MAYBE JUST TO START OFF YOU COULD TELL ME WHAT YOUR POSITION WAS FROM '69 THROUGH THE NIXON YEARS.

I was the executive secretary of the SALT delegation and in that capacity worked directly and closely with Ambassador Gerard Smith, the head of the delegation. I was also throughout most of that period the Deputy Director at the, of the Bureau of Political Military Affairs in the State Department which was the office mainly involved in Washington in the formulation of SALT policy and carried that over of course into my activities on the delegation also. So I was both of the delegation and also in part representing the Department of State.

HOW DID YOU THINK PRESIDENT NIXON AND KISSINGER VIEWED THE STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TALKS WHEN THEY FIRST CAME INTO OFFICE? WHAT WERE THEY TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH WITH SALT?

At the very beginning of the Nixon administration, there was some pressure both from public opinion and also the Soviet...President Nixon and his National Security Advisor, Dr. Kissinger looked upon the whole SALT negotiation principally as an element in political relations between the two countries. Of course the negotiation was an important element in the development of political relations between the two countries. It also was important of course in terms of arms control and while the President and his senior advisers were of course aware of this I think that was really secondary in both the President's thinking and Dr. Kissinger's.

IT'S BEEN SAID THAT THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION THOUGHT THEY COULD LEVERAGE THROUGH THE SALT TALKS ON THE SOVIETS. WHY DID THEY THINK THAT THEY COULD GET LEVERAGE? WHY DID THEY THINK THAT THE SOVIETS WANTED THE TALKS MORE THAN WE DID?

The the Soviet government made known to the Nixon administration as it entered office that they were prepared to begin the talks at any time. Their not only readiness, but even eagerness to go into the negotiation was clear. And while President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger were not opposed to the negotiations these were not highest priority to them at that time and so the Soviets were in the position of appearing to want the talks more than we. And that was considered to provide a certain amount of leverage. That is, we were prepared to go ahead with the talks but if we could make known to the Soviet leaders that we expected certain other political developments to take place in particular Soviet assistance to us in ending the war in Vietnam on terms that we would regard as satisfactory that we should we could and should use that leverage.

FROM THE SOVIET POINT OF VIEW, WHY WAS IT THAT IN '68, '69 THEY WANTED TO REGAIN STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATION TALKS? WHAT WERE THE CONDITIONS THAT LED THEM TO SEEK SUCH TALKS?

The United States first proposed SALT negotiations at the very end of 1966, beginning of 1967. The Soviet reply at that time was favorable but very guarded and throughout 1967 and the first half of 1968 despite repeated proposals by the United States government the Soviets held back from naming a specific date to actually begin the talks. Only from the middle of 1968 on were they ready to go into negotiations. Arrangements had been made and indeed we were on, literally, on the eve of making an announcement of the beginning of SALT negotiations at a meeting in the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union led an occupation, led a force in the occupation of Czechoslovakia, August 1968. Of course that announcement was off. The talks were off. And because there was then a change of administration in the United States it took another full year before in fact the talks began. But throughout the period leading up...

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The Soviet leaders by that time had decided that they did want to pursue the negotiations in the hope that there could be an agreement. They had spent some time in deciding whether they really wanted an arms control agreement of this kind with the United States but by the advent of the Nixon Administration, they had decided they did indeed want such an agreement. And therefore they were ready to go into talks and wanted to do so. This was made known to the Nixon administration, but for a number of reasons they wished to be more deliberate in approaching this question to set in, on train first our foreign policy and defense program and hopefully to get a little leverage from the Soviet Union on other issues before entering into negotiations.

WHY WAS IT THAT AROUND 1969 THAT THE SOVIETS WERE READY TO GO INTO TALKS? COMING TO NUCLEAR PARITY AND THOSE KINDS OF REASONS?

The principal reason that the Soviet Union became interested in at least exploring the possibility of strategic arms limitations with the United States and a sharp constraint on ABM systems in particular in the late 1960s was first of all the advent of a general strategic nuclear parity between the two countries. When the United States first had proposed negotiations of this kind in the beginning of 1967 the Soviet Union was far behind the United States still in the number of deployed strategic systems and they were very much concerned that our position in the talks if they had begun at that time would have been to ask for a freeze at existing levels and to permanently freeze them into strategic inferiority. So they didn't agree at that's, for that reason and primarily and some others at that time to actually begin the talks. By 1968, all the more so 1969 they had under construction and virtually had reached parity with us in numbers and in any general sense, they had strategic parity with us, and were prepared to negotiate on the basis of something that would take the existing situation at least as its starting point.

WHAT WERE THE CONDITIONS FOR THE SOVIET UNION OTHER THAN PARITY THAT MIGHT HAVE MADE THEM INTERESTED IN COMING TO THE TABLE SUCH AS ECONOMIC PRESSURES OR RECOGNITION, THAT SORT OF THING?

In addition to the fact that strategic parity had in effect been achieved by the time the SALT talks began the Soviet leaders also had decided that in particular a competition in strategic defensive systems, anti-ballistic missile systems would be fruitless and would be a considerable economic drain on themselves which they would prefer to set aside. In addition, the United States at that time had a an advantage in terms of such systems. We were able at that time to deploy a system which we regarded as only marginally effective but which nonetheless was better than the one that the Soviet Union had. So there was that additional more ephemeral reason for the Soviets to want to put a lid on ABM systems at that time. But I think their interest in heading off a continuing competition between in which developments in strategic defense would spur increases in strategic offense on both sides was much more important and was and underlay their general approach to the strategic arms talks and to their desire to reach an agreement.

I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU ABOUT WHEN SALT I BEGAN, THE FIRST SESSION IN HELSINKI IN THE WINTER OF '69. CAN YOU GIVE US A GENERAL IMPRESSION OF HOW THE TWO SIDES MET EACH OTHER AND WHAT THEY WERE TRYING TO DO IN THAT FIRST SESSION?

The United States and the Soviet Union had of course met in a whole series of disarmament negotiations in the 1950s and 1960s and in that broad, if you wish, generic sense, there was nothing very new about the beginning of a new negotiation. But in number of other respects the SALT talks represented something that was very new. In the first place, it was a bilateral negotiation between the two countries. Again, the nuclear testing area, there had been trilateral talks with the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain earlier, but these talks dealt with the literally most vitally important military forces of the two super powers. And for either of us, much less both to decide to entrust some to some extent our security and our futures to something involving a collaborative negotiated arms control regime was a big step, for both of us. As we went into the talks in Helsinki in November and December of 1960...

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As we went into the talks in November and December 1969 in Helsinki there was still some uncertainty in both capitals as to whether the other side was really seriously interested. Neither side presented specific or concrete proposals in those first exchanges. But we both sought to discuss the rationale and purposes for such negotiations and to sound out and explore the possibilities for negotiation to get a feel for the kinds of issues that the other side thought important and what its priorities might be. Now in this, in the course of this of course we also each had to some extent a desire to inform the other, but also a desire to keep most of our cards close to our chests at that point. So we wanted on the one hand to and I say we, I mean on both sides to make clear to the other our seriousness. And at the same time not to put our whole hand on the table. It, it succeeded. We both did leave those talks with a much better feel as to what might be accomplished and we both concluded that the other was interested in serious negotiation. Of course, we still had didn't know whether agreement could be reached. There was a great deal indeed yet to be seen on that score. But in a sense, those first meetings were a test for both of us and we both passed.

CAN YOU TELL US ANY ANECDOTES ABOUT THE DIFFICULTY IN COMMUNICATING AND THE DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO COMMUNICATING. FOR EXAMPLE, THE SOVIET MILITARY WAS CONCERNED THAT THE AMERICAN DELEGATION WAS TELLING THE SOVIET CIVILIANS THINGS THAT THEY SHOULDN'T KNOW. COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT EXAMPLE AND MAYBE ANY OTHERS THAT COME TO MIND?

The well, the SALT talks dealing as they did with matters of the very highest security military security importance to both countries involved right from the beginning very active participation by the military establishments in each country in making policy in Washington and Moscow and on the delegations in both cases we had is one of the senior delegates a three star general the Soviet case the then Deputy Chief of their general staff in our case an American Air Force Lieutenant General from the JCS, Joint Chiefs of Staff Organization on the delegation itself in addition to active military participation in the policy discussions in Washington and Moscow respectively. Because this negotiation was breaking new ground in a way and going into such matters in some detail there was some caution on both sides, particularly on the Soviet side with respect to getting into operational doctrinal matters which strictly speaking perhaps didn't need to be dealt with in the talks. The United States of course has a much freer policy of discussion of military matters in government circles and in the press for that matter so that there was quite a disparity in this respect between the cautious Soviet approach and the much more open American one in the talks. We did both agree on the confidentiality of the negotiations and although as time went on some leaks occurred. On the whole this was seriously taken by both sides and the talks could in that sense proceed in a rather more well, less restrained fashion. But again we were in a situation in which we were dealing with another power which was as a negotiating well a negotiating partner on the one hand and at the same time, a potential adversary on the other. So questions of making known such information as was appropriate and as was needed for the negotiation on the one hand and not disclosing military secrets that didn't have to be revealed on the other was a consideration on both sides. But one particularly made itself felt in the Soviet case given their much more restrictive general approach to these matters. One result was that the American delegation was able to be much freer in talking about force levels or numbers or kinds of weapons and to some extent the capabilities of particular weapons systems and so on than were the Soviets. And most of the members of each delegation were civilians. Those on the American delegation were much more aware much more attuned to consider to knowing and to thinking about these military matters than were the civilian foreign office members of the Soviet delegation.

... SOVIET MILITARY WAS UPSET THAT THE CIVILIANS WERE HEARING TOO MUCH, AND ALSO ONE WHERE JOE PERUSO(?) HAD ASKED THEM WHAT THEY CALL THEIR SS-18S AND SS-19S AND SO FORTH.

AND THEY WOULDN'T TELL. SO MAYBE BRIEFLY, IF YOU COULD ...

Um. One striking example that illustrates the difference between the Soviet and American practices and openness with respect to discussing military matters was first reported by an American observer who was not a member of the delegation writing very good history of the SALT I account a few years after it occurred, John Newhouse. He reported in his account that on one occasion a Soviet general General Ogarkov had taken his counterpart aside and complained about the American delegation having discussed some specific military hardware questions that weren't appropriate for it was suggested the civilian members of the delegation. That report was based on an actual incident although in fact it didn't concern Soviet military hardware, but concerned operational practices. And specifically a discussion of the subject of launch on warning which General Ogarkov had said was not appropriate or necessary for the SALT negotiation and clearly fell within the range of things which they didn't weren't cleared to discuss and didn't see any need to talk about. But more generally on another occasion for example it was clear when we disclosed the number of Soviet submarine launched missiles that the figure came as a great surprise to most of the members of the Soviet delegation who did not realize that the Soviet submarine missile force was as large as it was at that time. Or in another, one other example; the question of designation of Soviet missiles. We've used our own...

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Another example that might be useful to note concerns the designations of Soviet missiles. Not the number of them or their qualities but even what they're called. And we have our own system where we've labeled Soviet surface to surface missiles as in cry... in sequential order so that the SS-11 was the main the most widely deployed Soviet ICBM at the time of the SALT I negotiations. And that was followed by the SS-13 and later by the SS-17 and SS-19 and so on. Attempts were made to get the Soviets to at least identify what they called these systems. Did they have a number for it. And we felt it appropriate to talk about our own systems by designation or name, the B-52 Bomber why couldn't we talk about whatever the Soviet designation was for their equivalent bomber or missile? But the Soviets were very reluctant and they were, they preferred to use our designations and say they knew what we were talking about when we talked about the SS-11 and therefore we could go ahead and use that as the basis without their having to disclose their own designation for that system. By the time of SALT II, this had changed. And the Soviets gave us the designations for a number of their systems at that time. And so we talked about the SS-18, a very large missile the Soviets gave us their own designation for that missile which if I call correctly is the RS-19. RS standing for missile system or Rocketna System whereas we had used SS for surface-to-surface missile system. But it's a small point but it does show how over time the Soviet super caution about such military matters has softened and changed to some degree.

WHEN YOU SAY SALT II ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT GENEVA OR ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT VIENNA, THE SECOND SESSION.

No. I'm well I. Yeah well. At at the time during what is now called SALT I, we had seven sessions and we labeled those one through seven but subsequently the common usage now is for SALT II of the negotiations that began in November 1972 and concluded in May 1979, being the SALT II Treaty. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, and I'm talking there about that later SALT II.

WE'RE GOING TO TRY TO KEEP OUR SUBJECT TO SALT II.

Yeah. Well I understand. I, I, I would think this might be a appropriate...

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE MAIN SESSION IN VIENNA, THE SECOND SESSION OF SALT I. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD OUTLINE BRIEFLY THE OPTIONS, A, B, C, D AND WHO IN THE DELEGATION AND THE ADMINISTRATION FAVORED WHICH OPTIONS.

WEREN'T YOU ASKED TO PREPARE THE OPTIONS? YOU MIGHT WANT TO START THAT WAY THAT YOU WERE ASKED TO...

WHO WAS IT THAT ASKED YOU TO DO THAT?

Oh, no, well actually, it was...

WELL IT'S NOT IMPORTANT.

I can't, I can't think of his name at the moment but the Kissinger's...

LARRY LYNN?

Associate who... I don't remember if it, if it was Larry Lynn or if it was Phil Odean or

OK. JUST SAY THAT YOU WERE...

But but any rate it was at the you know, at the verification panel working group levels who were rather than handling it in the usual way it, I took it over. But anyway, following the initial exchanges in Helsinki in late 1969 we spent several months working rather intensively to prepare more concrete positions and proposals for the next round of negotiations which were set to begin in Vienna in April 1970. Um. This this led in by March to the working out in Washington of four options for alternative approaches that might be taken the bare bones outline of those four approaches were set forth by in a, in a memorandum by Dr. Kissinger and the working group, inter-agency working group had the task then of actually preparing those four options. It so happened that I was given that assignment and spent a couple days and nights around the clock in drawing up the four options. As I recall it ended up being something like an 80 page paper including discussing with representatives of each of the agencies. The the four options were then considered by the verification panel and by a meeting of the national security council and just as the delegation left for Geneva the President made a decision to go forward and, with two of the options; not just one but to propose offer for Soviet consideration two of these approaches. Uh. The the two which

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The two approaches which the President decided to authorize us to raise with the Soviet delegation were first, a proposed ban on the testing and deployment of MIRV missile systems. Only that was the principal feature of that alternative. It included a proposal that ABM systems on the two sides be limited to a single site for defense of the national capitals of each of the two countries. It did not include any reductions in existing strategic offensive arms. The second alternative was one that did call for very substantial reductions in existing forces of the two sides, particularly in large missiles or heavy nice missiles as they were, we called them at the time. And because of the difference in the constitution of the Soviet and American forces the brunt of these deep reductions would have been felt on the Soviet side, it so happened. They were equal in terms of the call on each side but they were unequal in terms of the impact. And that contributed directly to a negative Soviet reaction to that to that proposal. It also included limiting ABM systems only to defense of the national capitals in the two countries. One of the other two alternatives not advanced at that time would have in effect put a freeze on the general level of strategic offensive launchers and bombers, at the time but so it wouldn't have involved deep reductions. Or any reductions. And would also have permitted MIRV. So that particular proposal was obviously the easiest for in effect, for both sides to accept but also provided the least by way of arms restraint and limitation.

WHY WERE THOSE TWO OPTIONS THAT YOU MENTIONED PROPOSED? IT SEEMS LIKE ONE OF THEM WASN'T GOING TO FLY BECAUSE OF THE MIRV PROBLEM, BECAUSE THE ADMINISTRATION DIDN'T REALLY WANT TO BAN MIRV. THE OTHER ONE WASN'T GOING TO FLY BECAUSE THE SOVIETS WEREN'T GOING TO BUY THESE REDUCTIONS. SO WHAT WERE THE REASONS THAT THOSE TWO WERE PRESENTED?

I was about to come to that, but that's fine. All right. The the two proposals, the two approaches that we were authorized to present were in some respects the most appealing to many constituencies. That is there was, there was a strong support in the Congress for a MIRV ban. There was also a general interest in reductions. And it's clear and indeed Dr. Kissinger later explicitly said that the President, he didn't really believe that the Soviets would accept either of these initial approaches and they saw the main advantage in putting them forward as indicating that the United States had been prepared to make a try for MIRV ban and for reductions. And because this would at least satisfy some constituencies that had favored them. The Department of State and the Arms Control Disarmament Agency had strongly supported the idea of a MIRV ban. The Department of Defense and its representative in the talks Paul Nitze were the chief advocates of deep reduction scheme. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had favored the alternative which was not selected of keeping current, then current levels and also allowing MIRV. But it was it was the feeling in the White House that when the Soviets rejected these first two approaches as indeed they soon did that we would then come back to something much closer to option "B" from the list which was the one calling for the modest constraint at existing levels and permitting MIRVs, which also enjoyed the support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and would clearly be acceptable to all parties as at least a second choice if not their first.

WHAT ABOUT THE ABM SIDE OF THOSE PROPOSALS? THEY BOTH WERE SUGGESTING AN NCA LEVEL OF ABM FOR EACH SIDE WHICH IT SEEMED LIKE VERY FEW PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES WANTED TO SEE THAT HAPPEN. ALSO, AND THE SOVIETS BOUGHT IT RIGHT AWAY AND IT PUT US IN AN AWKWARD POSITION. COULD YOU TALK ABOUT THAT PLEASE?

The the initial options which were drafted and considered in the Spring of 1970 somewhat curiously included that is the two which were presented included only two options for ABM limitation. One would be a single site for defense of the national command authorities, the national capitals. And the other would be a complete ban on ABM systems. Zero ABM. Both of these were alternatives considered in the studies. When the decision was made to advance them in Geneva to the Soviets the decision was made in the White House to advance only the defense on national capitals.

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When the decision was made to advance these two proposals for MIRV ban and deep reductions to the Soviets at Vienna we were given the single ABM provision calling for limiting ABM to defense of national capitals. Now that of course was the one easiest for the Soviets to accept since they had an interest and already had begun the deployment at Moscow, and at Moscow alone, and they quickly accepted that. The the fall-back option that we had considered but did not present had included a wider range of ABM alternatives including one which in drafting I had rounded off at a thousand ABM launchers in order to accommodate the planned safeguard ABM deployment which called for I don't remember the exact figure, but it was something in the order of 860 launchers. Something of that kind. But this that rather permissive ABM deployment was not ever considered or advanced. What we did do, however when we moved away from those first two approaches to a new proposal in August of 1970 was at that point to introduce again the possibility of a zero ABM, as an alternative to defense of the national capitals. The Soviets seemed perplexed and simply repeated that they were they were interested in the first proposal we proposed, the defense of national capitals. Later as we realized here in Washington that there was a problem in getting support in the Senate for funding for the first two and then for the third and fourth sites in the United States at a time when our own arms control proposals only called for a single ABM site and that at Washington which was not one that we were funding and hence, the delegation was instructed to change its position and propose an alternative of either a defense of national capitals or a defense of four ICBM complexes. Well, that was that served the point of letting us say on the hill that what were asking funding for from the Congress was compatible with what we were proposing at Vienna, but it was a rather odd—

I'D LIKE TO FIND OUT WHY THAT HAPPENED, WHAT THE SOVIETS MADE OF IT...

Yeah...

OKAY.

The upshot was that we proposed first a an ABM limitation to national capitals; the Soviets accepted it; we then came up with a series of alternatives, and eventually we said that the alternative they had chosen was no longer one that interested us. And this was damaging to our credibility and, a rather fruitless way to attempt to negotiate but we went through the stages of saying four sites, or the national capital, then three, and then two... and, it had become really quite clear that if there was going to be an agreement we would end up agreeing on one site or two sites for...each country; and then one of those would include the national capital and if there were going to be two, the other would include an ICBM field; and that of course is what was finally agreed; we agreed on initially on two permitted ABM sites, one tor the national capital, one for and defense of an ICBM site; and that is what appeared in the ABM Treaty in 1972, a protocol to that treaty was agreed two years later, cutting it back to one site on each side.

WHAT WAS THE ADMINISTRATION TRYING TO DO BY CHANGING THE ABM PROPOSALS THAT WAY? IT MUST HAVE BEEN VERY BAFFLING TO THE SOVIETS.

When the United States kept changing its own ABM proposals, and walking away from the one we had initially made, which they had accepted it was baffling to the Soviets and also damaging, I must say, to the credibility of our negotiating position. Uh, it looked as though we were playing games of some kind, and, frankly, I'm afraid that's what it amounted to. We did, in due course repair that damage, so to speak, by coming around to an agreement but it was in part a matter of trimming our proposals, in the talks to support the administration's request to the Congress for funding for the Safeguard ABM program, and it was in part also a delaying tactic at that time because the administration then wanted to, have the talks moved toward a toward a conclusion that would be reached, of course, at a summit meeting in the spring of 1972. Rather than, perhaps in late '71 for what I think... were calculations of the ma... optimal time in terms of the political advantage to the administration.

COULD I JUST ASK YOU TO SAY AGAIN BRIEFLY THE POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS BEHIND THOSE DELAYING TACTICS?

One of the reasons for our going through the charade of a series of changing ABM positions was to keep our proposals in the talks consonant with the requests to the Congress... for funding of the ABM program at that time. Uh, the other reason was I think, to delay the agreement on this point while we were pressing on some of the still unresolved issues on offensive limitations and probably also in order to manage the outcome in such a way that agreement would be reached in the spring of 1972... when of course it would be consummated at a summit meeting the spring of 1972 being really the optimum time, from the president's standpoint in terms of the political impact of reaching such an agreement.

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE INFORMAL DISCUSSIONS THAT WENT ON DURING THE SALT TALK?

We found, early in the SALT negotiations that, while it was necessary to have meetings at which formal presentations were made that such meetings, in effect, on the record also were not well suited to informal, well to determining whether there were possibilities—

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Okay? We found very early in the SALT talks that, while there was an important role to be played in formal plenary sessions of the delegations that forum really was not suitable for the kind of exchanges where we could sound out and determine the real interests of the other side in areas in which compromises and changes might be made. As time went on, we were able to develop reciprocal confidence in informal exchanges between members of the two delegations who were known to have the authority of the heads of delegation to conduct these talks, and those were very valuable, indeed necessary for trying out ideas that neither side was yet ready to formally take responsibility for advancing and to consider in a tentative way, changes in positions that the delegations formally held at a given time.

CAN YOU TALK SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THE TUNDRA TALKS?

One of the most interesting and important of the informal exchanges occurred on a trip arranged by the Finnish government to Finnish Lapland north of the Arctic Circle in the tundra where I, representing the American delegation had talks over a series of hours with two counterparts on the Soviet delegation ; we had been engaged previously in this sort of informal exchanges on behalf of the teeth of the delegation, and at this time Deputy Foreign Minister Semyonov, the head of the Soviet delegation, had returned to Moscow and there was no real interlocutor for Ambassador Smith; and so I in these talks advanced a number of ideas and the Soviet representatives from their side also discussed changes in position of their delegation and we were able to sketch out the main elements of what turned out to be the final compromise on the ABM Treaty; in those talks. We didn't of course know it at the time; it turned out later that the results of those conversations relayed by the Soviet delegation to Moscow were used by Minister Semyonov in talks there; and appeared in talks which were that, taking place at that time between Dr. Kissinger, and General Secretary Brezhnev. We were, of course unaware that Dr. Kissinger was in Moscow; but he then found, Brezhnev making certain proposals which were acceptable, and represented a solution without knowing that they represented a tentative agreement between, already, between the two delegations. Subject of course to approval by Washington.

WHEN YOU WENT TO LAPLAND, WHAT WAS IT LIKE?

The so-called "Tundra Talks," in April 1972 really took part took place well, just start over. These informal exchanges in Lapland called the, "tundra talks," actually did take place in part, on the frozen tundra. There were some snowmobiles and, other people hiking and so on, in the, in the snow and in part the two Soviet representatives Mr. Grinevsky, Mr. Kusilov, and I simply walked around and talked, and rode on a snowmobile part of the time, and continued and concluded these talks in the airplane on the way back from Lapland to Helsinki. And that... did represent this initial agreement on the outline of the main elements of the ABM Treaty.

YOU TOLD US A STORY ABOUT GRINEVSKY AND THE ON-SITE INSPECTION.

When we presented our MIRV ban proposal in Vienna the Soviet delegation was intently interested; of course they, knew that they would be receiving a copy of our, the text to our proposal at the conclusion of the meeting. Nonetheless members were busily taking notes and as we went along with it and when we reached the point at which Ambassador Smith outlined that this proposal was conditioned on Soviet acceptance of on-site inspection I remember very well my counterpart Oleg Grinevsky across the table just putting his pencil down, he stopped taking notes at that point, and after the meeting was over he came up to me and said "We were hoping you'd make a serious proposal on a MIRV ban." They just recognized that this was an element that was, in effect contrived and not essential to the proposal and indeed it had not been a, an integral part of our proposal as we considered it in the inter-agency process in Washington; it was only when only after an NSC meeting which time President and Dr. Kissinger decided to include this call for on-site inspection in our MIRV ban proposal. At that time we hadn't even conducted any studies to tell us how we would conduct an on-site inspection and whether it would in fact be effective for verification. After...

DO YOU THINK THAT THE SOVIETS HAD ANY DESIRE FOR A MIRV BAN?

We can't, of course, be absolutely sure whether the Soviets would have accepted a MIRV ban proposal that didn't have these extraneous unacceptable elements in it, because we never made such a proposal. But I'm convinced that their was a very strong possibility; that the Soviet Union would have accepted it. I was told both at that time and then many years later, by several senior Soviet diplomats, both from their delegation and others who were in Moscow at the time that no final decision had been taken in Moscow, but these particular people believed that there would have been an acceptance by their government, of a MIRV ban proposal which included a ban on production as well as testing and deployment, and did not include on-site inspection.

DR. KISSINGER TOLD US THAT HE DIDN'T THINK THAT THE SOVIETS WERE REALLY AFTER A MIRV BAN.

The fact that the United States had already successfully tested a MIRV at that time, and the Soviet Union hadn't even begun its testing program meant that there was a real question on the Soviet side, and... would have been a certain risk, or sacrifice on their part, to have frozen a situation in which we had tested MIRVs, even if we agreed not to deploy them; and where they would not be able to catch up with...us in testing. But they also understood that... the ban on testing was the real handle on verifying such a ban, and that although the Soviet Union was behind us at that time, that very fact made it possible for the United States to consider a ban that would be verified by a limit on testing. And and when I've... said that senior Soviet officials told me they believed that their government would have agreed to a test ban, it's with an understanding that they would have had the would have had to accept that continuing situation in which the United States had tested a MIRV and they had not; but the, they still believed that the effects of a, of a ban would justify it. Now... Dr. Kissinger would, I don't question that he believes that the Soviet leadership was not ready to agree to a MIRV ban, but at the time, at any rate, he wasn't sure enough to let us try. When the delegation requested authority, not to withdraw the on-site inspection or to withdraw anything else from our proposal, but just to add to it a ban on production of MIRVs, we were denied authority by Washington to make that proposal. And yet without that element, our proposal was on the face of it unacceptable to the Soviets, because we had tested a MIRV, we could produce one, and if we insisted on keeping open a loophole that would permit us to continue actually manufacturing and producing MIRVs, and only barred us from actually putting them on the missiles we could build up thousands and thousands of MIRVs quite legally, whereas they couldn't even test in order to develop one. So, our proposal was absolutely unsatisfactory without that additional proviso, and the White House would not let us make a proposal to test out whether the Soviets were interested or not.

The Soviets were very skeptical that the United States would agree to a MIRV ban. They were... afraid that if they advanced proposals for this we would then use that as a, for leverage to get them to agree to a number of other aspects of the limitations, and in the final analysis, would probably still not agree to such a limitation. When we did advance a proposal that was patently unacceptable they didn't think that whether they made any alternative proposals would have any bearing. They had, of course, proposed also a MIRV ban, which, from our standpoint, was not satisfactory because it didn't include the ban on testing. But to go beyond that and offer the kind of proposal that might objectively have been satisfactory was something which they... did not think was a real option for themselves. I think they also had reason to believe, from their conversations in Washington that we were not going to pursue the MIRV-ban option, ourselves, and therefore knew that it would be fruitless for them to come up with any modified MIRV proposal of their own.

KISSINGER SAID THAT WE COULD NOT BE THE ONES TO INTRODUCE THE MIRV PROPOSAL. THAT IF WE INTRODUCED IT, WE WERE GOING TO END UP LOSING IT ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.

Well... but we did introduce a MIRV proposal, but you mean the real one?

YEAH. HE SAID THAT IF WE PROPOSED A BAN ON TESTING, OR A MORATORIUM ON TESTING THEN CONGRESS WOULD NEVER, YOU KNOW, GO BEYOND, LET THEM GO BACK TO TESTING, AND WE WOULD LOSE OUR SYSTEM.

We've been talking about the consideration of a MIRV ban in the SALT talks in the spring of 1970. That of course was a rather late stage, in the sense that the United States had already been testing MIRVs since the fall of 1968. The earlier proposals for a unilateral American moratorium on MIRV testing were rejected by the administration on the grounds that if we did enter into any such unilateral, restraint that it would be too difficult in the American political process to get the MIRV program back on track. That is a possibility; at any event the administration didn't make such a decided not to make such a move. But despite the fact that meant that by the time we were around to discussing actual limitations in SALT, the United States already had a developed MIRV, fully tested; even at that time it was not too late to at least find out whether the Soviets would have been prepared to accept a ban on that basis. And I think it's a very serious loss that we didn't at least make that effort. No one can be absolutely sure but I believe that we would have been able to get a MIRV ban even at that time.

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE "BACK-CHANNEL" NEGOTIATION FOR A FEW MINUTES. DO YOU THINK IN ORDER TO REACH AN AGREEMENT ON THE ORDER OF SIGNIFICANCE OF SALT I THAT IT'S IMPORTANT TO HAVE A DECISIVE PARTICIPANT, SUCH AS KISSINGER, ON A MORE OR LESS ONE-TO-ONE BASIS, WORKING FOR THIS AGREEMENT?

One of the difficult and interesting questions that was, precipitated by the actual experience in the SALT I negotiations is whether it really is necessary to have a very high-level back channel, such as Dr. Kissinger's discussions and negotiations with Ambassador Dobrynin in Washington. In my judgment, the particular matters that were actually decided in the SALT I negotiations could, at least as readily, and to some advantage have better been handled by the delegations. I don't think that back-channel negotiations were necessary to reach the result that we reached there. As far as negotiations with the Soviet Union is concerned, there is another aspect of this, and that is in terms of the handling within the American government. And the purpose of a back channel there may be to, move things to a certain point before the different elements within the government, American government have an opportunity to weigh in . There it's a little harder, I think, to say whether we would have been able to get the same result or not; but I think we could have. At the same tine, I would... agree with the idea that, there... probably are occasions where it is useful, and some occasions where it may even be necessary to have the kind of direct engagement to break through a stalemate at the highest level.

WHAT ABOUT SOME OF THE SPECIFICS OF THESE AGREEMENTS? DO YOU THINK IT WAS A PROBLEM AND A MISTAKE IN THAT THE SLBMs WERE NOT DISCUSSED IN THE '71 MEETINGS?

By early 1971 we had reached something of a stalemate, in the formal negotiations. The administration decided at that time, instead of making any change in our position in the talks themselves to engage in back channel negotiation with the Soviet Union. If the result of that back channel negotiation had been to work out, a way of actually handling the problem of extensive constraints on offensive and defensive weapons together that would have been the kind of breakthrough that we might not have been able to achieve through normal bureaucratic decision in the US government in the first instance, and negotiation with the Soviets in the second. The actual agreement, which was reached in May, 1971 calling simply for an ABM agreement and certain measures, not explicitly made clear in offensive limitations could certainly have been reached between the delegations. Members of the Soviet delegation were talking to me about that particular possibility months before that agreement was actually reached. And in fact the talks between Dr. Kissinger and Ambassador Dobrynin tended to prejudice a number of the points which we then had to negotiate over the next year, in particular, Dr. Kissinger's indication that submarine-launched ballistic missiles need not be included in the offensive restraints, was taken by the Soviet leaders as representing the real American position, even though in the talks we kept insisting that such missiles should be included. And the fact that, in fact, that the White House decided eventually that those submarine missiles did need to be included, because of strong insistence not only by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Department, but also the State Department and...arms control agency meant that the only way it finally could be resolved was by reaching an agreement that would permit the Soviet Union to go ahead in effect with the submarine missile program that it already had, and we did put a constraint on submarine-launched missiles; the Soviets gave in on including them; but they did so on terms that didn't involve any serious or perhaps any constraint at all, on what they would otherwise have done, so it was not a model outcome, and certainly not something that, should be taken as an example of an achievement of back-channel negotiation.

WHAT ABOUT THE LEVELS THAT WERE FINALLY AGREED UPON AT THE END? THE FACT THAT THEY WERE UNEQUAL, WAS THAT A FUNCTION OF THE HURRIED NATURE OF TRYING TO GET THINGS READY IN TIME, AND DID THAT LEAVE THE UNITED STATES WIDE OPEN FOR A LOT OF CONGRESSIONAL CRITICISM?

The SALT I interim agreement on offensive weapons was unfortunate in a number of respects; it dealt only with missile systems, and because the Soviet Union had a larger number of missile systems and the agreement didn't talk about bombers, in which we had an advantage, the appearance of it was something that made it look as though the Soviet Union was getting some unexplained advantage. I don't think that was an advantage in real terms, all things considered, but given the fact that it only dealt with missile systems, that's certainly the way it appeared. In effect what that agreement represented was a freeze, a simple freeze, on the existing numbers of missiles, and then allowed a certain amount of change on the Soviet side from some older ICBMs to submarine-launched systems. I think that freeze was a very modest achievement in itself, but at least it was something that was understandable as an interim step. The details of the final negotiation in which that element of the, of a freeze was blurred by final compromises with respect to a small number of submarines on the Soviet side, was, I think, very unfortunate in terms of its political effect, in blurring this element of a freeze. In strategic terms, I don't think it was significant at all, but because it represented a kind of bizarre tactic bargaining and blurred the rather simpler and clearer idea of a freeze on existing numbers it was not a very satisfactory way of handling it.

WHY DO YOU THINK KISSINGER AGREED TO THOSE LEVELS? DIDN'T HE ANTICIPATE THE PROBLEMS?

The the final... SALT I agreement on submarine, inclusion of submarine missiles had been prejudiced throughout by virtue of the fact that Dr. Kissinger had let Ambassador Dobrynin understand a year earlier, that they need not be included; and I think for that reason the Soviets felt throughout that they were in a very strong position, if they were going to include submarine missiles at all, to do so on their terms. And they, there was some pushing and hauling in the final hours of negotiation in Moscow, from which the SALT delegations were absent; in which there was some compromise on both sides; I think whatever the Soviets may have gained in terms of a few more submarine missiles, was even in their interests in the long run not worth the gamble, because it did raise questions in the United States about whether the negotiation had been competently handled. And, even though it was not of strategic significance it was unfortunately... that these matters of final negotiating compromise in Moscow tended to on matters of comparative detail tended to cloud the broader achievements of the SALT I agreements.

SO THIS LED DIRECTLY TO THE PROBLEM THAT SENATOR JACKSON HAD WITH THE TREATY. CAN YOU TELL US FROM YOUR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ABOUT THIS?

Well, President Nixon decided in, June, 1972 and agreed in a conversation with Senator Jackson in the Rose Garden that he would send an entirely new SALT delegation to the SALT II negotiations. I think he may have felt that there were other reasons that, he would like to have a new team in addition to meeting this request of a Senator prominent Senator who he hoped to keep on board in voting for the SALT agreements but that was the genesis of what was a very substantial turnover, or purge, some have called it of, the members of the SALT I delegation in January, 1973. And, a and also of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO YOU PERSONALLY?

Within the space of just a few days in January, 1973 two things happened to me personally, in connection with the SALT I venture: in the first place...I received the...highest award of the Department of State; its distinguished honor award, with gold medal, for my contribution, in SALT. I also was called in by the Undersecretary, and my former boss, and now the new head of the SALT delegation, and Ambassador, Alexis Johnson, and told that I was being taken off of the SALT delegation, that a whole new SALT delegation was being constituted, and that in any case I was a foreign service officer, and it wasn't a good idea for the career of a foreign service officer to spend too much time on any specialized subject such as arms-control negotiations, and it would be a good idea for me to go back on out into the field. So I remained for some months as the deputy director of the Bureau of Political Military Service in the State Department, but from late January I was no longer involved in SALT matters, either on the delegation or in the department's participation in the SALT process.

DID YOU TAKE THAT AS A SLAP IN THE FACE?

I was not, no, I've gotta start over. You know, this is very difficult. As it became clear that a White House decision had been made to change the entire SALT negotiating team I didn't take, my own sudden removal from the delegation, in a strictly personal way; but it did strike me that this was a very odd way for the President to treat the negotiating team, which had—

YOU WERE GOING TO SAY THAT YOU WERE CONCERNED ABOUT THE SWITCH IN THE TONE OF THE SALT II...

...let me try it, yeah, let me try a couple-sentence answer on this and then... at the time, and I must say, in retrospect, I don't think it was, a very good idea for the President to jettison the entire SALT negotiating team, particularly under circumstances which made it... soon rather clear that, this was in order to propitiate opponents of the, agreement while the delegation and team had in fact negotiated under the instructions and had succeeded in fulfilling the instructions of the president in the negotiation itself. It may be that in fact there, was no...

COULD YOU JUST TELL US WHAT IT WAS THAT SENATOR JACKSON WANTED IN RETURN FOR HIS SUPPORT OF THE TREATY?

In return for his report for the SALT I agreements Senator Jackson obtained first the administration's agreement to accept and, not to oppose on the Hill the amendment that, he introduced which, called for the United States not to accept unequal levels in any subsequent strategic arms agreement, on the face of it that is not an unreasonable guideline; the fact, however, that the forces of the two sides are structured very differently, and that in some cases it might be advantageous for the United States to pursue an agreement that made sense in terms in which the precise numerical limits were less important; was one factor, I think, in suggesting that may not have been a wise move in terms of emphasizing to the Soviet Union that the United States would insist on equal levels, it may have, supported, to some extent, our ability later to achieve them, so it may have had some good features as well. But these are all quite secondary elements: the real point, I think, was that Senator Jackson was able in this way to cast some doubt on the value of the existing agreement which because it was a freeze, had differential numbers, and I'm inclined to think that, President Nixon would have been better off in not agreeing to that in which case there might have been a somewhat larger number of votes against the treaty but I think that even Senator Jackson would have ended up voting for the treaty without that concession. In any event the president decided to accept the Jackson amendment; he also...

TALK ABOUT THE PERSONNEL CHANGES.

He also obtained the president's agreement to change the entire SALT team; again, it seems to me that whatever the merits of the idea of bringing in some fresh voices into the, into the SALT negotiation it was not desirable to do it in terms that tended to cast aspersion on the outgoing team; and finally, as I understand it, the third element in this was an agreement by the president that the future Trident submarine base would be in Senator Jackson's home state, and that in, the Senator who had just shortly before voted against the Trident submarine switched his vote and voted in favor of it.

WAS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF DÉTENTE?

I think it would be too much to draw the conclusion that the purge of the SALT I delegation was the beginning of a decline for the SALT process; but it certainly emphasized very strongly that the whole question of the role of these negotiations in, the American political process was highly political. And that along with other developments may have contributed later to a, the difficulty that arose over the SALT II treaty and subsequent negotiations. But I wouldn't I wouldn't suggest that... action in, beginning of 1973 was really a significant element in the SALT process.

JUST PERSONALLY, THOUGH, WHEN YOU LOOKED AT THE MAKEUP OF THE NEW SALT TEAM—

I don't want to answer that on tape.

WHAT WAS IT TO YOU THAT SIGNALLED THE DECLINE OF THE ERA OF DÉTENTE?

That's both further down, and a lot more complicated; that'll take us too far away, I mean, my answer to it will take us too far away... from your...

COULD YOU JUST GET THOSE TWO THINGS PRETTY CLOSE IN TOGETHER?

In... January, 1973 two events occurred within just a few days of one another: one I was awarded the Department of State's highest achievement award, its distinguished honor award with gold medal, for my contribution to SALT agreements. Within a few days of that I was also called in by the undersecretary and told that a new SALT, entirely new SALT delegation was being formed, and that I would be taken off of, SALT, and then was told that in any event, of course, as a foreign service officer I should bear in mind that it wasn't a good idea for one's career to be associated too long with a special subject such as this, and that it would probably be a good idea if I went back into service in the field. I...think there was a nice irony in the juxtaposition of those two developments. At the time, I won't say that I appreciated the irony as much as I can in retrospect.