SALT II and the Growth of Mistrust Transcript of the Proceedings of the Musgrove Conference of the Carter-Brezhnev Project Musgrove Plantation St Simon s Island GA May 7-9 1994 Prepared by Svetlana Savranskaya Emory University David A Welch University of Toronto May i Momfng Session I nuclear weapons and disarmament issues Later-maybe even next year-we'll get to the questions of linkage U S views about whether the Soviet Union wanted to take over the world the interactions between these things and so forth But on the strategic weapons issue and the disarmament issue it is clear from what has been said on both sides that the lack of transparency with reSpect to the Soviet strategic doctrine was a real problem for the United States Now it is true that if the Soviet side had said We are interested only in deterrence there would have been Americans who said hey are lying But at least there would have been the beginning of a discussion The separation between Foreign Ministry and General Staff knowledge of and participation in the formulation of that doctrine probably contributed to the lack of transparency On the U S side there was also a problem there was too much concern among the U S political class and among many journalists and academics not all of them were in favor of disarmament as Les Gelb pointed our about Soviet rst-strike capabilities which were never that great But in fact as the strategic arms negotiations evolved Soviet concerns about the American qualitative superiority and American concerns about Soviet quantitative superiority specifically having to do with heavy missiles and their ability to destroy the U S retaliatory capability resulted in quite different goals on both sides And it was the tension between the reSpective goals on the two sides that drove the negotiations beginning all the way back in 1968 and '69 recurring periodically including in 1977 When we get to the point of discussing the speci c proposals I think we should keep this background in mind LEGVOLD Thank you Anatoly DOBRYNIN I want to add something on this issue Really it relates more to what Sergei mentioned Of course our military people as I understood it had various plans and options for using nuclear weapons when to use them how to use them at what level and so forth Very occasionally I would discuss these matters with the military unof cialIy because we had a friendly relationship with some people from our General Staff But I can tell you this Foreign Ministry people did not discuss this on a regular basis and we did not spend even ve 20 May 7-M0ming Session I minutes on it in discussions with your State Department Gelb and others talked about rst strike capability rst use no- rst-use nuclear options and so on We did not discuss them in the Foreign Ministry In the Foreign Minimal I emphasize In the General Staff they dis- cussed these things But we never really tried to be involved This was very bad because we didn't know what they were talking about All we knew about nuclear war we knew from American sources you see Laughter I am speaking for myself and all my friends including Komienko We knew nothing about it So it made things much more dif cult Actually it made things too simple too we did not have very elaborate theories underlying our negotiating positions We did not really discuss the balance of interests we discussed the balance of weaponry How many missiles do we have Okay you have more and we have less so let s insist until we reach the same level We will stand without moving It was too simpli ed Simpli ed but at the same time it was really very dif cult to negotiate with you You put things in a much broader context than this This was both a plus for you and a minus The plus was that you were much more educated in strategic doctrine than we were the minus was that you were always drawn into details So when we began to discuss with you we didn't know whether you were just talking or trying to impress us Laughter It was very dif cult even to report to Moscow what you were talking about Laughter When I wrote a telegram I would always try to communicate enough information to let the Politburo decide whether the Americans were serious or not But in the discussion it was sometimes really very difficult to know It is an open secret l think somebody mentioned it somewhere Carter perhaps- that in the whole history of the Soviet-American discussion not a single time did the Russians mention a gure with respect to their nuclear arms They always waited until the Americans offered the gures and they would say yes or Sometimes we would add or subtract but all the numbers were American 80 were the names I myself did not even know until the very last moment what meant Laughter So all of this made our diplomacy very dif cult Maybe that s why our diplomacy was really rather simple We had very simple diplomacy We just went forward without paying attention to what you were saying to us We just repeated the same answers to the same questions Of course i am exaggerating But this did make it very dif cult for us to negotiate 21 May 7 Maming Session I constructively l am Speaking about the Soviet diplomats I think that you overplayed the importance of hypothetical scenarios I recall speaking to Thomas Watson who before being appointed ambassador was Chairman of the Advisory Committee said What is the main lesson that you draw from your experience as Chairman of the Commission He said One thing I draw Anatoly after two years being Chairman of the Commission is that we couldn t allow the military to handle nuclear war Because they couldn't handle it as well as a civilian could do it Because they the military know very clearly how many weapons one side could strike with and how many the other could return but they avoid answering the question of what would be the result after such a war and how we deal with the world after the war So let s discuss these things in concrete terms To summarize yes this was situation where none of the Russian diplomats including top ambassadors knew what our military doctrine was except that we were always on the defensive defending our country But I never heard what the military doctrine of the Soviet Union was I don't know maybe you didn t even know your own doctrine But I didn't know ours This made things very complicated and very simple I didn t know much about the actual military situation how powerful the missiles were what the real balance was whether we could annihilate your capacity with a first strike or not we just took it all for granted That s all I think this might clarify your question a little bit LEGVOLD Marshall SHULMAN Well I think it's useful that we have identi ed that at this early stage one of the fundamental problems of the asymmetry on the two sides was the extent to which those responsible for the negotiations were involved in the discussions of strategic doctrine I go back to what Sergei said about what Kosygin reported And I think one further elucidation might be useful from the Soviet side particularly from those with military experience From my point of view in observing the period from Glasboro in 1967 when the president sought to argue with Kosygin rst about the importance of deterrence there was a gap between US and Soviet understandings of the role of nuclear weapons The US always spoke about them as retaliatory But what the discussion at Glasboro re ected was the 22 May 7 Momfng Session I DOBRYNIN So as I understand it it is rather ironic that during all those years of rivalry between our two countries the main premise was that neither you nor we intended to have a rst strike If it had been clear from the very beginning I think many issues could have been solved on the spot BROWN I think neither side-well I cannot speak for the Soviet side but we were not within the government so much concerned about Soviet intentions for a rst strike in a peaceful situation a bolt-out-of-the-blue situation What we were concerned about what I was concerned about certainly was that in a situation of great tension in EurOpe for example where there might even have been conventional military con ict the Soviet leadership might misconstrue either American intentions or the balance of strategic forces in such a way as to decide either that there was going to be a nuclear exchange and that they'd be better off striking rst I was concerned that the Soviet political leadership might hear a convincing brie ng from a Soviet military planner saying If we the Soviet Union strike rst we can destroy all the land-based American systems and bombers and the subsequent imbalance would be so great either that we can limit the damage that the American subman ne-Iaunched missiles might do or else we will be in a better negotiating position Now I must say I always found this scenario dif cult to believe or to imagine but it was something that had to be considered There may well have been similar considerations on the Soviet side with respect to us To repeat I never felt that we would let the imbalance become such that it would become plausible but it was the kind of calculation of weapons balance that the US military had to make That was part of their professional responsibility DOBRYNIN Let me add LEGVOLD Anatoly I m going to hold you now DOBRYNIN Very quickly 2 May 7 Momrbg Session 2 I think you have to understand the political situation that prevailed in the United States in 1976 The new administration came to of ce quite explicitly rejecting the idea of backchannels secret negotiations and so forth It was made very clear from the very beginning that the negotiations would be conducted by the secretary of state either directly with his counterpart in the Soviet Union or with Toly Anatoly Dobrynin And I remember that in fact when Toly and I talked about the possibility of maintaining the kind of relationship that Toly had with Kissinger I told Toly that this is not the way that the president wants to operate now that Cy would be the principal channel and that that would be the way we would conduct our business But beyond that there is this question of the seriousness of the relationship The issues between us were centrally important and they were being posed very directly through the of cial channels I don't think it's an adequate answer to say that somehow or other the absence of a backchannel explains the dif culty of dealing seriously with the proposals that were being advanced by the U S side And I repeat these preposals had two dimensions to them one was a more ambitious effort to go forward in keeping with the president s faith as well as conviction that we ought to move eventually towards a non-nuclear world and the second set of proposals was based on Vladivostok quite deliberately and if you look at our documents we prepared them on the basis of Vladivostok but left aside two issues on which we could not have immediate agreement because we viewed them as unresolved LEGVOLD Anatoly DOBRYNIN Zbig I really think your comment about use or non-use was interesting I think it clari ed several points About the most recent items discussed let me say this First of all about Harriman We knew of course that he was the not representative of the president But at the same time he was an eager beaver who went back and forth between Georgia and Washington and then said things to us on behalf of the president Our peeple took that very seriously After his reports our Politburo sat and discussed them Then I received a telegram saying You have to go to Harriman and tell Harriman to go to the 40 May 7-Moming Session 2 president So Harriman was like an of cial channel Arbatov was different Arbatov said he was on his own That is the difference On the second question you raised about whether were we surprised or not about your proposal No we were not surprised because from the very beginning you were talking about deep cuts From the very beginning Comprehensive cuts Harriman had said that President Carter did not feel speci cally obliged to follow everything that was in Vladivostok This was the rst time when people in Moscow said how come Why is he not obliged But he was very clear He indicated that the president was going to seek deep cuts When we asked him How many he said Two or maybe three hundred missiles It was a big revelation to Moscow I spoke with Cy before he went there and although you had not at that time fully de ned your positions he made it clear what we could expect So in Moscow they knew I simply want to dispel the impression that you get from some of our colleagues Maybe some of our colleagues have the impression that there was great surprise that this proposal came suddenly But for us it was around for four months There were many indications from many sources that you wanted to make very big drastic comprehensive reductions So this was no really revelation for us About the second proposal the second preposal was taken in the context of the overall relationship with you We did not see these as a rst proposal and a second proposal What actually happened before q went to Moscow was that we had a big discussion in our government about what kind of relationship we were going to have with the new administration Would it be like it was with Nixon or before Nixon And we were under the impression that the new administration was coming with the intention maybe we were wrong-of taking a new course toward us on a whole set of issues I don't say that it was a good course or a bad course but a change of course It was a change in arms negotiations the proposal for drastic reductions it was the new position on human rights It looked as though at the very beginning of the new administration you were setting a new agenda an agenda proposed by you a completely new one which we didn't have before How were we to deal with this A decision was taken to begin not with the speci cs of Vladivostok because after all while they were important it was more important to know what kind of course our relationship would 41 May 7-Momfng Session 2 take with the new administration We had to decide whether we were going to ght these two issues drastic reductions and human rights and if so how Do you mean linkage DOBRYNIN In a way yes In a way Not directly but in a way It always happens some- times you make it a public linkage and sometimes you do not say it So this was the decision And when Vance came from the very beginning when we rst saw you indicating Vance we felt the proposal for drastic reductions was not a serious approach I don t say that we were right or wrong but that was the overall impression So the question was really were we going to do something prepare something to nd a compromise Zubok asked here about the backchannel I was one of the participants for many years I don t say that it is something of overriding importance but it has some importance Speci cally in one sense it gives you a chance to explain things It helps provide a preliminary explanation of the position of the other country It's simple It doesn t always matter who the channel is things are decided by the president But the backchannel helps elaborate on your thinking a little bit Not always There was one situation when the secretary of state brought one preposal drastic reductions and someone else brought another one And someone would raise human rights It was dif cult to know how to deal with this administration at all I should say after an elaborate discussion they had in the government Brezhnev was a little bit angry He was not in the mood for this In the rst meeting with Nixon he said Let s sit down and discuss what we are you going to do because I am for peace and you are for peace too There was no such opportunity with the Carter administration Maybe it sounds funny but it's important because during the previous fteen years that had been the pattern with any administration And suddenly this administration came and did not send anything except a self-appointed ambassador who says one thing but at the same time they couldn't take him for word because he was not Speaking for a president but a president-elect So that was the situation I think that in this sense the channel the backchannel was 42 May 7-Momfng Session 2 useful at least for explaining things It is important not just to have people come with very big proposals accompanied by some other things which were not acceptable You need contacts to explain things What we were really concerned about was having the agenda prepared by your administration from the very beginning You prepared it and then brought it to us Why did we have to accept it If we want to understand the ght we had for years with your administration we have to look at your agenda Wrongly or that is how we saw things That s why we were so angry and didn t even want to discuss your prOposals I think back channels are sometimes useful useful mostly first for advance explanation and also sometimes useful for working things out without much publicity As a matter of fact at one point there was work between Cy me and you too indicating Brzezinski You were involved in this negotiation Very few peeple know it but before 1979 I had many meetings with you too They were useful There was no publicity So back channels were useful I don t say it s really the most important thing but still this is what happened LEGVOLD Thank you very much Anatoly I think that's a rich introduction BRZEZINSKI Could I respond to Anatoly LEGVOLD Yes I've got Cy next and then I have Viktor Before you respond Zbig when you noted the objective linkage that was implicit in the way Anatoly spoke I would remind you of something that Sergei said earlier on the issue of human rights and arms control According to his report Andropov said that if there was a prospect of progress in arms control then they might have been willing to be more forthcoming on the human rights issue So there was also a kind of linkage as Andropov saw the matter Cy you re next VANCE I simply want to clarify some things that Anatoly stated He was absolutely correct in saying that we laid out our pr0posals in really considerable detall In the brie ng book there is a report of the March 21 meeting between Anatcly and myself in which we laid out immediately prior to going exactly what it was that we were going to put forward in terms of the basic deep 43 May 7 Moming 2 nin you are a long-time expert in Washington You observed the 1976 presidential campaign over an extended period of time in which the winner had criticized severely and successfully the style and the approach of the previous administration particularly Secretary Kissinger Did you tell Moscow that this would be an administration that would need to modify the Kissinger proposal Therefore even if your government rejected Carter's comprehensive proposal wouldn't it have been advisable to make a counter offer And secondly did you factor into your own analysis the timetable of rati cation I mean assume for the moment that the United States accepted Vladivostok or some variation on that Did Moscow have any awareness that that would be a tough debate extending over a signi cant period of time and would have to be completed in practice before Congressional elections in 1978 or the presidential elections in 1980 DOBRYNIN Have you ever been an ambassador Laughter PASTOR It was an ulterior purpose of my question Laughter DOBRYNIN I am sorry your question comes exactly from the fact that you are not So coming back to your question Of course I made my observations but what kind of observation could I make in say December of 1976 What kind of observation The election I knew that an election campaign is an election campaign So we had to wait a little bit What did I know before Very little about Carter Just what I read in his statements I didn t know much about Vance or Zbig just what I read about them But rst of all it was not clear who would occupy what office So at that particular time it was very dif cult to predict the situation What is interesting is that historically for ten years-maybe even twelve years there had not been a single case when a new administration came to power and we the Soviet govemment took a harsh position from the very beginning In March when we rejected the proposal it was the rst time we had taken such a harsh position with a new administration Usually there was a period of give and take so to Speak where we felt each other out carefully negotiating forming our opinion 56 May 7 Moming Session 2 The question that we faced when Cy Vance arrived in Moscow was whether we were going to continue d tente by pursuing Vladivostok or whether we were facing a situation of having to accept an agenda that we thought at the time represented a major departure a revision of the Vladivostok agreement human rights and many other issues which were until now unacceptable That was really the problem as we saw it at that time And we wanted from the very beginning to know where the new administration stood on our relationship Gromyko did later on accept that we made a mistake by not answering Cy Vance That s another story and I agree with him But we are speaking about history as it was We wondered why Cy arrived with this proposal It was not the particular proposal that made people mad there but the fact that during the whole previous month the administration had been pushing its Sakharov Bukovsky Ginzburg Sharansky Now it sounds ridiculous but at that time the telegram from the White House to Sakharov was very offensive We considered this a departure from the normal diplomatic relations between two countries Those people Brezhnev very sincerely considered enemies of the regime How should one react to this It s a point At that time it stirred very strong emotions I am explaining to you the state of mind of our government LEGVOLD Very quickly Harold and then Zbig is next on my list BROWN From what you've just said Anatoly it becomes clear that the linkage with human rights was not solely a positive linkage in Soviet view You have just described a very negative linkage The other point I d like to make is that Vladivostok had been more than two years before and no movement had occurred toward completing it or toward ratifying it In retrospect wasn't it a little naive on the part of the Soviet side to think that the new administration would come in and just accept and move on an agreement which the previous administration had not been able to do anything with for two years DOBRYNIN It was in 74 and in 76 5 May 7-A emoon Session was very wisely put together I'm going to turn it over now to Les who was one of the architects of that piece of construction that got us back on track LEGVOLD Les GELB After we came back from the Moscow trip Bill Hyland and I went out to lunch We made a lot of fun of our friends a lot of fun of our adversaries and then we said there must be some way to reconstruct what was done and what could be done And we came up with the three-part proposal that you see before you The rst part embodied the essence of Vladivostok The second part took the harder questions that couldn't be resolved there and put them in a protocol where we felt both sides could live with solutions of a very limited duration and go back at the issues The third part was intended to get us where President Carter wanted to go in the rst place namely toward the principles looking forward to creating a more stable strategic balance We looked at this inside the administration and we were happy to nd that it provided a way out When Cy presented this to you informally shortly thereafterhad both found ourselves in LEGVOLD How shortly thereafter Les GELB Quickly April LEGVOLD What was going on in Moscow it those days immediately after March DOBRYNIN was involved immediately with the negotiations with Cy and Gelb and with Marshall too on this issue exactly on this issue We were just preparing this tripartite or three-level plan whatever you call it Well in Moscow immediately after of course there was a recognition that we went to far from both of our points of view We knew that he had to nd a way out not immediately 74 May 7 Az l emoon Session necessarily but little by little So there was movement I don't recall who was the rst to reestablish communication but somebody spoke rather quickly And we established contact with the State Department with Vance and we began the exchange At rst we had no speci c concrete plan But we did intend to get something to move us fonlvard There was a mutual desire on both sides So I was acting under this instruction from my government and they were acting on theirs And then things began to deveIOp more elaborately But in the beginning we were just saying Let's nd a way and ultimately that wasn't very simple really We had an unacceptable proposal on one side unacceptable for the other so what were we to do We had to construct some kind of alternative This three- Ievel proposal ultimately ended in the agreement of 19 9 if you look at it It was the basis for '79 VANCE Basically it was a very good- DOBRYNIN Basically it was a very good ground and there was not really much dif culty when we negotiated these issues with the State Department and then with Gromyko they nalized all the details It was done very quickly because both sides recognized that it was a good proposal I think that if we had begun with this kind of proposal when you rst came to Moscow everything would have been ne But I am saying history was different LEGVOLD Nikolai could I ask you from your persoective sitting in Moscow what was the reaction to all of this DETINOV As far as I can recall that time we in Moscow were also trying to come up with a way to restore a normal negotiating process Our side prepared some proposals that included an agreement to some reductions in overall levels of the strategic arms A decision had been made to reduce them by 150 launchers from 2400 to 2250 in the overall level of strategic weapons T5 May 7 A emoan Session DOBRYNIN That was at the level of the delegations DETINOV And that had opened the possibility of introducing sublevels in ballistic missiles with MIRVs To some extent those proposals that Vance brought to Moscow in March had been included LEGVOLD Before I turn to Marshall let me come back to the question of the atmosphere that you were describing on the Moscow side in the weeks leading up to and including the March meeting I think the most comprehensive statement of that was made by Anatoly there was enormous frustration that the American administration was trying to dictate a new agenda in a number of spheres including strategic arms control and human rights What happened to that sentiment Was the leadership satis ed that they had adequately rebuffed the American side Did they decide that they were mistaken in the way in which they had de ned the problem DOBRYNIN Well I think you do understand that there was no major confession in the Politburo Thank you we are sinners etc There is no question about it The question was very simple DETINOV They were pragmatic DOBRYNIN Yes they were very pragmatic So there was great tension and we were sitting and thinking about what to do next Should we go further If so where do we go further Do we break off negotiations on Do we break diplomatic relations It was logical to consider the alternatives But we decided to look once again at the proposal which was brought by Vance to see if we could nd some basis for resuming negotiations Then came the three-level proposal We decided to negotiate on the basis of that Gromyko was originally against this but then he really encouraged it Brezhnev recognized that we could not stand still forever it was a new administration and we had to deal with it The question was how We could not have complete deadlock for four more years So we searched for a way out There was no change of mind no one felt sorry about how 76 May 7 A emoon Session things had happened They felt that there was a need for a pragmatic approach We had to do something to nd a way so to speak to keep contact to explore our common ground to work little by little to rebuild this kind of process and deal with the arms race even though we could not do it the way we had haped This was the feeling and nobody objected to it LEGVOLD I ve got three responses to this point now on this speci c issue Marshall Les and then Harold Marshall SHULMAN First I d like to underline what Les said about the credit that the record should show for Bill Hyland's contribution at this point breaking out the three stage approach That I think helped really to move toward the ultimate solution Secondly it s important at this point I think to take account of the fact that there were several extraneous issues that interfered with the process And from the time of the May negotiations with Gromyko through the following year two issues arose that interfered with the negotiations One of these was Ethiopia and the issue of the Cuban troops there DOBRYNIN That was in '77 wasn t it It was later one year later SHULMAN But the meetings as I recall between Gromyko and the president on the issue of Soviet military involvement in Ethiopia came as I recall in what 1978 DOBRYNIN 78 even later SHULMAN No but bear in mind that negotiations started in Geneva in May and went through a year and a half cycle before they were approved DOBRYNIN Yes but we discussed with Cy the three-tier three-level SHULMAN All right but look what happened In the course of 19 8 we went through series of negotiations and by the end of the year we had almost reached an agreement when there came the second extraneous issue which was China 77 May 7 A emoon Session And indeed we had the example of many of the previous negotiations and agreements that Kissinger had signed off on proving this to be the case The issue of the volume of missile silos for example when 5% in dimension turned out to be 15% in volume The failure to identify what an air-to-surface missile meant whether it meant ballistic missiles or whether it meant cruise missiles as well was another problem With those examples before us we felt it was very important to nail things down And that takes longer It may have appeared to the Soviet side to be an attempt to delay things on the U S side but it re ected very serious concerns on our part LEGVOLD A question to the Soviet side on this score If as ktor Starodubov has said the Soviet negotiators and Soviet policy makers believed that many of these issues were raised because the administration wanted to protect itself against potential criticism from the Opponents of the treaty and if you believed that the political environment in the United States was growing more dif cult for the administration on these issues then why didn t you feel pressured to speed up the conclusion of this agreement before more time passed DOBRYNIN I may put it this way While I agree with what my colleague General Starodubov said because he knows these things better than l-l should say that not all of the people on the political side really believed in this stuff about rati cation being more dif cult or less dif cult because particularly in this period there were so many of cial approaches from your side on small things We ask you to give in on this because othenNise we will have dif culty in rati cation or We would like you to take into consideration such-and-such because of the dif culty of rati cation This matter by the way was a special subject for discussion in the government in the autumn of 78 We got a little bit suspicious really You were trying to get a lot of concessions by arguing that otherwise the treaty will not be rati ed not just on arms control but on other issues as well We were told Look here the fellows on the Right Mr Jackson or some others-will be against it So let's do this It was unbelievable Once before the summit for example you asked us about reconnaissance ights along the Soviet-Turkish border You asked pennission l don t know why you needed it but nevertheless you asked it so we were de nitely against it This is just one example I could 87 May 7 A emoan Session give you others rather trivial ones because there were so many These appeals to the importance of veri cation for domestic political reasons were so many that they became as I said a subject for special discussion in our government LEGVOLD Could you recall the speci c date DOBRYNIN In the autumn I don't recall LEGVOLD What year DOBRYNIN 78 LEGVOLD Cy Vance VANCE I just want to make a point and it's an important point I think Veri cation was a very important issue politically That s something that everybody understands whether the other side will be honest or whether they re going to cheat is very important And it s a very technical business But it was very important because this was the kind of thing where somebody when you were trying to get the treaty rati ed could say Yes but you haven t proved that we can verify it and then how can we be sure that they aren t going to cheat So that was not a simple issue to deal with as all of the issues we are now talking about were not simple They are very complex because of the kinds of very technical and complicated machinery used in military matters 80 I don t think it s strange that it took more time than most of us thought or hoped that it would These were issues that had to be resolved and as painful as it might be to do it they had to be done because they were not things you could just toss away LEGVOLD Before I turn to- VANCE There is one other thing that just came to my mind the Iranian radar That was a very important thing We lost that at that time as you will recall and that made it even more 88 May 7 A emoon Session DOBRYNIN General Secretary Brezhnev was not bothered very much with the rati cation So it was not really an issue for him Laughter Veri cation too was not a very important issue for him personally I am not speaking about LEGVOLD No I'm asking how he felt about this long drawn out process of completing the agreement and in turn how he saw Carter DOBRYNIN Let me put it this way First I think he became used to it It was a long process and nobody knew whether we would reach the end of it Second of course he was a little bit impatient but what he could do When you come to the highly technical questions he was in no position to judge as Gromyko by the way could not judge either When we were diplomats sat and listened to the Generals say Look here it s very important to have this we knew nothing about its real importance Then an American would say It s very important this issue I couldn t even pass my judgment as a politician I guess Gromyko didn't know either Usually he would not speak from notes but when these highly technical matters came up he would read from his papers Cy remembers VANCE I remember DOBRYNIN It's useful to know the details about what Mr Turner just mentioned I understand the problem he had before the Congress I am sure that our people in the military too in their own way worried about veri cation They too wanted more or less perfection in the agreement But at the same time I could tell too that our military men sometimes became impatient and would say Look here they are again asking another question They sometimes felt that it was completely unnecessary We would accept their judgment We would say that these things were unnecessary Ultimately we would ask them what really do you need It became so highly complicated technically That s why we became involved in such protracted discussions without on the political side knowing very much what we were talking about This was the difficulty There were many 91 May 7 A emoon Session other issues which preoccupied us in 1978 too Ogaden Somalia the Middle East Arc of Crisis as my dear friend referred to it indicating Brzezinski sending us running to the map asking Where this Arc of Crisis going on Laughton Even Brezhnev looked at the map because he was interested in knowing where this Arc of Crisis was that he had created Laughton So it was an educational process too Laughton There were other issues as you know too a new adventure in South-East Asia-our beloved friend China organized something there then our friend Vietnam too So we were trying to say Let's do something but how were we to do it Sometimes our minds were very much preoccupied It wasn t a situation where there was a cloudless sky and SALT was our only concern No We were preoccupied with many other things The Cuban brigade which came up later was another example We spent a whole month on it A whole month There was a lapse of memory from your intelligence community and the result was a Cuban brigade crisis A whole month we were arguing But this was typical There were other dif culties as well China of course was very much involved We will probably discuss this issue tomorrow I just mention it now in answering your question SALT was not the only issue in our relations during this period of time We were very much preoccupied with these other negative developments They made it rather dif cult to push a little bit quicker on SALT LEGVOLD Anatoly is whetting our appetite because a lot of what he has raised in his comment is something that we are going to come to tomorrow but not at this hour this afternoon Harold early on in Anatoly s comment you wanted to say something and then I am going to turn to Phil Brenner But let s wait on the broader set of issues that he raised in his comment BROWN Well two points One that he raised earlier has to do with the use by the U S side of its political Right the U S political Right-as a reason for the Soviet side to make concessions I think that was so used but it worked the other way as well Americans within the government and I don t know how much they heard this from the Soviet side would say Well Brezhnev has his hawks and his doves and the more we stonewall the Soviet Union on 92 May 7 A emoon Session to sit down across the table from his counterpart and see whether or not he could communicate his own sincerity Was it a lost opportunity that the two leaders did not meet until Vienna in June of '79 Did the Soviets consider an earlier summit Why did you not seize the opportunity LEGVOLD Anatoly DOBRYNIN To answer this speci c question my personal opinion is yes it was a mistake on our side not to have a summit That was my opinion then and it is still my opinion now It was a mistake that we were linking SALT II and a summit It was really Gromyko s idea he sold it to Brezhnev Gromyko rmly believed that we should have a SALT ll agreement ready for signing at a summit and that we should not have a summit beforehand And Brezhnev went along because he was at such an age that he was not prepared to sit down with Carter who knew the subject quite well and negotiate SALT ll during a summit conference He simply couldn't do it That s why he was deferring Brezhnev also remembered the situation when Khrushchev met with Kennedy in Vienna and what happened there He didn t want a repetition of that He was already an old distinguished gentleman he just wanted to have a nice quiet signing with everybody looking at him and kissing each other This was his kind of paradise Laughten He was de nitely too stubborn really Many times I remember ve times six times maybe beginning in 19 and all through i'B-l Spoke with Cy many times and even the president himself twice mentioned to me directly when I met with him that he wanted a summit He said directly Please pick any time He mentioned this place speci cally to sh and to hunt etc He offered all kinds of seductions But he failed because Gromyko and Brezhnev wanted to come and sign this nice agreement I believe that if Brezhnev had been of a little bit different state of mind if he had had greater capacity it would have been important from the very beginning to sit down and to discuss what we were against what you were against or what we were for and what you were for If that had been a possibility there would have been no need for Vance to bring this 95 May F-A emoon Session kind of proposal in March You could have had an April summit meeting just for discussion to clarify where you stand But I said that the leadership at least these two men simply did not want to meet before there was an agreement Gromyko believed very strongly that only through the diplomatic process we could make a good agreement As for the military I could tell and my friends from military could tell you that Ustinov was de nitely against a meeting with the military people from your side He had quite an experience in 79 I can tell you I was there Carter pressed Brezhnev for a meeting between our ministers of defense Ustinov balked Then one evening Brezhnev said to him Look Carter and I want you to sit down with the Secretary of Defense and you are refusing Ustinov said That is not my job It is the job of Gromyko and Dobrynin to discuss things with Americans it s not my job Brezhnev pressed him but then Ustinov said What am I supposed to do there discussing things with Brown I have no speci c position Then Gromyko said Look in Vienna you have the MBFR negotiations going on We have a fallback position which our delegation didn't use so I will give it to you this fallback position which I have been withholding for six months and not using waiting for the proper moment I will present it to you So then Ustinov said Okay I will go And he went and he met with Brown with no diplomats involved because Ustinov didn't want to have any diplomats present from our side or from your side Ogarkov I guess was there on our side-Ustinov and Ogarkov Nobody else from our side except maybe an interpreter a military interpreter I think 80 they had a discussion and when he came back you should have seen Ustinov's reaction To Brown He was so angry with you He said am talking one way then another trying to negotiate making some concessions by additional unilateral reductions in the number of troops in Europe and he just sat there saying Yes yes without elaborating anything or making a single concession in return He just stuck with the same position I don t know how Gromyko negotiates with Americans in general I am not going to negotiate with them any more Period That was the Vienna discussion It shows you the mood of the military They were very much involved in the negotiations and they were sometimes decisive in working out our positions but not in a direct negotiation really I think that was a mistake Many of them were really very able people who knew much better than we diplomats knew And they couldn't discuss things But that was the mood of 96 May 7 A emoon Session their top man He did not want to be in the front-line of the negotiations LEGVOLD Mark Garrison is next GARRISON I want to go back to Anatoly's previous comments about the usefulness of the telemetry discussion because it helped get at the question of how dif cult it was on the Soviet side to understand the political dynamics on the American side I guess the lesson I would draw from that is the necessity and importance of having the best possible understanding of the dynamics including the internal political dynamics-on the other side in order to separate out those things which are real from those which are not In that particular period the Soviet side had a problem understanding our internal dynamics just as in the early Carter period we had a problem understanding the internal dynamics of the Soviet side One other kind of dynamic that was at play here I put it to you with some trepidation perhaps we don't want to get into this at this late hour But Les mentioned among many of the issues that came up in this period issues affecting American allies which is another case where the American side was under certain real pressures and I assume that on the Soviet side there was a problem of understanding the extent to which these were real and the extent to which they were a lever used by the American side to get some additional concessions If at some point there is time and interest in getting into that it might be an interesting brief discussion LEGVOLD Mark I think that s an issue that we want to come back to tomorrow It deserves some discussion David Welch you have been patient and you get the last word this afternoon DAVID WELCH i don't have a last word but a question so maybe I should put it off until tomorrow also LEGVOLD If it s a question that s can be answered fairly brie y go ahead and ask it 9 May B Moming Session I weapons systems And we knew approximately when certain weapons systems were supposed to reach the testing stage and we took those developments into account in the negotiations At the negotiations we did not have a position of simply not taking the prospective developments of the new weapons systems into consideration It was all included in our negotiating positions I would also like to add something more related to the tepic of our negotiations Take for example the period when Eurostrategic weapons had emerged when the United States imposed their nuclear weapons or deployed their nuclear weapons in Europe During the negotiations we were taking into account the balance of forces both in Europe and in general We understood that the United States were trying to take their own territory out of the theater of possible nuclear war to limit nuclear exchanges to Europe All these factors were clearly taken into account during our negotiations on SALT Thank you LEGVOLD Anatoly DOBRYNIN I think I will clarify the situation because I see the right wing and left wing views beginning to argue I think the situation was simple to understand from the American point of view We on the political side by the political side I mean the Foreign Ministry really knew very little We knew very little about what was going on in our military thinking Did they have long-range planning in the military or not What kind of weaponry we were preparing Indicating Kondrashov Well he knows because he was working in the KGB and the KGB knew everything But there was no way for ordinary l say ordinary channels working in the Foreign Ministry to know what was going on So the situation was really a little bit like what Tarasenko said it was He speaks for the Foreign Ministry Georgy Komienko knew a little bit more because he was in this famous Five But even he didn t know everything because he didn't have any secrets from me and when we discussed things I felt that he was on a rather shaky ground he knew a little bit more but still in the grand scheme of things he did not know much When I came back from Washington and saw friends in the KGB and General Staff I began to learn some things But this was just piece by piece things were not well-connected in my 108 May 8 Moming Session I mind So I would return to Washington a little bit enlightened but not on a great scale I was enlightened on this particular Sphere or on that particular sphere so that when I discussed things with you I would try to learn from you This was the situation There was no system It was as our Generals said It was a closed society Five six men who knows And the whole Ministry the Foreign Ministry mean-knew nothing except when we participated directly in formulating negotiation strategy We had a very good team in Geneva and in other places We worked very closely together military diplomats and KGB people It was a very good team But they weren t working together within their own society so to speak The military did not always tell us all the whole all the story Maybe they didn t know themselves- I mean our participants in the negotiations Or maybe there was some military discipline preventing it Perhaps they didn t want to go too far because after all it was only planning Military planning in Russia was top secret It's unbelievable in your country it s a loose cannon You discuss all these military things or wrongly And ultimately you yourself don't know what you are talking about Laughter But it made an impression on us I should say because we tried to understand what you were talking about We still believed in you We had a much higher opinion of you at that time by the way than you did of your- selves Laughter So what Generals Detinov and Starodubov said was quite right At the later stages I had a chance to be a little bit more involved on the military side I had several chance to speak with the Minister But this was just because I happened to know the fellow For most of the period the military did not know me the ambassador personally They did not know how to talk with me This was the situation There is always an eagerness among the diplomats to know what we were up to but it was very dif cult for us to know It was also dif cult for you When I would go to the negotiations with you Cy or with Zbig I would have an instruction from Moscow Do not compromise on this issue merely inform the Americans of our position on this issue and so forth There was no indication of what we were really interested in They even asked me sometimes to find things out from you When I asked you questions they were my questions they were not Gromyko s questions I was trying to nd out what was going on It was very dif cult for us diplomats I repeat what Tarasenko said his is the voice of despair of the time We were not dumb diplomats but it is 109 May B Moming Session I a dif cult profession if you try very hard We were trying very hard But the military people developed our positions One day they tried to explain to Mr Gromyko in the very beginning of course-how missiles y without a propeller Laughter I was present when one of our fellows explained it to him Then of course he knew I graduated from Moscow Aviation Institute and I had very good connections with the Yakovlev Design Bureau when was still ambassador so it was easy for me to understand it But most of our foreign policy people knew nothing We did not even know the names of our own weapons We used your names We have been speaking of Back re By the way why is it Back re and not Fonvardfire Laughter We did not know But we used the Western name I never saw a Back ire actually Or rather I saw one photo later in an American magazine Laughter But I once tried to ask Gromyko why they couldn t take our diplomats who really involved in the negotiations to some factory or to some air eld just to see what kind of bombers existed in what form so that we would know what we were talking about It was impossible It was a top secret Why Viktor recalled how many years later on we called it the instead of the Back re Tu- ZZM this is what we called the modernized version But at the time we never knew what it was Everyone just called it Back re We didn't know how to say that in Russian so always in my telegrams I only used the word Back re I didn't use a single Russian name for bombs or missiles or planes They were secret So this was the mentality And little by little began subconsciously to think that you really knew more than we because we used your terminology we use your designations for our missiles All of this was because there was a great gap between the military and the diplomatra gap in communications not a disagreement What could I or others tell Detinov Look here this particular missile should be prohibited Dr his missile should be accepted as equivalent to that one in a ratio of one to live What kind of argument could I have against what he said The military had good intentions General Grechko also had very good intentions But he was against giving up anything because he learned his lessons from the Second World War That's why it was dif cult The Commission of Five did a great service to us When I became a Secretary of the Party I participated in these kinds of discussions It was rst name Sokolov at that time 110 May Iii Morning Session I myself from the Party a fellow named rst name Kryuchkov and somebody else An interesting discussion was going on too But the military just impressed on us that they had all the knowledge Our job was to talk about what kind of relations we wanted to have with the Carter administration I know you have a system that is much better than ours but at that time we didn't have any education in military things None at all No one attempted to educate the Foreign Ministry on military matters except perhaps on a friendly basis one-on- one I would go to someone and he would tell me what I needed to know but he would say Please don t tell anyone that I told you This was the situation It made things very dif cult That s why we now have this disagreement They are trying to convince you that they had a nice plan and Sergei said there was no planning at all Actually if you accept my explanation the truth was in between LEGVOLD Thank you Anatoly Harold and then David BROWN It seems to me there are two separate but related issues here On the military in the rst place it's clear that very tight compartmentalization the separation of the Foreign Ministry and most of the other parts of the government from strategic issues and especially from military's development and deployment programs hampered the development of overall policy in the Soviet Union But separately I think that a distinction needs to be made between the ability to plan weapon systems and to understand the narrow balance between one weapon system on one side and one weapon system on the other side which clearly was done in the Soviet Union and longer range strategic planning in an attempt to understand where the competition was going and what it signi ed which apparently was not very much done in the Soviet Union whereas in the United States there was a good deal of it perhaps not as much or as effective a kind of planing as the Soviet Union thought was going on in the United States but some planning nonetheless What McNamara did what Schlesinger did and what I later tried to do was to look at things from that point of view That capability which again was probably not nearly as effective as it may have looked from the Soviet Union-was helped a lot in the United States by the relative lack of compartmentalization on these issues and by the existence of large numbers of academic people and people in think tanks who were 111 May S-Moming Session 2 enhanced in that context the Soviet involvement in Ethiopia struck me as a departure from what I thought was a positive evolution in the relationship A very hard-nosed stand taken on that subject by the Soviet leadership further aggravated my perception of the problem I have to say that the president a propos the evolution of his assessment of American-Soviet relationship was shaken very much by the meeting with Gromyko and by the fact that Gromyko lied to him directly DOBRYNIN About what BRZEZINSKI About the Soviet command structure and the presence of senior Soviet military people in Ethiopia which he categorically denied were there At that time we had very accurate information very accurate infonnation as to who was there what they were reporting to Moscow the names of their of cers and so forth And this had the kind of an impact on Carter which reminded him of Kennedy's conversation with Gromyko about the Cuban missiles It made him feel Well here we go again So I think you are right in saying that that did have a signi cant impact on our position and more so on my thinking personally than on the president's But it also had an impact on the president s thinking LEGVOLD llya Gaiduk DOBRYNIN Zbig just as a matter for your own information About Kennedy and Gromyko and Cuban missiles It's just historical footnote really but during this conversation Kennedy didn t ask a single question about missiles in Cuba Nothing So it wasn t a question of deception or no deception He wasn't shown any photo or any signal he was not told We have information on missiles in Cuba or any such thing There was complete silence And then two days later the secretary of state spoke with me and I said Why you didn't you speak with Gromyko when he was here 153 May 3-A emoon Session PASTOR Well actually I wanted to ask a very speci c question at this time rather than raise the broader question of lessons The speci c question focuses on the issue of the Horn of Africa This is the one issue that really has not been addressed by the Russian participants the extent to which the intervention of Cuban troops under a Soviet General in Ethiopla was considered in terms of its potential effect on U S calculations on U S decision making how it would affect SALT U S -Soviet relations in general or whatever DOBRYNIN Can I answer in one sentence LEGVOLD Yes DOBRYNIN In one sentence I hope because othenivise we will get into a long long story I know-and my colleagues know that you Americans attached the greatest importance to our adventures in the Horn in Somalia and so forth Why is it that nobody Russian speaks about the Horn I can explain why Because nobody gives a damn for this Horn really Laughter At that time and today I should say That s why they were sitting quietly they didn t know what to say about the Horn exactly If you want to press us what can I tell you It is a matter of minor importance We will be glad to hear the importance you attach to this issue but from our perspective it was of very small importance To his colleagues Do you agree with me KONDRASHOV Absolutely absolutely This is a general statement Laughter Can I ask a question LEGVOLD Zbig BRZEZINSKI If it was so unimportant DOBRYNIN You ll be late for your plane Laughter 159 May 3-A ernoon Session you or somebody else in Oslo and look at the Afghan situation then more documents will be disclosed more documents of the secret services will be disclosed-and the picture will be more complete That s all I wanted to say LEGVOLD Thank you Sergei Before I turn to Nikolai who also wants to speak on this- then Marshall is on the list let me reconstruct an impression that I m now getting from what I hear in earlier comments and then in these most recent comments on the Ogaden on the Somali-Ethiopian con ict This morning Sergei Tarasenko said that there was a basic division in Russian foreign policy between the Foreign Ministry which had control of the large foreign policy issues that is the West Japan and India and the lntemational Department which had authority over a lot of these Third world activities Now Anatoly and Sergei suggest that as far as this other activity was concerned it was to some degree random and inconsistent What does that say then about Soviet foreign policy in general Was this essentially an incoherent foreign policy as a result of these different factors that you ve introduced Or is there something more to it Even though your interpretation of what was actually involved in the Ogaden may be quite right in terms of a broader pattern of things that were happening was it essentially incoherent Or was there something more And I don t mean to suggest a devil s interpretation of what the something more might be DOBRYNIN If we get into this discussion we will need another two or three days just to explain what is involved in your question We cannot just say yes or accept or you are wrong Because if I said you are wrong you will only disagree with me That s clear SHULMAN Not if you agree Laughter DOBRYNIN Maybe someone will agree But your question really is too big What do you mean consistent or inconsistent It's a matter of interpreting policy Was the foreign policy of the United States consistent In some respect yes in others no if you look from one president to another president it will look very much inconsistent but it may not necessarily be Do we blame you for this Were we inconsistent in our foreign policy because we were 161 May 3 A ernoon Session involved in the Ogaden and Somalia It is a complicated question LEGVOLD It s not a question of placing blame I am trying to understand what the essential nature of the problem was DOBRYNIN What Tarasenko said about the structure of foreign-policy making in our government was basically right the Foreign Ministry dealt more with some areas and the Party with others What I think he really meant to say besides what he said was that there were some issues which we really considered of utmost importance to the government or to the country which was handled as a Big policy for example relations with the United States And then there were some things which were not so important Nobody of course said that Ethiopia Ogaden and the Third World were unimportant to us but we knew that these were not issues about which we argued much which we regarded as basic to our policy Yes it happened we played a role in the Horn in a rather opportunistic way We were involved in certain things In many cases opportunity would arise Someone in the Third World would say We are Socialist we are for Socialism and someone from the Central Committee would say have known this guy for 15 years I met him in seminars and so on But nobody in the foreign policy apparatus would know him So they would begin to support this fellow It has happened The same thing happened with Ethiopia Cy mentioned about the General I really don't know what the name of the General was maybe my friends will tell me As far as I knew from the information from the Foreign Ministry we had several advisers there But I didn't know any of their names so I am not so sure whether Gromyko knew the name of our commander there either BRZEZINSKI We did DOBRYNIN But it doesn't mean that when he said don t know he was lying BRZEZINSKI What He is a public policy maker 162 May B A emaon Session DOBRYNIN But it was not necessary for him to know all of these military operations This is important for you to understand Maybe this sounds very strange to you This has really happened in the Foreign Ministry I m sure that Komienko didn t know all the details who our commander was how many advisers we had there and so forth We knew we sent equipment and advisers but there were many things we did not know in the Foreign Ministry Because in minds of the Foreign Ministry people it was a second-rate operation l mean in a global sense In the United States yes it became a really big issue And I should say that the Foreign Ministry became more attuned to this African situation because of you l mean not you personally but Americans always needling us and asking What you are doing The people in the Foreign Ministry began to check with our people from the Defense Ministry asking them What's going on there And then little by little everybody was involved including the Politburo This is how it happened historically So one remark I would like to make is that you shouldn t look at this adventures as a special plan which was really speci cally thought out like a move in a big chess game Yes we were involved we didn't deny it But the importance we attached to it was secondary For you it was not secondary because you thought it was a part of the overall plan to disrupt everything and promote the dominance of the Soviet Union And we accept that you really believed that LEGVOLD Thank you Anatoly Nikolai is next and then Sergei Tarasenko and then Marshall and then Phil One second before you begin Nikolai let me underscore something that comes out of this most recent exchange because historically it's quite important although it's a very specific point Anatoly believes that it s quite possible that Gromyko simply didn t know when he met with you people Zbig told us earlier that this had a very important impact because the president thought he was being lied to by the Foreign Minister And in some ways he compared it perhaps out of his own misinformation with Gromyko in the Cuban missile crisis 50 it had a very great impact and if you think about what s involved here it's important DOBRYNIN Of course Gromyko knew that we had our advisers there But I doubt that he 163 May 3 A emoon Session knew the names who our commander was This Zbig knew but I am not sure that Gromyko knew I doubt that he knew because I know about his knowledge of military things especially in remote areas He knew a great deal about the United States but he did not know much about remote Africa He may have participated in the decision if it was proposed during a Politburo meeting Somebody from the military or Central Committee probably said Look here we need to send some soldiers and some equipment there So it could be that he said Yes all right But when the president told him We have information that this General is in Ethiopia I doubt if he knew the name BRZEZINSKI No no no DOBRYNIN No he didn't name him your president he just asked him So Gromyko said don t know And then the president was thinking O-ho The same conversation took place between Kennedy and Gromyko But there not a word was mentioned about missiles at that meeting Later on someone asked Dean Rusk Why you didn t ask Gromyko about the missiles in Cuba and he said don t know So when was in Moscow after this crisis I asked Gromyko-it was at a conference in Moscow and one of the American participants ask me Ambassador did you know about the missiles in Cuba and I said No I didn t So they asked Gromyko why he didn't tell me and Gromyko looked at me and said You didn t know I am surprised And I asked Why are you surprised You didn t ask me he said So this matter of not asking sounds anecdotal but it was the case Gromyko didn't know the speci cs BRZEZINSKI He called the presence of a Soviet General in Ethiopia a myth DOBRYNIN If he is speaking in general then of course he was not saying the truth BRZEZINSKI That's what he said 164 May 9-Momfng Session I lessons of the history as we understand it at this point I will open that session with ten minutes of comments of my own and then we'll go on and wind up moving toward the second meeting of this group Okay the floor is open DOBRYNIN For questions as you invited us so I will not make a speech like yesterday but just ask a question two rather One is simply for clari cation During the meeting in Vienna President Carter gave to the Brezhnev a proposal which was written on a yellow pad a proposal which was not really discussed there but it was given there We in the delegation looked at it but really it just kind of faded away Do you know exactly what kinds of cuts your were proposing I know what other issues were involved in this paper but I don t recall the cuts exactly I couldn t nd it in my own archives What were the cut you were proposing there in Vienna They went beyond SALT II which we had already prepared and signed And one observation not to take too much time Yesterday we discussed very actively speci cally from your side about our adventures in the Third World You were rather aggressive in a good sense but I noticed that nobody mentioned there were at least two initiatives from our side on this for example when in January of 1978 we of cially proposed to you that we mediate the con ict between Somalia and Ethiopia together We prOposed to sit down Soviets and Americans-with our clients This was really a major effort But it went practically unnoticed everywhere You just pushed us aside Politely but nevertheless you pushed us aside I forgot yesterday to ask Zbig about this In his memoirs he wrote that he remembered this but that he thought that it was a bad idea for the Americans to take up this proposal As he put it there paraphrasing If we had accepted the Russian proposal it would have legitimized the presence of the Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa And you don't want to do that By the way the same happened with the Middle East When we came with a proposal to do something Cy signed this beautiful declaration on October the tst but then you put this all aside And in the memoirs of the American participants they very frankly said that they could not allow Russians to be active in Middle Eastern diplomacy or this would legitimate them 194 May 9 Momfng Session I You said that with SALT you did not merely want to continue the policy of Nixon Ford and Kissinger but in the Middle East you did exactly the same thing because Kissinger wrote in his own memoir exactly what Zbig wrote Paraphrasing My aim was not to allow Russians to participate in all this kind of mediation because it is not their area it is our area an Americans area If you compare these two memoirs it was almost exactly the same word for word The Carter administration took up where previous administrations left off on the Middle East for instance or on Africa You chose not to cooperate But at the same time on arms control you preferred to present new ideas So my first question is about this summit meeting could you clarify in a few words what this preposal was And second could you illuminate a little bit actually what the position of the American administration was on Soviet participation in Africa and the Middle East LEGVOLD That s something we could begin this morning that s a question that could be answered if there are any Americans who might like to respond to it Phil wants to come in on this point am I right Phil BRENNER Let me read from Brzezinski's memoir As hostilities increased and as more Cuban troops went to Ethiopia Gromyko suggested the classic Soviet solution to regional disputes a joint U S -Soviet mediation effort pointing to a condominium I believed that it would only legitimize the Soviets presence in the Horn and suggested instead that we put more effort into urging the regional leaders and other African nations to call for a withdrawal of all foreign ows and mediation by the African states alone It s exactly what you just said DOBRYNIN This is just what I said By the way we never used the word condominium Condominium with the United States It would be unbelievable in our world view to have a condominium with the US over Africa or the Middle East But Kissinger and Zbig were always were afraid of condominium condominium condominium What condominium When were we proposing condominium LEGVOLD Would Marshall or Stan or Mark or Bob want to respond to that Bob 195 May 9 Momfng Session I the approval of say seven or nine Politburo members It takes time to write a telegram and to send someone around to gather signatures It takes at least a full day Finally the telegram was sent In that telegram we told Castro that we did not support the action We asked him not to do it We asked him to abstain But at that time the planes were already in the air The planes were ying while the telegram was going to Havana The action had been completed After that Komienko tried to nd out how it had happened Our military were in Cuba our planes were in Cuba as llya said it simply could not have happened without our participation And this was when the simple explanation came up our military in Cuba said We had no doubt that that issue was agreed upon somewhere at the highest levels-that a political decision had been made We just did some technical work some technical planning This is an example of the senselessness of the incoherence-of policy-making DOBRYNIN With whom was Castro consulting in Moscow TARASENKO As far as Komienko told me there were no conversations of that sort Not with anybody Of course the Cuban military had contacts with our military as usual they probably said We need so many planes and a ight plan and the two militaries worked together on that DOBRYNIN To Detinov That s an explanation which must be interesting for you to heart To Tarasenko But what you just mentioned may be a lesson for today's situation There is a new development and I should say a very welcome development leaders at the very top level speaking with each other by telephone It s a very good development The President of United States and the President of the Soviet Union can just pick up the telephone and conduct business Back then the Foreign Ministry knew nothing of what going on There was a lot of improvisation What Sergei Tarasenko mentioned is probably correct I recall this actually happening I'm sure this worked out among the military there in Havana Probably the Cubans said to our military Look here we need planes now we need to get our people to 206 May 9 Momfng Session I Angola And our people would say to themselves That sounds all right So they little by little they would help out the Cubans and word would eventually reach Moscow through a telegram I can give you another example I don t recall the month exactly but there was to be a certain important meeting with the United States government I was in Moscow Our military had a plan every year for maneuvers I think you have the same kinds of plans what and when to conduct military exercises and so forth We met to prepare for our meeting and the subject of the maneuvers came up And in the middle of this we discovered that in two or three days a squadron of atomic submarines was to arrive in Cuba It was completely out of the blue It had been approved in December this meeting was in the middle of the year Nobody in the Foreign Ministry knew about it And our Defense Ministry was sure that Gromyko had been told in December if he knew he forgot about it This would have been a 10p secret at that time so only Gromyko knew about it Kornienko found out about it by accident just in time to cancel it OthenNise we would have had another Cuban crisis not a Cuban brigade crisis but a Cuban missiles-on-subman nes crisis So the point which is Important for us to understand for the future is that sometimes things happen really by accident without careful thought as Sergei has said As a practical matter in diplomatic relations you have to try to nd out a little bit better what our tap people know little by little of course They are not obliged to tell us what they are talking about but at least on the working level it s useful to know what they are talking about It is better not just to be confronted with a situation LEGVOLD Jim wants to comment on this right away and then I have Marshall then Sergei Before doing that though I would observe Anatoly that yesterday Harold Brown used this word the one Russian word that people in Washington came to know no slucharho Maybe the word they should have known was sluchaino Laughter Just an anecdote from the Cuban side just to complete the circle on what Sergei was telling us as far as Komienko s view of what happened in regard to Angola are concerned A couple of years ago Castro told us that he got an urgent message from Moscow part way 207 May 9 Momfng Session I DOBRYNIN Well it s a little bit late maybe think that the discussion was very important Speci cally for me it was very interesting to know more about the military side of the story The diplomatic side I know rather well but there were some nuances which will be useful for our colleagues to know It was an important and useful discussion and welcome this opportunity to share our views our knowledge our experience Unfortunately we had no chance to discuss how we would implement the changes we identi ed as useful This is a very practical question and it would have been useful for both sides to discuss it further But we had no time we were stuck on the Horn Laughter I think the military people here are right Admiral Turner and our friends the two Generals Many things were the result of misunderstanding or different perceptions about military matters And we in diplomacy knew very little about that We were overwhelmed with the feeling as the Admiral said that this was all nuclear theology I feel that the American side is still ovenNhelmed by this theology It is hard for us on the diplomatic side to understand We didn't discuss it at the time those of us who were responsible for foreign policy We didn't discuss at all You kept pressing on us things like crisis stability but it is important for you to understand how it was for us at that time and how it is now This was all theology I think our military was up to the level of yours their prognoses their evaluations their recommendations to the government We were behind yes we were trying to catch up And this in uenced our positions on SALT On the diplomatic side we were trying to help our country not get too far behind But the main problems of SALT II were political not military The discussion of military aspects reminded me of that movie in America Gray Area you know this night movie show PASTOR Twilight Zone DOBRYNIN Yes twilight zone After SALT II we passed this twilight zone the discussion of who was going to attack whether we had enough to strike rst or maybe second or a third time We managed to get beyond this We realized that our safety really lay in our own hands and in the hands of our colleagues from other side We don t have this fear of war between us now this nuclear theology helped create this fear Of course we are still con- 27 May H Momfng Session I cemed about the security of our countries your and ours It's one of our main concerns still But now our security depends more on discussion on dialogue I don t know how many hours I spent on this Horn or human rights or Scharansky it was unbelievable Instead of using our conversations constructively to nd out what was going on between us we spent so much time on these irritants If we had come to the conclusions then that we have come to now many things would have been completely unnecessary for us then and now to discuss Sometimes I feel sorry that we spent so much effort in our competition in our rivalry on issues which were really of no importance to us Look around the Third World I don't want to sound cynical but who in the Soviet Union or United States cares now what's going on in Somalia You were there you tried to do something about it and now you don't want even to reminded about it because Somalia became a symbol of failure Or take Ethiopia It is the same thing I could give you many examples But these were certain issues which we had to deal with Sergei I think was complaining about human ghts Well he was a representative of the organization which was very much involved with human rights We were less involved the diplomats I mean But I should say at that time it was our impression that quite frankly you couldn t nd a compromise with the Carter administration on human rights I was 100% convinced that it didn t matter whether you solved the case for example of Scharansky or Sakharov they would continue with more As Zbig very clearly mentioned for some it was a way of putting the Soviet Union on the defensive That was very convenient policy putting the Soviet Union always on the defensive We kept saying Don t interfere don't interfere When you say don't interfere you are accepting that something is happening you merely don t want to discuss it So it was a convenient issue for the American side to attack us with vehemently it was a very convenient way to try to undermine the regime They didn't say that publicly of course you didn't say it in a diplomatic conversation In friendly talks Marshall Shulman or Cyrus Vance never mentioned to me that they were trying to undermine our regime Laughter But we understood each other quite well So coming back to what I was saying earlier we should look at the real issues-not the unimportant ones Not the distractions Not the tactical issues We have to look back with perspective and discuss the lessons of this Unfortunately we do not have time to look at it 228 May 9 Moming Session 2 now But there are lessons we could draw because I am a little concerned that relations between Russia and America are starting to look a little old-fashioned and familiar not because of any speci c issue or situation of course but because the euphoria of d tente has passed We don't use the word detente now-but it used to be a magic word almost Now we have more and more questions more issues are arising between the two countries Viktor spoke about Far East this is one example And he is right The new administration is losing a great deal by taking such a strong position on the side of Japan over the so-called Northern Territories was in Washington for many years your position on this issue used to be different There has been an evolution from administration to administration I could quote you what the Presidents of United States said about it beginning from let's say the 19505 They had different positions than you have now If you think it is to take such a strong position on behalf of Japan well that's your business That is between you and Japan But why do you agree to support them so strongly You are losing so much in our opinion Viktor is right Why Just to support Japan I don't think Japan really needs your support Maybe we are a little bit oversensitive but you should take our sensitivity into account because it s your future too That is all I would like to say I think this was very useful really to discover the mistakes we were making we made a lot of mistakes The main lesson should be not to repeat them in the future LEGVOLD Anatoly thank you very much Applause What you do is underscore how much work this enterprise still has to do This is a rst step And as you leave I want to tell you again how much you have enriched the discussion Thank you for being here We will come back at 11 30 MAY 9 MORNING SESSION 2 LEGVOLD Okay are we ready to begin We'll go on now for approximately an hour and 229 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