Politburo February 26 1987 On Soviet-American Relations and Negotiations on Nuclear and Space Armaments Gorbachev Geneva is coming to a dead end And we need to move to a new level of conversation We should invite Shultz to come here First of all to cut off the broad interpretation of the ABM treaty By continuing the Geneva negotiations in their present form we are pretending that nothing has happened and that we are willing to tolerate all the American insolence This borders on a betrayal of principles And if they keep dragging it out we should shut down rounds 7 and 8 and begin new negotiations on the basis of our proposals Gromyko Maybe we should tear the SS-20s from the package Of course it would be a step backwards but it will be undertaken under new conditions And to achieve a partial agreement It would take a lot of brains for America to agree to a comprehensive settlement Dobrynin We weren't counting on that either Ligachev What if we employ our reserves at once--the medium-range missiles Dobrynin The main aspect here is political but also matters for propaganda Gorbachev Reagan's political game is very clear to us--to give political sanction to SDI after he leaves office and at the same time to preserve some impression that they are searching for something for some resolution We could respond with two actions at once--give them a sharp rebuke and negotiations But that would satisfy them They will tangle our reins and at the same time pretend that they are in favor of an agreement but we are the ones undermining it Meanwhile they will win time for developing their SDI The biggest step that would make an impression on the outside world on public opinion would be if we untie the package and agree to cut 1 000 of our most powerful missiles Ligachev If we agree to cut medium-range missiles right now we will win right now And our defense will not be weaker as a result We would win a lot in public opinion Gorbachev Yes we need to smooth out the negative consequences of withdrawing from the moratorium I support Yegor Kuzmich's proposal plus a 1 000unit cut Without that Western Europe will not agree to remove the American intermediate-range missiles the Pershings In the arena of public opinion we will put pressure on the United States by showing that we are in favor of mutual trust And do it after the 7th round go straight to the administration above the heads of the negotiators Or invite Shultz to Moscow Ligachev What losses do we incur if we take the SS-20s out of the package Gorbachev We need SS-20s to delay the deployment of SDI Ligachev defends his position Marshal Sokolov reminds about the French and British missiles Gorbachev Here you are losing the political perspective There will be no war with Britain or France It is not possible And the mid-range missiles if we remove them would change absolutely nothing here Shevardnadze I am also in favor of making a decision on the mid-range missiles because after the French test explosion and our explosion we have to compensate with something Regardless of how we justify our explosions they weaken trust And we should not delay this decision Ryzhkov But the Europeans supported it the renewal of testing Shevardnadze France--yes And one more thing we still do not have a final position on weapons in space what is permitted and what is not Gorbachev Could we sell the medium-range missiles for an agreement on Afghanistan Dobrynin No this will not work The Americans do not want either one Shevardnadze We should continue the course respectfully patiently When Armacost comes we will talk to him Gorbachev concludes This was a useful discussion We start from the assumption that as difficult as it is to conduct business with the United States we are doomed to it We have no choice Our main problem is to remove the confrontation This is the central issue of our entire foreign policy But we should not build our policy on illusions We should not count on capitalism suffering an economic crisis It will find a way out as it has done before We should not think that we would have a militarily weaker opponent if arms reductions succeed because the sole interest of that state USA is power Thus competition will continue in any case And it is a very serious competition However modifications will be taking place in all directions in the world arena and we should not feel doomed The process is underway in the United States as well But we should not work only in the direction of America We need to carefully select other main directions besides the American one The renewal of tests is working against us There will be major negative impact Therefore let's untie the package Let the comrades prepare materials --when and at what level this should be done But we have to do it before the 8th round of negotiations begins and before Shultz comes to Moscow Maybe a statement by me Before the whole world It was difficult to go for the test Let's make the statement regarding untying the package some time in mid-March This will be our response to public opinion And this would ameliorate the negative reaction to the renewal of nuclear tests to some degree But we had no other options We should respond to all the hints from those who want to work with us Such hints are coming directly or implicitly from Thatcher Kohl and Mitterrand We should be more assertive in pulling them all out of their American complex and pulling them toward us We should give answers as well on the issues of cutting 1 000 heavy missiles on the imbalance in conventional arms on offensive weapons in Europe on the nuclear-free corridor on reconsideration of our doctrine on the principle of reasonable sufficiency-- i e on all the issues that are now being discussed at the negotiations and by the general public We have to work on the Chinese direction We should try to entice Deng Xiaoping to come to Moscow Shevardnadze should go to Austria We should remove Rajiv Gandhi's concerns about Pakistan We should request from our institutes--from Primakov and Arbatov--that they provide us with an objective scholarly analysis once per quarter every 100 days Let's entrust Arbatov to convene it Source the Archive of the Gorbachev Foundation Moscow Translated by Svetlana Savranskaya for the National Security Archive