When the leaders returned, President Reagan read Gorbachev the American revision. It was, Reagan said, “the final option we can offer.”54 Gorbachev pointed out that the American offer proposed cutting “strategic offensive arms” in the first five-year period, but eliminating only ballistic missiles in the second. Why not, Gorbachev suggested, do away with all nuclear weapons, not just ballistic missiles, but cruise missiles, air-launched systems, and tactical weapons as well? “Let me ask this,” Reagan said. “Do we have in mind—and I think it would be very good—that by the end of the two five-year periods all nuclear explosive devices would be eliminated, including bombs, battlefield systems, cruise missiles, submarine weapons, intermediate-range systems, and so on?” “It would be fine with me,” Reagan ventured, “if we eliminated all nuclear weapons.” Gorbachev replied, “We can do that. Let’s include all those weapons as well. Let’s eliminate them.”55 Shultz said, “Let’s do it.”56 Reagan told Gorbachev, “We can turn it all over to the Geneva people and they can draft the agreement and you could come to the United States and sign it.”57
Gorbachev returned to missile defense and insisted he still needed SDI confined to the laboratory. Shultz suspected correctly that Gorbachev was under orders from the Politburo to extract concessions on SDI. “Everything,” Shultz realized, “depended on agreement on how to handle SDI: a ten-year period of nonwithdrawal and strict adherence to the terms of the ABM Treaty during that period. That was their bottom line.”58 Reagan, though, had no intention of backing down on SDI. “Understand me,” he responded, “I cannot retreat from my positions, renounce what I promised our people.”59
“I fail to see the magic of the ABM regime,” Reagan asserted, “whose only assurance of safety is the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction. We are talking about elimination of missiles, about how we should no longer be threatened with the danger that some gloomy day someone will push the button and everything will be destroyed. But even when we destroy these missiles we must have a defense against others. The genie is already out of the bottle.”60
He pointed out that down the road someone might build nuclear weapons again. “Who knows,” Reagan argued, “what kind of madman might come along after we’re gone? We live in a world where governments change; in your own country, there have already been four leaders during my term. I believe you mean it when you say you want peace, but there could be a change. It’s the same thing on the other side: I think you know I want peace, but you also know I will not be in a position to personally keep the promises I’ve made to you. That’s why we need insurance that our agreements eliminating nuclear weapons will be kept in the future.”61
“We knew from intelligence information,” Reagan later acknowledged, “that the Soviets were secretly researching a missile defense system similar to SDI; their technology was inferior to ours, but if we stopped work on SDI and they continued to work on their system, it meant we might wake up one morning to learn that they alone had a defense against missiles. We couldn’t afford that. SDI was an insurance policy to guarantee that the Soviets kept the commitments Gorbachev and I were making at Reykjavik. We had had enough experience with Soviet treaty violations to know that kind of insurance was necessary.”62
Gorbachev reminded Reagan that laboratory research could continue, but both knew the language would mean the end of SDI. Restricting research to the laboratory would have halted half to three-quarters of America’s scheduled SDI research, and there was little chance Congress would fund the program unless the technology proved effective in open-air tests. Shultz felt that “Gorbachev obviously knew, but did not say directly, that the restrictions he wanted would make the successful development of a strategic defense extremely remote. No doubt he worried that if SDI research proved successful in the near term, the United States would simply not wait for the ten years to expire before deploying. I sensed, too, that SDI was, in a powerful way, propelling the Soviet concessions, in part because they feared that we were farther along technically than we actually were.” “We were calling the Soviets’ bluff,” Donald Regan acknowledged. “If they accepted, nuclear weapons would vanish from the earth. The key to agreement was SDI; without the insurance policy that it provided, the President could never ask Congress and the American people to trust the Soviets, and no treaty could win ratification.”64
Shevardnadze told the two leaders, “I would like to say just one thing. The two sides are so close to accomplishing a historic task, to decisions of such historic significance, that when future generations read the record of our talks, and saw how close we had come, they will not forgive us if we let this opportunity pass.”65 “The weather,” Shultz wrote, “was alternating every half hour or so between dark, driving rain and brilliant sunshine, and the course of our work mirrored the weather. Round and round we went.”66
“As evening approached,” Reagan recalled, “I thought to myself: Look what we have accomplished—we have negotiated the most massive weapons reductions in history. I thought we were in complete agreement and were going to achieve something remarkable. Then, after everything had been decided, or so I thought, Gorbachev threw us a curve. With a smile on his face, he said: ‘This all depends, of course, on you giving up SDI.’ I couldn’t believe it and blew my top. ‘I’ve said again and again the SDI wasn’t a bargaining chip. Now, with all we have accomplished here, you do this and throw in this roadblock and everything is out the window.’”67
The president told Gorbachev he felt both sides had results they could be proud of: a 50 percent reduction in the first stage and total elimination in the second. Gorbachev would be able to return with the ten-year period he came for, and while Reagan had agreed to defer development, he would have honored his pledge to keep SDI intact. Why, Reagan questioned, should there be any restrictions beyond the ten-year period, when both sides will have gotten what they claimed to want—the elimination of offensive missiles? “You told your people ten years and you got it,” Reagan argued. “I told my people I wouldn’t give up SDI; so I have to go home saying I haven’t.”68 Gorbachev countered, “But you wouldn’t have to give it up, because you will still be able to test it in the laboratory. Your opponents won’t be able to open their mouth, especially when we are making deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals. Anyway,” he added, “our meeting cannot produce a situation that results in a winner and a loser: we must both either win or lose. Otherwise, after the treaty is signed the loser will work to undermine the agreement.”69
Reagan pointed to his political pressures at home. “I have promised the American people I will not give up SDI,” he reminded Gorbachev, and asked for “just this one thing.”70 Gorbachev responded:
It’s not a trivial thing—it is everything. You must understand me. To us the laboratory issue is not a matter of stubbornness or hard-headedness. We are agreeing to deep reductions and, ultimately, the destruction of nuclear weapons. And at the same time, the American side is pushing us to agree to give them the right to create space weapons. Let me be clear. I cannot do without the word “laboratory.” I cannot carry back to Moscow an agreement that gives up this limitation of research and testing to the laboratory. If you agree to this, we could write it all down and I will sign it right now. If this is not possible, then we can say good-bye and forget everything we have discussed.71
The president held his ground. “You’re asking me to give up SDI,” he said. “I have promised the American people I will not give up SDI. I cannot confine work to the laboratory.” Gorbachev asked if this was his final position. “If so, we can end our meeting at this point.” Reagan replied tersely, “Yes it is.”72
“All right, then,” Gorbachev said, “if you can’t do that, let’s end it here. We may as well go home and forget about Reykjavik. We cannot accept what you propose. I’ve said all I can. There is no other possibility. In any case, I know that for me there is no other way.”73
Reagan argued, “The text now has everything you asked for: not to exercise the right to withdraw fr
om the ABM Treaty for 10 years, strict compliance with its provisions, and the conduct only of the kind of research, development, and testing which are permitted by the treaty, everything except the term ‘laboratories.’ It is,” he said, “a question of one word.”74 Reagan asked in disbelief, “Are you really going to turn down a historic opportunity for the sake of a single word in the text?”75
“You say it is the question of one word,” Gorbachev replied, “but for us it’s not the matter of a word, it’s a matter of principle. We cannot agree to a situation in which you are expanding your SDI and going into space with it while reductions of nuclear weapons are going on. If you will agree to banning tests in space, we will sign the document in two minutes. Otherwise, we cannot go along with what you propose. Even though our meeting is ending this way, I have a clear conscience. I did everything I could.”76
Reagan told the Soviet leader, “I don’t know when we’ll ever have another chance like this and whether we’ll meet soon.” Gorbachev said “I don’t either.”77
Reagan scribbled “Am I wrong?” on a note and pushed it over to Shultz. The secretary of state looked at him and whispered back, “No, you are right.” Shultz felt it was important to hold firm: “The Soviets, I thought, had agreed to our long-standing proposals. They had done so, I believed, because of SDI. If President Reagan had agreed—by this compromise—to let SDI die, we would have no leverage to propel the Soviets to continue moving our way. I admired the president for hanging in there. If he had given in on SDI, all the other progress we had achieved with the Soviets would have been problematic. Gorbachev came to Reykjavik prepared to make concessions because of the pressure of SDI, but he also came to kill SDI, and he went to the well once too often.”78
Reagan, a look of resigned disappointment on his face, gathered his papers and stood up. “Let’s go, George, we’re leaving,”79 he said, closing his briefing book as he stood up. “I was very disappointed—and very angry,”80 he later admitted. Gorbachev also rose to his feet. The summit was over.
“I remember,” Donald Regan recalled, “their haggard features and the hoarse tone of their voices.” As they emerged into the narrow corridor, Gorbachev said, “There is still time, Mr. President. We could go back inside to the bargaining table.” Reagan replied curtly, “I think not.”81 The klieg lights set up outside caught the drizzling rain in the arctic twilight. Reagan walked toward his limousine. “Our faces,” Shultz conceded, “looked stricken and drained.”82
“Mr. President,” Gorbachev called out to him, “you have missed the unique chance of going down in history as a great president who paved the way for nuclear disarmament.” “That applies to both of us,”83 Reagan replied.
“I still feel we can find a deal,” Reagan told Gorbachev as they stood on the gravel at the bottom of the steps outside Hofti House. “I don’t think you want a deal,” Gorbachev answered. “I don’t know what more I could have done.” “I do,” Reagan replied. “You could have said yes.”84
The president, Donald Regan, and Shultz rode together in Reagan’s limousine on the short trip back to the American ambassador’s residence. “In the limousine,” Regan recalled, “Reagan was somber, and for the first time since I had known him I felt that I was in the presence of a truly disappointed man. . . . Reagan sat in silence for another moment. Then he said, Don, we came so close. It’s just such a shame. He placed his thumb and forefinger less than a half inch apart and added. We were that close to an agreement.”85
“The sweep of what had been achieved at Reykjavik was nevertheless breathtaking,” Shultz wrote:
Far-reaching concessions to the American positions had been put forward, orchestrated by Gorbachev, over the two days: it was an elaborate chesslike performance. At the end, Gorbachev pulled the rug out. . . . Gorbachev’s approach had been brilliant, but he neglected two points: President Reagan’s deeply felt commitment to a new, defense-based concept of deterrence; and the fragility of the Soviet arms control concessions. Without SDI as an ongoing propellant, these concessions could wither away over the next ten years. I knew that the genie was out of the bottle: the concessions Gorbachev made at Reykjavik could never, in reality, be taken back. We had seen the Soviets’ bottom line. . . . At Reykjavik we had reached virtual agreement on INF and had set out the parameters of START [the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty]. And we had gotten human rights formally on the negotiating table. . . . [T]he reality was that Reykjavik was a stupendous success.86
At his press conference Gorbachev also maintained it had not been a failure. “I suddenly found myself,” Gorbachev recalled, “in the enormous press-conference room, with about a thousand waiting journalists. When I came into the room, the merciless, often cynical and cheeky journalists stood up in silence. I sensed the anxiety in the air. I suddenly felt emotional, even shaken. These people standing in front of me seemed to represent mankind waiting for its fate to be decided. At this moment I realized the true meaning of Reykjavik and knew what further course we had to follow.” “In spite of all its drama,” the Soviet leader announced, “Reykjavik is not a failure—it is a breakthrough, which allowed us for the first time to look over the horizon.” Gorbachev believed “Reykjavik showed that an agreement was possible. . . . Reykjavik strengthened our conviction that we had chosen the right course.”87 “I think,” he declared, “that the U.S. President and I should reflect on the entire situation that ultimately evolved here at the meeting, and make another attempt to step over the things that divide us.”88 The Soviet Union “will be waiting, without withdrawing the proposals that we have made public.”89
That evening before midnight, Gorbachev, sheltered under an umbrella on the airport tarmac with the Icelandic prime minister before boarding his plane to Moscow, confided to him, “Mr. Prime Minister, I can understand your disappointment. But there will be more coming out of this meeting than anyone realizes. For the first time in forty years, both great powers tried to eliminate all nuclear weapons. This is the beginning of the end of the Cold War.”90
The United States also realized that for all its frustrations, Reykjavik had been a great success. “No, it’s not a bust. We got very far. It’s like going 99 yards and not scoring on the last yard,”91 Donald Regan said to the gathered crowd of media as he joined the president aboard Air Force One to return to the United States. All that remained was the final yard.
Back in Washington on Tuesday morning, Shultz shared his thoughts with the president: “I thought of Christopher Columbus, who at the time was said to have failed because he only landed on a couple of islands and didn’t bring back any gold to Spain. But after a while people realized that he had come upon a New World. ‘In a way, you found a new world this weekend,’ I told the president. ‘Some of the critics used to say that your positions were too tough. Others used to say that they were unrealistic. But at Reykjavik you smoked the Soviets out and they are stuck with their concessions. So we have to move fast to lock them in.’”92
The Soviets confirmed that their proposals still stood, and Reagan also kept his offers on the table. “The door is open,” he announced in a nationally televised address from the Oval Office, “and the opportunity to begin eliminating the nuclear threat is within reach. . . . We’re ready to pick up where we left off, and we’re prepared to go forward whenever and wherever the Soviets are ready.”93 The essential elements of an INF treaty and a strategic arms reduction treaty were in place, and within three weeks, Shultz and Shevardnadze began working to consolidate the gains made at Reykjavik and turn them into something Reagan and Gorbachev could sign.
Gorbachev realized he could make no progress with Reagan while insisting on killing SDI, that the technical hurdles to SDI were greater than he had thought and the Americans might not be able to implement it after all; and that improving relations would make it less likely Congress would fund SDI research. In February 1987, Gorbachev dropped his demand subjecting an INF agreement to American concessions restricting SDI research to the laboratory. He
untied the package of proposals he had presented, removed linkage between SDI and INF, and publicly proposed that “a separate agreement be concluded on it, and without delay.”94 On April 14, Gorbachev told Shultz that the USSR would agree to eliminate its short-range intermediate missiles as well. Within a couple of months, Gorbachev also dropped his insistence on keeping INF missiles in Asia. The White House officially accepted the Soviet proposal on July 29.
Later that year, President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the first to abolish an entire class of nuclear weapons, during a solemn ceremony in the East Room of the White House. The Soviet Union withdrew and destroyed more than fifteen hundred deployed nuclear warheads, and the United States withdrew and destroyed approximately four hundred, for a total reduction of almost two thousand nuclear warheads. The Soviets, who had more deployed, agreed to destroy four times as many warheads as the Americans. The weapons eliminated included the SS-4 missiles that had brought the world so close to destruction in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as their modern equivalents. Verification terms were far more extensive than in any previous treaty and included complete inventories of all weapons, on-site inspections, short-notice inspections, and continued monitoring of missile-production sites. After the signing, Gorbachev declared, “What we have achieved is the revival of hope.”95
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