventurism, it did make Soviet leaders more
willing to ignore adventures by friendly nations. In this
sense, the effect of Watergate on the 1973 summit, in
Kissinger' R view, led directly to the Middle East war later
that year.44
PA/HO:RDLanda
RP 1454 632-8979
Wang No. 574r
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
10
Appendix
U.S.-SOVIET MEETING AT WASHINGTON,
CAMP DAVID AND SAN CLEMENTE
JUNE 18-25, 1973
PARTICIPANTS
United States
Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States
William P. Rogers, Secretary of State
George P. Shultz, Secretary of the Treasury
Henry A. Kissinger, Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs
Walter J. Stoessel, Assistant Secretary of State for
European Affairs
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, National Security Council Staff
Member
Soviet Union
Leonid I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party
A.A. Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Member of the
Politbureau of the Central Committee
N.S. Patolichev, Minister of Foreign Trade
B.P. Bugayev, Minister of Civil Aviation
G.E. Tsukanov, Assistant to the the General Secretary
A.M. Aleksandrov, Assistant to the General Secretary
L.M. Zamyatin, Director General of TASS
E.I. Chazov, Deputy Minister of Public Health
G.M. Korniyenko, Member of the Collegium of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs
G.A. Arbatov, Director of the USA Institute of the
Academy of Sciences
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
11
NOTES
'Henry A. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little,
Brown and Company, 1982), P. 282.
2Ibid., p. 281.
3Raymond Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation:
American-Soviet Relations?ME-Nixon to Reagan (Washington: The
Brookings Instita=7?rg83)7-1:157-575-32 .
4Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 271; Garthoff,
Detente and Confrontation, pp. 328-330.
5Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 278-284; draft
memorandum of conversation with Helmut Sonnenfeldt by David
Mabon (PA/HO) and James Miller (PA/HO), September 26, 1985
(PA/HO Files); Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 336-338.
8Memorandum from Stoessel (EUR) to Kissinger, May 30,
1973. (S/S No. 7309961) (S)
7Memorandum from Scowcroft to the Acting Secretary of
State, May 21, 1973. (S/S No. 7309567) (S)
8Memorandum from Kissinger to the President, undated.
(S/S No. P770094) (S)
9Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 289-290.
10Statement by Ron Ziegler at Kissinger's news
conference, June 25, 1973; in Richard P. Stebbins and Elaine P.
Adam, eds., American Foreign Relations, 1973: A Documentary
Record (New York: New York University Press for the Council on
Foreign Relations, 1976), p. 269.
11U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, Leonid I. Brezhnev:
Pages from His Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp.
230-233.
12U. Alexis Johnson, The Right Hand of Power
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1984), p. 593.
13Memorandum from Elliot (S/S) to Kissinger,
1973. (S/S No. 7310919) (S)
14Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 290.
SECRET
(Englewood
June 15,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
SECRET
12
15Richard Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York:
Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 878.
18Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 291.
17Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 879-880; Garthoff, Detente and
Confrontation, p. 343; memorandum of conversation with Peter
Rodman (S/P) by members of the Office of the Historian (PA/H0),
September 6, 1985 (PA/HO Files).
18Ibid., pp. 882-883.
19Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 295.
20Ibid., pp. 297-299.
21Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, pp. 338-340.
22Stebbins and Adam, American Foreign Relations, 1973,
p. 251; transcript of Kissinger's press conference, June 25,
1973, ibid., p. 273; Nixon, Memoirs, pp. 886-887.
23Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 285-286; Johnson,
Right Hand of Power, p. 593; Garthoff, Detente and
Confrontation, p. 343.
24Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 300.
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
NIXON AND BREZHNEV AT MOSCOW, JUNE 27-JULY 3, 1974
President Richard Nixon and General Secretary Leonid
Brezhnev met in Moscow in June 1974 only a few weeks before
Nixon's resignation, amid growing pressure for his departure
from office. Because of his lame-duck status, both sides had
low expectations. The atmosphere was generally harmonious, but
the substantive achievements were modest.
The agreements signed at the summit included a protocol to
the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty reducing the
number of ABM sites allowed each country from two to one and a
treaty banning underground nuclear testing above a certain size
or threshold. Most of the agreements had been negotiated in
advance, but the final details of the threshold test ban, which
was never ratified by the United States, were negotiated at the
summit. The two sides were unable to reach an agreement on
offensive strategic weapons, but Secretary of State Henry A.
Kissinger and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko agreed
to explore the possibility of a 10-year time frame for a SALT
agreement, opening the way for the Vladivostok accord a few
months later.
Initiative: Hope of Bolstering Detente
Brezhnev extended the invitation for Nixon's return visit
to Moscow during his 1973 visit to the United States, in
accordance with their earlier agreement that such meetings
should be held on a regular basis.1 The third summit in 26
months, it was intended to be part of an ongoing series. The
Nixon administration expected the annual summit meetings to
contribute to the detente process by encouraging both sides to
reach agreements on arms control and bilateral cooperation and
by providing an opportunity for an exchange of views. They
offered personal benefits to Nixon and Brezhnev by dramatizing
detente, with which both were closely associated, as well as by
enhancing their images as world leaders.
Detente was increasingly coming under political attack from
both left and right in the United States. Congressional
criticism led by Senator Henry Jackson focused on the 1972
Interim Agreement, which had imposed a 5-year freeze on U.S.
and Soviet strategic offensive forces, and on repressive Soviet
domestic policies. A bill to enable the president to extend
most-favored-nation (MFN) status to the Soviet Union, as
provided in the U.S.-Soviet trade agreement of 1972, had been
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
2
stalled by House amendments barring the extension of MFN status
or government-guaranteed export credits to any Communist
country limiting freedom of emigration. These restrictions,
known collectively as the Jackson-Vanik amendment, threatened
the economic benefits which the Soviets had anticipated from
detente. The desire to eliminate these restrictions, which the
Nixon administration shared with the Soviets, was an important
consideration on both sides as they planned for the summit.
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko confirmed
Brezhnev's invitation during a meeting with'Nixon in Washington
in February 1974, stating that June would be the most
convenient time for Nixon's visit. He urged active
preparations to guarantee results no less positive than those
of the previous two summits, but neither side insisted that
plans for the visit should be contingent on the successful
conclusion of any prior negotiations. In March, the visit was
scheduled for the last week in June, but it was later postponed
by 3 days when Nixon decided on a June trip to the Middle
East. Plans for the summit were announced on May 31.2
By that time, Nixon's political position was becoming
increasingly precarious. His release on April 30 of selected
White House transcripts increased rather than diminished
pressure for his departure from office, and on May 9, the House
Judiciary Committee began closed-session impeachment hearings.
Nevertheless, the Soviets, who were apparently convinced that
the attacks on Nixon were to some extent veiled attacks on
detente, made no attempt to put off the visit. They evidently
hoped to bolster detente and derail the Jackson-Vanik
amendment. They seem to have anticipated that Nixon would
survive, although by the time of the summit, even Moscow could
see that impeachment was possible. If they thought Nixon would
make one-sided concessions on strategic arms limitations (SALT)
at the summit in order to reach an agreement, they were
mistaken; his political weakness left him little room for
maneuver.
Preparations: No Agreement on SALT
Since both Washington and Moscow wanted a successful
summit, both sides endeavored to work out agreements on arms
control and other subjects in advance. In his meeting with
Nixon in February, Gromyko proposed a list of ten topics for
discussion, including several possible subjects for
agreements: general U.S.-Soviet relations, SALT, the Middle
East, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE), mutual and balanced force reductions (MBFR) in Central
Europe, Indochina, U.S.-Soviet trade relations, a ban on
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
3
underground nuclear testing, prohibition of measures hostile to
the environment, climate, and human health, and new
arrangements for scientific and technical cooperation. Nixon
added the subject of cooperation on energy, a western
preoccupation after the 1973 oil embargo, to the list.3
The central issue in U.S.-Soviet bilateral relations was,
of course, SALT. Washington and Moscow had agreed earlier to
conclude a comprehensive SALT agreement in 1974 to replace the
Interim Agreement. In the SALT II negotiations in Geneva, the
Soviets had proposed a continuation of the freeze on strategic
offensive forces, which would have perpetuated their 40 percent
advantage in number of missile launchers, while the United
States had proposed equal numbers of missile launchers, or
equal aggregates. The two sides had quickly reached an
impasse, making it evident that a comprehensive agreement could
not be concluded before the summit. Both sides recognized,
however, that even a limited SALT accord would bolster detente
and provide a centerpiece for the summit. The effort to reach
such an agreement was the major issue in the high-level
U.S.-Soviet talks in preparation for the summit.
The administration was divided as to the proper U.S.
objective in the SALT negotiations. The Pentagon, supported by
Senator Jackson, wanted an agreement providing for equal
aggregates and was especially interested in limits on Soviet
throw weight, in which Moscow had the advantage. Kissinger
advocated efforts to restrain Soviet use of MIRV technology, in
which the United States had the lead. To achieve this, he was
prepared to extend the Interim Agreement, thus balancing the
Soviet advantage in number of launchers with the U.S. lead in
MIRVing its missiles. At a March NSC meeting, when Kissinger
reported an indication that Moscow might accept restrictions on
MIRVs, Nixon decided to try to obtain such an arrangement at
the summit but that the U.S. delegation at Geneva should
continue to work toward a comprehensive agreement. The effort
to negotiate a summit agreement was thus left in Kissinger's
hands.4
Kissinger and Brezhnev laid the groundwork for the summit
when Kissinger made a 3-day visit to Moscow at the end of
March. In almost 20 hours of discussions, they covered the
full range of issues contemplated for the summit, including
SALT. Brezhnev agreed in principle to a U.S. proposal for a
three-year extension of the Interim Agreement with limitations
on MIRVed ICBMs and additional limitations on MIRVed heavy
ICBMs, but the two sides remained far apart on numbers.
Kissinger proposed a 5-3 ratio of MIRVed missiles in favor of
the United States. Brezhnev initially proposed equal numbers
but after a meeting of the Politburo, he offered 1,100 for the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
4
United States to 1,000 for the Soviets. Although Kissinger
told him this was unacceptable, the Soviet willingness to
accept an inferior number of MIRVed missiles suggested that it
might be possible to reach an agreement.5
Kissinger was receptive to a Brezhnev proposal to reduce
the number of ABM sites allowed each country under the 1972 ABM
Treaty from two to one. While the Interim Agreement had been
controversial in the United States, the ABM Treaty had won
almost unanimous Senate approval. The United States had one
ABM system, protecting the ICBM field at Grand Forks, North
Dakota, and Congress had rejected an administration request for
funds to constuct a second system.8
Although Kissinger turned down a Brezhnev proposal for a
total ban on underground nuclear testing, which the United
States had previously rejected because of the difficulty of
verification, he was interested when Brezhnev suggested a ban
on testing nuclear devices above a certain size, or threshold.
Kissinger agreed to explore this possibility but stressed that
arrangements for verification and for dealing with peaceful
nuclear explosions (PNEs) would be necessary. He opposed
including any proviso in such an agreement for other countries
to adhere to it, thus putting pressure on them to do so, noting
that it would irritate the French and the Chinese. 7
Although the discussions were generally friendly and
businesslike, there were a few exceptions. Brezhnev resorted
to browbeating tactics during a lengthy session on the Middle
East. During a discussion of SALT, he raised the subject of
Nixon's domestic political problems, referring to "all these
attacks on him." Kissinger reacted promptly to this, declaring
that his rejection of the Soviet SALT proposal was based on its
intrinsic nature and not on domestic political difficulties.
At another point Brezhnev tried to use the summit as leverage
to press for an early CSCE agreement, but Kissinger replied
that the visit was in the mutual interest of both countries and
could not be conditional. Brezhnev did not repeat this ploy,
and Kissinger concluded from his private exchanges and from the
treatment of his visit in the Soviet press that Brezhnev's
interest in a Nixon visit was undiminished.8
In the next few weeks, U.S.-Soviet negotiations directed at
possible summit agreements on a variety of subjects got
underway. Technical talks on artificial heart research, urban
cooperation and housing technology, and energy were initiated
by the relevant U.S. agencies and their Soviet counterparts,
while the Embassy in Moscow discussed a Soviet proposal for a
new exchange of consulates with the Soviet Foreign Ministry.
Meanwhile, an interagency working group in Washington examined
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
the possibility of an agreement limiting MIRVs, an ABM
agreement, and another Brezhnev proposal for denuclearization
of the Mediterranean.9
Since Kissinger had moved to the State Department along
with some of his close associates, the Department's involvement
in the summit preparations was greater than in 1972 and 1973.
The key negotiations for a SALT agreement were carried on by
Kissinger, however; although he was now wearing two hats he
played much the same role as he had in preparing for the two
previous summits. He continued to meet regularly with Soviet
Ambassador Anatoliy F. Dobrynin and intermittently with
Gromyko. The "channel" had moved to Foggy Bottom.
In 2 days of talks in Geneva at the end of April, Kissinger
and Gromyko discussed a U.S. counterproposal on SALT which had
been sent to Moscow earlier through Dobrynin. It provided for
an extension of the Interim Agreement until 1980 or 1983, with
differing MIRV limits for-the United States and for the
Soviets, the precise figures depending on whether the agreement
was extended for 6 or 9 years. It also called for an increase
in the Interim Agreement's limit on U.S. submarine-launched
ballistic missiles (SLBMs); this was to provide for the
deployment of the Trident, which would be underway by 1983.
Gromyko dismissed this as one-sided and argued vigorously
against the proposed increase in the U.S. limit on SLBMs.
Kissinger replied that the United States was making a
considerable concession on MIRVs. Gromyko commented that they
understood each other very well; the difficulty was not one of
misunderstanding but of differing approaches.lu
Kissinger and Gromyko made better progress in discussing
the proposed ABM and threshold test ban (TTB) agreements.
Gromyko gave Kissinger a draft ABM agreement limiting both
sides to one ABM site, but Kissinger told him that since the
United States would be making a commitment not to defend its
capital, it would want either a limit on the agreement's
duration or provision for altering the defended site. He and
Gromyko agreed to initiate technical discussions on a TTB with
a view to reaching a summit agreement in principle. Gromyko
thought this would be acceptable although the Soviets still
hoped to have a full summit agreement.11
The possibility of impeachment proceedings was already
casting a shadow over the Moscow visit. At Geneva, Gromyko
asked Kissinger about the President's "situation" and raised
the subject of impeachment. On May 28, Dobrynin delivered a
personal oral message from Brezhnev to Nixon expressing the
expectation that their meeting would be an impressive one, with
agreements on ABM, TTB, and other subjects, and hinting, with
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
6
characteristic lack of subtlety, that Nixon might gain domestic
support through a successful summit. Nixon said Dobrynin
should tell Brezhnev that domestic politics would not affect
his trip or U.S.-Soviet relations in any way and not to worry
about him or his health.12
Another U.S. proposal on SALT, designed for discussion at
the summit, was given to Dobrynin on June 7. It called for an
extension of the Interim Agreement until 1979, with a limit of
1,150 MIRVed missiles for the United States and 750 for the
Soviets and a ban on MIRVing heavy ICBMs. The proposal was
designed to accommodate U.S. programs through 1979 and to hold
Soviet programs to a minimum, especially to prevent the MIRVing
of Soviet SS-18 missiles and thus reduce Soviets' throwweight
advantage. Although the 3-2 ratio was even more favorable to
the United States than Kissinger's earlier proposals, it was
veiled by a cosmetic formula designed to make it more palatable
to Moscow. The Kissinger aides who had developed the proposal
.hoped it would provide a basis for negotiation at Moscow.13
As the date of the summit approached, however, the extent
of disagreement on SALT within the administration came to the
surface. Nixon's political decline removed inhibitions on the
Pentagon's opposition to extension of the Interim Agreement and
aroused fears that he might make a rash SALT agreement at
Moscow in a last-ditch attempt to ward off impeachment. These
fears rested in part on the distrust which he and Kissinger had
engendered over the past few years by holding the SALT
negotiations so closely in their own hands. Chief of Naval
Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., wrote later that he
thought at the time the objective should be "getting the talks
deadlocked or postponed or adjourned until the U.S. Government
was in a condition to talk rationally. $114
Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger wrote to Senator
Jackson on June 3 backing Jackson's position on SALT, thus, in
effect, publicly disassociating himself from the
administration's negotiating position. At an NSC meeting on
the eve of the summit, he put forward an entirely new proposal
for an agreement which would have been even more favorable to
the United States than those Moscow had already rejected.
Meanwhile, Jackson was holding executive session hearings on
arms control issues, and Paul Nitze had resigned from the SALT
Delegation in Geneva with a blast at Nixon. In Kissinger's
words, Nitze's resignation made it clear that "Nixon had no
domestic base for any significant agreement in Moscow
regardless of its content."15
Technical talks on a possible threshold test ban, which had
been going on in Moscow for a month, had not produced
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TUY SECRET/NODIS
7
agreement. The Soviets were pressing for an annual quota on
nuclear explosions between an upper and lower threshold, with
an upper threshold as high as 750 kilotons. The U.S. side
opposed the idea of a quota and thought such a high limit would
make an agreement meaningless. Other unresolved issues
included the problem of closing the PNE loophole and the
technical data which would be exchanged to assist
verification. It seemed evident that an agreement in principle
was the most that could be accomplished at the summit.I6
A number of agreements were ready for signature, however,
notably the ABM protocol. The Soviets had accepted the U.S.
position that each side should have one Opportunity to change
its choice of ABM site. Agreement on the opening of new
consulates had been reached when Moscow accepted the U.S.
preference for Kiev rather than Odessa. Bilateral agreements
on long-term economic cooperation and for cooperation in the
fields of energy, housing, and artificial heart research had
also been reached. Two protocols on procedures for
implementation of the 1972 SALT agreements, which had been
negotiated in the U.S.-Soviet Standing Consultative Commission,
had also been designated for signature at the summit, although
they were highly technical and would not be made public.17
While advance preparations for the summit had focused
primarily on SALT and other areas of possible agreement, the
Moscow discussions would of course cover a wide range of
bilateral and international issues. The Trade Reform Bill was
still before the Senate, and the Jackson-Vanik amendment
remained an obstacle to passage of the bill in a form which
would be acceptable to Moscow and to the Nixon administration.
Kissinger was trying to work out a compromise by obtaining
Soviet assurances of willingness to permit Jewish emigration
Which might alleviate congressional concern; he had discussed
this with Gromyko at Geneva. The status of MFN and credits was
expected to be high on the Soviet list of items for
discussion. 18
Discussion of the Middle East was expected to be a major
source of contention. Since the October 1973 war, the United
States had negotiated a series of limited disengagement
agreements between Egypt and Israel and between Syria and
Israel. In high-level U.S.-Soviet meetings, the Soviets had
complained regularly at their exclusion from these negotiations
and had urged the reconvening of the Geneva Conference. Nixon
and Kissinger had argued that a step-by-step approach was most
productive for the time being, but in the hope of preventing
Soviet obstruction of the peace process, they had indicated
their willingness to reconvene the Geneva Conference at a later
date and had reiterated their intention to keep Moscow informed
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
8
of developments. Similar discussion was expected at the
summit.19
By mid-June, a draft communiqu?overing a full range of
issues had been negotiated by Department of State Counselor
Helmut Sonnenfeldt and Soviet Minister Yuli M. Vorontsov. The
language on offensive arms limitation was left for
determination at the summit, as were a number of points on
which the two sides disagreed, including the nuclear test ban,
Soviet texts on environmental or weather Modification and
chemical warfare, CSCE, MBFR, the Middle East, and
Indochina.20
Surveying the Moscow scene 3 weeks before Nixon's visit,
Ambassador Walter J. Stoessel concluded that the Soviet
leadership remained committed to detente and viewed the
upcoming summit as an important step toward solidifying
U.S.-Soviet relations. All indications were that the
atmosphere would be significantly warmer than in Nixon's 1972
visit. The agreements already reached provided at least a
minimal base of achievement to show at the summit, and Soviet
negotiating tactics in achieving them had seemed to reflect a
desire to signal forthrightness and good will. Nonetheless,
although the Soviets still seemed interested in making a
breakthrough in SALT or a test ban, Stoessel thought they would
pursue those negotiations on their own merit and that they were
realistic about the concrete steps which might be possible. If
necessary, he thought, they would settle for a summit dominated
by atmospherics. They wanted the symbolism of the summit to
show an upward progression of U.S.-Soviet relations and to show
continuity regardless of circumstances.21
Ambassador Dobrynin might have made similar comments about
U.S. objectives and expectations as the summit approached. The
Nixon administration had invested considerable effort to
achieve agreements for signature at the summit but was in no
position to make significant concessions on SALT. Under the
circumstances, both sides were prepared to settle for symbolism
and atmospherics.
Discussions: Harmony for Its Own Sake
Nixon arrived in Moscow on June 27 following a 2-day
meeting with NATO leaders in Brussels. He was suffering from
phlebitis, but it apparently did not inhibit his activities
during the visit. After 2 days in Moscow, the Presidential
party flew to the Crimea to spend 2 days at Brezhnev's villa in
Oreanda, a suburb of Yalta. The White House had been reluctant
to accept the Yalta site because of its associations but had
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
9
finally acceded to Brezhnev's desire to entertain Nixon at his
"Casa Pacifica". On July 1, Nixon and Mrs. Nixon flew to Minsk
for a ceremonial visit, while Kissinger held further talks with
Gromyko in Moscow. Back in Moscow the next day, Nixon attended
the final plenary meetings, made a radio and television address
to the Soviet people, and hosted a farewell dinner at Spaso
House. He left Moscow on July 3.22
During Nixon's week in the Soviet Union, he and Brezhnev
spent between 8 to 10 hours in plenary sessions and met
privately on several occasions. The plenary discussions
covered a wide range of issues but reached few conclusions.
Those attending included Soviet President Nikolai V. Podgorny,
Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin, Gromyko, Dobrynin, Kissinger,
Stoessel, and several aides on both sides. Brezhnev took the
lead on the Soviet side, but Kosygin and Podgorny participated
occasionally in the discussion. Brezhnev's interpreter Viktor
M. Sukhodrev interpreted. Detailed negotiations on SALT, the
test ban treaty, and the communique took place in separate
sessions between Kissinger and Gromyko.
The Soviets evidently had decided, as Stoessel had
predicted, to scale down their expectations and settle for a
summit dominated by atmospherics. The mood was generally
congenial. There was no recurrance of the meetings at odd
hours and attempted browbeating that had characterized the
first two Nixon-Brezhnev summits. Since it was apparent that
no major breakthrough was possible, Kissinger later observed,
"the appearance of harmony became its own objective."23
The opening plenary session on June 28 dealt in
generalities. Both Nixon and Brezhnev made ritual statements
praising detente, stating their determination to make it
irreversible, and declaring the value of regular summit
meetings in contributing to detente. Brezhnev welcomed Nixon's
invitation to visit the United States in 1975 but suggested
that they might have separate, briefer meetings, dealing with
only one or two issues. While Nixon stressed the importance of
his personal relationship with Brezhnev, the Soviet leader was
probably thinking of meeting Nixon's successor.24
At the afternoon session, Nixon and Brezhnev focused on the
question of a nuclear test ban. The discussion took an
unexpected turn when Brezhnev and Kosygin revived the old
Soviet proposal for a comprehensive test ban, which had not
been discussed since Brezhnev's March proposal of a threshold
test ban. Nixon, revealing his own preoccupations, related the
issue to domestic attacks on detente and portrayed himself as
uniquely able to win the American public's support for
detente. He and Brezhnev finally turned the issue over to
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
10
Kissinger and Gromyko, who met the following morning and agreed
to draft a protocol agreeing in principle to negotiate a ban on
underground testing above a specified threshold. This was what
the American side had anticipated.25
At the plenary session the next morning, Nixon and Brezhnev
agreed to a threshold test ban with a threshold of 150
kilotons. Brezhnev made one more effort at a comprehensive
test ban, urging that they should set a time limit for reaching
such an agreement, but Nixon rejected this also. Brezhnev then
suggested that they could resolve the problem of PNEs by
inviting observers to witness peaceful explosions. When
Kissinger expressed interest in this unprecedented offer,
Brezhnev declared that after all it would be possible to reach
an agreement. Kissinger questioned whether it would be
possible to work out all the details in time to sign an
agreement at the summit; from the U.S. perspective, the
technical details on verification were of critical importance.
At this point, Kosygin appealed blatantly to Nixon's political
needs, declaring that an agreement would give him "a very
strong position in public-opinion." Nixon agreed that the
technical experts should make another effort to resolve the
outstanding issues.26
After receiving Brezhnev's blessing, the Soviet technical
experts became more forthcoming, and when Kissinger and Gromyko
returned from the Crimea, they resolved the remaining issues
and completed a draft treaty. Kissinger rejected a Soviet
proposal for an accession clause, which would have put implicit
pressure on China, and Gromyko did not press the point. The
major problem was to eliminate the PNE loophole. In spite of
Brezhnev's offer of on-site inspection, a detailed agreement of
this nature could not be reached at the summit. Kissinger
pressed for a moratorium on PNEs above the threshold level
until the two sides concluded a PNE agreement on PNEs. When
Gromyko resisted including this in the treaty, Kissinger agreed
to leave it out but told Gromyko the United States would not
ratify the treaty until the two sides concluded a PNE
agreement.27
Nixon and Brezhnev did not discuss the key issue of SALT
until 3 days into the summit, reflecting the recognition on
both sides that there was little chance of reaching agreement.
When they raised the issue at a plenary meeting on June 30 at
Oreanda, Kissinger presented the proposal given to Dobrynin on
June 7 for an extension of the Interim Agreement until 1979,
with limits of 1,150 MIRVed missiles for the United States and
750 for the Soviet Union and a ban on MIRVing heavy ICBMs.
Rejecting this, Brezhnev repeated his March counterproposal for
limits of 1,100 MIRVed missiles for the United States and 1,000
for the Soviets.28
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
11
Brezhnev reiterated the standard Soviet argument against
U.S. forward-based systems (FBS) and argued that the United
States had the advantage in number of warheads. Assisted by
two Soviet generals, he made a detailed presentation (which he
had made with Kissinger in March) purporting to show a U.S.
first-strike potential of 16,000 warheads, 4,000 more than the
Soviets had. The figure was based on "unrealistic
assumptions," Kissinger told Brezhnev the next day.29 It was
"exaggerated but not totally absurd," he told British Foreign
Secretary James Callaghan when he briefed him on the summit a
few days later, a "worst-case analysis" from the perspective of
the Soviet military. Kissinger told Callaghan he thought
Brezhnev was under pressure from the Soviet military, as shown
by the assertiveness of the two generals who "jumped up all the
time" to point things out to him.30
" Nixon and Brezhnev later agreed that Kissinger and Gromyko
should make another attempt at reaching agreement while Nixon
made his ceremonial visit to Minsk. Brezhnev and Dmitri F.
Ustinov, a Politburo member with responsibility for defense
industries, met briefly with Kissinger on their return to
Moscow. Kissinger made it plain that there was no flexibility
in the U.S. negotiating position. Even an agreement with the
figures Nixon had offered would "produce an explosion" in the
U.S., he told Brezhnev.31 At a Politburo meeting that
afternoon, the Soviets apparently decided to abandon any
attempt to reach an agreement. When Kissinger and Gromyko met
in a small, restricted session that evening, they quickly
reached an impasse. Gromyko told Kissinger that Moscow could
not accept an agreement which was not based on the principle of
equality; the U.S. figures were "so unrealistic", he said, and
the proposed ban on heavy missiles was "not for serious
discussion. "32
Since the appearance of a successful summit was important
to both Washington and Moscow, however, both sides wanted the
communique to indicate progress on SALT. Kissinger suggested
they might be able to find a different basis for agreement if
the arrangement covered a longer period of time, and Gromyko
seized upon this concept, suggesting a 10-year agreement. The
idea was apparently discussed and approved at a Politburo
meeting the next morning. Gromyko and Kissinger subsequently
drafted language for the communique stating that the Interim
Agreement should be followed by a new agreement covering the
period until 1985 and that it should include both quantitative
and qualitative limitations, i.e., that it should include
restrictions on MIRVs.33
The plenary discussions of CSCE and the Middle East were
predictable but without acrimony. Brezhnev complained about
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
12
European demands in the CSCE and urged U.S.-Soviet cooperation
to achieve an early agreement to be signed at the summit
level. Nixon agreed that U.S. and Soviet experts could get
together and discuss some of the problems, but he pointed out
that Washington could not dictate to its European allies and
that it was necessary to consider their sensitivities.
Discussion of the Middle East was desultory. Brezhnev stressed
the Soviet interest in reconvening the Geneva Conference and
desire for consultations but made no effort to pressure Nixon
as he had done with Kissinger in March and with Nixon at San
Clemente a year earlier.34
Other subjects received little attention in the formal
sessions. Nixon renewed his earlier commitment to obtain
congressional approval of MFN and credits, but Brezhnev touched
only indirectly on Soviet concern with the issue. He renewed a
proposal he had made to Kissinger in March for a joint ban on
nuclear weapons in the Mediterranean, but when Nixon
predictably rejected it, he did not try to press the issue.
Nixon urged that both sides exercise restraint in supplying
arms to their allies in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. He
touched on U.S. concern for progress in the MBFR talks but
neither he nor Brezhnev pursued this subject.35
Nixon and Brezhnev had two private meetings in Moscow and a
lengthy private conversation at Brezhnevis cabana overlooking
the Black Sea at Oreanda. Sukhodrev was the only other person
present during these discussions. In addition, they had
informal conversations on the plane to the Crimea, in the car
during the 64-mile drive between Oreanda and the airport, and
during a 2-hour cruise in Brezhnev's yacht on the Black Sea.
According to Nixon's memoirs, his private talks with Brezhnev
were warmer and more cordial than the formal sessions. They
touched on a variety of issues but generally eschewed
substantive negotiations. Nixon raised the problem of Soviet
restrictions on Jewish emigration, a sensitive subject for
Moscow, in a private conversation rather than in a formal
meeting, urging Brezhnev to make a gesture, if only to pull the
rug out from Jackson.36
During Nixon's and Brezhnevis private meeting in Oreanda,
the Soviet leader made a proposal which was similar to but went
even further than his 1972 proposal for a U.S.-Soviet agreement
abjuring the use of nuclear weapons. No record of the Oreanda
conversation is available except sketchy accounts in the Nixon
and Kissinger memoirs, but Brezhnev repeated the proposal to
Kissinger a few months later, describing it as a personal idea
which he had not discussed with anyone else. He proposed a
U.S.-Soviet agreement that in the event of a nuclear attack on
either of them or on their allies, they would come to each
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
13
other's assistance. Such an agreement would have been
obviously directed at China. Discussing it with Kissinger in
October, Brezhnev commented, "So far the only nuclear powers
are you us, your allies, and China, and who knows whose ally
it is?"37
Brezhnev's purpose in making the proposal may have been to
probe the U.S. reaction to the possibility of a Sino-Soviet
conflict or perhaps a Soviet preemptive strike on China.
Although China was not discussed at the formal meetings in
Moscow, and Brezhnev affected unconcern during his conversation
with Nixon at Oreanda, Gromyko and Defense Minister Andrey A.
Grechko both warned against China in social Conversations
during the summit. Beijing was following a firmly anti-Soviet
policy, having rejected Soviet overtures for a non-aggression
pact and a compromise on border issues the previous year, while
Sino-American relations continued to improve. Although the
Chinese political scene was exceptionally murky in 1974,
neither of the two contending factions showed any interest in
improving relations with Moscow.38
Nixon apparently responded to Brezhnev's proposition with
delaying tactics. Brezhnev told Kissinger that Nixon had
indicated he considered the proposal a very interesting idea
and would give Brezhnev a reply in a couple of months. In his
memoirs, Kissinger says Nixon described the proposal to him in
Sukhodrev's hearing and instructed him to pursue the idea for
inclusion on the agenda at a possible mini-summit later in the
year. Although Kissinger writes that he entertained suspicions
of Nixon's purposes at the time, Nixon could hardly have agreed
to such an arrangement and probably thought he and Kissinger
could transform it during subsequent negotiations as they had
done with the 1972 proposal. Nonetheless, Brezhnev was
apparently sufficiently encouraged to renew the proposal after
Nixon had resigned and Gerald Ford had assumed the
Presidency.38
Results: Keeping Detente Alive
Although both Nixon and Brezhnev acknowledged
disappointment that the summit had produced no agreement
limiting offensive arms, they put the best face on it,
declaring it a success and an important contribution to
U.S.-Soviet relations. Nixon declared that the growing network
of agreements was "creating new habits of cooperation" and that
it gave the Soviets "a positive stake in peace." Moscow
endorsed the summit unequivocally as a "major milestone" in
U.S.-Soviet relations, suggesting that Brezhnev remained
personally committed to detente and still hoped to give the
process new momentum.40
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
14
The more skeptical treatment of the summit in the U.S.
press reflected widespread cynicism about Nixon's motives as
well as recognition of the limited nature of the summit
agreements. Soviet detention of Jewish activists on the eve of
Nixon's visit and censorship of American television news
reports on Soviet dissidents during the visit contributed to a
sour U.S. view of the proceedings. The Gallup Poll found that
Nixon's public standing had declined after the Moscow trip, in
contrast with the usual rise in a President's standing after
foreign trave1.41
Nixon's resignation and Ford's assumption of the Presidency
on August 9 made the Nixon-Brezhnev discussions at Moscow seem
irrelevant. Nevertheless, the tone set at the summit made it
clear that both sides were anxious to pursue detente and made
the transition from Nixon to Ford an easy one. The Moscow
discussions on SALT bore fruit a few months later at
Vladivostok when Ford and Brezhnev had the brief summit meeting
that Nixon and Brezhnev had discussed tentatively at Moscow.
The idea of a 10-year time frame which Kissinger and Gromyko
had settled on provided a basis for more productive
negotiations, leading to the Vladivostok accord and,
eventually, to the SALT II agreement.
The TTB treaty has not been ratified, although the PNE
loophole was closed by a U.S.-Soviet treaty signed in May 1976,
which banned PNEs over 150 kilotons and provided for on-site
inspection. Neither treaty has received Senate approval, in
part because of doubts about the verification procedures in the
TTB treaty and in part because Ford's successor Jimmy Carter
gave priority to the pursuit of a comprehensive test ban.42
PA/HO:HDSchwar
9/26/85 663-1282
RP 1454 WANG 0003t
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
15
Appendix
U.S.-SOVIET MEETING AT MOSCOW
June 27 - July 3, 1974
PARTICIPANTS
United States
Richard Nixon, President of the United States
Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State"and Assistant to
the President for National Security Affairs
Walter J. Stoessel, Jr., Ambassador to the Soviet Union
General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Assistant to the President
Ronald L. Ziegler, Assistant to the President and Press
Secretary
Major General Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Counselor of the Department of State
Arthur A. Hartman, Assistant Secretary of State for
European Affairs
Soviet Union
L.I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party
N.V. Podgorny, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet
A.N. Kosygin, Chairman of the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers
A.A. Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs
A.F. Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador to the United States
A.M. Aleksandrov, Assistant to the General Secretary
L.M. Zamyatin, Director General of TASS
G.M. Korniyenko, Member of the Collegium of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
16
NOTES
1. Joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Communique, June 24, 1973,
Department of State Bulletin, July 23, 1973, pp. 130-134.
2. Memorandum of conversation between Nixon and Gromyko,
February 4, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive); memorandum of
conversation between Brezhnev and Kissinger, March 27, 1974
(Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis); ToHAK 353 to Kissinger in
Jerusalem, May 30, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive).
3. Memorandum of conversation between Nixon and Gromyko,
February 4, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive).
4. Minutes of NSC meeting, March 21, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286)
(TS/Sensitive/Nodis). For differing perspectives on the SALT
negotiations, see Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston:
Little, Brown and Company,-1982), pp. 1006-1020, and Elmo R.
Zumwalt, Jr., On Watch: A Memoir (New York: Quadrangle, 1976),
pp. 429-432.
5. Memoranda of conversations between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, March 25, 1974, 11:05 a.m. and 5:45 p.m., and March
27, 1974 (Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis); State 069181 (ToSec 130)
to Kissinger in Acapulco, April 5, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286)
(S/Nodis/Cherokee)
6. Memoranda of conversations between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, March 25, 1974, 11:05 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. (Kissinger
Files) (S/Nodis).
7. Memoranda of conversations between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, March 25, 1974, 11:05 a.m. and 5:45 p.m., and March
26, 1974, 5:09 p.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis).
8. Memoranda of conversations between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, March 25, 1974, 5:45 p.m. and March 26, 1974, 10:35
a.m. and 5:09 p.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis); State 069181
(ToSec 130) to Kissinger in Acapulco, April 5, 1974 (Lot 81 D
286) (S/Nodis/Cherokee).
9. Memorandum from Helmut Sonnenfeldt and Jan Lodal to
Kissinger, April 9, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive).
10. Proposal sent to Dobrynin on April 23, 1974 (Kissinger
Files) (C); memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and
Gromyko, April 29, 1974, 3:00 p.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis).
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
17
11. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and
Gromyko, April 28, 1974 (Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis).
12. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and
Gromyko, April 29, 1974, 12:20 p.m. (Kissinger Files)
(S/Nodis); ToHAK 341 to Kissinger, May 29, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286)
(TS/Sensitive).
13. Draft agreement given to Dobrynin June 7, 1974,
attached to memorandum from Sonnenfeldt and William Hyland to
Kissinger, June 6, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Sensitive).
14. Zumwalt, On Watch, p. 489. For discussion of the
internal conflict over SALT, see ibid., pp. 485-507; Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval, pp. 1151-1159; Richard Nixon, RN: The
Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978),
pp: 1023-1025; U. Alexis Johnson, The Right Hand of Power
(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1984),
pp. 600-601.
15. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 1152.
16. Memorandum from Sonnenfeldt, Hyland, and Lodal to
Kissinger, June 19, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Sensitive); Moscow
9863, June 24, 1974 (Lot 75 D 91) (S/Nodis).
17. ToHAK 115 to Kissinger in Damascus, June 15, 1974 (Lot
81 D 286) (S/Sensitive).
18. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and
Gromyko, April 29, 1974, 12:20 p.m. (Kissinger Files)
(S/Nodis); Moscow 8625, June 6, 1974 (C/Nodis).
19. Memorandum of conversation between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, March 26, 1974, 10:35 a.m. (Kissinger Files)
(S/Nodis); memorandum of conversation between Nixon and
Gromyko, April 11, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Sensitive);
memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and Gromyko, April
29, 1974, 10:20 a.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis); letter from
Brezhnev to Nixon with covering note from Dobrynin to Brent
Scowcroft, May 15, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286); briefing memorandum
from Kissinger to Nixon, undated (Kissinger Files) (S).
20. State 128474 and 128476 (ToSec 273 and 274) to
Kissinger in Damascus, June 16, 1974 (S/Nodis).
21. Moscow 8625, June 6, 1974 (C/Nodis).
22. The text of the joint communique, Nixon's radio and
television address, and Nixon's and Brezhnev's toasts are
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
?
TOP SECRET/NODIS
18
printed in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United
States: Richard Nixon, 1974 (Washington: GPO, 1975),
pp. 553-578.
23. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 1164.
24. Memorandum of conversation between Nixon and Brezhnev,
June 28, 1974, 10:45 a.m. (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Nodis).
25. Kissinger, Years of.Upheaval, p. 1168; Nixon, RN, pp.
1028-1029; memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and
Gromyko, June 29, 1974, 9:30 a.m. (Lot 81 D'286) (S/Nodis).
26. Memorandum of conversation between Nixon and Brezhnev,
June 29, 1974, 11:12 a.m. (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Nodis).
27. Memoranda of conversation between Kissinger and
Gromyko, July 1, 1974, 5:10 p.m. and July 2, 1974, 12:45 p.m.
(Lot 81 D 286) (S/Nodis).
28. No memorandum of the conversation is available, but
other documents make it clear that the proposal presented at
the meeting was the proposal given to Dobrynin on June 7,
rather than "a variant of the Defense Department's plan", as
Kissinger describes it. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp.
1170-1171; Nixon, RN, pp. 1031-1032; memorandum of conversation
between Kissinger and Gromyko, July 1, 1974, 9:30 p.m. (Lot 81
D 286) (TS/Sensitive); memorandum on SALT from Kissinger to
President Gerald Ford, [August 1974] (Kissinger Files)
(S/Sensitive/Eyes Only); minutes of NSC meeting, September 14,
1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive).
29. Memorandum of conversation between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, July 1, 1974, 1:15 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286)
(TS/Sensitive); minutes of NSC meeting, September 14, 1974 (Lot
81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive); Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 1171.
30. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and
Callaghan, July 7, 1974 (Kissinger Files) (S).
31. Memorandum of conversation between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, July 1, 1974, 1:15 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286)
(TS/Sensitive).
32. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and
Gromyko, July 1, 1974, 9:30 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive).
33. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and
Gromyko, July 1, 1974, 9:30 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive)
and July 2, 1974, 12:45 and 6:15 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Nodis).
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
19
34. Memoranda of conversations between Nixon and Brezhnev,
June 29, 1974, 11:12 a.m., and July 2, 1974, 4:25 p.m. (Lot 81
D 286) (S/Nodis).
34. Memoranda of conversation between Nixon and Brezhnev,
June 28, 1974, 10:45 a.m., June 29, 11:12 a.m., and July 2,
4:25 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Nodis).
36. Nixon, RN, pp. 1027-1039.
37. Memorandum of conversation between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, October 26, 1974, 4:30 p.m., filed with covering
memorandum from Sonnenfeldt to Brent Scowcroft, November 8,
1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only); Nixon,
RN, p. 1030; Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 1173-1174.
38. Nixon, RN, p. 1030; memorandum of conversation between
Grechko and Alexander M. Haig, July 2, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286) (S);
INR Research Study No. 3, July 16, 1974; INR Report No. 491,
June 17, 1976 (S).
39. Memorandum of conversation between Brezhnev and
Kissinger, October 26, 1974, 4:30 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286)
(S/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only); Kissinger, Years of
Upheaval, pp. 1173-1174.
40. Memorandum of conversation between Nixon and Brezhnev,
July 3, 1974, 12:20 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Nodis); Public
Papers of the Presidents, 1974, p. 580; memoranda from Hyland
to Kissinger, July 29 and August 9, 1974 (S/S Files) (LOU).
41. New York Times, June 22, 1974, p. 1; July 3, 1974,
p. 3; July 4, 1974, p. 1; Joseph Kraft, "Letter from Moscow,"
New Yorker, July 29, 1974, pp. 68-76.
42. U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Threshold
Test Ban and Peaceful Nuclear Explosion Treaties: Hearings,
95th Cong., 1st Sess., July 28, August 3, and September 8 and
15, 1977; U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed
Services, Effects of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on United
States National Security Interests: Hearings, 95th Cong., 2nd
Sess., August 14, 15, 1978; American Foreign Policy: Current
Documents, 1982 (Washington: GPO, 1985), pp. 161-165.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
FORD AND BREZHNEV AT VLADIVOSTOK, NOVEMBER 23-24, 1974
The Vladivostok meeting between President Gerald R. Ford
and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev took place only 5 months
after the Moscow summit, primarily because Brezhnev was eager
to establish contact with the new U.S. President. The summit
was more ad hoc than the three previous ones and focused almost
entirely on FEW strategic arms limitations talks (SALT). The
Conference on Security and Cooperation in-Europe (CSCE),
Cyprus, and the Middle East were dealt with briefly but nothing
of substance on any of these issues was achieved. Mutual and
balanced force reduction (MBFR) was mentioned only in the
prenegotiated joint communiqu?Due in part to the groundwork
laid by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger during his
October trip to Moscow and to Soviet hopes of establishing a
constructive relationship with the new U.S. President, a
breakthrough on SALT did take place at Vladivostok. The two
sides reached agreement in principle and the resulting SALT
accord provided the basis for the SALT II treaty signed by
President Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev in Vienna in June 1979. It
met the demands of the U.S. Congress and the Defense Department
for equal aggregates and involved significant Soviet
concessions, including abandonment of their previous demand
that Forward Based Systems (FBS), such as U.S. weapons based in
Western Europe, had to be included in the U.S. total. Ford and
Kissinger returned home feeling triumphant and claiming that
they had put a cap on the arms race. Their hopes were dashed,
however, by the subsequent inability of the two sides to agree
upon whether such weapons as the Soviet Backfire bomber and
U.S. cruise missiles were to be included in the totals agreed
upon at Vladivostok.
Initiative: Sizing Up a New President
In early August, following President Richard Nixon's
resignation, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the new
U.S. President, Gerald Ford, immediately sent letters to their
Soviet counterparts pledging that U.S. policy toward the Soviet
Union would continue unchanged under the new administration.
Ford also assured Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev that the
channels of communication established under Nixon remained open
and reaffirmed the former President's invitation to the General
Secretary to visit the United States the following year.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
2
Kissinger, for his part, urged that there be no loss of
momentum in the negotiations on SALT, CSCE, and MBFR and
indicated his intention to return to Moscow for further
negotiations that fal1.1
Brezhnev's reply suggested that "a working meeting" between
the two heads of state before the end of the year, perhaps on
neutral ground, would help detente, adding that experience had
shown how useful and valuable such personal contacts were.
During their June discussions in Moscow, Brezhnev and Nixon had
talked about holding an interim summit before the Soviet
leader's scheduled visit to the United States in 1975.
Moreover, as Kissinger subsequently pointed out to the
President, Brezhnev's emphasis on the continuation of personal
contact also reflected the Soviet leader's own personal stake
in, detente.2
In advice to Ford at this time, and before the President
met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in
mid-September, Kissinger indicated his support for an interim
"working" summit if there was concrete business for the two
leaders to negotiate. Kissinger wished to use the Soviet
desire for a summit as a lever to gain Soviet concessions on
several outstanding issues.3
Ford's agreement to attend a summit meeting at Vladivostok
in November, however, was conveyed to the Soviet Union without
prior Soviet concessions or assurances that the meeting would
produce concrete results. On September 20, Ford and Kissinger
discussed the Vladivostok meeting with Gromyko. The three
agreed on the importance of making progress on SALT during
Kissinger's visit to Moscow in October, so that Ford and
Brezhnev could announce "agreement in principle" at Vladivostok
and conclude a SALT agreement when Brezhnev visited the United
States the following June.4
The forthcoming summit meeting at Vladivostok was announced
publicly on October 26, Kissinger's last day in Moscow. The
British, French, and West German Foreign Offices, notified 6
hours before the public announcement, were told that Washington
did not expect any major announcement to result from the
summit, which was for the purpose of getting acquainted.5
Preparations: Coming Closer Together on SALT
U.S. preparations for the Vladivostok summit between
September 20 and November 23 focused primarily on SALT. In
? briefing the new President following Nixon's resignation,
Kissinger warned Ford that a breakdown in SALT would jeopardize
detente and the entire range of U.S.-Soviet relations. He also
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
3
argued that it was misleading to talk about strategic
superiority, pointing out that, according to U.S. intelligence
projections, at the end of an unrestricted arms race with the
Soviet Union both sides would still be essentially in strategic
equilibrium. Such an arms race, according to Kissinger, would
also mean greatly increased U.S. defense expenditures. The
Secretary projected that the Soviets would be more inclined to
make concessions now than the previous June, when they were
focusing on Nixon's precarious political position. Kissinger,
who knew how deep divisions within the U.S. Government had
hindered previous SALT negotiations, advised that a new SALT
proposal should be sent directly to Brezhnev'to circumvent the
Soviet bureaucracy.8
During the September meeting with Gromyko, Ford warned the
Soviet Foreign Minister that lack of progress on SALT would
affect the military budget request he would submit in December
and noted the desirability of concluding an agreement before
the 1976 election. Gromyko responded that his government
wanted to find a solution and was prepared to discuss all of
this in detail when Kissinger came to Moscow.7
On October 9, Kissinger gave Soviet Ambassador to the
United States Anatoliy F. Dobrynin the new U.S. SALT proposal
for discussion during the Secretary's visit to Moscow. This
proposal was based on equal aggregates, equality in the total
number of strategic missile launchers possessed by each side,
as the Defense Department and Congress insisted. It called for
a phased reduction in the total number of strategic launchers
-- ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), SLBMs
(submarine launched ballistic missiles), and heavy bombers.
The numerical limits of the 1972 SALT agreement would remain in
effect until October 1977. Beginning in October 1977, each
side would agree to reduce its total number of launchers to no
more than 2,350 by 1982 and to 2,200 by the end of 1983.
Before 1982, the total number of such launchers could not
exceed 2,500 with a sublimit of 300 for modern large ICBMs; by
the end of 1983, the sublimit would be 250 for heavy systems
including both heavy missiles and heavy bombers. There would
also be a limit of 1,320 ICBMs and SLBMs with MIRVs (multiple
independently targetable reentry vehicles). The total
deployment of new strategic launchers, including replacement or
modernization, would be limited to 175 in any 1 year. Finally,
as in the 1972 SALT agreement, building new ICBM silos would be
prohibited .8
On October 24, Kissinger arrived in Moscow for 3 days of
pre-Vladivostok negotiations with Brezhnev which were the most
important preparations made for the summit. The first day was
devoted primarily to Soviet complaints about U.S. trade
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
4
restrictions and U.S. policy towards CSCE and the Middle East.
No solutions were reached but, while defending U.S. policy,
Kissinger's tone was reassuring throughout.9
The next 2 days of discussions were devoted almost
exclusively to SALT. During these meetings, Kissinger painted
a bleak picture of a period of unrestrained U.S.-Soviet
competition in strategic arms, arguing that at the end of such
a race neither side would be decisively ahead. He pointed out
that the design of Soviet strategic forces was such that,
whatever Soviet intentions, they represented a very grave
threat to U.S. land-based forces and that the United States was
prepared to do whatever was necessary for its own defense.
After discussing the U.S. proposal of October 9, Brezhnev
offered a Soviet counterproposal that the upper limit on
strategic launchers be 2,000 for the United States and 2,400
for the Soviet Union. In addition, Gromyko insisted that the
Soviet Union had to be compensated in these totals for Forward
Based Systems (FBS) and for British and French nuclear
weapons. Kissinger responded that it would be quite impossible
for the United States to agree to such an inequality in total
numbers with no inequality in its favor in other areas such as
MIRVs. He suggested that the United States might be willing to
agree not to go above 2,200, although it had to have the right
to do so. Kissinger also reminded Brezhnev that the United
States would have twice as many warheads on one Trident
submarine as the combined total of British and French
warheads. He warned that the United States would not make a
more forthcoming proposal and added that there would be serious
consequences in the United States if the U.S. press saw this
trip as a failure.10
The next day, Brezhnev proposed a total of 2,200 strategic
launchers for the United States and 2,400 for the Soviet Union
by the end of 1985. Kissinger was able to extract agreement
that the 2,200 figure would include only U.S. launchers and not
those of its Allies. Brezhnev also proposed that the United
States be limited to 10 Trident submarines between 1977 and
1985, with the Soviet Union limited to 10 of the Typhoon
class. Brezhnev accepted the U.S. proposal that the
prohibition on building new silos continue, although both sides
would be free to modernize and improve existing ones. He also
accepted the proposed limit of 1,320 MIRVs. Brezhnev insisted,
however, that the missiles carried by the proposed U.S. 8-1
bomber should have a range of no more than 3,000 kilometers and
that each missile be included in the U.S. total. Kissinger
told Brezhnev that this counterproposal provided a serious
basis for discussion but that it would receive a most
unfavorable reception if given to the U.S. bureaucracy in its
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
5
current form. He suggested that points be clarified in private
meetings between himself and Dobrynin and that discussions be
kept entirely in this channel until after Vladivostok.
Brezhnev agreed, on the condition that there would be no
fundamentally new proposals, adding that he did not want his
first meeting with the President to begin with a dispute.
Kissinger promised that there would be no surprises at
Vladivostok and that he would do his utmost to make the summit
meeting a success.11
On his last day in Moscow, Kissinger met .privately with
Brezhnev, with only State Department Counselor Helmut
Sonnenfeldt, Gromyko, and an interpreter present. Brezhnev
restated a proposal, made secretly to Nixon in June, that each
side pledge that in the event of a nuclear attack on either or
on the allies of either by any third power it would use
military power in support of the other. Brezhnev added that
they could even name the third power -- an obvious reference to
China. Kissinger's response was noncommittal. He promised to
discuss this with Ford, but also pointed out that such a
proposal did not make sense if the arms race continued.12
On November 13, Kissinger advised Ford that the Soviet
counterproposal, received in written form on November 8,
provided a basis for constructive negotiations at Vladivostok.
He urged Ford to insist upon equal aggregates for political
reasons, even though the United States would not even be able
to reach the 2,200 level without retaining obsolete systems.
He also argued that they should accept no limit on
bomber-launched missiles without a corresponding Soviet
concession. Kissinger suggested a U.S. counterproposal with a
limit of 2,400 on total launchers and 1,320 on MIRVed missiles
for the last 2 years of the agreement (1984-1985), with the
United States agreeing to stay 200 below the launcher limit
(2,200) through 1983 and the Soviets agreeing to stay 200 below
the MIRV limit (1,120) during this same period. He also
proposed a sublimit of 250 new strategic bombers, 312 new SLBMs
on Trident-type submarines (13 ships), and 180 new heavy
ICBMs. This would simplify the proposal by eliminating all
reference to heavy MIRVs or bomber armaments. Kissinger warned
Ford that time would be short at Vladivostok and advised that
he not get bogged down in details but concentrate on getting
agreement on basic numbers. Ford approved the proposal and
Kissinger presented it to Dobrynin the same day. li
The following day Kissinger sent Ford, who was due to leave
for the Far East on November 17, a briefing book for
Vladivostok containing comprehensive background material on
major U.S.-Soviet issues which might be raised during the
summit. He also forwarded a 25-page memorandum which briefed
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24 : CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
6
the President on Brezhnev's personality and policies and then
laid out the major U.S. objectives for the summit. Kissinger
pointed out that, since the Soviet leader had sought this
meeting, much of the burden for its success would be on him.
The Secretary added, however, that Soviet internal political
considerations might limit Brezhnev's ability to bargain and he
might not be able to pay too high a price for a SALT agreement.
Kissinger emphasized that the main objective at Vladivostok,
besides establishing a personal relationship with Brezhnev, was
to obtain a SALT agreement, publicly signed by the two leaders,
which would settle the question of limits on .strategic
launchers and MIRVs and, if possible, set sublimits on new
SLBMs on Trident-type submarines, new bombers, and new heavy
ICBMs.
, After noting that there was no set agenda for the
Vladivostok talks, Kissinger's memorandum summarized the other
major issues which might arise during the summit. On the
Middle East, he advised that the President appear willing to
consult more frequently with the Soviets and to reconvene the
Geneva Conference, without making any actual commitment. The
memorandum then reviewed some of the CSCE disputes and proposed
that the President promise to work for conclusion of the
Conference by the spring of 1975. The memorandum cautioned
Ford not to offer or agree to any specific MBFR proposals at
Vladivostok because the United States had not worked out such
proposals with its Allies. The paper also discussed several
other issues, including Peaceful Nuclear Explosions,
Environmental and Chemical Warfare, and various bilateral
economic issues. On the latter, it was suggested that the
President tell Brezhnev of his hope that passage of the Trade
Bill would lead to increased U.S.-Soviet trade. Ford was also
to point out that the administration had been forced to accept
the Jackson-Vanik amendment to attain most-favored-nation
?status for the Soviet Union.14
In the meantime, the State Department and the Soviet
Embassy negotiated the wording of the joint communique to be
issued on the last day of the summit. Kissinger's briefing
memorandum had explained that the Vladivostok communique would
be more general than those for previous summits, unless there
was agreement on SALT. The draft communique, agreed to prior
to the summit, reflected the limited anticipations of the two
sides. It anticipated no new development on any issue, with
the exception of SALT, which was not covered in the presummit
draft. Only the Soviet wording on the Cyprus question, which
called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the
island, caused any controversy and this phrase was omitted from
the final communique.15
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
7
Discussions: A Significant Breakthrough
On November 23, Ford and Kissinger flew from South Korea
via Tokyo to Vozdvizhenka airport near Vladivostok, where they
met Brezhnev and Gromyko who had come more than 4,000 miles
from Moscow by train. In contrast to the previous
Nixon-Brezhnev summits, there was little pomp or ceremony at
Vladivostok -- partly because of the brevity of the summit and
partly because of its location. During the 2-day summit, Ford
and Brezhnev spent almost 12 hours in face-to-face
discussions. During the evening discussions 'at the Okeanskaya
sanatorium on the first day, the two delegations were
relatively large. Ford and Kissinger were accompanied by U.S.
Ambassador to the Soviet Union Walter J. Stoessel and
Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs, as well as three State
Department aides. The Soviet Delegation was somewhat larger
(11 in all) and included not only Gromyko, Dobrynin, and the
Soviet interpreter Viktor Sukhodrev but also representatives
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General Staff, and
the Central Committee of the Communist Party. On the morning
of the second day, Ford, Kissinger, and a Russian-speaking
State Department aide, Alexander Akalovsky, met alone with
Brezhnev, Gromyko, Dobrynin, and the Soviet interpreter. They
were joined by other members of the U.S. Delegation during the
afternoon session.
The initial conversations took place during the 1 1/2 hour
train ride from the airport to the Okeanskaya Sanatorium, a
health resort on the outskirts of Vladivostok. After initial
friendly banter, the two sides agreed on the order of
discussions: first SALT and then the Middle East. Ford
emphasized the importance of reaching agreement on SALT during
1975 so that it would not become an issue in the 1976 election
and warned that if another candidate were elected the policy of
detente might be undercut.16
The first session at the Okeanskaya Sanatorium began at
6:15 that evening and lasted until 12:30 a.m. During this
session, which was so productive that the dinner originally
scheduled was cancelled, Brezhnev and Gromyko complained that
the U.S. position, as reflected in its latest proposal, had
stiffened since Kissinger had been in Moscow. Ford replied
that Congress and the American people would not accept an
agreement with unequal numbers and noted that he had deferred
his decision on the defense budget until after the summit.
Kissinger pointed out that without an agreement, the United
States could continue to MIRV its missiles indefintely. After
some haggling over Trident submarines, Brezhnev and Ford agreed
that no new silos should be built and that only new ICBMs which
fit into existing silos would be permitted.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
8
After a break, Brezhnev repeated his Moscow proposal that
each side be allowed to build 2,400 strategic launchers by
1985, but that the President give the Soviets a letter
promising that the United States would actually only build
2,200 during that period. Ford and Kissinger repeated that the
American people would not accept less than numerical
equivalence and argued that their proposal, which offered
offsetting inequalities through 1983 and then equivalence in
both launchers and MIRVs by 1985, was one the U.S. Congress and
American people would accept. Kissinger also pointed out that
the United States would only be able to reach this figure by
keeping some obsolete systems and reminded Brezhnev that a
Presidential letter would not be binding on Ford's successors.
When Brezhnev and Gromyko complained about U.S. FBS, Ford
stated that it was his understanding that they had agreed at
Moscow not to include FBS in a SALT agreement. Nevertheless,
he offered to give up the U.S. nuclear submarine base in Rota,
Spain in 1984.
After leaving the room to consult his colleagues in Moscow,
Brezhenv returned and suggested to Ford that they agree in
principle upon 2,400 launchers and 1,320 MIRVs for each side
and that these ceilings could be reached at any time before
1985, thus dropping the interim (1977-1983) period. He pointed
out that this meant that the President could tell the American
people he had reached an agreement on the basis of full
equality for both sides. Kissinger then reminded Brezhnev that
the United States had also proposed limiting strategic bombers
such as the B-1, Trident-type submarines, and MIRVed heavy
missiles. After some further haggling, the two sides agreed to
resume discussion of sublimits in the morning.17
The second day of negotiations began at Okeanskaya
Sanatorium at 10:10 a.m. and lasted nearly 6 hours. Ford began
the discussion of sublimits by offering to count any
aircraft-carried ballistic missile with a range over 700
kilometers as part of the 2,400 aggregate, i.e., as one
launcher. Brezhnev countered that each bomber carrying
missiles with a range of up to 600 kilometers should be counted
as one launcher, that those carrying missiles with a range from
600 to 3,000 kilometers should be counted according to the
number of missiles they carried and that all bomber-carried
missiles with a range of over 3,000 kilometers should be
banned. Ford expressed serious objections to the last
restriction but suggested that, if it were accepted, the Soviet
Union should accept a limit of 200 on its MIRVed heavy missiles.
After leaving the room for consultations, Brezhnev returned
and proposed that bomber-carried missiles with a range
exceeding 600 kilometers count as individual launchers, but
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
9
that there be no limit on their maximum range nor any
restrictions on heavy MIRVed missiles. Ford and Kissinger
consented to this and the Vladivostok "agreement in principle"
on SALT was complete. It was agreed that the U.S. and Soviet
SALT Delegations, which had been negotiating in Geneva, should
work out the details and that Kissinger would iron out any
further difficulties when he returned to the Soviet Union in
the spring. The final SALT II Treaty could then be signed when
Brezhnev came to the United States in the summer of 1975. The
two sides decided to issue a separate statement on SALT in
addition to the joint communiqu?explaining that equivalence
had been reached but without revealing the figures until the
President had a chance to brief congressional leaders.
While Brezhnev and Ford left the room, Kissinger and
Gromyko, agreeing that the two leaders would not have time to
discuss Cyprus, settled the dispute over the wording on this
item in the previously negotiated joint communiqu?After
their return, Brezhnev and Ford held a secret meeting, attended
only by Kissinger and Scowcroft on the U.S. side and Gromyko,
Dobrynin, and A.M. Aleksandrov, Brezhnev's Special Assistant,
on the Soviet side. No record of this meeting has been found.
When the full conference reconvened, discussions turned to
the Middle East. Brezhnev talked about the need for
U.S.-Soviet cooperation and argued that a solution could be
found at a reconvened Geneva Conference, adding that the
fundamental issue was Israeli withdrawal from the occupied
territories. Ford responded that he agreed that there should
be U.S.-Soviet cooperation in the Middle East but that the
groundwork had to be laid before the Geneva Conference met. He
suggested, and Brezhnev agreed, that Kissinger and Dobrynin
should exchange ideas as to how to prevent another Middle East
war.
The final portion of the summit dealt with CSCE and, very
briefly, the Trade Bill. On CSCE, Ford agreed upon March or
April as a tentative date for the final stage of the Conference
and promised to urge the French and Germans to move on some of
the disputed issues. Ford then pointed out that his
administration had strongly supported the Trade Bill and
declared that he had never authorized the mention of any
required number of applications for emigration from the Soviet
Union, much less the 60,000 that Senator Jackson had recently
proclaimed. Brezhnev responded that no one who wanted to leave
was being harassed but also claimed that the total number of
applications was far below 60,000. After exchanging
mutualcompliments and agreeing that their meeting had been
extremely useful and productive, the two leaders and their
associates concluded the summit.18
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
10
Before leaving Vladivostok, Kissinger briefed waiting
reporters on the results of the summit and gave them copies of
the previously negotiated joint communiqu?nd the newly drawn
up joint statement on SALT which contained the basic details of
the Ford-Brezhnev agreement without the figures. He announced
that this marked the breakthrough they had been seeking since
1972 and that it offered a very strong possibility of a signed
agreement in 1975. The Secretary declared that they hoped to
look back on Vladivostok as a turning point which put a cap on
the arms race -- a cap substantially below the capabilities of
both sides -- and as the first step in further arms
reduction.19 Kissinger then returned to Tokyo (briefly) that
same day and went on to Peking, while Ford flew back to
Washington.
Results: Disappointing Aftermath
Back in Washington, in speaking to the press and before the
National Security Council, Ford and Kissinger defended the
Vladivostok accord as a "cap on the arms race". In support of
this contention, they pointed out that the overall total agreed
to was below what the Soviet Union already possessed. They
emphasized privately that the very lowest U.S. intelligence
estimates as to what the Soviets would build in the future
without a SALT agreement were considerably above the
Vladivostok figures for both MIRVs and strategic launchers.
They also maintained that the Soviet Union had made major
concessions at Vladivostok and that the United States had
gotten a far better agreement than had seemed possible before
the summit. Kissinger suggested that this was because Brezhnev
had been trying to strengthen detente by getting off in the
right direction with a new President who might be in power for
the next six years. He argued that such an accord could only
have been reached at the summit, noting that the Soviet
Delegation at Geneva could never have agreed to equal
aggregates with no compensation for FBS. The Secretary also
claimed that the United States had a "largely fool-proof"
method of verification of the new accord and that such
verification was not dependent upon the good faith of either
side. 20
Public and congressional reaction to Vladivostok was
mixed. The New York Times criticized the accord for allowing
both sides to go ahead Trah their planned arms build-ups,
although it admitted that if the administration's claim that
this was the best that could be obtained from the Soviets was
true the world might have to make the best of "a bad
agreement". Harris polls in December 1974 showed that although
77 percent of those polled favored substantially limiting the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539Rnn11n1aAnn1 l_A
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
11
number of U.S. and Soviet nuclear missiles, the public was
divided 35 to 34 percent on whether or not the Vladivostok
accord was a breakthrough. The polls did show, however, that
Vladivostok had improved public opinion of Ford's foreign
policy. 21
Senator Henry Jackson criticized the administration for not
getting a more substantial reduction to aggregates of 1,700 for
both sides and Senator Barry Goldwater complained that the new
accord was "just another ploy by the Russians to try to fool
some of our detente-happy people."22 On the other hand,
Senator Edward Kennedy (acting for himself and Senators Charles
Mathias and Walter Mondale) introduced a Senate resolution
which supported the new SALT accord but also urged the
President to negotiate further arms limitations and reductions,
including lower aggregate and MIRV ceilings than agreed to at
Vladivostok.23
The administration's hopes for continued progress in
U.S.-Soviet relations received their first setback on December
20, when Congress passed the Trade Bill with the Jackson-Vanik
Amendment and limitations on credits to the Soviet Union.
Brezhnev subsequently notified Ford that Moscow refused to
accept a trading relationship with the United States based upon
these discriminatory restrictions.24 Nevertheless,
subsequent Ford-Brezhnev exchanges indicated that neither
leader had wavered in his determination to follow through on
Vladivostok and to transform their understanding there into a
concrete, signed SALT agreement.25
It was not disputes over trade discrimination but rather
over some of the "gray" areas of strategic arms limitations not
decided at the summit that caused the prospects of a signed
SALT agreement in 1975 to dim and finally to disappear
altogether. On January 29, 1975, the National Security Council
met to discuss instructions to the U.S. SALT Delegation for
talks scheduled to begin in Geneva on January 31. Ambassador
U. Alexis Johnson was advised that his primary objective was to
achieve an understanding before Brezhnev's arrival in June.
Nevertheless, the NSC, which anticipated potential disputes
with the Soviets over verification, cruise missiles, and the
Backfire bomber, also told Johnson to be "hard-nosed" on
including the Backfire in the Soviet aggregate and warned that
cruise missiles might have to be the subject of a separate
agreement 26
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
12
Primarily over these two issues, the Geneva negotiations
were to bog down. No agreement on SALT II was reached during
1975, despite high hopes in both Washington and Moscow.
Brezhnev's long-planned visit to Washington in June for another
summit had to be postponed, although he and Ford did agree to
meet in Helsinki for the final session of the Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in late July.
PA/HO:NDHowland
7/29/85 632-9476
RP 1454 WANG 0002t
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
13
Appendix
U.S.-SOVIET MEETING
OKEANSKAYA SANATORIUM, NEAR VLADIVOSTOK
NOVEMBER 23, 1974
PARTICIPANTS
United States
Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States
Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State and Assistant to
the President for National Security Affairs
Walter J. Stoessel, Jr., Ambassador to the Soviet Union
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Counselor of the Department of State
Arthur A. Hartman, Assistant Secretary of State for
European Affairs
Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs
William G. Hyland, Director of the Bureau of Intelligence
and Research, Department of State
Alexander Akalovsky, Bureau of Political Military Affairs,
Department of State
Soviet Union
L.I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party
A.A. Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs
A.F. Dobrynin, Ambassador to the United States
A.M. Aleksandrov, Assistant to the General Secretary
G.M. Korniyenko, Member of the Collegium of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Oleg Sokolov, U.S.A. Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
General Mikhail M. Kozlov, Soviet General Staff
Mr. Makarov, Assistant to Gromyko
Mr. Detinov, Member of the CPSU Central Committee Staff
Viktor M. Sukhodrev, Counselor, Second European
Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Interpreter)
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R0011014Ann1 1_4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
14
NOTES
1. Telegram 174035 to Moscow, August 9, 1974. (Lot 81 D 286)
(S/Nodis); Letter from Kissinger to Gromyko, August 9, 1974.
(Kissinger Files) (C).
2. Letter from
Memorandum from
(Lot 81 D 286) (
Conversation by
(Lot 81 D 286) (
August 11, 1974.
Brezhnev to Ford, August 1,1, 1974, attached to
Sonnenfeldt to Kissinger, August 13, 1974.
S/Sensitive/Eyes Only); Memorandum of
Lodal, June 28, 1974, 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
S/Nodis); Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford,
(Lot 81 D 286) (S/Nodis).
3. Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, August 14, 1974. (Lot
81 D 286) (S/Sensitive/Syes Only); Memorandum from Kissinger to
Ford, n.d., (circa September 19, 1974) (Lot 81 D 286)
(S/Sensitive).
4. Memorandum of Conversation by Stoessel, September 20,
1974. (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only).
There is no document in the State Department files recording
the Ford-Brezhnev agreement to meet at Vladivostok but the
meeting had been arranged by the time Gromyko met with Ford on
September 20.
5. Memorandum from Eagleburger to Kissinger, October 19,
1974. (Kissinger Files) (S/Sensitive).
6. Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, August 15, 1974,
attached to Memorandum from Sonnenfeldt and Lodal to Kissinger,
August 15, 1974. (Kissinger Files) (S/Sensitive/Eyes Only;
Minutes of NSC Meeting, September 14, 1974 (Lot 81 D 286)
(TS/Sensitive/Nodis).
7. Memorandum of Conversation by Stoessel, September 20,
1974. (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only).
8. Note from Kissinger to Dobrynin, October 9, 1974, attached
to Memorandum from Lodal and Sonnenfeldt to Kissinger, October
15, 1974. (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Sensitive).
9. Memorandum of Conversation by Clift, October 24, 1974,
11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. (Kissinger Files) (TS/Nodis/Sensitive);
Memorandum of Conversation by Rodman, October 24, 1974,
6:30-9:30 p.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis).
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
15
10. Memorandum of Conversation by Rodman, October 25, 1974,
11:05 a.m.-1:28 p.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis); Memorandum of
Conversation by Clift, October 25, 1974, 7:30-10:00 p.m. (Lot
81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive/Nodis).
11. Memorandum of Conversation by Clift, October 26, 1974,
7:10-10:20 p.m. (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes
Only). On November 5, Brezhnev wrote Ford, confirming the use
of the Kissinger-Dobrynin channel to work out the details of a
new SALT agreement for their meeting at Vladivostok. Letter
from Brezhnev to Ford, November 5, 1974. (Lot 81 D 286) (U).
12. Memorandum of Conversation by Sonnenfeldt, October 26,
1974, 4:30-6:45 p.m., attached to Memorandum from Sonnenfeldt
to Scowcroft, November 8, 1974. (Lot 81 D 286)
(S/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes Only).
13. Note from Vorontsov to Sonnenfeldt, November 8, 1974,
attached to Memorandum from Lodal, Sonnenfeldt and Hyland to
Kissinger, November 8, 1974. (Lot 81 D 286) (S/Sensitive/Eyes
Only); Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, November 13, 1974.
(Kissinger Files) (S/Sensitive); U.S. Counterproposal,
November 13, 1974 (Kissinger Files)(U).
14. Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, n.d., attached to
Memorandum from Sonnenfeldt to Kissinger, November 14, 1974.
(Lot 81 D 286) (S/Sensitive/Eyes Only).
15. Letter from Sonnenfeldt and Hyland to Kissinger,
November 16, 1974 (Kissinger Files ). (LOU).
16. Memorandum of Conversation by U.S. Rapporteur Alexander
Akalovsky, November 23, 1974, 2:30 p.m. (Kissinger Files)
(S/Sensitive/Nodis).
17. Memorandum of Conversation by Akalovsky, November 23,
1974, 6:15 p.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Sensitive/Nodis).
18. Memorandum of Conversation by Akalovsky, November 24,
1974, 10:10 a.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Sensitive/Nodis);
Memorandum of Conversation by Akalovsky, November 24, 1974,
2:05 p.m. (Kissinger Files) (S/Sensitive/Nodis).
19. Department of State Bulletin, vol. LXXI (July 7-December
30, 1974) pp. 898-905.
20. Transcript of December 3 Backgrounder on the Vladivostok
SALT Agreement, attached to Memorandum from Leigh to Anderson,
February 27, 1975. (Kissinger Files) (LOU); Minutes of NSC
Meeting, December 2, 1974. (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive/Nodis).
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
16
21. The New York Times, November 29, 1974; Chicago Council on
Foreign Relations copy of Louis Harris and Associates Study
# 22436, December 1974. (PA/OAP); Chicago Tribune, December
January 17, 1975, attached to Memorandum from Vest to
Kissinger, February 6, 1975. (Lot 81 D 286) (C).
22. Transcript of Bruce Morton Interview of Senator Jackson,
CBS Morning News, November 26, 1974, contained in Draft
Telegram to Kissinger in Peking, November 26,.1974. (Lot 81 D
286) (U); Alan Platt, The U.S. Senate and Strategic Arms
Policy, 1969-1977 (Boulder, Colorado: 1978) p. 62.
23. Senate Resolution 20, 94th Congress, 1st Session,
January 17, 1975, attached to Memorandum from Vest to
Kissinger, February 6, 1975. (Lot 81 D 286) (C).
24. Letter from Brezhnev to Ford, December 25, 1974, attached
to Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, December 26, 1974.
(S/S-I, #7425272) (S/Sensitive).
25. Letter from Ford to Brezhnev, January 21, 1975, attached
to Letter from Brezhnev to Ford, January 27, 1975
(Lot 81 D 286) (U).
26. Minutes, NSC Meeting, January 29, 1975. (Lot 81 D 286)
(TS/Sensitive); National Security Decision Memorandum 285,
February 6, 1975. (Lot 81 D 286) (TS/Sensitive).
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
FORD AND BREZHNEV AT HELSINKI, JULY 30-AUGUST 2, 1975
The 1975 Helsinki summit between President Ford and Soviet
Party Chairman Brezhnev took place on July 30 and August 2,
1975, immediately prior to and following the ceremonies closing
the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).
The United States gave top priority to two issues:
-- Strengthening cooperation between the'great powers
-- Concluding a SALT II agreement
The results of the Ford-Brezhnev meeting were
unsatisfactory. No substantive progress was made on SALT
although the atmosphere which surrounded meetings of the two
leaders was frank and cooperative. Public reaction to the
meeting was strongly negative and contributed to the subsequent
deterioration in U.S.-Soviet relations during the remainder of
the Ford administration and weakened the President's political
position.
Initiative: Resuscitating Detente
President Ford's decision to attend the Helsinki heads of
government meeting and sign the Final Act of the Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe was an effort to revitalize
the policy of cooperation with the Soviet Union he had
inherited from the Nixon administration and carried forward at
the Vladivostok summit. This policy was under mounting attack
in the United States, particularly from within the Republican
Party, and appeared to be losing some of its attraction to the
Soviet leadership. In December 1974, shortly after the
conclusion of the Vladivostok summit, Congress amended the bill
granting most-favored-nation (MFN) trading status to the Soviet
Union by tying freer emigration from the U.S.S.R. to improved
trade relations (the Jackson-Vanik amendment). Soviet General
Secretary Leonid Brezhnev heatedly protested this
"interference" in Soviet internal affairs in a letter to the
White House.1 In February 1975 Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko met in
Geneva to smooth over differences between the two states over
trade, arms control, and the Middle East. The meeting was
satisfactory and President Ford subsequently wrote Brezhnev
that the United States would look favorably on the Soviet
Government's request for a summit meeting which would coincide
with the CSCE heads of government gathering.2
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
2
Ford's decision to attend the Helsinki meeting was
calculated to please both the Soviet Union and U.S. European
Allies. The Soviets had been pressing for a conference on
European security since 1954 and hoped to utilize such a
process to secure Western recognition of the permanence of the
boundries the U.S.S.R. had created in Eastern and Central
Europe at the end of World War II. By 1974 they were pressing
for a summit meeting to crown the CSCE process. The NATO
Allies had agreed to the conference only after securing Soviet
concessions on the Berlin question and other German issues.
The NATO Allies utilized the CSCE to win public Soviet
commitments to respect the right to self-determination of other
European states and to conform with Western practices on human
rights issues. While the Helsinki accords were not treaty
commitments, they constituted a useful psychological tool to
force better Soviet behavior in Europe. In exchange, the West
reaffirmed its de facto recognition of Eastern Europe's
existing borders while inserting a clause in the Helsinki
document which stressed that border modification could only be
the result of peaceful change.3
President Ford's decision to attend the Helsinki Conference
and meet with Brezhnev was confirmed with the Soviet Union in
May and the dates for both the CSCE heads of government meeting
and the summit conference were finalized at a July 10 meeting
between Kissinger and Gromyko. The decision was publicly
announced on July 20, 1975. The President and his policy of
detente had in the meantime been embroiled in a series of
damaging controversies which climaxed when the White House
declined to receive exiled Soviet writer Aleksander
Solzhenitsyn on the publicly-stated grounds that such a meeting
might damage U.S.-Soviet relations. Announcement of Ford's
decision to meet with Brezhnev at Helsinki ignited a new wave
of attacks on the policy of detente. Traditional opponents of
closer cooperation with the Soviet Union were joined by usual
supporters such as The New York Times, which argued that a
Presidential appearance at Helsinki would appear to give
Western approval to Soviet claims that the Eastern European
borders established during and after World War II were
sacrosanct .4
The Ford administration sought to counter domestic
criticism of both the summit and CSCE by pointing out that the
United States was participating with 34 other nations in the
Helsinki meeting and that the CSCE Final Act was not legally
binding. In a meeting with leaders of U.S. ethnic groups of
East European origin, Ford reiterated U. S. refusal to grant de
jure recognition to the political solution imposed by Soviet
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
' Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
3
arms on Eastern Europe between 1940 and 1945. The President
stressed that the United States and its NATO Allies had won a
useful tool in efforts to improve the lot of the peoples of
Eastern Europe by extracting Soviet pledges to respect basic
human and political rights.
Preparations: SALT and the Future of Detente
Arms control, particularly the Strategic Arms Limitations
Treaty (SALT) Talks, dominated both East-West relations and
U.S. preparations for the Helsinki summit. Other issues of
importance were: Soviet cooperation with ongoing U.S. efforts
to secure withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai Peninsula
as the first step toward a comprehensive settlement of the
Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East; the related issues of
trade and freedom of emigration from the Soviet Union; limiting
Soviet involvement in Portugal's internal affairs following the
April 1974 revolution; implementation of the CSCE Final Act;
and revitalization of the stalled Mutual and Balanced Force
Reductions (MBFR) Talks.6
The Ford administration hoped to sign a SALT II agreement
with the Soviet Union in the fall of 1975 during a previously
agreed-upon Brezhnev visit to the United States. Gromyko, at a
May 10 meeting with Kissinger at Geneva, outlined new Soviet
proposals which raised U.S. hopes for a swift solution to
outstanding difficulties. On the critical issue of
verification of the number of missiles and warheads each side
possessed, the Soviets suggested that all missiles that had
been tested with multiple independently targetable reentry
vehicles (MIRV) should be counted as MIRVed and included in the
ceiling of 1320 missiles established by SALT I. The Soviets
also proposed that each side should have the right to replace
existing MIRV systems at a later date with new MIRV systems on
a one-to-one basis and single warhead missiles with new single
warhead missiles. The Soviet proposal was close to previous
U.S. projects for verification. Linked to the verification
proposal, however, was a second Soviet plan which called for
limiting cruise missile deployment. The Soviet plan would have
limited deployment of mobile cruise missiles with a range of
more than 600 kilometers to bomber aircraft. It banned ship,
submarine, or mobile transporter launched cruise missiles with
a range greater than 600 kilometers together with all
intercontinental range land-based cruise missiles. The Soviets
rejected U.S. efforts to define their recently developed
"Backfire" bomber as a strategic weapon, and thus to include it
in the strategic arms talks.7
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
' Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
4
Kissinger advised President Ford that the Soviet proposals
represented a significant step toward an agreement on SALT II
and that a meeting between the President and Soviet General
Secretary might accelerate progress toward an agreement.8 A
note containing the U.S. response to the Soviet proposals of
May 1975 was presented at the end of July. The United States
indicated substantial agreement with Soviet proposals on
verification. It favored a ban on ballistic missiles in space,
in seabeds, and on ocean floors, as well as those with a range
of over 600 kilometers deployed on surface ships. The United
States further suggested that these areas of basic agreement
together with a number of other technical matters be referred
to the two nations' negotiating teams at Geneva for final
resolution. The U.S. note also stated it was willing to accept
"substantial parts of the Soviet position on cruise missiles,"
including a ban on the deployment of cruise missiles with a
range greater than 600 kilometers which were "carried on
aircraft other than heavy bombers," and a ban on the
development of intercontinental cruise missiles. The United
States sought modifications in Soviet proposals on submarine
and surface launched cruise missiles. Finally, the U.S. note
reiterated the position that the Backfire bomber must be
considered in the strategic arms talks.9
In the guidance memorandum Secretary Kissinger forwarded to
President Ford on July 29, 1975, two objectives dominated U.S.
strategy for the Helsinki summit: 1) progress in SALT
negotiations and 2) reaffirmation of the commitment of both
sides to improve U.S.-Soviet relations as a matter of basic
policy. Kissinger advised the President that he should
underline his government's insistence that U.S.-Soviet
cooperation was a "two-way street." Movement toward solution
of such key issues as SALT, the MBFR talks, and the
implementation of the CSCE Final Act was the best means to calm
U.S. public suspicions that the Soviet Union was exploiting
detente, thereby preserving the basis for U.S.-Soviet
cooperation.10
While no formal agenda was prepared for the Ford-Brezhnev
talks, the State Department prepared briefing material On the
following substantive issues:
--CSCE implementation
--MBFR talks
--The Middle East peace process
--The strategic balance in the Indian Ocean
--The Portugese situation
--U.S.-Soviet trade
--Emigration from the Soviet Union
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
5
The briefing material provided President Ford outlined U.S.
policy in the following manner. The United States viewed the
CSCE Final Act as a set of guidelines for the future conduct of
East-West relations; it established standards of behavior that
could be translated into practice. The President should press
Brezhnev to break the deadlock over MBFR. If the Soviet Union
raised the Middle East question, the United States would seek
to reassure Soviet leaders that it was not seeking to expel
their influence from the area. Soviet cooperation, preferably
by nonintervention in U.S. peacemaking efforts, was welcome.
The President was also prepared to discuss the strategic
balance in the Indian Ocean area, and to note that the United
States had no desire to start a regional arms race, but would
counter continued development of Soviet bases in the region
through construction of a facility at Diego Garcia island.
Similarly, the United States would urge Soviet restraint and
nonintervention in Portugese internal affairs which had taken
an increasingly radical course since the April 1974 revolution,
thereby offering the Portugese Communist Party an enticement to
attempt to seize power. In addition to SALT, other arms
control issues were being discussed by the great powers, and
the President was prepared to state that the United States was
ready to sign the just completed treaty limiting peaceful
nuclear explosions to a 150 kiloton threshold and, with only a
few details remaining before completion of an environmental
warfare agreement, the United States was ready to work out a
common strategy for its presentation and ultimate signature.
Finally, on the troubled and intertwined issues of trade and
emigration, the President was to promise that he would seek
revision of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to permit the Soviet
Union to enjoy most favored nation trading status. However,
Ford was to explain candidly that prospects for disentangling
the two issues were limited and that progress toward full trade
status was likely to be slow.11
Discussions: Progress on Detente and Deadlock on SALT
President Ford arrived at Helsinki on the afternoon of July
29, 1975 after state visits to the Federal Republic of Germany
and Poland. The Presidential party included Secretary of State
Kissinger, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Walter Stoessel,
Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs Brent Scowcroft,
and State Department Counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt. The
President's schedule was arranged to provide time for two
lengthy morning meetings with the aging and recently ill
Brezhnev, immediately before and after the CSCE ceremonies,
which were scheduled for the afternoon of July 30 through
August 1. The Brezhnev party included Foreign Minister Andrei
Gromyko and his senior foreign affairs advisers.
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
6
The first negotiating session between President Ford and
Secretary Brezhnev took place at the residence of the U.S.
Ambassador to Finland on the morning of July 30, 1975 and
lasted approximately 3 hours.12 At the request of the Soviet
Union, the participants deferred discussion of SALT until the
second meeting. President Ford then made a statement in which
he stressed the United States commitment to detente and
indicated his expectation to remain in office for a second term
to see the process of cooperation continued. Noting that
detente had serious critics in the United States, Ford stated
that further progress on SALT and the successful implementation
of the CSCE agreements would silence them. The President also
pointed out that a projected Brezhnev visit to the United
States in the fall of 1975 would depend on progress on a SALT
agreement.
Brezhnev responded by underlining his desire to reach an
accord on SALT and stated that the Soviet Union would be fully
prepared to devote itself to the issue at the second session of
the summit after a more detailed study of the latest U.S.
proposals. Brezhnev also introduced the idea of extending the
CSCE process to other areas of the globe, noting that Ford had
stated that detente was not only for Europe but for the rest of
the world as well.
The Soviet General Secretary raised the issue of the Middle
East. He indicated that the United Nations was not a suitable
forum for settling the Arab-Israeli problem. Brezhnev stressed
that the Soviet Union wanted to know more about U.S. plans for
a Middle East solution and added that without U.S.-Soviet
accord on a solution the suspended Geneva Conference on the
Middle East would collapse. In response to a Ford request for
Soviet suggestions and recommendations, Brezhnev replied that
his government's position was that Israel must surrender
territory occupied since June 1967, and that the Palestinian
rights and Israel's "free and secure" existence must be
guaranteed. Prodded by Gromyko, Brezhnev then noted Soviet
concern that the step-by-step method of returning occupied
lands was in danger of becoming divorced from the larger issue
of a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East.
President Ford agreed that the United Nations was not a
suitable forum for settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The President added that the United States wanted to avoid a
clash between the great powers and to find a means of bringing
together the parties to the dispute. According to the
memorandum of conversation, Ford then complimented the Soviet
Union for its "very helpful actions." Ford stressed that the
"step-by-step" approach which the United States was employing
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
7
had reached a stage "where either it will achieve another
success, or else there is a possibility of a comprehensive
proposal . . . that would encompass all of the issues that have
festered there for years." Kissinger added the United States
believed that "after the next step we will have reached the
point where a comprehensive approach will be required." After
further comments on the complexity of the Middle East problem,
Kissinger reiterated the need for a U.S.-Soviet accord on
common policy for the region and warned against the danger of
being drawn into a confrontation by "volatile" peoples who had
no loyalty to either of the great powers.
Brezhnev insisted that an agreed-upon forum existed in the
proposed Geneva Conference and the time had come for the United
States to give up its step-by-step diplomacy, which was not
producing a comprehensive solution, in favor of a conference of
all the parties which could settle the entire matter.
The talks also dealt with the intertwined issues of Soviet
emigration policy and most-favored-nation trading status.
President Ford praised Brezhnev for his frank discussions with
a U.S. Senatorial delegation on matters relating to trade and
economics. Ford stressed the close connection between a
satisfactory settlement of the issue of Jewish emigration and
his Administration's efforts to secure a favorable trade bill
from the Congress. Brezhnev introduced statistics on Jewish
emigration from the Soviet Union to show that the number of
Jews wishing to leave had declined precipitously from a high
point of 33,000 in 1973, because those who wished to leave had
now departed. He claimed that the Soviet Union had met 98.4
percent of all requests for emigration submitted since 1945 and
that those cases which had been denied permission to emigrate
involved security matters. Fewer Soviet Jews wished to
emigrate to Israel and the Soviet Union could not forceably
expel Jewish citizens who wished to remain in the Soviet Union
to meet the demands of the U.S. Congress.
President Ford did not challenge the Soviet presentation
but instead stressed the need for creating a favorable
perception of the Soviet Union and the detente process by
further progress on the basic issues of SALT and CSCE and by
making it clear that the possibility for emigration from the
Soviet Union existed.
Brezhnev concluded the meeting by noting statements by U.S.
Defense Secretary James Schlesinger which implied that the
United States might launch a preventive nuclear strike against
the Soviet Union. President Ford assured the Soviet leader
that he made U.S. policy and that the policy was detente.
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
8
Both Ford and Brezhnev participated in the largely
ceremonial concluding sessions of the CSCE between July 30 and
August 1 and signed the Final Act. In their speeches to the
conference prior to the August 1 signing ceremony, the U.S.
President and the Soviet General Secretary underlined their
commitment to detente and the implementation of the CSCE
accords. Thus, their second 3-hour meeting on the morning of
August 2 on the key issue of SALT negotiations began in a
favorable atmosphere. This second meeting, however, was less
productive. Brezhnev, who had recently recovered from an
illness, appeared fatigued to U.S. officials and apparently
ill-prepared to discuss the substance of SALT. President
Ford's memoirs indicate that the Soviets refused to back away
from the position that the Backfire bomber was not a strategic
weapon. A heated exchange ensued between Ford and Brezhnev
over the truthfulness of Soviet claims that Backfire was not a
strategic weapon. A "theatrically outraged" Brezhnev insisted
that the United States could not doubt the word of the
Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party. The Soviets
also insisted on linking concessions on verification to an
agreement on cruise missiles which would severely limit both
their range and their deployment. No progress was made toward
resolving the impasse over the issue of arms limitations. In
an intriguing aside, Brezhnev appeared to offer a deal in which
the Soviets would sell oil to the United States at below world
market prices in exchange for a favorable grain sales
arrangement. U.S. officials were very interested in an offer
which might undercut the OPEC cartel and later dispatched
Assistant Secretary of State Charles Robinson to Moscow for
talks on the possible trade. The deal was never consumated.13
Results: A Domestic Setback for the President and Detente
U.S. leaders were pleased with the outcome of the first
summit session. Kissinger's briefing paper for an August 6,
1975 cabinet meeting noted that Brezhnev had made a "rather
strong and sometimes emotional" commitment to detente and that
the Soviet position on the Middle East was generally
conciliatory and they would await the outcome of U.S. efforts
at step-by-step diplomacy before pressing for the convening of
a Geneva meeting. The second meeting on SALT indicated that
substantial disagreements existed between the two sides which
could only be resolved through hard negotiations.14
The Helsinki summit did little to rebuild U.S. public
support for the policy of detente. Although President Ford
claimed "progress" in the SALT negotiations at a postsummit
meeting with the press, he admitted that failure to reach an
accord on this issue was "disturbing." Moreover, the summit at
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
,
TOP SECRET
9
Helsinki was part of what Ford later termed a "Soviet
propaganda victory" at the CSCE. Ford repeatedly defended the
U.S. decision to sign the Final Act and participate in the
Helsinki meetings, but he admitted that U.S. public opinion
had concluded that the Soviets had gained an advantage over the
United States, securing Western recognition of existing
European frontiers, recognition of the legitimacy of Eastern
European Communist governments, and the Soviet Union's forced
incorporation of the three pre-World War II Baltic republics of
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the U.S.S.R. Ford faced a
torrent of domestic criticism including charges that the United
States had "sold out" the peoples of Eastern Europe at Helsinki
which helped to lay the groundwork for a major challenge to his
renomination. Kissinger was called to testify before hostile
congressional committees. He told his staff he believed that
Defense Secretary Schlesinger, who opposed substantive
concessions on cruise missiles to the Soviet Union, was leaking
information designed to undercut administration policy.15
The policy of detente yielded at least one benefit for
diplomacy. Shortly after the summit, Kissinger secured a
second pullback of Israeli forces in the Sinai. The Soviet
Union did not interfere with the final round of intense
diplomacy and did not attack the agreements in official
statements.
Overall relations between the United States and the Soviet
Union, however, deteriorated during the remainder of the Ford
administration. Soviet assistance to one of the factions in
Angola's civil war provoked public criticism from Kissinger and
seemed to strengthen the case of critics who claimed that
detente was a one-way policy. One of the leading critics of
the policy, former California Governor Ronald Reagan challenged
President Ford for the Republican nomination, claiming that by
pursuing detente U.S. foreign policy was becoming subservient
to the Soviet Union.
Negotiations on a SALT II Treaty continued into 1976. The
two sides were unable to overcome their differences on either
cruise missiles or the Backfire bomber. A Kissinger visit to
Moscow in January 1976 failed to break the arms control logjam
or produce any give over Angola. The onset of the U.S.
Presidential election campaign led to a suspension of the
talks, and following President Ford's defeat the conclusion of
a SALT II agreement was left to the incoming Carter
administration.
In spite of its initial propaganda triumph at CSCE, the
' Soviet Union soon found the "Helsinki process" was an
encumberment to both its foreign and domestic policies. The
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
10
Western states pressed for full compliance with the CSCE
agreements and utilized subsequent CSCE review meetings to
highlight repeated Soviet violations in a number of areas,
including human rights. Meanwhile, Eastern European and Soviet
dissidents, aided by the Western press, spotlighted Soviet
repressive practices. This coverage undercut Soviet hopes of
attaining an unencumbered most-favored-nation trading status
with the United States.16
PA/HO:JEMiller
7/18/85 632-9702
RP 1454 Wang 0004t
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
11
Appendix
U.S.-SOVIET MEETING AT HELSINKI
JULY 30-AUGUST 2, 1975
PARTICIPANTS
United States
Gerald Ford, President of the United States
Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State and Assistant
to the President for National Security Affairs
Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Counselor of the Department of State
Walter J. Stoessel, Ambassador to the Soviet Union
William G. Hyland, Director, Bureau of Intelligence and
Research, Department of State
Alexander Akalovsky, Bureau of Political Military Affairs,
Department of State
Peter W. Rodman, National Security Council Staff
Soviet Union
L.I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party
A.A. Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs
G.M. Korniyenko, Member of the Collegium of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs
A.M. Aleksandrov, Assistant to the General Secretary
V.M. Sukhodrov, Counselor, Second European Department,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Interpreter)
A. Vavilov, U.S.A. Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
12
NOTES
1. Telegram SECTO 420 to Aswan, March 13, 1975. (A/OPR/FAIM
Kissinger Files) (S/Nodis). Memorandum from Secretary of State
Kissinger to President Ford, December 29, 1974, with attached
communication from First Secretary Brezhnev for Ford.
(A/OPR/FAIM Kissinger Files) (S/Sensitive)).
2. Letter from Ford to Brezhnev, February 26, 1975. (A/OPR/FAIM
Kissinger Files) (S).
3. "CSCE Background Paper," July 1975. (S/S-I Files, Lot 75 D
738, briefing books) (U).
4. The New York Times, July 21, 1975. Washington Post, July
25, 1975. Gerald Ford, A Time to Heal (New York: Harper & Row,
1979), pp. 297-301.
5. President Ford's July 25 statement is in Department of State
Bulletin, August 11, 1975, pp. 204-206.
6. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and his senior
staff, March 29, 1975 (Sonnenfeldt Files, Lot 81 D 286,
"USSR--January-March 1975) (S/Sensitive/Exclusively Eyes
Only). Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, "Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe," undated, (A/OPR/FAIM
Kissinger Files). (S/Sensitive).
7. Memorandum of conversation between Kissinger and Soviet
Foreign Minister Gromyko, July 10, 1975. (Sonnenfeldt Files,
Lot 81 D 286, "USSR--June-July 1975") (TS/Sensitive/Exclusively
Eyes Only).
8. Memorandum from Deputy Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs Scowcroft to Ford, July 11, 1975.
Sonnenfeldt Files, Lot 81 D 286, "USSR--June-July 1975")
(S/Sensitive). Memorandum from Hyland to Kissinger, July 17,
1975. (A/OPR/FAIM Kissinger Files) (S/Sensitive).
9. Memorandum from Sonnenfeldt and Lodal to Kissinger, July 25,
1975. (Sonnenfeldt Files, Lot 81 D 286, "USSR-June-July 1975")
(TS/Sensitive).
10. Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, July 29, 1975.
(Stoessel Files, Lot 82 D 307, "Helsinki") (S/Sensitive).
11. Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, July 29, 1975, 2E. cit.
The briefing books for the Helsinki summit are in S/S-I Lot 75
D 538.
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
a Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET
13
?
12. Memorandum of conversation between Ford and Brezhnev, July
30, 1975. (Sonnenfeldt Files, Lot 81 D 286, "USSR--June-July
1975") (S).
13. No memorandum of conversation for the second Ford-Brezhnev
meeting was located. Information on this meeting is taken from
Ford, A Time to Heal, pp. 303-304 and "Talking Points for the
Secretary" 2E. cit. Ford appears to have gotten the
chronological sequence of his meetings with Brezhnev confused,
placing the discussions on SALT at the first meeting instead of
the second. Information on the oil-grain trade off was
supplied by Helmut Sonnenfeldt in an interview with James
Miller and David Mabon, September 26, 1985. Sonnenfeldt also
confirmed the harsher tone of the second Ford-Brezhnev meeting
and described Brezhnev's theatrical manner.
14. "Taking Points for the Secretary at the Cabinet Meeting,"
August 6, 1975. (A/OPR/FAIM Kissinger Files) (TS/Sensitive).
15. Ford Question-and-Answer session with reporters aboard Air
Force One, August 2, 1975, in Department of State Bulletin,
September 1, 1975, pp. 308-311. Ford, A Time to Heal, pp.
306-307. Memorandum of a conversation between Kissinger and
his senior staff, Sept. 8, 1975, (Sonnenfeldt Files, Lot 81 D
286, "August-Sept-1975") (TS/Nodis).
16. Arkady Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow (New York: Knopf,
1985), pp. 264-267. Briefing Paper for September 1975
Kissinger-Gromyko meeting, undated, (A/OPR/FAIM Kissinger
Files) (S). Memorandum from Kissinger to Ford, Sept. 25,
1975, ibid.
TOP SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
CARTER AND BREZHNEV AT VIENNA, JUNE 15-18, 1979
The only U.S.-Soviet summit conference held during the
Carter administration opened in Vienna on June 15, 1979, and
continued through June 18, with five plenary meetings as well
as a private meeting between President Jimmy Carter and Soviet
General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. The convening of the summit
was linked to the completion of complex and difficult
negotiations on the strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT II),
which began in the Nixon and Ford administrations and was
pursued to completion by the Carter administration. The State
Department prepared briefing papers on a wide range of issues
that might be discussed at the Vienna conference, and
Department and White House working groups coordinated the
planning. Discussions at the summit focused on the following
subjects:
1. SALT II
2. SALT III and other-arms control issues
3. International issues
4. Bilateral and trade issues.
The major achievement at Vienna was the signing of the SALT
II Treaty on strategic arms. Many other issues were discussed
and positions clarified, but little movement toward specific
agreements resulted. Subsequently, the Soviet Union reacted
negatively to the NATO two-track decision in mid-December 1979
to deploy intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Western
Europe while simultaneously pursuing arms control talks with
the Soviet Union. The invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet armed
forces later that month removed all hopes for progress toward a
rapprochement in U.S.-Soviet relations. President Carter asked
the Senate to delay further consideration of the SALT II
Treaty; the agreement still has not been ratified.
Initiative: Linkage with SALT II
The Carter administration inherited a legacy of five
U.S.-Soviet summits from the Nixon and Ford administrations.
In his inaugural address President Carter expressed hope for
"the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this earth,"1
and his administration attempted from the outset to negotiate a
SALT II Treaty with the Soviet Union to supersede the limited
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
2
1972 SALT I agreement on offensive nuclear arms, due to expire
in October 1977. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance visited Moscow
in late March 1977 to initiate an arms control dialogue with
the Soviet leadership. Believing arms control agreements
should not merely codify or limit the arms race but should
result in substantial arms reductions, President Carter
instructed Secretary Vance to propose drastic cuts in the
number of each country's nuclear delivery vehicles. The Soviet
leadership rejected this U.S. initiative as a radical departure
from the understandings reached with President Ford at
Vladivostok in November 1974 and as very one-sided in favor of
the United States.2
Despite the failure of the Vance mission, the Carter
administration resumed the SALT talks with the Soviet Union in
Geneva in May 1977. These protracted negotiations included
regular sessions in Geneva between Paul Warnke, Chairman of the
U.S. SALT Delegation, and his Soviet counterpart, Vladimir
Semenov, as well as several meetings between Secretary Vance
and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in Washington,
Geneva, and Moscow and occasional meetings in Washington
between President Carter and Gromyko and Soviet Ambassador
Anatoliy Dobrynin. These talks gradually resolved many of the
outstanding substantive and technical issues between the two
sides.3 Each side stated in September 1977, shortly before
the expiration of the SALT I interim agreement, that it would
adhere to the provisions of that treaty during SALT II talks if
the other exercised similar restraint.4
During the negotiations the Soviet Union accepted a basic
framework of 2,250 total missile launchers for each side
beginning in 1981, 1,320 of which could contain multiple
(MIRVed) warheads. Each side agreed to sublimits of 1,200 for
MIRVed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and
submarine-launched ballistic missiles and 820 for land-based
ICBMs. The Soviets also dropped their previous insistence on a
range limit for the testing and deployment of air-launched
cruise missiles and later dropped the limit on testing of
ground- and sea-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs and SLCMs).
The United States reciprocated by accepting a prohibition on
the flight testing and deployment of air-launched cruise
missiles and a strict definition of a 600-kilometer limit on
GLCMs and SLCMs in the protocol of the treaty, which would be
in force through December 1981. The two sides also resolved
the modernization question. Each could test and deploy one new
ICBM, with defined characteristics, if the aggregate number of
ICBMs was limited to 1,200.5
Throughout these negotiations Brezhnev let it be known on
several occasions that he favored a "well prepared" summit
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
3
meeting with President Carter to confirm and sign a SALT II
agreement. Progress in resolving the major arms control
questions in SALT by early fall of 1978 raised President
Carter's hopes that a summit meeting could take place in late
1978 or early 1979.6
Difficulties in U.S.-Soviet relations nonetheless delayed
agreement on a summit meeting until the spring of 1979.
Differences arose during 1978 over the issue of encryption of
telemetry in missile tests. Warnke and Semenov had reached an
understanding at Geneva in which the Soviet Union agreed to ban
the encoding of electronic signals from its missile tests that
impeded U.S. ability to verify Soviet compliance with the SALT
II accord. Vance supported this understanding. But other U.S.
officials, especially Director of Central Intelligence
Stansfield Turner, advocated an outright ban on all telemetry
encryption. Gromyko informed U.S. officials that the SALT I
agreement allowing for national technical means of verification
was also adequate for the SALT II agreement, and the United
States was raising an "artificial" issue with its insistence on
a prohibition of encryption.7
Secretary Vance believed that although both nations were
groping toward the same end, the Soviets emphasized the
permissibility of encryption unless it impeded verification
while the United States was trying to stress its restriction.
New compromise language for an agreement was worked out between
Gromyko and Vance in Geneva in late December 1978, but during
these meetings new instructions from Washington required the
Secretary to reserve the U.S. right to challenge telemetry
encryption under the treaty. The loss of U.S. monitoring
capabilities in Iran in early 1979 following the revolution in
that country made U.S. concerns on the verification issue more
urgent. President Carter sent letters to President Brezhnev
stating his administration's opposition to the encryption of
telemetry and suggesting possible solutions to the impasse.8
The Soviet Backfire bomber issue also remained unresolved.
The Soviets insisted that the Backfire bomber had only
medium-range capability and therefore was not a strategic
weapon, but seemed willing to meet U.S. concerns on its range
and payload capabilities by making a separate statement outside
the treaty framework that it would not significantly increase
the annual production rate and the range/payload of this
aircraft. The details of this arrangement were not confirmed
in writing during these discussions, however, and the issue
would resurface as the subject of considerable discussion at
the summit meeting.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
4 ,
Other U.S. concerns were Soviet activities in Southern
Africa (Namibia, Angola, and Rhodesia) and growing Soviet
military presence in Ethiopia, South Yemen, Vietnam, and Cuba.
Regarding the latter, the Carter administration in the fall of
1978 sought clear assurances from the Soviets that the Mig-23s,
which U.S. intelligence had learned were being delivered to
Cuba, did not have a nuclear capability and that only a limited
number of a nonnuclear-capable ground attack version would be
sent to Cuba.
After considerable negotiations, the Soviet Union said that
it would not object to the Carter administration issuing of a
public statement that indicated the non-nuclear capabilities of
the Mig-23s in Cuba, provided the statement did not imply that
the Soviet Union had agreed not to increase the number of these
airplanes in Cuba. Though not entirely satisfied, the
President stated on November 30 and December 7 that he had
received Soviet assurances that it had not violated the 1962
U.S.-Soviet understanding that the Soviet Union would not
deploy nuclear weapons or nuclear delivery systems in Cuba.
Carter also affirmed that his administration would continue to
monitor Soviet actions there very carefully. 10
Throughout his discussions with Soviet officials, Vance
emphasized that the Soviet Union's focus on selective detente
limited to strategic arms was inadequate. U.S. leaders warned
that Soviet restraint and cooperation on regional questions
were required to persuade Senators that overall detente was
working so that they would give their consent to a SALT II
agreement .11
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union reacted negatively to the
growing rapprochement between the United States and the
People's Republic of China. The joint U.S.-China announcement
on December 15, 1978, of full diplomatic relations commencing
on January 1, 1979, followed by Chinese Vice Premier Deng
Xiaoping's visit to the United States, presaged the possibility
of U.S. arms sales to China. National Security Adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski in particular believed the Soviet
leadership faced a serious dilemma--whether to try to foster
detente with the United States or move in other directions--and
he felt that the exploitation of the China relationship would
elicit a Soviet response one way or the other. Though Brezhnev
had written President Carter immediately after the joint
announcement that he hoped the U.S. relationship with China
would not preclude an early SALT agreement, he soon reversed
these private assurances through the Soviet news media.
President Carter's subsequent statements that the United States
would not sell arms to China failed to convince Soviet leaders
who continued to express publicly their displeasure at the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
_Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
5
prospct of increasingly friendly relations between their two
major rivals.12
Though some State Department officials believed that the
U.S. decision to establish normal diplomatic relations with
China seriously complicated U.S.-Soviet relations and delayed
the summit meeting, Brzezinski believed that too many SALT
issues (telemetry ecryption and the Backfire, for example)
remained unresolved to conclude a SALT II treaty at a summit.
It took in fact almost weekly meetings, about 25 in all,
between Vance and Dobrynin from January to' June 1979 as well as
ongoing negotiations between the SALT delegations in Geneva to
resolve the outstanding SALT questions. The continuing
progress on SALT II gradually convinced both sides that the
major issues on strategic arms had been resolved and that a
summit meeting of the heads of government was desirable in the
near future)"'
A last detail in these discussions was agreement on the
site for the summit. Because the last meeting between the
heads of the two governments held in either nation had taken
place at Vladivostok, protocol required that this summit be
held in the United States. Soviet officials apparently
claimed, however, that Brezhnev's poor health precluded a long
journey to the United States, and the two sides agreed instead
on Vienna. A more neutral meeting place like Vienna had
certain advantages for constructive discussions. As Brzezinski
later observed, the Vienna site permitted the summit to take
place with less fanfare and fraternization than would have been
the case if it had been held in the United States.14
Finally, on May 11 the two governments announced that a
summit meeting would be held June 15-18, 1979, in Vienna to
"confirm and sign the treaty on the limitation of strategic
offensive arms" and "discuss other issues of mutual
interest. '.15
Preparations: Many Issues, Few Prospects for Agreements
Several months before the formal announcement of the Vienna
meeting, Carter administration officials began to prepare
briefing papers on a wide range of issues that might be
discussed at a summit conference. Department of State and
National Security Council (NSC) officials organized an
interdepartmental working group to coordinate the planning for
a summit meeting. In March 1979, the Department also organized
its own working group. Robert Barry, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for European Affairs (EUR), served as
chairman of the Department's working group of 16-20 officials,
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
6
most of whom were Soviet specialists, arms control experts from
the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs and the Arms Control
and Disarmament Agency (ACD), and public affairs officials
from the Bureau of Public Affairs, EUR, Voice of America, and
the International Communications Agency. (The public affairs
input declined when it was decided to hold the summit outside
the United States.) This working group handled overall
planning, including the preparation of briefing, "issues," and
talking points papers. Barry, who also served on the NSC
working group, acted as liaison with the White House on the
preparations. Marshall Shulman, Special Adviser to the
Secretary on Soviet Affairs, worked closely .with Barry and the
Department's working group and met frequently with Vance and
Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher in discussing the
agenda and planning for the summit. Department principals also
consulted regularly with the American Embassy in Moscow
concerning these preparations.18
The Department of State and NSC working groups agreed on an
agenda comprising four main subject areas:
1) The overall relationship, including the possibility of
annual summit meetings and regular meetings at the Foreign
Minister-Secretary of State level, and a dialogue between the
two Defense Ministers or their Chiefs of Staff;
2) SALT II and other arms control issues, including SALT
III, mutual balanced and force reduction (MBFR) talks,
anti-satellite weapons (ASAT), comprehensive test ban (CTB),
chemical and radiological weapons, Indian Ocean, and nuclear
non-proliferation;
3) International and regional issues, including the Middle
East peace process, Iran, Southern Africa, Horn of Africa,
Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Persian Gulf, Cuba, and global
development issues; and
4) Bilateral and trade issues, including
most-favored-nation (MFN) status, agreement on a new U.S.
consulate in Tashkent, reciprocity in media and commercial
representation, human rights, cultural exchange agreement, and
parliamentary exchanges.17
Subsequent meetings between Vance and Dobrynin or their
deputies resulted in agreement on an agenda for the summit.
Dobrynin objected only to the inclusion of human rights and
reciprocity in media and commercial representation. Regarding
other arms control issues, such as gray areas, ASAT, CTB, and
MBFR, he noted that "so far we are not encouraged by the
position of the U.S. side at the negotiations and in the course
of bilateral exchanges on these issues."18 His comment
foreshadowed the inconclusive result of the discussions on
these issues at the Vienna summit.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
7
the two sides also agreed to negotiate in advance the
communique to be issued at the conclusion of the summit.
Following Soviet presentation of its draft communique on May
25, EUR prepared a counterdraft, with contributions from the
Office of the Legal Advisor, Bureau of Politico-Military
Affairs, Policy Planning Staff, and regional bureaus. This
counterdraft incorporated some of the Soviet language but, "in
contrast to the rather bland Soviet text," set forth the U.S.
"maximum realistic positions on key issues." The draft was
given to the Soviets on June 1.19 On the' following day
representatives from the Soviet Embassy met with Barry and
David Aaron and Reginald Bartholomew from the NSC to devise an
agreed text.
, Discussions on the communique revealed that the Soviet
Union sought a general declaration of principles expressing in
rather abstract terms the two nations' commitment to peaceful
coexistence as they had done at the Moscow summit in 1972,
while the United States preferred to emphasize the specific and
concrete. The Soviets complained about the U.S. draft
communique dropping references to "peaceful coexistence,"
"non-intervention in each other's internal affairs," strategic
parity, and "complete equality" as the principles guiding SALT,
and to abjuring efforts "to achieve military supremacy."
Similarly, the Soviets objected to U.S. language on a U.N. role
in the Middle East peace process and to the "commitment to
freedom of movement" in the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) context. They also rejected the
selective references to South Asia on nonproliferation matters,
and to specific references to Indochina, Iran, and
Afghanistan. When willing to engage in specifics, the Soviets
wanted to spell out U.S.-Soviet differences on the Middle East
and South Africa. This contradicted the U.S. desire for more
positive language in the communique.20 The disagreements on
the communique foreshadowed the differences on the same issues
that Carter and Brezhnev would express to each other at the
summit.
Carter administration officials' desire for a constructive
summit meeting prompted them to recede from their initial
maximum positions and to meet the Soviets more than halfway on
the communique. The agreed items in the communique worked out
in time for the opening of the summit were clearly more general
than specific. The communique included the Soviet emphasis on
the principles guiding the SALT process and mentioned other
arms control issues mainly in terms of agreement to continue
talks on them. It also referred only to the importance of
increasing cooperation on international and regional issues and
did not cite any third country by name as a special concern.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
8
Likewise, on bilateral issues it mentioned only positive
developments on a range of cultural, academic, scientific, and
technical exchange programs and the importance of working
toward the elimination of obstacles to mutually beneficial
trade relations. Other U.S. concerns, such as annual summit
meetings and biannual meetings at the Secretary of
State-Foreign Minister level, which Vance had vigorously
promoted within the Department and at the White House, and
advance notification of all strategic missile tests were
deferred for subsequent discussion at the summit.21
In early June, Brzezinski and Vance sent papers to
President Carter on U.S. objectives at the Vienna meeting.
Brzezinski's memorandum, which was not submitted to the State
Department in advance, divided the objectives into
agreements/understandings and positions. Brzezinski had little
hope for specific outcomes beyond the signing of the SALT II
Treaty, agreement in principle to reduce missile launchers to
1,800 in SALT III, a possible preliminary agreement on ASAT,
agreement on a framework for a Phase I agreement on MBFR and
other arms control issues, and Soviet agreement in the
communique to freer flow of information and to greater equality
and reciprocity in media and commercial representation. He
perceived the summit mainly as an opportunity "to convey our
perspectives and positions clearly and firmly to the Soviets so
they know where we (and they) stand. This may, at a minimum,
heighten their sensitivity to our concerns and possible actions
and reduce the chances of miscalculation." Here Carter noted
in the margin, "Too Timid. We should have clear goals and
strive for them." He wrote similar comments elsewhere on
Brzezinski's memorandum.22
There had been too many ups and downs in Soviet-American
relations since his inauguration more than 2 years earlier for
the President to be overly sanguine about major breakthroughs
at the summit. Nevertheless, he thought that his face-to-face
meetings with Brezhnev would enable them to clear the air and
begin to search, on a human level, for common ground in
confronting the major problems affecting their peoples.23
Secretary Vance's memorandum, like Brzezinski's, also
forecast only modest specific accomplishments. Vance, however,
described much more fully the political psychology of the
Soviet leadership, including Brezhnev. Because the Secretary
believed that the Soviet leaders "attach great weight to the
personal element of political relationships," he impressed upon
Carter that "Brezhnev and his entourage will be heavily
influenced by your personal style and their perception of your
motivations." Despite their competitive tactics on many
issues, Vance was convinced that Brezhnev and other Soviet
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
9
leaders were deeply committed to the stability and
respectablility that went with a smooth U.S.-Soviet
relationship. Thus, he urged that "a major objective of this
Summit should be to reinforce the incentives for the Soviet
leaders to adhere to the general course they have taken away
from the Cold War, while at the same time nudging them towards
a more realistic understanding of what modifications in their
behavior are essential if this course is to prosper." More
specifically, he emphasized, "the primary focus of your
exchanges with Brezhnev should be to reaffirm the basic
framework of US-Soviet relations, which is based on substantial
common interest in strategic stability, mutual acceptance of
the status quo in the developed world, and avoidance of
confrontation in dealing with the Third World."
The Secretary singled out bilateral trade as an issue where
Brezhnev might be most tractable. Brezhnev, he noted, had his
own domestic constituency. His promises to segments of the
Soviet elite to gain access to American technology and even
consumer goods gave the United States potential leverage at the
summit. Vance believed that trade with the Soviet Union had
been constricted by linking it narrowly to Jewish emigration
under the Jackson-Vanik amendment (section 402) of the Trade
Act of 1974. According to Vance, the Soviet Government had
recently begun to allow many more people to emigrate. If
President Carter received positive assurances from Brezhnev of
further Soviet improvement of the emigration process, then
Carter would be willing to grant MFN status to the Soviet
Union. Congress, Vance predicted, would not disapprove his
action.24
Vance and Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal probed
Dobrynin on this proposal in May and early June. The Soviet
Ambassador had expressed Soviet objections to any linkage
between trade and emigration, but held open the prospect of
major progress on this issue in Vienna.2 "If we can resolve
the impasse over MFN," Vance argued optimistically in his
memorandum, "we will have restored the economic option to our
tools for dealing with Moscow, and we will have strengthened
the hand of those in the USSR Who favor detente as a path to
modernizing the economic and social system."26
Expectations of a trade agreement resulted in a State
Department plan that Blumenthal and Juanita Kreps, Secretary of
Commerce, be present at the summit. Brzezinski, however, knew
that Vance did not believe in linkage and was probably not
serious about linking MFN to other issues. In any event,
Brzezinski feared that the raising of the trade issue at the
summit would deflect attention from what he considered to be
more fundamental geopolitical questions. He wanted the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
10
discussions with Brezhnev limited to "two simple themes--arms
cuts and regional restraint," and prevailed upon Carter to
leave Blumenthal and Kreps at home.27
Vance also stressed Brezhnev's frail health as a limiting
factor at the summit. At his worst the Soviet leader "would
show the symptoms of growing senility." Even if at his best,
Brezhnev could only endure two short negotiating sessions each
day. In consequence, "actual negotiation on central issues is
unlikely." Finally, Vance proffered advice on what the
President should advance at each negotiating session in order
to convey most effectively U.S. positions and concerns.28
Discussions: Verbal Stalemate
Carter and Brezhnev had morning and afternoon plenary
sessions on June 16 and 17 and a brief private meeting on June
18 immediately followed by a final plenary meeting on bilateral
matters. They held the first two plenary sessions at the U.S.
Embassy and the second two at the Soviet Embassy. The two
leaders had their private meeting at the U.S. Embassy and then
moved to the Soviet Embassy for the final plenary meeting.
Vance, Brzezinski, one of Brzezinski's aides (Aaron or
Bartholomew), Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, JCS Chairman
Gen. David Jones, George Seignious, who had replaced Warnke as
ACDA Director in early 1979, Ralph Earle, head of the SALT
Delegation, Ambassador to the Soviet Union Malcolm Toon, and
personal advisers Hamilton Jordan and Jody Powell accompanied
President Carter at the plenary meetings; while Gromyko,
Dobrynin, Brezhnev's assistant A.M. Aleksandrov-Agentov,
Defense Minister D.F. Ustinov, K.U. Chernenko, G.M. Korniyenko,
W.V. Ogarkov, L.M. Zamyatin, and the head of the SALT
delegation, V.P. Karpov, sat in with Brezhnev. Each leader
also had his own interpreter. Except for Gromyko, who
regularly participated in the discussions, Carter and Brezhnev
did almost all the talking at these plenary sessions; but
because each session was only 11/2 to 2 hours in length,
presumably out of deference to Brezhnev's uncertain health, the
two leaders had only about 10 hours of direct talks. The
requirement for translation of each leader's remarks further
constricted the time available for full exploration of the
issues. Prospects for substantive achievements beyond SALT II
were unlikely in this short period. Even their introductory
meetings on June 15 and short luncheons and dinners together
following the sessions on June 16 and 17 did not allow for more
than pleasant, informal conversation and toasts.29
Shortly after the delegations arrived in Vienna, Vance and
Gromyko sat down on the afternoon of June 15 to discuss
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
11
unrescaved items for possible inclusion in the communique, but
they made very little progress. Vance pressed for inclusion of
annual summit meetings and frequent meetings at other levels,
including between their military and defense leaders, a
statement on "no victor in a nuclear war," advance notification
of military exercises, prohibition on destruction of objects in
outer space, the convening of a Second U.N. Special Session on
Disarmament, and a U.N. role in the Middle East. Gromyko
acceded, however, only to mention of more regular meetings and
a continuation of the ASAT talks, a statement that "nuclear war
would be a disaster for all mankind," and the holding of a
Second Special Session to be followed by a world disarmament
conference, which the Soviets had earlier proposed.3?
Carter and Brezhnev first met that evening when they paid
their respects to Austrian President Kirchschlaeger. Following
the formal greetings the leaders of the two superpowers had a
brief, private conversation during which they agreed that
success at the summit was necessary for themselves and for the
rest of the world. "If we-do not succeed," Brezhnev said,
placing his hand on Carter's shoulder, "God will punish us."
They talked again briefly that night at the opera.31
The subject of the first plenary meeting on the following
morning was the general state of U.S.-Soviet relations. Though
President Carter was the host, selected in advance by a flip of
the coin, and was supposed to speak first, Brezhnev interjected
that he would speak first and proceeded to read a prepared
statement.32
Brezhnev conceded that there were problems in U.S.-Soviet
relations but the two nations had been Allies during World War
II. The two leaders needed to engage in frank and constructive
discussions in trying to resolve their disagreements. "If we
have good relations and mutual understanding between our
countries," he stressed, "there will be peace, there will be no
nuclear war, and jointly we will always be able to prevent
that. And that we must do, I want to repeat and emphasize--we
must." He said that his thinking on U.S.-Soviet relations had
always proceeded from the principle of peaceful coexistence
between nations with different social and economic systems. It
was not necessary to exacerbate their differences and risk a
nuclear war that neither would win.33 Pointing across the
table at Vance, Brezhnev remarked, "He is the only one who does
not want that." (Brezhnev's comment was probably intended for
Brzezinski, not Vance, but he had confused the two.)34
The Soviet leader also focused on the complete equality
between the two nations underlying their better relations, and
emphasized that the Soviet Union had no hostile intentions
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
12
toward the United States. He thought President Carter felt the
same way, but he could not understand why the United States
persistently built up its military forces which triggered an
arms race.
Carter responded that it was his highest goal to
restructure U.S.-Soviet relations on a stable basis. He quoted
Brezhnev's remark the previous day that God would not forgive
them if they failed. He felt that often differences arose
because of lack of understanding and of regular consultations.
When he added that he sometimes had the impression that the two
Foreign Ministers did not share the same objectives as their
leaders, Gromyko protested: "That is a very bold statement."
Carter conceded that competition would remain, but they needed
a full discussion of the potentially destabilizing aspects of
this competition. Neither side could dominate the other, and
the arms race resulted in much waste of human and natural
resources and the development of unnecessary capabilities.
Brezhnev, who frequently interrupted to indicate his
agreement with Carter, at this point interjected that Carter
had already approved a greatly increased military budget for
the coming year, so he did not know whether he should believe
Carter's statement. Carter replied that he understood that the
Soviet Union had steadily increased its expenditures for
weapons of all kinds during the past 15 years and at a faster
rate than that of the United States. Both nations, he urged,
should exercise greater restraint.
After a few further frank but amicable exchanges, during
which Carter stressed the importance not only of SALT II but
preparation for SALT III and further progress on MBFR, CTB, and
other arms control issues, Brezhnev stood up abruptly and
announced that it was time for lunch. Though the session was
not scheduled to end for another half hour, Brezhnev's action
resulted in early adjournment.35
The focus of the second plenary meeting that afternoon was
SALT II. In his opening statement Brezhnev emphasized the
difficulties and compromises required in negotiating the SALT
II agreement. He did not like everything in the treaty but
felt it met the interests of both sides. After mentioning the
requirement of unilateral statements by both sides, he handed
over the Soviet statement on the Backfire bomber. He pointed
out that the statement was a gesture in good will because the
Backfire did not relate to arms covered in the treaty. If he
United States in the same spirit should state that the
production rate was 30 per year, he added, no rebuttal would be
made by the Soviets. He then remarked that it should be clear
that until the agreement entered into force, it could not be
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
13
binding on either side. He was confident the Supreme Soviet
would xatify the treaty, but he expressed concern about its
opponents in the United States.
General Secretary Brezhnev further declared that Soviet
military doctrine was defensive only and did not envisage first
use of nuclear or any other weapons, and he invited a similar
statement from President Carter. Such a public statement, he
predicted, would be a rebuff to opponents of the treaty and
those demanding amendments to it. He made clear that only the
treaty as signed could go into force.
He then raised the question of the MX. The Carter
administration had announced its decision to produce and deploy
this new missile only a week before the opening of the summit.
Brzezinski especially worked assiduously to win the President's
endorsement of the MX and for Soviet acceptance of one new
missile system for each side in the SALT II treaty. He firmly
believed that the administration's commitment to the MX was
required to help to neutralize hard-line opposition to the
treaty and in any case was necessary to counter the Soviets'
growing superiority in land-based missiles.36 Frankly,
Brezhnev stated, he did not see how the MX decision promoted
the arms control objectives of the treaty. He added that the
multiple protective shelters basing mode for deployment of the
MX could not be verified and would preclude reaching agreement
on SALT III.
Brezhnev continued that SALT III would have to take into
account additional concerns, especially long-range SLCMs and
GLCMs limited only until the end of 1980 in the protocol of
SALT II, U.S. forward-based systems in Europe, and the nuclear
missile potential of NATO and China. How, he asked, were these
countries to be associated with the process of limiting
strategic arms? He thought that frequent references in the
West to gray areas were very vague. He asserted that Soviet
medium-range missiles and aircraft could not reach the United
States, while U.S. weapons could strike Soviet territory.
These were not simple questions, but SALT III would have to
resolve which systems were gray and black.
President Carter first responded by congratulating Brezhnev
on his success in negotiating the SALT II agreement over many
years with three U.S. Presidents. Because he believed the
Soviet side had prevailed in these lengthy negotiations, he
suggested that it was time for Brezhnev to be more generous to
the Americans. Brezhnev responded, "I am ready."
The United States, Carter continued, had no intention of
deploying more than 20 cruise missiles during the term of the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
14
treaty. Regarding Minuteman launchers, the President handed
Brezhnev a copy of the agreed statement. He also stated that
despite U.S. problems with the Backfire bomber, the United
States had agreed to exclude it from the treaty. He understood
that the Soviet side would not exceed the production rate of 30
per year. Soviet agreement on this matter was the basis on
which he agreed to sign the treaty. He also stated that the
United States had the right to produce comparable aircraft.
Carter then raised the issue of encryption of telemetry in
missile tests. Gromyko said that the two sides had gone over
this question hundreds of times and that the Soviets had agreed
that there would be no encryption of information related to the
parameters envisaged by the treaty. Any questions on the
matter would be taken up by the Standing Consultative
Commission. Brezhnev read a statement affirming Gromyko's
interpretation. Following a brief exchange of the
interpreter's choice of words, Carter remarked that he
understood that encryption of information regarding the
parameters envisaged by the treaty must not impede national
technical means. He added that his administration had proposed
discussion of these parameters, but the Soviets had refused.
The President went on say that he was prepared to act as if
the treaty was in force in accordance with international law
pending ratification, if the Soviets would do the same. Both
Brezhnev and Gromyko replied, however, that this was not
general practice in Soviet treaties, and they would not agree
to accede to the provisions of SALT II until it entered into
force. Carter repeated that he would like to treat the
agreement as well as the Threshold Test Ban Treaty as binding
until ratification, and regardless of the Soviet decision he
intended to take no action not consistent with the SALT
Treaty. Brezhnev responded that their disagreement was clear,
and they should go on to the next issue.
Carter stated that they could agree to a joint agreement on
non-first use of nuclear weapons, and Brezhnev confirmed that
they could work on it. Carter argued that the MX was not
nearly as formidable as the Soviet SS-18 or SS-19 missiles, and
he recalled that he had already informed Brezhnev in a personal
message that the MX would not be excluded from verification by
national technical means. Finally, the extension of the
protocol was a matter for negotiation, not presumption, at this
time. Its terms were not to be assumed to set a precedent. He
suggested they defer other issues, such as intermediate-range
and forward-based systems and China, to the next meeting on
SALT III and other arms control issues.37
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
'Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
15
In his opening remarks the following morning Carter argued
that SALT II did not go far enough in limiting the arms race,
and he outlined steps the two might explore together in
curtailing it in their approach to SALT III. Because he
thought improved verification increased mutual trust, he hoped
they might agree to the elimination of all encryption of
telemetry, notification of all missile flight tests and massive
bomber exercises, the improvement of monitoring stations, and
on-site inspection in certain circumstances. He also indicated
the United States was prepared to agree to large reductions in
the number of missile launchers and warheads and in
throw-weight, and to explore the prospect of an immediate
moratorium on the construction of new missile launchers and
warheads. Prior to SALT III, they might look into the
possibility of five percent reductions each year provided the
reductions were balanced.
Carter explained that he wanted agreements not only to
reduce the number of nuclear weapons but to make the remaining
ones less vulnerable. Ustinov interrupted to ask if it was not
inconsistent to try to reduce the number of weapons while
improving the quality of the remaining ones. Carter replied
that making missiles less vulnerable to attack was an
improvement only in a defensive sense, and he cited as a
possibility an agreement making nuclear submarines immune from
antisubmarine activities in certain ocean waters.
He thought the two leaders could explore the possibility of
further constraints on the modernization of weapons systems, a
process started with the SALT II Treaty, and a prohibition on
the testing of missiles in a depressed trajectory because they
reduced the warning time of attacking missiles. He also wanted
to proceed with a comprehensive test ban agreement, if
necessary even without the participation of Great Britain,
which objected to verification provisions. The United States
would do everything possible to induce other nations,
especially France, Britain, and China, to join in substantial
reductions of nuclear weapons deployed. He argued that the
absence of cooperation from other nations should not be allowed
to interfere with their bilateral arms control efforts.
The two nations, Carter continued, should also agree to
sell nuclear fuel or technology only to nations that had signed
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and had agreed to
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. He
indicated his readiness to sign a partial agreement with the
Soviet Union on antisatellite (ASAT) systems that would
prohibit the damage to or destruction of the other's
satellites, and to announce publicly that neither side planned
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
16
to test antisatellite missiles or systems. Finally, he
suggested that Defense Secretaries Brown and Ustinov could meet
separately on MBFR to see if they could break the impasse on a
definition of what constituted a soldier and other data that
obstructed progress on these talks at Vienna.
Brezhnev's presentation recited well-known Soviet positions
on the reduction of nuclear weapons stockpiles and the
comprehensive test ban. Regarding the latter, he hoped the
United States could persuade the British to change their
inflexible position. He also reminded Carter that on
non-proliferation he had already written him -about U.S. plans
to supply nuclear reactors to China but had not received a
satisfactory reply. He blamed Pakistan for working on nuclear
weapons and claimed that its argument of defense against India
was a pretext. He believed Indian leaders' arguments, however,
that they were reluctant to sign the NPT when Western nations
were providing military support to China, which had territorial
claims against India.
After Brezhnev reviewed Soviet initiatives on MBFR, Gromyko
added that the Western nations cited force levels in Europe for
the Soviet Union and its allies more than 150,000 men (Ustinov
said it was 180,000) higher than the actual situation. Carter
reiterated that separate talks between Brown and Ustinov might
be able to resolve this question at least for their two
nations.38 (The two met that afternoon but made no progress
on MBFR. During that meeting Ustinov also deferred for later
discussion Brown's invitation for him to visit the United
States as well as for exchanges of military personnel.)39
Gromyko also expanded Brezhnev's remarks on the prohibition
of new types of weapons of mass destruction. He thought
prospects for an agreement on radiological weapons were
encouraging. Negotiations on chemical weapons, however, were
going badly. He thought they had to resolve the question of
verification. Moreover, for such an agreement to be effective,
all the major powers had to accede to it. He further
complained that agreements on ASAT, conventional arms
transfers, and Indian Ocean arms control were impossible on the
basis of the current U.S. positions, though the Soviets were
prepared to continue the discussions.
Following Carter's short elaboration of the U.S. position
on these regional issues, Brezhnev suggested that the two sides
explore naval affairs, such as an agreement prohibiting their
ships from cruising thousands of miles from their own
territory. He mentioned that the United States had not
responded to a Soviet proposal requiring the withdrawal of U.S.
and Soviet ships carrying nuclear weapons from the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
17
Mediterranean. He also said that he was willing to discuss
advaRce notifications of strategic exercises of their military
forces. He concluded by reading a paper which reiterated what
he had stated on the Backfire bomber the previous day and added
that the Soviet Union could not be bound by any U.S. unilateral
interpretation of that statement.
Carter replied that it had been agreed before Vienna that
the production rate of the Backfire would not exceed 30 a year,
but he had still not received that confirmation. When he
directly asked for that confirmation, Gromyko argued that it
had been agreed before the summit that Carter would state that
it was his understanding that the Soviet Union would not
produce more than 30 a year, and the Soviets would not rebut
that statement. Vance also engaged in the argument, making it
clear that the United States required an affirmative, not
merely a nonnegative, statement from Brezhnev on the production
rate. The General Secretary finally interrupted to state
explicitly that the Soviet Union would not produce more than 30
Backfires each year. Carter then confirmed that Brezhnev's
statement resolved the issue.
Carter pointed out in conclusion that Brezhnev had not
responded to his several specific suggestions for SALT III, but
he saw areas of agreement in Soviet willingness to halt
production of nuclear weapons and reduce stockpiles, to adhere
to nonproliferation and IAEA safeguards, and to move forward on
CTB and MBFR.40
The fourth plenary meeting on international issues convened
late the same afternoon. The exchanges were wide-ranging,
covering all contentious geographical areas. Brzezinski has
written that in terms of substance this was the best
session.41 Carter reviewed at some length U.S. vital
interests in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, and his
concerns on Cuban activity in Africa sponsored and supported by
the Soviet Union. He expressed his deep concern over Vietnam's
incursions into Kampuchea and the Soviet Union's use of
Vietnamese ports and facilities. He hoped, moreover, that the
two sides would cooperate in supporting efforts of the peoples
of Namibia and Zimbabwe-Rhodesia to select governments of their
own choice.
Carter also reviewed U.S. efforts to resolve differences in
the Middle East, beginning with the U.S.-Soviet call to bring
together all parties at Geneva. That initiative had failed
because of opposition from Syria and other parties, but Sadat's
dramatic trip to Jerusalem had resulted in progress between
Israel and Egypt. He hoped that Security Council members,
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
18
including the Soviet Union, would approve a U.N. force to
supervise Israel's proposed withdrawal from the Sinai.
Carter also expressed U.S. support for the independence of
Iran and Afghanistan and and his concerns about possible Soviet
interventions in these nations. He also tried to assure
Brezhnev that U.S. recognition of the People's Republic of
China was not directed at the Soviet Union. He concluded, "I
hope you agree with everything I said."
Before responding on international issues, Brezhnev
referred briefly to SALT III. That agreement, he stressed,
should include not only the nuclear systems of the two
superpowers but their allies as well, and all the factors
determining the strategic situation needed to be taken into
account in the follow-on negotiations.
Regarding international issues he argued that the Soviet
Union had no intentions to expand into Africa and Asia, and he
complained at the loose talk in the United States of its vital
interests on the other side of the globe. He conceded that the
political situation in Europe had improved considerably under
detente, although he complained that the United States should
adhere to all the provisions of the Helsinki agreement and not
just selectively to those that provided a pretext for
interfering in the internal affairs of other states.
Brezhnev proposed that the members of the CSCE should sign
a treaty on no-first-use of nuclear or conventional arms.
President Carter no longer responded to this issue, perhaps
because several of his advisers agreed that "it would be a
serious mistake to write a new non-first use pledge into the
communique without first discussing it with our allies."42
President Carter, Brezhnev continued, had already received
his letters containing his opinions on the Middle East. He
insisted that the U.S. policy was anti-Arab, and the
Egypt-Israel treaty had actually increased the dangers of
conflict in the Middle East. He argued that Israel, protected
by Egypt, was waging a war in Lebanon that at any time could
turn into a serious conflict. He was also resolutely opposed
to the use of U.N. forces in the Sinai. A firm Middle East
peace, he maintained, could only come about with the full
liberation of Arab lands and creation of an independent
Palestinian state.
Not surprisingly, Brezhnev condemned Chinese "aggression"
in Vietnam and praised the Vietnamese people's "heroic" rebuff
to the invaders. He asserted that the Soviet Union was merely
fulfilling its treaty obligations to Vietnam and denied the
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
19
known.fact that the Union had military bases in Vietnam. He
added that he was pleased with events in Kampuchea whose people
had "revolted and finally freed themselves from a regime of
rapists and killers imposed by Peking."
Brezhnev stated that the Soviet Union supported national
independence movements in Africa but sought no economic or
strategic advantages there. He also asserted that the social
revolution in Afghanistan was entirely internal, even claiming
that the Soviet leadership first heard about the revolution
from foreign broadcasts and the wire services. Regarding Cuba,
he reemphasized that the Soviet Union complied strictly with
the 1962 understandings and denied that the Soviets were using
Cubans to interfere in other areas. Cuba was an independent
nation and provided assistance to other legitimate governments
threatened by aggression. "Perhaps those in the U.S. who were
so vociferous concerning the Cuban actions," he remarked, "have
forgotten that during the American War of Independence the
ranks of General Washington's army contained foreign units."
Because their time was exhausted, Carter merely noted their
differences on international issues and handed the Soviet
leader a memorandum, which he had written following the plenary
meeting on SALT III, containing a list of items that he wanted
included in the follow-on arms control negotiations.43
Only Brezhnev and Carter and their interpreters attended
the private meeting the following morning. Brezhnev made a
short statement complaining about the Carter administration's
human rights policies, which the Soviet Union regarded as its
internal matter, but spent almost all his time at this meeting
talking about the U.S.-China relationship. Obviously
preoccupied with this question, he emphasized that he did not
object to normal diplomatic relations between the United States
and China but would view anything more than that "with grave
concern." He also objected to any linkage between human rights
and trade.
Carter in turn again raised the question of encoding of
missile data. He emphasized that the United States had to
monitor Soviet tests and might want to conduct overflights of
Turkey for this purpose. Though he did not elaborate on the
prospect of such overflights, Turkey had indicated to the
Carter administration that it was willing to permit such
overflights only if the Soviet Union agreed to them. In his
response Brezhnev equated overflights of Turkey with Soviet
flights over Cuba. He thought that the encryption issue should
be discussed at the SALT III talks, though he said he would
investigate the matter further.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
20
Carter also raised human rights directly. He urged the
Soviet leader to continue a more liberal emigration policy, and
he asked for the release of Anatoly Shcharansky and other
dissidents. Brezhnev reminded Carter of his previous statement
on human rights but added that Shcharansky had been convicted
in a Soviet court of espionage, and he was bound to support the
laws of his nation.44
The final plenary session lasted only 1/2 hour because
both leaders had agreed that they did not want to delay the
signing ceremony for the SALT II agreement.. After Carter had
expressed his gratitude for the summit meeting and his hope for
further progress on issues in the future, Brezhnev quickly
reviewed the bilateral contacts in cultural, political,
scientific, and other areas. Despite some difficulties he
believed that they brought the two nations closer together and
were mutually beneficial.
Brezhnev singled out trade as a special area of concern and
repeated his objections to any linkage between emigration
policy, a purely internal affair, and trade. After noting the
progress on the trade question at the 1972, 1973, and 1974
summits, he complained about subsequent U.S. discriminatory
legislation. While the U.S. Government had recently begun to
examine the possibilities of normalizing trade with the Soviet
Union, he emphasized that this was entirely an internal matter
of the United States. He pointed out, however, that his
nation's long-term agreements with several European nations
could serve as a model for U.S.-Soviet economic cooperation.
The Soviet Union, he noted, had an enormous market that would
interest U.S. firms.
He also claimed that the United States had raised
"artificial obstacles" on air travel and maritime shipping.
Carter noted that their time was up, but he promised to look
into these problems and would respond through Secretary
Vance .45
The signing ceremony was impressive and dignified.
Following the signing, Carter and Brezhnev shook hands and
embraced. Carter was convinced that their personal feelings
for each other were genuinely warm, and he was determined to
continue his search for peace and understanding .46
Results: The Unraveling of Detente
President Carter flew back to Washington on the afternoon
of June 18 and addressed a joint session of Congress that same
evening. His speech, which emphasized the advantages of SALT
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
21
II for enhancing U.S. national security and international
stability, opened what proved to be a lengthy debate over the
merits of detente with the Soviet Union in general and the SALT
II accord in particular.47
Carter, Vance, and Brzezinski were well aware that the
struggle for obtaining Senate advice and consent to the treaty
would be long and difficult. Indeed, in his June 18 speech to
Congress, Carter conceded, "SALT II will undoubtedly become the
most exhaustively discussed and debated treaty of our time,
perhaps of all time."48 Many Republican Senators, including
possible Presidential hopefuls for the 1980 election, had
already indicated that they would oppose the treaty, and it was
likely that the Republican Party would make the treaty a
partisan issue. Several Democratic Senators also had strong
reservations about the treaty, particularly its verification
provisions.
Carter administration officials were sensitive to these
domestic political concerns but believed that the treaty was
fundamentally sound, would withstand the many criticisms from
the political right, and finally be consented to by the
Senate.49 They had already taken several actions which they
thought would enhance prospects for the treaty. Carter, for
instance, had regularly consulted with the Joint Chiefs and
received their endorsement of the agreement. Their Senate
testimony, he felt, might be persuasive. Moreover, when
Warnke, whom some in the administration had regarded as too
dovish, resigned as ACDA Director, the President, disregarding
Vance's strong reservations, appointed Seignious, a retired
Army general, as his replacement. The decision on the MX just
before the summit, administration principals believed, would
neutralize some of the opposition which was concerned about the
Soviet Union's growing superiority in land-based missiles.50
Their preoccupation with encryption of telemetry before and
at the summit was in part a response to the critical importance
Americans attached to verification. For the same reason Carter
had raised with Brezhnev at Vienna the prospect of overflights
of Turkey to monitor Soviet missile tests. Domestic concerns
about the Soviet Backfire bomber also probably helped to steel
Carter administration officials at the summit to insist upon an
affirmative statement from Brezhnev on its production rate.
Despite these measures the treaty debate intensified in the
summer and fall. The revelation in late August of the
existence of a Soviet combat brigade in Cuba, even though it
had been there many years, was politically harmful to the
Carter administration. As Vance later wrote, "in the political
climate of late 1979, a rational separation of the brigade
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
22
issue and SALT was not possible." Although the administration
took several steps to defuse the issue, it lingered as a
problem during the ratification debate.51
The treaty, already in trouble, was dealt a decisive blow
with the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in late
December 1979. This Soviet action confirmed the worst U.S.
fears regarding Soviet behavior, and Carter asked the Senate to
delay consideration of the treaty until his administration
could assess the Soviet actions and intentions.52 (The
Senate to date has not voted on the SALT II accord.)
Analysts have advanced various explanations for the Soviet
Union's invasion of Afghanistan. From the Soviets' perspective
strong opposition to the SALT II treaty in the United States,
the Carter administration's promotion of the MX, and the NATO
announcement only a few weeks before the Soviet intervention of
its decision to deploy Pershing and cruise missiles in Western
Europe made even arms control with the United States very
uncertain.53 Growing Soviet leaders' concerns that detente
was already dying and that they therefore had little to lose
from the West if they acted decisively in Afghanistan may have
influenced their decision for intervention. It is likely,
however, that the Soviet leaders decided to intervene primarily
because of their perception of the deteriorating situation in
Afghanistan and their security interests in that country.
Whatever the specific reasons, the Soviets almost certainly
underestimated the damaging consequences that ensued, such as
the grain embargo, Carter Doctrine, and strongly negative Third
World reactions.54
With the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan and
the United States response, including the grain embargo, the
fragile fabric of "detente," which was already in danger of
coming apart at the time of Vienna summit, began to unravel
rapidly in the final year of the Carter administration.
PA/HO:DSPatterson
RP 1454 632-7773
WANG 0006t
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
23
Appendix
U.S.-SOVIET MEETING
AT VIENNA
JUNE 15-18, 1979
PARTICIPANTS
United States
Jimmy Carter, President of the United States
Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State
Harold Brown, Secretary of Defense
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs
General David Jones, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
George Seignious, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency
Hamilton Jordan, Assistant. to the President
Jody Powell, Assistant to the President
Malcolm Toon, Ambassador to the Soviet Union
Ralph Earle, II, Chief of the U.S. Delegation at the Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks
David L. Aaron, Deputy Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs
Reginald Bartholomew, National Security Council Senior Staff
William D. Krimer, Interpreter
Dimitri Arensburger, Interpreter
Soviet Union
Leonid I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party
Andrei A. Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs
D.F. Ustinov, Minister of Defense
K.U. Chernenko, Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party
Marshal N.V. Ogarkov, First Deputy Minister of Defense and
Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces
A.M. Aleksandrov, Assistant to the General Secretary
L.M. Zamyatin, Section Chief of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party
G.M. Korniyenko, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Anatoliy Dobrynin, Ambassador to the United States
V.G. Komplektov, Member of the Collegium of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs
V.P. Karpov, Chief of the U.S.S.R. delegation at the Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks
V.M. Sukhodrev, Interpreter
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TCP SECRET/NODIS
24
NOTES
1Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy
Carter, 1077 (Washington, 1977), I, p. 3.
2The Arms Reduction Initiative of March 1977 (Office of the
Historian), RP 1399, January 1984 (S/Nodis).
3Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America's
Foreign Policy (New York, 1983), pp. 56-63, 99-107; Jimmy
Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York,
1982), pp. 220-223, 229-233. Extensive documentation on
Vance's and Carter's meetings with Gromyko and Dobrynin is
in the Gelb Files, Lot 81 D 101. Leslie H. Gelb was Director
of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, Department of
State, from January 1977 to July 1979.
4Documents on Disarmament, 1977 (Washington, 1979), pp.
577-578.
5Vance, Hard Choices, pp. 106-107; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power
and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser,
1977-1981 (New York, 1983), pp. 325-329. A survey of the
SALT II negotiations is Strobe Talbott, Endgame: The Inside
Story of SALT II (New York, 1979).
8Telegram 9138 from Moscow, April 27, 1978 (S/Nodis), and
telegram 30031 from Moscow, December 7, 1978 (C/Nodis); Carter,
Keeping Faith, pp. 221-222, 232.
7The Warnke-Semenov understanding is contained in Secto
12102 from Moscow, October 21, 1978 (S/Nodis). Also see
telegram 643 from Moscow, January 14, 1978 (S/Nodis);
telegram 28629 from Moscow, November 22, 1978 (S/Nodis);
Brzezinski, Power and Principle, pp. 329-330; and Vance,
Hard Choices, pp. 107-109, 134.
8Ibid., pp. 109-112;
1-21=330. Carter's
March 27, 1979 (TS)
response, March 11,
Lot 81 D 109.
Brzezinski, Power and Principle, pp.
letters to Brezhnev, September 2, 1978, and
, on the encryption issue, and Brezhnev's
1979 (S/Nodis), are in the Shulman Files,
9Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 328; Vance,
Choices, pp. 107, 134-135.
10Ibid., pp. 132-133.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Hard
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
25
"Telegram 9138 from Moscow, April 27, 1978.
12Vance, Hard Choices, pp. 109-122; Carter, KeeOng Faith,
p. 201; author's memorandum of conversation with Brzezinski,
September 24, 1985, PA/HO Files (C).
13Vance, Hard Choices, pp. 133-135. Documentation on these
Vance-Dobrynin meetings, most of which is contained in a
comprehensive "blue book" detailing the final stages of SALT
II from November 1978 to June 1979, is in the Shulman Files,
Lot 81 D 109. For Brezhnev's oral message to Carter,
December 19, 1978, and his letter to Carter, December 27,
1978 (S), and Carter's reply to Brezhnev, January 17, 1979,
see ibid.
14Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 331.
15Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States:
Jimmy Carter, 1979 (Washington, 1980), I, p. 839. (Hereafter
Public Papers: Carter, 1979.)
16Memorandum from Shulman to Vance, January 26, 1979, Shulman
Files, Lot 81 D 109 (C): memorandum from William T. Shinn,
Jr. to Shulman and Barry, March 12, 1979, ibid. (C/Secret
attachment); memorandum from Shulman to Peter Tarnoff, March
29, 1979, ibid. (C); memorandum from Barry to Shulman, April
4, 1979, Jura: (S); memorandum from Barry to Arnold Raphel,
May 11, 0757 ibid. (C); State 121668, May 12, 1979
(S/Nodis); telegram 11933 from Moscow, May 14, 1979
(S/Nodis); telegram 12125 from Moscow, May 15, 1979 (S);
State 123220, May 15, 1979 (S/Exdis).
17Memorandum from Tarnoff to George Seignious, Shulman, and
all bureau heads (except Public Affairs), May 17, 1979,
S/S-I Files, Lot 80 D 110 (C). The minutes and other
papers of the NSC working group were not available for this
study.
18Memorandum of conversation with Soviet Embassy
representatives by Barry on Summit Arrangements,
May 14, 1979 (C/Nodis); State 131893 (Tosec 40062), May 24,
1979 (S/Nodis).
18Memorandum from Aaron to Shulman, May 23, 1979, with
attachments received from Dobrynin on May 23, 1979,
Shulman Files, Lot 81 D 109 (S/Eyes Only); State 136109
(Tosec 40157), May 26, 1979 (S/Nodis); State 136110 (Tosec
40158), May 26, 1979 (S/Nodis). The State Department
counterdraft is in State 136108 (Tosec 40156), May 26,
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
'Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
26
1979 (S/Nodis).
20Preliminary Soviet Comments on US Communique Draft,
attachment to Barry and Shulman to Vance, June 1, 1979,
Shulman Files, Lot 81 D 109 (C); memorandum of
conversation by Barry, June 3, 1979, of Communique
Negotiating Session II, June 2, 1979, ibid. (S); State
146853, June 7, 1979 (S/Nodis); memorandum from Shinn to
Marshall Brement, June 12, 1979, Shulman Files, Lot 81 D
109 (S).
21Shulman wrote "keep," "why not include," "why do we drop
this," in the margin in several places next to the listing
of Soviet counter proposals to the U.S. counterdraft
communique contained on Barry's memorandum of conversation,
June 3, 1979, of Communique Negotiating Session II, June 2,
1979; State 146853, June 7, 1979 (S/Nodis).
22Memorandum from Brzezinski to Carter, May 24, 1979,
Shulman Files, Lot 81 D_ 109 (S); note from Jack [Perry]
to Shulman, May 29, 1979, ibid. (U); Carter, Keeping Faith,
p. 240.
23Ibid., pp. 240-241; cf. Vance, Hard Choices, p. 138.
Brzezinski recalled that Carter naturally wanted a politically
successful summit and retained lingering hopes for a
breakthrough on arms control issues there. Author's
memorandum of conversation with Brzezinski, September 24,
1985.
24Memorandum from Vance to Carter, June 8, 1979, S/S-I Files,
Lot 80 D 110 (5).
25State 107269, April 28, 1979 (C/Nodis); State 131859 (Tosec
40058), May 23, 1979 (S/Nodis); memorandum of conversation
by Shulman between Vance and Dobrynin, June 6, 1979,
Shulman Files, Lot 81 D 109 (S/Sensitive).
28Memorandum from Vance to Carter, June 8, 1979.
27Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 341.
28Memorandum from Vance to Carter, June 8, 1979.
29For the recollections of three U.S. participants at the
Vienna summit, see Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 243-261;
Vance, Hard Choices, pp. 138-139; and Brzezinski, Power and
Principle., pp. 341-344.
30Memorandum of conversation by William D. Krimer
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
27
(interpreter), June 26, 1979, on Vance-Gromyko Discussion
of'Joint Communique, June 15, 1979, Shulman Files, Lot 81 D
109 (S/Nodis); Carter; Keeping Faith, pp. 242-243. Cf. the
Joint U.S. - U.S.S.R. Communique issued at the end of the
summit, June 18, 1979, printed in Public Papers: Carter,
1979, pp. 1081-1087.
31Carter apparently quoted Brezhnev's remark, "...God will
punish us" (Bog nas nakazhet), incorrectly as "...God will
not forgive us," at the first plenary meeting the following
morning. Note from Jack [Perry] to Peter [rarnoff],
undated, Shulman Files, Lot 81 D 109 (U).' Carter repeated
this incorrect version in his memoirs, Keeping Faith, pp.
245-246.
32Ibid. p. 246, says: "Because I was acting as host, I
requested that Brezhnev make the opening statement;" but the
memorandum of conversation by Krimer, June 16, 1979, of First
Plenary Meeting, June 16, 1979, Shulman Files, Lot 81 D 109
(S/Nodis) indicates that Carter said he would speak first,
and Brezhnev nonetheless announced that he would speak first
and proceeded to read his prepared statement.
33Ibid.
34Memorandum of conversation reconstructed from Toon's notes,
typed June 21, 1979, of First Plenary Meeting, June 16,
1979, ibid. (S/Nodis).
35Memorandum of conversation by Krimer, of First Plenary
Meeting, June 16, 1979.
36For the fullest discussion of the MX decision in the SALT
context, see Brzezinski, Power and Principle, pp. 331-338.
Also, author's memorandum of conversation with Brzezinski,
September 24, 1985. Brezhnev earlier conveyed his concerns
on the MX in his letter to Carter, April 15, 1979, and Carter
attempted to allay these concerns in his reply to Brezhnev,
April 30, 1979, both in the Shulman Files, Lot 81 D 109.
37Memorandum of conversation reconstructed from Toon's notes,
typed June 21, 1979, of Second Plenary Meeting, June 16, 1979,
ibid. (S/Nodis).
38Memorandum of conversation by Krimer, June 20, 1979, of
Third Plenary Meeting, June 17, 1979, ibid. (S/Nodis).
38Memorandum of conversation by Brig. Gen. Carl R. Smith,
June 21, 1979, of Meeting Between Brown/Jones and
Ustinov/Ogarkov, June 17, 1979, ibid. (S/via Alpha Channel).
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
28
Both Krimer and Brzezinski believed in retrospect that there
was.a chance for a breakthrough on MBFR, but neither could
recall the details of how this might have occurred. Krimer
remembered Carter responding enthusiastically to Brezhnev's
presentation but thought Carter's advisers, especially Harold
Brown, persuaded Carter at the lunch just before the
afternoon defense talks not to moderate the U.S. position.
Brzezinski regretted that he had not taken more interest in
this question. Author's memoranda of conversation with
Krimer, September 18, 1985, PA/HO Files, and with Brzezinski,
September 24, 1985.
40Memorandum of conversation by Krimer, of Third Plenary
Meeting, June 17, 1979.
41Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 342.
42Memorandum from Shulman to Vance, June 17, 1979, Shulman
Files, Lot 81 D 109 (S).
43Memorandum of conversation by Dimitri Arensburger
(interpreter), June 17, 1979, of Fourth Plenary Meeting, June
17, 1979, ibid. (S/Nodis). For Brezhnev's letter to Carter,
March 19, 1979, on the Middle East, see ibid. Carter,
Keeping Faith, p. 253, contains the text of the note Carter
wrote to Brezhnev at the summit.
44Ibid., pp. 258-260. No memorandum of this private
conversation was found for this study, although Krimer later
recalled that he was the U.S. interpreter for this meeting
and wrote one. Author's interview with Krimer, September 18,
1985. For background of U.S. talks with Soviet and Turkish
officials on possible overflights of Turkey, see State 133017
(Tosec 40090), May 24, 1979 (S) and memorandum of converation
by Shulman of conversation with Christopher and Dobrynin, May
25, 1979, Shulman Files, Lot 81 D 109 (S/Sensitive).
45Memorandum of conversation by Krimer, of Fifth Plenary
Meeting, June 18, 1979, Shulman Files, ibid. (S/Nodis).
"Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 260-261.
47Public Papers: Carter, 1979, I, pp. 1087-1092.
48Ibid., p. 1088.
495ee especially Vance, Hard Choices, pp. 349-358, 364-367.
50See especially Brzezinski, Power and Principle, pp.
331-338; and Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 218, 222-225, 262,
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4
TOP SECRET/NODIS
29
2647265.
51Vance, Hard Choices, pp. 358-364.
52Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States:
Jimmy Carter, 1?80-81 (Washington, 1981), I, p. 12.
53For the texts of the NATO communiques of December 12 and
14, 1979, announcing the decisions on missile deployment and
arms control, see American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents,
1977-1980 (Washington, 1983), pp. 494-499,
54For a recent, detailed treatment of Soviet motivations
regarding Afghanistan, see Raymond L. Garthoff, Detente and
Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to
Reagan (Washington, 1985), Ch. 26.
TOP SECRET/NODIS
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/10/24: CIA-RDP87M00539R001101460011-4