Q ..
Can you tell me about the run-up to the fourth Reagan-Gorbachev meeting, the
Moscow summit?
A.
There were less than six months after the Washington summit left to prepare for
the Moscow summit in mid-1988 It would be Reagan's fourth and last meeting
with Gorbachev.
The time was spent on three tasks: first, getting INF ratified in the Senate; second,
trying to complete an agreement on START; and third, advancing Reagan's broad
agenda on human rights.
Despite the obvious advantages to the U.S. of the INF treaty, it did not enjoy
smooth sailing during the Senate ratification process. There were two reasons.
First, a coalition of senators led by
and Nunn used the ratification process
of INF as a vehicle for advancing their view of the narrow versus broad inter-
pretation of the ABM treaty. This was a red herring and only served to delay
things. The second reason was that a group of other senators, led by Senator
Quayle, wanted to eliminate-or at least tighten up-loopholes in the verification
provisions of the INF treaty. They believed it important that INF not serve as a
bad precedent for START.
Several senators and a few newspaper commentators were surprised by my strong
support for INF during the Senate's deliberations of the treaty. They had branded
me as an "inflexible hawk" because of my opposition to SALT II. They believed
that I was against any agreement with the Soviets. Not so. I had always
maintained that I favored agreements, but only if they were equal and verifiable.
The INF treaty met these criteria, and accordingly, I enthusiastically endorsed it.
There had been, of course, the usual Soviet attempts to exploit loopholes and
capitalize upon certain of its aspects; but, by and large, the INF treaty was a good
one. It eliminated an entire class of ballistic missiles from Europe and from Asia
as well; and it promised to do so in a verifiable manner which included on-site
inspection.
At the time I began working for the INF treaty's ratification, there were more than
20, perhaps as many as 25, senators who expressed reservations about the treaty.
President Reagan did not want to see that many votes registered against a treaty he
too felt was a good one. The White House charged me with getting the negative
vote down to 10.
I worked hard at this task. In some instances I was able to convince senators that
such things as the lack of provisions for destroying warheads did not make for a
bad treaty. In other instances I helped senators and their staffs draft proposals to
the administration which they in turn negotiated with the Soviets in Geneva. These
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