Reagan: The Life

by H. W. Brands

  GORBACHEV MADE HIS own preparations for Reykjavík. The general secretary judged that the chances for serious movement by Reagan on arms control were slim. “I am convinced,” he told the Politburo, “that in the U.S. governing circles they do not want to allow a relaxation of tensions, a slowing down of the arms race. This is most important for them now. Not to allow us to expand our plans. Not to let us increase the dynamism of our system. Not to let us strengthen our democracy.” Yet the Soviet Union was winning the battle for the support of the world. “It seems like everybody is turning toward us now, in the U.N. as well as in Stockholm,” Gorbachev said. “Truly, there is no way for them to get away from our initiatives.” The American ruling circles had noticed the warm reception of the world to Soviet initiatives. “This is what scares the Americans, inspires them to try to undermine our plans, to sow mistrust by the arms race, including among our population, a disillusionment in our policy.”

  Gorbachev doubted that Reagan could overcome this American resistance, even if he wanted to. “Most likely nothing can really be done with this administration,” Gorbachev predicted. He had spoken with various Western leaders, including Pierre Trudeau of Canada. “Trudeau warns us that we will not be able to come to an agreement with Reagan, who is a product of certain forces and who has been appointed and sponsored by them.” But Trudeau had urged Gorbachev to look beyond Reagan. “He says you are doing the right thing and have already reached the ears of the Congress.”

  Gorbachev was not ready to write Reagan off. He realized the president wouldn’t be easily persuaded. “In order to move Reagan, we have to give him something,” Gorbachev told his associates. “Something with pressure and breakthrough potential has to be done. We have to decide for ourselves what is realistic, in what the USA is bluffing and what we are ready to do, what we can get out of them right now.” He said he would lead at Reykjavík with the issue of strategic weapons. “Strategic weapons concern everybody, the most of all other issues. And we must emphasize that we are proposing the liquidation of nuclear weapons, which we already discussed with the President in Geneva. The talks must be devoted precisely to this goal.”

  Gorbachev guessed that Reagan would insist on pursuing strategic missile defense. The general secretary judged this a winning issue for the Soviet Union even if it blocked a broader treaty. “I will tell Reagan in Reykjavik that our response will be effective. And not from the direction from which you, so to say, expect it. I will look him straight in the eye as I say this: If you do not meet us halfway, well then my conscience will be clean before you and before myself. Now I have to explain to my people and to the whole world why nothing worked out between us.” Reagan would bear the blame.

  Gorbachev respected Reagan as a negotiator and didn’t expect him to give anything away at Reykjavík. “Nothing will come out of it if our proposals lead to a weakening of US security,” he said. There had to be something for both sides in any bargain. “Thus the principle is as follows: increased security for all along the way toward equal reduction of armaments levels.” Gorbachev was committed to arms control, which he considered essential to the Soviet future. “Our goal is to prevent the next round of arms race. If we do not do this, the threat to us will only grow. And if we do not compromise on some questions, even very important ones, we will lose the main point; we will be pulled into an arms race beyond our power, and we will lose this race, for we are presently at the limit of our capabilities.” This conclusion was inescapable, and Gorbachev reiterated it: “If the new round begins, the pressure on our economy will be inconceivable. That is why to avoid the new round of arms race is the task of tasks for us.”

  Even so, Gorbachev didn’t think he would have to accept Reagan’s position on strategic defense. “I have read everything available on the SDI,” he remarked to his aides. “We should concentrate all our resources on the development of our own anti-SDI.” This must be a top priority. “We must not allow the US superiority in this issue. So far, from what I have read up till now, and from what was reported to me, I see that we can reach the result with smaller expenditure. If the Americans do not accept an agreement, then we will tell them that we will be looking for a move which they do not expect.”

  Gorbachev heard the outcry of American conservatives against the Iceland summit, and he thought it would make Reagan harder to work with. “The rightists are concerned about Reykjavik,” he told the Politburo. “They are intimidating Reagan. Once again we hear appeals to expand the borders of freedom, once again they are speaking of a crusade, threatening to send socialism to the scrap heap of history. Reagan is working on placating the right for his agreement to go to Reykjavik. From all this it follows that the meeting will be very difficult. We should not exclude a possibility of failure.”

  The American president knew he was losing the propaganda battle, Gorbachev said. “Reagan understands—and information from Trudeau confirms this—that the line of action suggested to him by the extremists is not acceptable for the world. He sees a way out for himself in holding a meeting for the sake of a meeting.” Yet once in Iceland he would feel pressure to achieve something of substance. “People around the world are inclined to demand a constructive outcome. Reagan needs this as a matter of personal ambition, so as to go down in history as a ‘peace president.’ The elections are just around the corner.”

  Yet if Reagan needed a success at Reykjavík, so did the Soviet Union. Gorbachev returned to the necessity of controlling the arms race. “Something needs to be done in this central direction,” Gorbachev said. “It needs to be pushed forward. The United States has an interest in keep ing the negotiations machine running idle, while the arms race overburdens our economy. That is why we need a breakthrough. We need the process to start moving.” Gorbachev sketched the grim alternative. “The most important task is to prevent a new round of arms race. Otherwise, modernization of strategic weapons. Tridents, Minutemen, entering space with weapons. Then a degradation of our ecological, strategic and political security—a loss on all sides, because first and foremost it will lead to a wearing out of our economy. This is impermissible. That is why it is impermissible to cling to particulars, to details, to fail to see the bigger picture behind the details, to confuse one’s own head with arguments over details. If they impose a second round of arms race upon us, we will lose!”

  ONE PERSON WHO did not prepare for Reykjavík was Nancy Reagan. The First Lady’s previous experience of summitry, in Geneva, had been less than satisfactory. “I was nervous about my first meeting with Raisa Gorbachev,” she said of the Geneva event. “I didn’t know what I would talk about with her.” She soon learned that silence was not a problem. “From the moment we met, she talked and talked and talked—so much that I could barely get a word in, edgewise or otherwise.” The Soviet First Lady seemed to love the sound of her own voice. “My fundamental impression of Raisa Gorbachev was that she never stopped talking. Or lecturing, to be more accurate. Sometimes the subject was the Soviet Union and the glories of the Communist system. Sometimes it was Soviet art. More often than not, it was Marxism and Leninism. Once or twice, she even lectured me on the failings of the American political system. I wasn’t prepared for this, and I didn’t like it.”

  For a socialist, Raisa Gorbachev could be quite imperious, Nancy thought. “When she came to tea in Geneva that first day, she struck me as a woman who expected to be deferred to,” she said. “When she didn’t like the chair she was seated in, she snapped her fingers to summon her KGB guards, who promptly moved her to another chair. After sitting in the new spot for a couple of minutes, she decided she didn’t like that one either, so she snapped her fingers and they moved her again. I couldn’t believe it. I had met first ladies, princesses, and queens, but I had never seen anybody act this way.”

  Raisa Gorbachev hosted a tea at the Soviet mission. “The hall was covered with children’s paintings, and Raisa insisted that I look at each one while she described the meaning behind it,” Nancy recalled. “I fel
t condescended to, and I wanted to say, ‘Enough. You don’t have to tell me what a missile is. I get the message!’ ” Raisa showed her to the room where the tea was served. “Welcome,” she said. “I wanted you to see what a typical Russian tea looks like.” Nancy took note. “On the table was a lovely antique samovar,” she recounted. “And next to it was a mouth-watering array of delicacies: blinis with caviar, cabbage rolls, blueberry pie, cookies, chocolates, honey and jam. I couldn’t possibly try everything, and I finally had to give up. It was a beautiful spread, but if that was an ordinary housewife’s tea, then I’m Catherine the Great.”

  Nancy’s experience at Geneva inclined her to accede when Jack Matlock of the NSC staff suggested that she stay home from Reykjavík, lest Gorbachev bring Raisa and the business meeting expand to include the social trappings of a regular summit. Reagan never liked being apart from Nancy, but he accepted Matlock’s suggestion. The Soviet government was informed that Mrs. Reagan would not be attending. Yet the Gorbachevs either ignored or misinterpreted the hint, for the Kremlin indicated that Mrs. Gorbachev would be attending.

  “This put me in an awkward position,” Nancy remembered. “Should I go simply because she was going?” She weighed the matter carefully. “No, I decided. Raisa’s last-minute reversal struck me as a bit of one-upsmanship. I had a full schedule in Washington, as I’m sure she knew, and I didn’t want to change it. Besides, I thought it was important, as my son Ron put it, not to be jerked around. I felt that Raisa was testing me, to see if I would cave in and change my mind. But she had to know that schedules are made out long in advance, and I was determined not to give in. This was supposed to be a meeting, not a formal summit, and as far as I was concerned, that’s the way it would stay.”

  DON REGAN JUDGED that Nancy’s astrologer had something to do with her decision to stay home from Iceland. By this time Regan realized that not even summitry was beyond the reach of Nancy’s faith in the stars. He had felt the pull in the planning for Geneva. “As usual, Mrs. Reagan insisted on being consulted on the timing of every presidential appearance and action so that she could consult her Friend in San Francisco about the astrological factor,” Regan wrote. “The large number of details must have placed a heavy burden on the poor woman, who was called upon not only to choose auspicious moments for meetings between the two most powerful men on our planet, but also to draw up horoscopes that presumably provided clues to the character and probably behavior of Gorbachev.”

  Regan thought all this was ludicrous, but he recognized that it was unavoidable. And he wasn’t unhappy when Joan Quigley apparently advised Nancy against making the trip to Iceland. “After extensive consultations with her Friend, Mrs. Reagan decided that she would not accompany her husband to Iceland,” Regan wrote. But Quigley influenced the summit nonetheless. “Mrs. Reagan also consulted with her Friend as to the best day for the Presidential departure, and the astrologer informed us that Thursday, October 9, was the most auspicious date. We wrote it into the schedule.”

  89

  THE ICELAND AUTHORITIES were happy to call the meeting a summit. They and the people of the country were delighted by the attention that surrounded the visit of the American president and the Soviet general secretary. Public opinion appeared to favor Gorbachev. “The Russians are gaining sympathy in Iceland right now because Gorbachev proposed the meeting and because they think he is more sincere in wanting arms control,” the marketing director of a Reykjavík hotel told a reporter. Gorbachev also scored points for bringing Raisa. But Reagan benefited from the cachet advantage of American culture in Icelandic life. Two discotheques in Reykjavík were named the Hollywood and the Broadway (a third was called the Kremlin), and the current most popular film was the paean to U.S. Navy aviation Top Gun.

  The meeting was a boon to the local economy. Hotels got four times the normal rate for rooms; restaurants and taxis enjoyed similar windfalls. The mayor of Reykjavík hoped the superpower summit, as he pointedly labeled the meeting, would lead to a surge in convention business. “If we are good enough for Reagan and Gorbachev, why not for conferences of I.B.M.?” he said. The director of the country’s tourism bureau was more cautious, praying for no major problems. “If something bad happens this weekend,” he said, “Iceland may as well pack up and go all the way back to the North Pole.”

  The venue for the sessions between Reagan and Gorbachev was Höfði House, an eighty-year-old mansion that had once housed foreign diplomats and still harbored ghosts, according to local legend. One version described the most active spirit as the shade of a young woman who had worked for a poet who lived in the house, and killed herself, apparently from unrequited love. Another said she was a lost soul whose body had washed ashore on the beach below the house. Still another offered a more manly explanation, claiming that the house was built over an ancient Viking graveyard. Icelandic authorities took no side in the debate. “We do not confirm or deny that the Hofdi has a ghost,” a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry explained.

  THE TWO LEADERS arrived at Höfði simultaneously at 10:30 on Saturday morning. They shook hands, smiled for the cameras, and proceeded inside, where they repeated the handshake and smiles. With their foreign ministers, George Shultz and Eduard Shevardnadze, they entered the meeting room and set to work.

  Gorbachev’s proposal to rid the world of nuclear weapons still thrilled the world and continued to put Reagan at a disadvantage in public relations. The general secretary moved at once to press his edge. “I would like to precisely, firmly and clearly announce that we are in favor of such a solution to the problem”—of the arms race—“which would ultimately provide for complete liquidation of nuclear weapons,” he said.

  This would be a big step, Gorbachev granted, but it was possible. And it could be accomplished only with due consideration for the security interests of both sides. “Any other approach would be unintelligible, unrealistic and inadmissible,” he said. He hoped the president felt the same way.

  Reagan nodded. “We have exactly the same feelings,” he said. Much would depend on the confidence each side could have in treaty enforcement. The president didn’t respond at this point to Gorbachev’s proposal to abolish nuclear weapons; instead, he employed a one-liner Jack Matlock had helped him with. “There is a Russian proverb,” Reagan said: “Doveryai no proveryai”—trust but verify.

  Gorbachev smiled and said he knew the proverb. Confidence was crucial, he agreed. He noted that they had come far, literally and figuratively, in getting to Reykjavík. “It is almost exactly midway between Moscow and Washington.”

  Reagan said he had chosen Reykjavík over London because it was out of the way and consequently more conducive to private conversations. He asked Gorbachev if he had a date in mind for his visit to Washington.

  Jack Matlock sat at Reagan’s side throughout this session. “Whoops, I thought,” he recalled of the president’s query about Washington. Matlock judged that Reagan was getting ahead of himself. “Gorbachev was not going to talk dates until he had a clear idea of what sort of agreement would be reached. We had briefed Reagan repeatedly on this point, advising him to play it cool and not appear to want a meeting without results. He would always agree, but at that moment in Reykjavík his eagerness to show Gorbachev the United States got the better of his judgment.”

  If Gorbachev thought Reagan had tipped his hand, he didn’t tip his own by any overt reaction. He said the date of a Washington summit mattered less than the prospects for success there. A major arms-control agreement was important for both sides. “You and I cannot allow the upcoming meeting to fail,” he said. “This would be a very serious blow. People would begin to ask what kind of politicians these are who meet with each other, pronounce many words, talk for hours, hold one, two, three meetings and still cannot agree on anything. This would be a scandalous outcome, with consequences which would be difficult to predict. It would evoke disappointment throughout the entire world.”

  Gorbachev made the first specific proposal of the wee
kend. As a start toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, he suggested a 50 percent cut in strategic offensive weapons, the ones deliverable by long-range missiles and bombers. He offered the first concession of the weekend when he accepted the American position on intermediate-range missiles in Europe. The Kremlin had consistently rejected Reagan’s zero option as giving the Americans something for nothing—as giving up real Soviet missiles for notional American missiles. But the American deployment of Pershings and cruise missiles had begun, and so the calculation was changing. Gorbachev now accepted the zero option. “We are agreeing to a great concession,” he said. “I think you understand what a great new step we are taking.” He additionally offered a commitment to the ABM Treaty for at least ten years into the future, and he said the Soviets would interpret the treaty to allow testing of SDI technologies, but only in the laboratory.

  Reagan hadn’t expected so much so soon. But he wanted more. “We are very encouraged by what you have presented,” he told Gorbachev. He said he too sought deep cuts in nuclear arsenals. But he had to point out that there remained important differences between the two sides. For instance, Gorbachev had said nothing about intermediate missiles in Asia. Intermediate missiles were mobile, and missiles based in Asia could quickly be moved to Europe.