The Washington/Camp David Summit 30 Years Ago

This remarkable cable from U.S. Ambassador Jack Matlock in Moscow just weeks before the Washington summit describes for the summit planners in Washington the severe “crisis of political power” facing Gorbachev, who seems “less a man in control and more an embattled leader.” The cable details the many signs of crisis, which is “of Gorbachev’s making, if not of his design” because “[f]ive years of Gorbachev’s perestroika have undermined the key institution of political power in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party” without replacing it with any coherent, legitimate governance system. Full of specifics about “the powerful social forces his reforms have unleashed” and prescient about the various possibilities to come, the Matlock cable implicitly signals that Gorbachev would be coming to Washington on the downward curve of his power and his ability to deliver any of the items on the American agenda. In effect, the arms race in reverse that had been on offer from Gorbachev at the previous summits with Presidents Reagan and Bush now would be slowed to a crawl.

The State Department prepared this CONFIDENTIAL nine-page script two weeks before the Washington summit, summarizing what the U.S. government expected from the meeting, in prose that reads preemptively in the past tense. The cover memo from the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Raymond Seitz, proposes giving the draft to the Soviets at the very beginning of Secretary Baker’s ministerial meeting in Moscow, or alternatively waiting to “gauge the tone of the ministerial” and “adjust[ing] our draft accordingly before handing it over.” Notable are the passages that propose, related to START and to CFE, that “all major substantive issues have been resolved” yet kick the can for completing these agreements until “the end of 1990” (for START, this moment would not come until July 1991). Also interesting is the absence of any mention of NATO, at a time when a unified Germany’s prospective membership in that alliance was at the center of the political debate (and of the Americans’ concerns); and instead, the draft emphasizes the CSCE processes that most appealed to Gorbachev’s vision of a common European home.

The language in this SECRET five-page Directive signed by President Bush takes the reader back to the intricacies of Cold War arms control negotiations between the superpowers, with a profusion of acronyms, subceilings, devilish details, and not-so-hidden agendas. The story behind the very first item on the list, the non-nuclear air-launched cruise missile Tacit Rainbow, reveals the real reason why it took so long to complete the START treaty (it wouldn’t be signed until July 1991). Tacit Rainbow, at the time of this Directive still in development and not yet in production, was intended to be a jet-powered mini-drone that could hover over enemy targets (assuming massive air attacks were on their way), wait for enemy radar to light up, then destroy those air-defense radars. This system would be cancelled in 1991 before even entering production in part because of cost overruns and also because of audit findings that decoys would be more effective against ground radars. Yet the hard line taken by U.S. START negotiators attempting to leave open this kind of U.S. option for developing non-nuclear cruise missiles added years of delay on overall cuts in strategic weapons. Likewise, the language on submarine-launched cruise missiles – allowing 875-1000 of them to be deployed without any on-board verification procedures – was more the product of U.S. military service rivalries for new weapons systems than any real assessment of U.S. national security. After all, many more U.S. cities were on the coasts and thus vulnerable to Soviet SLCMs than were Soviet cities vulnerable to U.S. SLCMs – a zero option would have made the U.S. more secure.

This package of Soviet documents from Gorbachev Foundation files includes the Politburo’s approval of what are in effect marching orders for Gorbachev’s and Shevardnadze’s dealings with the Americans up to and including the Washington-Camp David summit, starting with Secretary Baker’s ministerial visit to Moscow. The tone-setting document is the May 15th memo from six senior officials including Shevardnadze of the Foreign Ministry, Zaikov from the military-industrial complex, Kryuchkov from the KGB, Yakovlev (in charge of ideology), and Yazov from the Defense Ministry. This memo declares that “[t]he main task is to prepare the principle provisions of a Soviet-American treaty on a 50-percent reduction in strategic offensive weapons, to be coordinated during the summit” and the following specific directives even expect the agreement “to be initialed by the USSR and US leaders during the meeting…” But on Germany, the memo includes the position that the Soviets had already presented at the Two Plus Four negotiations in Paris, that “it would be politically and psychologically unacceptable for us to see a united Germany in NATO. We cannot agree to the destruction of the balance of power and stability in Europe that would inevitably result from this step.” Top Gorbachev adviser Anatoly Chernyaev had earlier in May debated this position with Gorbachev, who well understood that it could not be sustained, yet this was Gorbachev’s official brief as he went into the summit. As the further documents show, he would seriously exceed his brief in Washington; yet the memo gives the sense of limits and domestic political pressure under which Gorbachev was operating. Combined with the directives that follow, the memo clearly attempts to limit the possibility of any further Gorbachev concessions during the negotiations, and details very specific positions on each of the contentious issues to be covered. Interestingly, the specific instructions include a paragraph on biological weapons—this subject becomes an important part of discussion at the summit, taken up directly by Gorbachev with Bush at Camp David, according to David Hoffman’s account in The Dead Hand.

Just two weeks prior to the summit, Secretary of State James Baker sends this “eyes only” memo to President Bush about the preparatory meetings with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in language that reads as if directly dictated by Baker. The two foreign ministers spend almost the entire day together, covering the entire spectrum of U.S.-Soviet relations in their conversation, even traveling to Zagorsk (about 40 miles from Moscow) to visit one of the oldest functioning monasteries and the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy. On arms control issues, as Baker informs the President, they were only “slugging it out,” and uncharacteristically, Shevardnadze felt compelled to read his entire “arms control brief in front of his whole delegation,” which signaled to Baker that the military’s positions were strengthening. There was no real progress in the discussion of Lithuania, but Shevardnadze reacted enthusiastically to Baker’s suggestion that the USSR be involved in a G-24 effort to support peace in Central America. Most important is Baker’s description of Shevardnadze’s general mood. The American finds his Soviet colleague “distracted and little overwhelmed by everything. The economic problems, the public mistrust, the sense of losing control, the fear of nationality issue, and concerns about Germany all are weighing very heavily.”

The fascinating excerpt presented here covers the arms control portion of the Gorbachev-Baker conversation, in preparation for the Washington summit, while the full text of this memcon includes extensive but inconclusive discussion of the issues of German unification and of tensions in the Baltics, particularly the standoff between Moscow and secessionist Lithuania. Following the official directives, Soviet negotiators are trying to avoid making further concessions while agreeing with the U.S. insistence on making an exception for Tacit Rainbow missile, which exceeds the Soviet-sought range limit on cruise missiles, and by accepting – after some debate – the U.S. demand that the issue of inspection of SLCMs on naval ships be resolved by a separate non-binding political statement and not be part of the treaty. Here we find the Soviet leader channeling President Ronald Reagan’s famous proverb, “trust but verify,” while the Americans duck any verification measures. Baker even rejects Gorbachev’s proposal for what would be purely symbolic inspections of “two ships a year,” something that would help Gorbachev with his domestic critics. When Gorbachev retorts, “does your position consist of the condition that an alien foot should never be able to step on an American ship?”, Baker finally admits, “We, of course, would prefer precisely this solution. We do not want to start movement on this slippery road.” Gorbachev’s frustration is evident when he points to the START “concession that the American side did not even anticipate. I am talking about the agreement to cut the number of our heavy missiles by half. We agreed to that in Reykjavik. Compared to that, American concessions are just sunflower seeds.” For his part, Shevardnadze laments that “two days will not be enough to list all our concessions” during the recent negotiations. For perhaps the first time in such negotiations, the Soviets match the U.S. concern for how the Congress will view the treaty in ratification debates with their own references to the Supreme Soviet’s consideration – perhaps reflecting the new opposition groups from right and left in that body.

In this American version of the five-hour conversation, Baker and Gorbachev cover all the most important issues of the upcoming summit: German unification, the situation in Lithuania, Soviet economic reform, and arms control (see Document 6). German unification and especially the American and West German insistence on a united Germany in NATO remain the main Soviet preoccupation, because the question was really about the future of post-Cold War Europe and the Soviet place in that new Europe. Gorbachev does not present a specific plan or proposal other than suggesting maybe dual membership in NATO and the Warsaw Pact or a non-aligned status, but repeats that united Germany in NATO is unacceptable to the USSR. The dialogue is direct but inconclusive. Gorbachev says if the U.S. did not respond to the Soviet security concerns, they would seek admission to NATO (as he would state to Alexander Dubcek just three days later). Baker presents nine assurances to the Soviet side formulated to assuage Soviet security concerns about future NATO with Germany in it. Baker addresses Gorbachev’s ultimate dream of the common European home: “It’s great to talk about Pan-European structure and CSCE—but CSCE today and that structure are a wonderful dream but today they are only a dream. NATO on the other hand exists.” Previewing a difficult issue for the summit, Gorbachev explains the Soviet dire economic situation and the need for loans to invest in expanding production of consumer goods, using emotional language: “we need some oxygen. We are not asking for a gift. We are asking for a loan.” In response, Baker points to the Soviet support for Cuba and Soviet heavy hand on Lithuania as impediments. The Soviet president also accuses the United States of trying to prevent European states who want to provide loans to the USSR from doing that, and of dragging their feet on granting the Soviets the observer status in the GATT. Gorbachev does say he appreciated Bush’s “amazing restraint” on Lithuania, but mentions that he is under pressure to institute direct presidential rule and use even tougher measures there. When Bush reads the transcript back in Washington, the President underlines Gorbachev’s words that there “has to be a U.S. presence in all European processes,” writes the words “name change” next to Gorbachev’s protest that Germany in NATO would mean “the end of perestroika,” and scribbles “discuss” when Gorbachev asks for interim help with converting defense factories to consumer production.

This memo for President Bush’s “eyes only” details Baker’s immediate impressions from his five-hour meeting with Gorbachev. This is the first time, notes Baker, when Gorbachev questioned the United States’ “real attitude to the Soviet Union,” whether the United States wanted to “take advantage of Soviet troubles,” like trying to “wean the East Europeans away.” Mainly, Gorbachev saw Germany’s potential inclusion in NATO as “a fundamental shift in the balance of forces,” and that “it would look like Gorbachev had made the Soviet Union a big loser in the process,” that “it would be the end of perestroika.” Baker concludes “Gorbachev is clearly squeezed and is going to react strongly to any step that causes him potential problems,” and that “Germany definitely overloads his circuits right now.”

This theme paper, written by the State Department’s European bureau for the briefing book before the summit, gives an overview of the current crisis in the Baltics that started with the Lithuanian declaration of independence on March 11 and outlines possible talking points for the President. The paper notes Gorbachev’s certain “flexibility on details” in his willingness to accept a suspension rather than revocation of the declaration, and his openness for negotiations. It emphasizes President Bush’s efforts to promote peaceful outcomes by appealing to the Baltic leaders to exhibit realism and look for practical steps that would lead to talks with Moscow. However, the authors point to signs that the “Moscow position has hardened recently.” At the summit, the paper suggests, the President should link improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations to continued restraint in the Baltics.

This theme paper provides a concise but comprehensive analysis of the Soviet economic situation and outlines Gorbachev’s choices regarding market reform. The authors note that Gorbachev’s falling popularity, as well as his initial rise to power, are connected to Soviet economic performance and the lack thereof. The paper notes the rising incidence of strikes—a new phenomenon for the USSR—but conclude that it is unlikely that the labor movements would coalesce into anything like Solidarity in Poland. Poland serves as the main point of comparison for the paper, but at the same time, the authors argue that the “Polish model is not a realistic option for the USSR.” They note the shift in Gorbachev’s position from insistence that foreign aid was not crucial for perestroika to openly pleading for loans during his meetings with Baker in Moscow. They conclude correctly that “[o]btaining aid and stepped up private investment may be Gorbachev’s highest priority during his U.S. visit.”

Back from Moscow, the Secretary of State appears in the White House press briefing room to set the stage for the summit, outline the issues, and shape the press coverage going forward. The cover memo from Baker’s senior aide, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Margaret Tutwiler, gives Baker the scenario and the 30-minute time limit for the briefing. The Talking Points in outline format express cautious hopes for completing the START treaty (“In Malta the Presidents set a goal of resolving all major substantive START issues by the summit. Progress at the Moscow ministerial has certainly put them in a position where that is possible.”). At the very end is the summary of the potential trade agreement that would become the primary (although primarily symbolic) outcome of the summit.

This 28-page set of CONFIDENTIAL drafts provided by the State Department to the White House gives one-page summaries of each of the agreements expected at the summit, together with those “that could be signed or announced if political decision made” and those “not yet fully negotiated” – the latter including START as well as “Bering Sea Fisheries.” The package gives a detailed sense of what kept both countries’ bureaucracies busy before and during the superpower summits. Even though ultimately intended to turn into public press statements, these drafts contain some insider insights, including in the cover memo reporting that “[i]n cases where texts are still being negotiated with the Soviets, we have tried to predict the result and drafted the fact sheets on that basis.”

This memo from the State Department to the White House updates where each of the proposed agreements stand, with candid language about each, including the fact that emigration legislation is unlikely to pass in Moscow before the summit – which was one of the original U.S. conditions for a new trade agreement. For the uninitiated, the memo helpfully explains that “agreement texts must be conformed (U.S. and Soviet sides agree the English and Russian texts are the same) and then certified (State interpreter confirms the final texts are identical) before signature.”

The West German chancellor rings President Bush to make three points before Gorbachev arrives in Washington for the summit. First was the joint Kohl-Bush position on the “future membership of a united Germany in NATO without any limitations.” Second was Kohl’s intention to “find an sensible economic arrangement” with Gorbachev because he “needs help very much” – meaning major West German financial aid and credits. Third, “it is of immense importance that we make further progress in disarmament.” Interestingly, in the Bush-Scowcroft version of this conversation that would be published in their joint memoir, A World Transformed, Kohl’s third point about disarmament is left out altogether (p. 278). And the memcon is circumspect on Bush’s side about Gorbachev’s need for financial aid, with Bush saying only that he “remember[s] your private conversation with me. Subsequently, that has been raised, with Jim Baker. We have problems with that, related to Lithuania.” The U.S. was also running its own budget deficit, and Bush had no intention of providing major financial support to Gorbachev – that would be up to Kohl.

This is an excerpt published by the Gorbachev Foundation and translated by the Archive in 2010, covering the first one-on-one (actually with translators) meeting in the Oval Office between the U.S. and Soviet leaders. The full U.S. memcon appears in The Last Superpower Summits (pp. 658-663). Bush’s memoir (p. 279) describes this discussion as “largely philosophical, the kind each of us had hoped to have at Malta.” This first conversation of the summit went significantly longer than planned, forcing the cancellation of the first plenary session, but the tone between the leaders is striking, direct and candid. They assure each other of their commitment to cooperation and further arms control negotiations. Bush draws Gorbachev’s attention to the situation in Lithuania and how difficult it is for him politically to sustain the position of supporting perestroika while Moscow is putting pressure on Lithuania to stay in the Soviet Union. Bush says he will try to continue to show patience, but he mentions that the Lithuanian opposition leaders were comparing him to Chamberlain, the appeaser of Hitler, “for supporting you [Gorbachev] and not the great American principles of democracy and freedom.”

In this famous “two anchor” discussion, the U.S. and Soviet delegations discuss the process of German unification and especially the issue of united Germany joining NATO. Bush is trying to persuade his Russian counterpart to reconsider his fears of Germany based on the past, and encourage him to trust the new democratic Germany. Baker repeats the nine assurances, a package of various American pledges put together for maximum impact, including the one that the United States now agrees to support the pan-European process and transformation of NATO to remove the Soviet perception of threat. Gorbachev’s preferred position is Germany with one foot in both NATO and the Warsaw Pact—the “two anchors”—in some kind of associated membership, which Bush calls “schizophrenic.” After the U.S. President frames the issue in the context of the Helsinki agreement, Gorbachev proposes the formulation that German people would have the right to choose their alliance—which he in essence already affirmed to Kohl during their meeting in February 1990. In stating and then reaffirming this position, Gorbachev significantly exceeds his brief and incurs the ire of other members of delegation, especially the Soviet official with the German portfolio, Valentin Falin, and Marshal Sergey Akhromeev. On the future of NATO itself, the Soviet leader suggests that if NATO becomes “a genuinely open organization,” then the Soviet Union “could also think about becoming a member of NATO”—surprisingly, he already suggested it to Vaclav Havel on May 21, during the Czechoslovak president’s visit to Moscow. The key warning about the future comes in Gorbachev’s caution that “if the Soviet people get an impression that we are disregarded in the German question, then all the positive processes in Europe, including the negotiations in Vienna [over conventional forces] would be in serious danger. This is not just bluffing. It is simply that the people will force us to stop and to look around.” This is a remarkable admission about domestic political pressures, from the last Soviet leader.

These brief excerpts published by the Gorbachev Foundation were translated and published by the Archive in 2010. An almost equally brief U.S. memcon of the private meeting appears in The Last Superpower Summits on pp. 677-678. After showing flexibility on German unification during the previous day’s discussions, the Soviet leader is trying here to achieve his major political goal—to get Bush to agree to sign a trade agreement with the Soviet Union in the absence of the expected law on emigration. Gorbachev explains how important for him this agreement would be and asks the U.S. President for a “political gesture” in the one-on-one conversation. In the plenary portion of the talks on strategic arms control, Gorbachev states his ultimate goal—“we have a firm intention to reach a signing of this treaty already in this year. This is the most important [thing].” But no breakthroughs on either issue are reached until later in the day when Bush decides to sign a trade agreement by finessing the emigration law requirement and adding a secret codicil requiring the USSR to suspend its blockage of Lithuania and begin serious dialogue.

This telcon transcribes President Bush’s phone call to Kohl on the second day of the summit to give him the “play by play” on Gorbachev’s discussion of German unification and the issue of German membership in NATO. In rather stark contrast to Bush’s own subsequent memoir account (A World Transformed, co-authored with national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, pp. 281-283), Bush reports no real turning point with Gorbachev on the NATO issue and no significant concession. Bush says, “Near the end of the thing, I thought he kind of agreed with my position that I support Germany’s full membership in NATO but that it was up to Germany to decide. But then he returned to the idea of a transition period.” In other words, Bush says, “We had no agreement at all, but then there was no hostility.” Kohl tells Bush, “I think when he talks about the transition, he is talking about the economic side. I don’t think he can solve his economic problems without help.” Lacking the actual transcript of this call, much less the summit transcripts that remained classified for two decades, many scholars took their lead from the Bush-Scowcroft memoir and the accounts by Bush aides Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice to claim that the summit conversation with Gorbachev was the “turning point” on Germany in NATO. In fact, the turning point would come later that summer, in the direct West German-Soviet negotiations at Arkhyz and Moscow, with very sizable “economic side” contributions from Kohl.

This excerpt published by the Gorbachev Foundation provides a small part of the extended Camp David discussions, which included a tour d’horizon of regional hot spots and mutual security cooperation. A lengthy U.S. memcon drafted by Bush aide Ed Hewett appears in The Last Superpower Summits, pp. 683-694. Here, Gorbachev thanks Bush for agreeing to sign the trade agreement. The Soviet leader is satisfied with this outcome that gives him a victory to take home, to allay the criticism of the conservatives, and at least symbolically to address the economic crisis at home. He is also very sensitive to the public assessment of the summit and wants to pronounce it a victory. Bush and Gorbachev together discuss what they would say at the press conference the next day, especially on reaching the trade agreement. Both the Gorbachev Foundation excerpt and the Hewett memcon leave out the discussion on biological weapons that took place during Gorbachev’s visit to Camp David, during which Bush confronted Gorbachev with information that the U.S. received from their British partners after the defection of Soviet biological weapons expert Pasechnik in the fall of 1989. Only two weeks earlier, on May 14, the British and American ambassadors to Moscow, Rodric Braithwaite and Jack Matlock, had presented a demarche on biological weapons to the Soviets, according to David Hoffman’s pioneering research.

Immediately following the summit, the State Department sends these SECRET talking points to the Deputy Secretary, Lawrence Eagleburger, away from Washington in Paraguay. The cable notes that separate (and presumably more expansive) Presidential letters are being sent to U.S. embassies in NATO countries as well as in Warsaw, Prague, Berlin and Budapest. Here we see the basis for subsequent accounts claiming that the meeting “was essentially different from any previous U.S.-Soviet summit” – “beyond containment to an era of enduring cooperation.”

From the Office of Soviet Analysis at the CIA, just after the summit, comes this prescient take on Gorbachev’s ultimate dream of a common European home. The CIA assessment summarizes Soviet efforts to ensure integration of the reformed Soviet Union into the European economic and political system, especially the creation of new Pan-European security structures in view of the eventual dissolution of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. According to the assessment, this would “help ward off Soviet drift into dour isolationism.” The analysts conclude that “[a]lthough the Soviets almost certainly are aware that CSCE represents a fairly weak foundation for the common European home and is limited in its ability to provide concrete security guarantees, they appear committed to building a new political, economic and security framework on that process.” Importantly, the paper admits that in the Soviet vision, the United States will be part of the European framework. The analysis is right on point in describing the Soviet motivation to be included, not excluded, and in noting widespread support for the idea of inclusion of the East in Western Europe. However, CIA/SOVA sees problems in these Soviet efforts for the United States because the Soviet “vision of a new Europe cuts at the very heart of NATO’s raison d’etre; it would reduce U.S. influence by entangling Washington’s security input in an unwieldy 35-nation process.” The paper concludes that “[i]n the near term, the United States must contend with initiatives designed to put the Pan-European process on a fast track.”

This remarkable summary of Soviet assessments of the summit points out “for the average Soviet, the summit story could not compete with concerns over food supplies and the election of Yeltsin to the RFSFR [Russian republic] presidency.” The cable goes on to remark, “From here, especially judging from the television coverage, the summit seemed part of a Gorbachev political campaign to gain support at home.” Bizarrely, the entire section headlined “Dissenting Voices” – giving a “more jaundiced view of the summit” – is blacked out by State Department declassification officers, claiming “B1” which means damage to U.S. national security.

This remarkably candid and revealing cable describes a conversation in Vienna between the visiting West German Ambassador Anton Rossbach and Ambassador Philip S. Kaplan, the deputy U.S. representative to the negotiations on conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE). The German Ambassador expresses his concerns about West German Foreign Minister Genscher’s position on German unification, which is much more accommodating toward the Soviets than Chancellor Kohl’s policy. In Rossbach’s words, Kohl and Genscher were “prepared to pay quite a high price” for achieving a German unification, a CFE treaty and a CSCE summit all in the current year. The paper outlines stark differences between Kohl and Genscher and the “game they play” with each other. Genscher tends to see the Soviet Union as a “wounded bear” with “nuclear claws,” which should be treated cautiously. Genscher did not want to achieve German security objectives “by exploiting current Soviet difficulties and humiliating Gorbachev.” Apparently, Genscher was “furious” upon finding out about Kohl aide Horst Telschik’s secret trip to Moscow (about which the foreign minister was not consulted or even informed), during which Telschik “had linked German economic support for the USSR to Soviet support for German security objectives.” Rossbach believes that the USSR does not have any leverage whatsoever, and that German unification would happen regardless of the Soviet position. He likens the Soviets to the child who “threatened to hold his breath until he died,” and thinks that no concessions are warranted since the child would always start breathing again before his life was at risk. Therefore, Rossbach believes, Soviet leverage was only “in the eye of the beholder.” It is notable that the U.S. interlocutor, noticing that Rossbach never once mentioned NATO, asks a pointed question revealing the main U.S. concern: “Kaplan asked whether there was a fourth German objective, in addition to the three mentioned above—namely full German membership in NATO.” Rossbach responds that “this was the subject of considerable debate [still on June 9!] and heavy Soviet pressure in Bonn,” but assured the American that even Genscher believed that the “FRG should remain a full NATO member,” which would also relate to united Germany.

This 13-page cable two weeks after the summit provides the Bush administration’s fullest version of the summit results in the form of briefing points for U.S. diplomats to deliver to the allies. Classified SECRET (or one level up from the CONFIDENTIAL version sent to all diplomatic posts), this briefer includes several additional paragraphs of description just for the allies, as well as quotes from the “candid” exchanges with Gorbachev. For example, the cable quotes Gorbachev as saying were it not for the development of close working relations with Washington, the “rapid pace of change in Europe could have provoked a real clash of interests between the two countries, like “putting a match to a bonfire.”