Engineer Memoirs
decision can only be made by someone above my pay grade." It was clear he had
no authority on this issue-it was up to Gorbachev to make that decision.
By the time the session broke up at 6 a.m., we had agreed on a 50 percent
reduction in strategic offensive arms in five years-a major step forward. On INF,
we agreed to reduce to zero in Europe but the Soviets would not budge on reducing
any missiles in Asia. The Soviets had not brought up the thorniest issue, the
reduction of all nuclear weapons.
On Sunday morning, during what was to have been the final session, Reagan and
Gorbachev quickly agreed to reduce strategic forces by 50 percent. In a long
session on INF, Gorbachev repeated his acceptance of zero in Europe but would
not budge on reducing SS-20s in Asia. Reagan would not agree. Much to my
disappointment, since I thought Reagan would get on a slippery slope, the President
proposed that the sides eliminate all offensive ballistic missiles in a 10-y e a r period.
Gorbachev countered by repeating his earlier proposal that all nuclear weapons be
eliminated by the year 2000.
I became nervous, hoping that Reagan would not get trapped. However, Reagan
carefully began to extricate himself. He said that he too wished to see the eventual
elimination of all nuclear weapons. However, he wanted an "insurance policy"
which held on to air- and sea-launched cruise missiles until the conventional
imbalance was redressed. Reagan said he wanted to assure there was "coupling
of nuclear and conventional forces. He said that he did not want "to make the
world safe for conventional warfare." It was a clever rejoinder, but I was still
nervous. Could Reagan pull it off with Gorbachev? And if so, could he explain
it to the American people?
This exchange was at the core of the controversy which the Soviets have kept alive
since Reykjavik. Gorbachev subsequently repeated the assertion that Reagan
assented to the elimination of all nuclear weapons. This, unfortunately, was true.
But Gorbachev added that Reagan agreed to eliminate all weapons by 1996 which
Reagan did not do. Reagan had proposed to eliminate all weapons eventually and
only the ballistic missiles by 1996. Reagan made it clear that his proposal to
eliminate all nuclear weapons was an eventual goal. But Gorbachev attempted to
use the ambiguity to embarrass Reagan.
At this stage of the discussion, time was running out. The Reykjavik meeting was
scheduled to end at 12:30 p.m., and it was already noon. Gorbachev showed
himself to be a skillful debater and a clever tactician. He had Reagan over a barrel
by proposing to eliminate all nuclear weapons and knew it. Reagan did not want
to admit to Gorbachev, or to the world, that he opposed eliminating all nuclear
weapons. In fact he had telegraphed to us that he would have liked to do so, but
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