Conference with advisers October 31 1988 What are we going to take to the United Nations Attended Shevardnadze Yakovlev Dobrynin Falin Chernyaev Gorbachev This is what I think First of all we need to define new thinking--how our policy is reflected in the minds of the people politicians and the military Single out significant constantly present factors We should present the new us show them how we are changing how we comprehend the changing world and how we develop along with it This is the first part of the speech The second part--and the main one--is to affirm that the new thinking our new foreign policy is fully connected with perestroika and with the objective processes within the country Tell them what we are going to do next at home Present the basic principles of our new military-political doctrine as concrete as possible and what it means for the international situation Show them our new military thinking as a part of the new political thinking and emphasize the military-technological side of our doctrine In the speech we should make public the figures regarding our armed forces Name the reductions that we are going to make unilaterally It would be better if we could unburden ourselves of weapons in two years and then publish how much we had and how much we have left Recently I met with Komsomol members at their exhibition on science and creativity They overwhelmed me with questions What do we need such an army for Mikhail Sergeyevich Why do we need so many tanks so many missiles In short the people will accept the idea of unilateral disarmament in the event that the international situation changes However we are already acting in this direction We have just given 6 billion rubles for public health--precisely by cutting military expenditures Shevardnadze raises the issue of whether it is time to withdraw our troops from Hungary Gorbachev Yes but first we need to reduce the numbers not withdraw all at once By the way Khrushchev had all the right intentions in the military sphere But look how he implemented them The third part--about the United Nations Describe what it lived through during the Cold War Emphasize that it was created for cooperation and coordination and therefore it was only natural that its role diminished during the Cold War its role decreased This organization is called the United Nations for a reason In this context it should have a universally accepted doctrine which would reflect the rights of the peoples their right of free choice human rights Show the U N role as an instrument of the new world The fourth part How do we see our contribution to the creation of the new world We are not just calling for it we are going to act In the speech we should present a set of responses to Western anxieties In general this speech should be an anti-Fulton--Fulton in reverse And we can already lean on some experience of work done according to the new thinking we can show movement in the right direction But they will believe us only when they see that we are making clearly evident real steps The American theme should be present in the speech i e our look at SovietAmerican relations now and in the future We should present our worldview philosophy based on the results of the last three years We should stress the process of demilitarization of our thinking and the humanization of our thinking We should point to the fact that today international politics and contacts are expanding not only to the level of the people and politicians but generals as well Source Archive of the Gorbachev Foundation Fond 2 Notes of A S Chernyaev On file at the National Security Archive Translated by Svetlana Savranskaya This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu