by H. W. Brands
William Casey lacked Weinberger’s long ties to Reagan, but as intelligence director he possessed information and therefore credibility of a sort commanded by no one else in the administration. Casey didn’t believe Gorbachev was a sincere reformer in either domestic or foreign policy. “While some Soviet officials have indicated he is sympathetic to the use of pragmatic methods, including tapping private initiative,” Casey wrote to Reagan, “his statements and actions underscore his overall commitment to the current economic system and his determination to make it work better.” In foreign policy Gorbachev adhered to the traditional Soviet belief in military strength and the ultimate victory of socialism. On this account the United States needed to pursue its own policy of strength, and it needed to convince the Kremlin it would continue to do so. “Achieving this Soviet conviction against the doubts that are accumulating in Moscow will require political victories for your policy agenda in the Congress, the U.S. public, and the Alliance,” Casey wrote. “It will require skill and adherence to a durable strategic concept in dealing with all the issues that attach to the U.S.-Soviet superpower struggle.” Summitry was distracting at best, pernicious at worst.
George Shultz at State was the strongest voice in favor of a summit. He was also the person with the closest contacts in the Soviet government. He met regularly with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister, who would presumably deliver any message from Gorbachev accepting Reagan’s invitation to get together. Shultz tried to crack Gromyko’s stolid front. At a diplomatic dinner Gromyko described Gorbachev’s campaign against alcoholism; Shultz responded that the Reagan administration was trying to deter drunk driving in America. He repeated a joke then circulating in Russia, according to Shultz’s informants. Two men are standing in a long line waiting to buy vodka from the state-run store. The line hardly moves. Finally one says, “I’m fed up. I’m going over to the Kremlin to shoot Gorbachev.” He leaves. He comes back a while later. His friend is still in line. “Well, did you shoot him?” the friend asks. “Hell, no,” the first man says. “The line there was even longer than this one!” Gromyko didn’t crack a smile.
But he eventually raised the issue of a summit. He said Reagan would be welcome in Moscow in November. Shultz rejoined that it was the turn of the Soviet leader to come to the United States. Gromyko said this was out of the question. But Europe was not.
“Are you suggesting Geneva?” Shultz asked.
“If you say Geneva, I’ll have to say Helsinki,” Gromyko responded.
Shultz took this as progress. He went to Reagan to make sure he was still on board. He detected some doubt, apparently provoked by Weinberger and Casey. Reagan said November might be too soon. Perhaps he should play hard to get.
Shultz pushed back. “Many key people in your administration do not want a summit,” he said. “You have to make up your mind. You have to step up to the plate. And when it comes to the divisions in your administration over this issue, you can’t split the difference.”
A personal meeting had been Reagan’s idea in the first place, and he remained convinced that personal diplomacy would afford the best chance for a breakthrough in U.S.-Soviet relations, especially on arms control. In late May the White House hosted a small dinner for Arkady Shevchenko, a Soviet diplomat who had turned double agent before defecting to the West. “Our guest sang for his supper,” Reagan wrote afterward. “He confirmed that Soviet leaders do have an inferiority complex about their superpower standing—that they are a superpower only in military power. That will be a factor in arms control talks. He also affirmed that they do nurse a feeling that we may be a threat to them.” Reagan knew the United States was not a threat to the Soviet Union, and he judged a face-to-face meeting with Gorbachev the best way to convince him of that fact.
He directed Shultz to set it up. The Kremlin agreed to Geneva, not least because Gorbachev kicked Gromyko upstairs to the ceremonial position of chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The foreign ministry went to Eduard Shevardnadze, a Gorbachev man and an individual far less confrontational than Gromyko. In early July the White House and the Kremlin simultaneously announced the November dates they had set for the summit.
THE DECISION ALTERED the dynamics within the administration. As the summit became inevitable, Weinberger shifted from opposition to sabotage. Though the Senate had never ratified the SALT II treaty, the United States—and the Soviet Union—had informally adhered to the limits it imposed on weapons systems. The limits were fairly generous, and during Reagan’s first term they didn’t inhibit the arms buildup he ordered. But early in his second term a new submarine was commissioned that would push the United States over the SALT II limit on submarine-based missiles unless the president retired an existing submarine. The older vessel was obsolete by the standards of the U.S. Navy, which had no desire to keep it in service. Yet Weinberger and the hawks at the Pentagon, with support from their allies in Congress and elsewhere, argued that it should be kept in service. Some contended that it remained essential to American defense; the more candid acknowledged that their goal was to break free from the SALT II limits on this and other systems. Reagan eventually decided to retire the older submarine, in large part to counter Soviet assertions that the American administration was bent on achieving military superiority that could only endanger world peace. But the decision cost him politically with the hawks, who made clear that they would be no pushovers for future arms agreements.
The CIA adopted a different tack. Robert Gates was less hostile to negotiations than Bill Casey, and he was considerably less devious. But he thought the president should be urged to adopt a tough line with Gorbachev. “Bill, I think Gorbachev wants and needs a deal so bad that he can taste it,” Gates wrote to Casey. “I’ve been involved in preparing a number of U.S.-Soviet summits and I have never seen such an open signaling of a desire to do business.” This gave the administration an important advantage. “President Reagan goes to Geneva holding better cards than any president meeting his Soviet counterpart since Eisenhower went to Geneva 30 years ago. Our planning should start from that premise and focus on specific, realistic demands we should make of Gorbachev—not to score debating points but to advance U.S. interests in concrete ways—from Nicaragua to Angola to Afghanistan to Kampuchea to Iran-Iraq war to arms control to cultural agreements to human rights.” Gates thought the White House fundamentally misunderstood the opportunity. “The meeting is shaping up as a terribly important moment in the Reagan presidency. I fear that the president’s staff is approaching the meeting aiming just to survive it and without a clear view of the larger objectives—and opportunities.”
Gates recommended that the CIA brief the president on the opportunities he spoke of. Casey agreed. But Robert McFarlane and Jack Matlock got there first. “Even before it was decided when and where Reagan and Gorbachev would meet, Bud McFarlane asked me to think about how we could see that the president had more and better knowledge of the Soviet Union before he faced the Soviet leader,” Matlock recalled. “Dealing as he did with Reagan every day, he was struck by the president’s spotty command of historical facts. Reagan had had very few contacts with Soviet officials and still tended to base many of his judgments more on generalities, even slogans, than on a nuanced understanding of Soviet reality.” Reagan, for his part, recognized his deficiencies and was eager to remedy them with information from experts. “I want the best minds in the country, Republican or Democrat, academics or diplomats, to give me in-depth knowledge,” he told McFarlane.
McFarlane and Matlock organized what they called “Soviet Union 101.” Matlock oversaw the production of some two dozen papers of a few thousand words each on various aspects of Soviet politics, economics, history, and culture. Fresh papers were delivered to Reagan each Friday. He read them carefully over the weekend. “He would devour them, annotate them,” McFarlane recalled. “He would come in Monday like a kid with a new toy. He would quiz his experts, would obsess about getting more information.” Matlock remembered
that Reagan found some of the papers more compelling than others. “He was interested mainly in the people involved,” Matlock said. “His eyes would glaze over when you talked statistics.” One crucial question engaged him above all: “What makes this Gorbachev fellow tick?” Both McFarlane and Matlock found Reagan to be an apt pupil. “Very, very quick,” McFarlane described him. Matlock, who taught in the Ivy League after leaving government, said, “In many ways he was the best student I ever had.”
The CIA got its chance with Reagan a few days before he left for Geneva. Casey suggested an hour’s meeting between the president and the agency’s top Soviet analysts. Robert Gates led off. “I described for Reagan the severe domestic problems Gorbachev faced and his need for a respite as well as Western economic cooperation and help,” Gates remembered. Yet he predicted that Gorbachev would move slowly in dealing with the West, especially the United States. “I said that I thought Gorbachev was not prepared to pay much for some breathing space with the United States—that he likely saw it coming anyway in the defense arena, especially SDI.” Gorbachev didn’t think Reagan could sustain spending on defense. “I said that the same would be true in the Third World, where support for freedom fighters would decline when Reagan left office. My bottom line: Gorbachev simply intended to outwait Reagan.”
Gates didn’t think he or his colleagues made much impression on Reagan. “I felt Reagan was alert but not very interested in what I and others had to say,” he recounted. There was one conspicuous exception. Kay Oliver described the social stresses on the Soviet system, including alcoholism, crime, corruption, and the revival of religion. Reagan perked up. “He was riveted by Oliver’s briefing, I think because she described the Soviet Union in terms of human beings, everyday life, and the conditions under which they lived,” Gates wrote. “It was all far more real to the president than the strategic concepts and broad geopolitics the others of us went on about.”
Gates recalled another, different reaction from the president. “I was seated closest to him, and about two minutes into my comments I heard a piercing electrical hum. Reagan’s eyes got very wide, and he reached up to his ear to adjust his hearing aid. A couple of minutes later, the hum returned and, since I could hear it, I could only guess how loud it must have been in his ear. At that point, in some disgust, he reached up, pulled the hearing aid out of his ear, and pounded it on the palm of his hand a couple of times. As he replaced it in his ear, he looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘My KGB handler must be trying to reach me.’ ”
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REAGAN LISTENED TO Gates and Matlock and the others. He weighed their words against his own experience of human nature and his discovery that the Soviets were human too. In an action rare for him, he committed his reflections to a memo, which summarized the state of his mind just ahead of the biggest meeting of his life. It also revealed subtleties of thought he declined to share with the public.
“I believe Gorbachev is a highly intelligent leader totally dedicated to traditional Soviet goals,” Reagan wrote. “He will be a formidable negotiator and will try to make Soviet foreign and military policy more effective. He is (as are all Soviet General Secretaries) dependent on the Soviet-Communist hierarchy and will be out to prove to them his strength and dedication to Soviet traditional goals.” Gorbachev’s pursuit of arms control would be tactical rather than ethical. “If he really seeks an arms control agreement, it will only be because he wants to reduce the burden of defense spending that is stagnating the Soviet economy.”
Reagan believed that the struggling Soviet economy was Gorbachev’s Achilles’ heel. It might force him to make concessions on arms he wouldn’t have made otherwise. But Reagan had believed the same thing about Brezhnev and Andropov and Chernenko, and the Soviet system had outlasted them. It might outlast Reagan himself. He simply couldn’t know. For all he could tell, Gorbachev himself didn’t know. Consequently, Reagan wasn’t holding his breath awaiting its collapse, and he wouldn’t hold arms control hostage to its collapse. Yet he still thought the vulnerability of the economy afforded him leverage with Gorbachev, especially on SDI. “He doesn’t want to face the cost of competing with us,” Reagan wrote.
He saw Gorbachev as essentially conservative but shrewdly political. “He doesn’t want to undertake any new adventures but will be stubborn and tough about holding what he has.” Gorbachev wanted to drive a wedge between the United States and its NATO allies. “That means making us look like the threat to peace while he appears to be a reasonable man of peace.” But he also had a domestic constituency, his own hard-liners, to consider. “If he has to make a choice, then he will opt for demonstrating to his own hierarchy that he is a strong leader.”
What did this mean for the summit? Reagan conceded that summitry entailed a large dose of public relations, but that didn’t make the summitry, or the public relations, any less important. “In the world of P.R. we are faced with two domestic elements. One argues that no agreement with the Soviets is worth the time, trouble or paper it’s written on, so we should dig in our heels and say ‘nyet’ to any concession. On the other side are those so hungry for an agreement of any kind that they would advise major concessions because a successful summit requires that.” Reagan granted the sincerity of the two sides but opted for a more basic, pragmatic standard. “My own view is that any agreement must be in the long-term interest of the United States and our allies. We’ll sign no other kind.” And he judged that success at the summit could come in alternative forms. “In a way, the summit will be viewed generally as a success because we’ve met, shaken hands and been civil to each other. It can also be a success if we fail to arrive at an arms agreement because I stubbornly held out for what I believe was right for our country.”
Reagan imagined himself in the place of Gorbachev and the Kremlin leadership. “What are some of their needs and priorities?” he asked. His study and briefings suggested answers. “I believe they hunger for some trade and technology transfers. There is no question but that we have a tremendous advantage on that front.” He intended to exploit that advantage. “Trade is for us a major bargaining chip. We shouldn’t give it away.”
Human rights would surface at the summit, whether Reagan liked it or not. In fact he did not like it, though he would never say so in public. “I’m sorry we are somewhat publicly on record about human rights. Front page stories that we are banging away at them on their human rights abuses will get us some cheers from the bleachers, but it won’t help those who are being abused.” Reagan approvingly recounted remarks by Richard Nixon, who told of being pressed by Jewish leaders to condition arms agreements upon the Kremlin’s letting more Jews emigrate. Nixon refused. He got Brezhnev’s signature on the landmark SALT I treaty, and only then, and privately, did he raise the human rights issue. The result was a dramatic increase in Jewish emigration.
Nixon had offered explicit advice to Reagan on dealing with Gorbachev. “He expressed optimism that I might accomplish what he did in 1972, but only if I didn’t force Gorbachev to eat crow and embarrass him publicly.” Reagan took this to heart. “We must always remember our main goal”—arms reduction—“and his need to show his strength to the Soviet gang back in the Kremlin,” he wrote. At the same time, Gorbachev must understand America’s strength and this American president’s determination. “Another of our goals, probably stated to Gorbachev in private, should be that failure to come to a solid, verifiable arms reduction agreement will leave no alternative except an arms race, and there is no way we will allow them to win such a race.”
Reagan didn’t expect to solve all America’s problems with the Soviets at one outing. But he could make a start. “Let us agree this is the first of meetings to follow. That in itself will give an aura of success. We will have set up a process to avoid war in settling our differences in the future. Maybe we should settle on early 1987 as the next meeting time, and maybe we should discuss offering that it be in Moscow. He can come back here in 1988.”
CASPAR WEINBERGER WA
SN’T invited to Geneva and might not have gone had he been. He still believed the summit was a bad idea, and he distrusted Reagan’s ability to stand up to Gorbachev or others pressing for agreements. To forestall such agreements he lectured the president in absentia. The New York Times and the Washington Post printed a letter, obviously leaked from the defense secretary’s office, in which Weinberger warned Reagan against what was awaiting him in Geneva. Weinberger’s pretext for writing was an earlier instruction from Reagan to gather information on Soviet violations of existing arms treaties. The violations had been consistent and serious, the secretary reported, and could not be wished away, as advocates of new treaties seemed to desire. “The Soviet violations put us in a particularly vulnerable and dangerous position,” he declared. The president must keep this fact firmly in mind as he approached the summit, for the treaty-mongers—in both the Soviet Union and the United States—would conspire to make him forget it. “In Geneva, you will almost certainly come under great pressure to do three things that would limit severely your options for responding to Soviet violations: One is to agree to continue to observe SALT II. The second is to agree formally to limit S.D.I. research, development and testing to only that research allowed under the most restrictive interpretation of the ABM Treaty, even though you have determined that a less restrictive interpretation is justified legally. The Soviets doubtless will seek assurances that you will continue to be bound to such tight limits on S.D.I. development and testing that would discourage the Congress from making any but token appropriations. Third, the Soviets may propose communiqué or other language that obscures their record of arms control violations by referring to the ‘importance that both sides attach to compliance.’ ”