OKAY, MR. PERLE, LET’S KICK OFF. SOMEBODY SAID, SOMEBODY THAT I INTERVIEWED SAID, “OF ALL THE MISTAKES THAT WERE MADE IN THIS THING, THE TWO-TRACK DECISION IS, I THINK, THE WORST.” DO YOU AGREE WITH THAT JUDGEMENT?

Well, there’s a line by a Welsh poet that says, “After the first death, there is no other.” After that decision, there were no other mistakes that could be made. It essentially settled the issue. Once we said to the Soviets, “We will deploy, but we will also negotiate non-deployment,” the future was sealed. So, yes, I think it was a fundamental mistake. If it was vital to us to have those weapons, then we should have decided to go and not...

WELL, WITH ALL THE BENEFIT OF THAT REHEARSAL, MR. PERLE, CAN I ASK YOU THE FIRST QUESTION AGAIN?

Sure.

DO YOU AGREE THAT THE DUAL-TRACK DECISION WAS THE WORST MISTAKE THAT WAS MADE IN THE WHOLE COLLECTION?

The dual-track decision determined the future of the deployment. If it was vital to deploy intermediate missiles in Europe, then we should have made a decision to do so without making that deployment contingent upon a negotiating process, the results of which couldn’t be predicted.

OF COURSE, YOU, YOURSELF, DIDN’T BELIEVE IN THE MISSILES, DID YOU? YOU DIDN’T THINK THEY HAD ANY MILITARY RATIONALE?

They didn’t have the critical military quality of survivability that I believe to be important for a deterrent force, because if it isn’t going to survive attack, it isn’t a very effective deterrent. And the way in which these missiles were ultimately constructed and based and operated, they were far too vulnerable to attack. So, I didn’t believe that we were giving up very much in abandoning them.

WHEN YOU CAME INTO OFFICE IN 1981, WHAT WAS YOUR OWN PERSONAL ATTITUDE TOWAWRDS THE, THIS OVERLAPS MY OTHER QUESTION, WHAT WAS YOUR OWN PERSONAL ATTITUDE TO THE NEGOTIATING TRACK IN THE DUAL TRACK DECISION?

Well, we had no alternative but to pursue the negotiating track. It seemed to me the important thing was to choose a negotiating posture that both protected the deployment, because if the deployment fell apart, so would the negotiation, and at the same time would produce a useful result if we achieved a negotiating success. Although it was clear it was not going to be easy to achieve a negotiating success.

THE ADMINISTRATION TOOK A VERY LONG TIME TO AGREE A POSITION, AND THERE ARE THOSE WHO WOULD SAY THAT IT WAS PRESSURE FROM THE EUROPEANS THAT BROUGHT THEM TO THE NEGOTIATING TABLE.

No, no, no, not at all. One of the earliest decisions of the administration, made in fact during the transition, was to return to the negotiating table. There was a question of when and with what policies. And I don’t believe it took very long. It was spring by the time we found our offices, and October by the time we settled on a policy. That’s not an unreasonable period of time.

WHAT WAS THE EFFECT OF THE PEACE MOVEMENT IN EUROPE ON SCHMIDT? WHAT WAS SCHMIDT DOING BECAUSE OF THIS LOVELY PEACE MOVEMENT?

I’m trying to recall. Schmidt was, like other Europeans, quite keen for us to get on with the negotiating process. And I think he was delighted when we did get into the negotiations and proposed the total elimination of intermediate nuclear missiles. It was a policy he welcomed.

I’VE DONE AN INTERVIEW WITH HANS APPEL, WHO, AS YOU KNOW, WAS THE GERMAN MINISTER OF DEFENSE AT THAT TIME, WHO SAID THAT THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION WAS THE BEST RECRUITING AGENT FOR THE PEACE MOVEMENT AT THAT TIME. DO YOU THINK THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION WAS AWARE THAT THE ANTI-SOVIET RHETORIC WHICH WAS GOING ON IN THAT PERIOD, IN ’81, THE TALK OF FIGHTING THEM THROUGH NUCLEAR WARS AND SO ON, HOWEVER MISREPORTED IN THE NEWSPAPERS, WAS TRANSFORMING THE POLITICAL CLIMATE IN EUROPE AND MAKING THIS WHOLE THING MUCH MORE DIFFICULT?

Oh, I think we were quite aware of the political climate in Europe, and appalled at the ease with which the European peace movement was mobilized, in some cases in response to statements the President never made, in other cases in response to statements that were deliberately misunderstood and distorted, and in rare instances in response to things the President shouldn’t have said, but did say.

WHY WAS THE ZERO OPTION PUT FORWARD BY THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION?

Different people had different attitudes toward it. In my own case, we did studies in the Department of Defense that led us to the conclusion that if the Soviets retained more than 50 SS-20s, that would be sufficient to attack and destroy virtually every important military target in western Europe. And if one were aiming, therefore, at reducing the size of the Soviet SS-20 force down to some smaller level, it was better to go for eliminating them entirely, partly because you had a much better chance of verifying compliance with the total elimination of those weapons, and partly for political reasons. It was a much more appealing proposal to say, “Let’s get rid of these weapons on both sides,” than to say, “Let’s have some number on both sides that would have guaranteed that a controversial deployment would go forward.”

BUT IT WASN’T OF COURSE A SERIOUS NEGOTIATING POSITION?

Of course it was a serious position. The proof of that is that it resulted in an agreement. What was most unserious was the shallow calumny of the critics who were entirely wrong about the politics of it, about how to go about the negotiation, and who, in a kind of aggressive arrogance, presumed to know better than those of us who made the policy that it would fail. And of course it didn’t fail, and they now look ridiculous, and unrepentant, I might add.

LET ME JUST MOVE ON NOW TO THE NEGOTATIONS IN GENEVA, TO THE CELEBRATED “WALK IN THE WOODS” PROPOSAL. WHY DID THE ADMINISTRATION, AND PARTICULARLY YOU, YOURSELF, FEEL THAT THAT WAS NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU COULD ACCEPT?

Well, that isn’t how I felt. I thought it was unlikely that the Soviets would agree to the proposal that... put forward. In fact, I was sure they wouldn’t agree to it. This was prior to the German elections. They were still hoping that the German electorate would halt the deployment, and they weren’t about to agree to a formula that would enable us to deploy significant numbers of missiles in Europe. So there was never an agreement as a result of that “walk in the woods.” It was simply an American proposal, and it was a proposal that carried very considerable political risks for Helmut Schmidt, among others, because here was Schmidt and here were we, the Western Alliance, arguing that it was vital to deploy these weapons while our chief negotiator, in secret, was offering not to proceed with the deployment. So I thought, because it was unpromising in terms of leading to a result, and politically damaging, it was a poor idea. As a final outcome, the formula was not a bad formula. It was rather favorable to the United States.

I MEAN, IN RETROSPECT, THOSE NEGOTIATIONS WERE BOUND TO FAIL, WEREN’T THEY, BECAUSE THE SOVIETS, BECAUSE THE TWO SIDES WERE UNEQUAL AND THE SOVIETS WERE NOT GOING TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY?

Well, they were bound to fail because the Russians had not yet abandoned the prospect of stopping the western deployment without having to give up anything of significance on their side. And it was only after the deployment began that they became persuaded they would have to deal with us on the basis on which we had been proposing.

WHAT DO YOU THINK BROUGHT THEM BACK TO THE NEGOTIATING TABLE?

Their departure from the negotiation was a political disaster, and it was evident from the moment they left. For years we’d had demonstrations against the deployment of cruise missiles and Pershing 2’s and hardly a word about the Soviet SS-20. The day the Russians walked out of the talks, the demonstrators threw down their “stop the US deployment” signs and they lay down in front of... limousine. And like that the peace movement was transformed from an engine of Soviet policy into an opponent to Soviet policy. It was a disastrous Soviet miscalculation. We never had it easier than in the aftermath of the Soviet walkout. And it’s curious that they would have repeated a mistake they made in the Korean period, for example, when they walked out of the UN and permitted international policy to be made in their absence. So they were bound to come back. Now, to spur them on you had the SDI program, the President announcing that we were going to go forward with strategic defense, and that got their attention.

CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO US SOMETHING WHICH REMAINS A GENUINE SORT OF, TO EUROPEANS, A GENUINE ENIGMA, WHICH IS THE APPARENT SWITCH IN PRESIDENT REAGAN FROM THE “EMPIRE OF EVIL” STUFF TO THE SORTS OF THINGS WHICH HE WAS SAYING IN HIS SECOND INAUGURAL, AND ALSO THE SORT OF THINGS HE THEN WAS SAYING, AND TO SOME EXTENT DOING, IN HIS MEETINGS WITH GORBACHEV AT GENEVA AND REYKJAVIK AND SO ON? IN OTHER WORDS, THE SEEMING ABANDONEMENT OF THE NOTIONS OF DETERRENCE AND THE FAITH IN NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

I don’t think Ronald Reagan has ever been comfortable with nuclear weapons. This notion of a nuclear-free world, which I think is rubbish, and dangerous rubbish at that, has always been present in his thinking. It just wasn’t obvious to his supporters, and even less evident to his detractors. His detractors didn’t have the good grace to accept this transformation when it began to emerge.

WHY DO YOU THINK IT DID EMERGE, THEN?

Because I think it was always there. And it is bound to some degree to affect all presidents, this notion that we are protecting ourselves, our civilization, by wielding the threat to destroy others and their civilization. This is bound to make politicians uncomfortable.

LET ME MOVE ON, MR. PERLE, TO THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE SHULTZ-GORBACHEV MEETING IN EARLY 1985 AND THROUGH GENEVA TOWARDS REYKJAVIK. THIS IS A PERIOD OF GREAT COMPLEXITY, WHICH I SHALL HAVE TO DEAL WITH VERY QUICKLY IN THIS PROGRAM, WHERE A NUMBER OF THINGS ARE ARRIVING IN TANDEM.

Early ’85 was Shultz-Gromyko, not Shultz-Gorbachev.

THANK YOU. CAN YOU JUST TELL US VERY BRIEFLY HOW THE INF QUESTION DEVELOPED OVER THAT PERIOD?

Well, it was the principal question along with SDI. It was the principal question because it was the issue that captured public attention in Europe, it was the issue on which the Soviets thought they had some momentum, and the deployment was moving forward so, in a sense, time was running out. And the Soviets resisted, as you know, the zero option when it was initially proposed. They resisted it through their walkout in 1983, they resisted it during their absence through ’84 and into ’85, they resisted it in ’85. It was only at the Reykjavik summit that we first began to get an indication that they might, at the end of the day, accept the zero option.

WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THAT?

Well, I was gratified by it. I have always believed that we do not test Soviet tractability, because we’ve been much too tractable ourselves, much too willing to change our proposals, change our objectives, abandon our goals, just in order to get agreements. And so, we’ve never really put to the test until now how far the Soviets can be pressed by a successful negotiating strategy. Now I think we’ve demonstrated that we can do a lot better at the bargaining table with the Soviets than had previously been believed. And if I may say so, to achieve that sort of success at the negotiating table, you have to have people who are serious about the negotiating process, and not these arms control doves who don’t know how to negotiate, which is what we’ve had in the past.

LET ME JUST ASK YOU TO CLARIFY ONE POINT ABOUT REYKJAVIK, WHICH I CERTAINLY AM A LITTLE BIT UNCLEAR ABOUT. DID THE PRESIDENT AT REYKJAVIK AGREE TO THE ELIINATION OF ALL NUCLEAER WEAPONS?

No, he didn’t. No. The proposal was the elimination of all offensive ballistic missiles, the most destabilizing and threatening weapons deployed on both sides. But to the best of my knowledge, the President never agreed to the elimination of all nuclear weapons. And I don’t know how you would verify such an agreement if you had one.

LET ME PUT YOU QUICKLY TO, AS YOU KNOW I’M CONCERNED WITH THE EUROPEAN SIDE OF THIS, NOW THE EUROPEANS SLIGHTLY GOT THEIR KNICKERS IN A TWIST AT THIS POINT. WE HAVE A PIECE OF... FROM DAVID OWEN, WHO SAYS ABOUT REYKJAVIK, “THEY GAVE AWAY OUR DETERRENT, WHICH WAS FAIRLY MONSTROUS SINCE IT WAS OURS AND NOT THEIRS TO GIVE AWAY.”

No, we didn’t give anything of the sort away. It’s not clear that David Owen can hold onto it even within his own political party, to say nothing of his collapsing alliance.

NONETHELESS, HE DOES SPEAK FOR A NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO FEEL, DO NOT SAY IT PUBLICLY. I MEAN, WHAT WOULD YOUR RESPONSE TO...

Well, I’m delighted that there are still people in the center-left in England who believe it’s useful to have a nuclear deterrent, and we would not take that away from David Owen and didn’t. It was not in our power to do so. The United States has always taken the position that we can negotiate only with respect to our own weapons and not anyone else’s.

NONETHELESS, AS YOU KNOW, THERE WAS IN GERMANY, TOO, A FEELING THAT THE WHOLE BASIS OF THE ALLIANCE SECURITY, THE WHOLE DETERRENT BASIS, HAD BEEN SORT OF THROWN UP IN THE AIR. AND THIS LIES BEHIND A LOT OF THE GERMAN NEUROSIS AT THE MOMENT, DOESN’T IT? WHAT’S YOUR ANSWER TO, WE HAVE AN INTERVIEW WITH JORGEN TODENHOFER, TALKING ABOUT THIS, WHAT’S YOUR ANSWER TO THAT PARTICULAR GERMAN WORRY THAT...?

The Germans are deeply neurotic on security issues, and no matter what you do you’re bound to stimulate neurotic behavior. It was the Germans more than anyone else who were a constant source of pressure on the United States to make concessions in these negotiations. And hardly a day passed, and certainly there were no meetings of any consequence in which the Germans didn’t say, “Get on with it. Abandon your position. Get an agreement. We don’t care what the terms are. Just get an agreement of some sort.” So, the Germans drove us crazy. That we were able to hold onto a fairly coherent negotiating strategy despite German angst at all the meetings we attended, is really quite remarkable. Now, I think the President has undoubtedly complicated his own situation by these remarks that seem to point in the direction of a nuclear-free world, and that has concerned and confused our more thoughtful allies. And I wish he’d quit, I wish he’d quit making those remarks.

LET ME TURN NOW TO THE SO-CALLED DOUBLE ZERO WHICH AROSE OUT OF THE MEETING BETWEEN SHULTZ AND, AND GROMYKO IN MOSCOW, IN APRIL 1987. NOW, I DON’T THINK, WERE ACTUALLY AT THAT MEETING, BUT NONETHELESS YOU WERE INVOLVED IN THE SUBSEQUENT DISCUSSION WHICH AROSE OUT OF IT. WHEN YOU WERE ENLISTED, AS IT WERE, TO REASSURE EVERYONE, WHY, WHAT DID YOU SAY? AND WHY WERE YOU NOT WORRIED BY THE FACT THAT THE SHORTER-RANGE STUFF WAS BEING...

Well, I had been for the double zero from the beginning. And the original Defense Department proposal put to the President in 1981 was for double zero. The only reason why it wound up single zero is that Al Haig kicked and screamed to the point where the President, because he didn’t like even the single zero, kicked and screamed to the point where the President did not want to deliver a double defeat to his Secretary of State. So in the usual incoherent way we make these decisions, we said, “Alright, well, we’ll give Weinberger one zero and we won’t give him the second. We’ll give that issue to Haig.” So I was always for eliminating the SS-21s, 22s and 23s, as well. We didn’t have any systems in that range, and no prospect for developing them.

BUT YOU WEREN’T WORRIED BY THE EFFECT THAT THAT WOULD HAVE ON NATO STRATEGY?

No, not at all.

CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO US WHY NOT?

Well, I mean, it hardly strengths your strategy to not have weapons that your adversary is permitted to have. No, that whole issue was really, in German, was a surrogate for anxiety about the agreement, about the zero option. And the truth is, there were a lot of Germans who supported the zero option, because they believe it would never result in a treaty, and then when it did they were horrified. But they were committed to it, and they could not credibly dissociate themselves from the policies they had endorsed. So they grabbed another issue on which they hadn’t been committed, and that really became a substitute for their anxiety about the zero option. And that was the second zero.

The people who said the Soviets would never agree were obviously wrong, because they have agreed. Now, they can say, “Well, we were right, except we didn’t count no Gorbachev replacing Brezhnev.” But you can never prove one way or the other how it would have come out under different leadership. I think we out negotiated them. They were never able to appeal to public opinion.

I THINK YOU’RE RIGHT THAT PEOPLE OVERSIMPLIFY THIS TREMENDOUSLY, AND OBVIOUSLY THERE WERE THESE GOOD MILITARY REASONS FOR GETTING RID OF THE SS-20S, WHICH, BUT OF COURSE THE OTHER FACTOR IN ALL THIS IS THAT PEOPLE FELT THAT THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION WASN’T INTERESTED IN NEGOTIATING AT ALL.

They were wrong about that. These were their preconceived notions. They paid no attention to what we were doing or saying. They thought that anybody who says it’s an evil empire is not going to be prepared to negotiate.

I MEAN, I’M NOT TALKING HERE ABOUT PEOPLE IN JOURNALISM. I’M TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE HANS APPEL IN THE WEST GERMAN ADMINISTRATION.

What the hell did Hans Appel know?

WELL, HE DID HAVE SOME EXPERIENCE OF TALKING WITH...

I was present on virtually every occasion that he talked with us. He just wasn’t listening to what we were saying.

BECAUSE I THINK THE WAY THAT ARGUMENT GOES, IT WAS THE MEETING AT GLENEAGLES IN ’81 WHERE THE AMERICANS REALIZED THAT THEY HAD TO DO SOMETHING.

Oh, no, that was a completely wrong interpretation of what happened at Gleneagles. What happened at Gleneagles was that we were fighting for the zero option in Washington. That is, Cap Weinberger and me. We had a proposal on the President’s desk with the zero option. And along come this unruly band of Europeans who want to stick the zero option in a NATO communiqué. Al Haig at that moment in the Department of State, and most of the rest of the government, were vigorously opposing the zero option. And there was no way Cap Weinberger could sign a communiqué calling on the United States to propose the zero option without making it look as though Weinberger was using the NATO alliance to win an internal policy battle in Washington. So we were in the ironic position of opposing a statement by NATO supporting the proposal we were arguing for in Washington. And we explained that to some of our allies. And it’s just rubbish that all this agitation on the part of the Allies that Gleneagles had anything at all to do with our policy. The European endorsement of the zero option didn’t help it. It probably harmed it. To be effective, this had to be a proposal that came from the United States, not one that was forced on the US by its allies.

NOW, OBVIOUSLY WHERE YOU’RE COMPLETELY RIGHT IS IN SAYING YOU NEEDED TO TAKE THE LONG VIEW AND THE EUROPEANS, PRESUMABLY, WERE NOT. THE EUROPEANS WERE WORRIED BECAUSE THEY WERE POLITICIANS, AND SOME OF THEM WERE LEFT-WING POLITICIANS, WHOSE PARTIES WERE GETTING CONCERNED. AND, THEREFORE, THEY, I GUESS, HAD DIFFERENT PRECONCEPTIONS. AND TO THAT EXTENT, THE SORT OF THREAD OF CONSENSUS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC WAS GETTING PULLED RATHER TIGHT, BECAUSE YOU HAD A RIGHT-WING ADMINISTRATION IN THE US AND A LEFT WING ONE IN GERMANY.

Well, you had a left-wing administration in Germany that had called for the deployment of the missiles, that was now giving us fits about doing precisely what they asked us to do. And it was true elsewhere. You had a labor party in the UK that had been part of the decision to deploy, that was now opposed to the deployment. And the same thing happened in the Netherlands, and so forth. It was a ludicrous situation, and the left, socialist parties by and large, had approved this decision, and now they were all lining up against it. And the conservative parties that had never been part of the original decision were left trying to implement it over the objections of those who gave birth to it.

LET ME PICK UP SOMETHING YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT BEFORE, WHICH IS THE ZERO OPTION ITSELF. WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

Well, it was sort of in the air, but I think it was born in my typewriter, in a memorandum to the secretary of defense, who thought it made a lot of sense and argued for it vigorously, and prevailed.

IF ONE TRACES IT BACK, I THINK ONE FINDS THAT IT COMES VIA GENSURE, SCHMIDT, VIA HAIG-

Gensure had nothing to do with it. Haig was against it.

BUT HE AT LEAST WAS THE MESSENGER OF IT.

No, he wasn’t the messenger at all.

THE THING ITSELF ORIGINATES WITH THE DUTCH PEACE MOVEMENT IN 1979.

Well, there were people talking about it, but the Dutch were not talking about eliminating all SS-20s. I mean, their notion of the zero option was zero for the United States. I’ll tell you a story that’s never been told before. Early in 1981, long before the US administration settled on the zero option, I had a meeting with a Dutch defense minister, and made a proposal to him. I said, “How would you react to the Dutch decision to deploy,” which they had not yet made, “if we were to propose the elimination of intermediate missiles on both sides? Total elimination. And we were to work this out together so that it was a bilaterally agreed-upon US-Dutch proposal? And we would table it in the talks in Geneva. Could you then give us a firm commitment that if we failed to achieve that, you would deploy?” And this Dutch defense minister thought it was a terrific idea. And he raced off to the Hague, we were meeting in Brussels, to present it to the others in the government. And I believe there was some considerable interest in it until my colleagues at the State Department got onto the Dutch and shot it down. And the last thing that the State Department wanted was the zero option. Haig fought it. My colleagues at the State Department took every opportunity in the intervening period to try to undermine it. It was not the product of the peace movement or the doves or the diplomats.

THEY OF COURSE DECIDED IT WAS A GIMMICK, BECAUSE THEY FELT IT WAS DECOUPLING.

No, they were against it because they thought it would never lead to an agreement. They were so convinced the Russians wouldn’t buy it, and they didn’t care what an agreement said as long as there was an agreement of some kind.

LET ME MOVE ON TO ’83. WERE THERE PEOPLE IN THE ADMINISTRATION WHO DOUBTED WHETHER THESE CONSERVATIVE ADMINISTRATIONS THAT YOU TALK ABOUT IN EUROPE WOULD HAVE THE POLITICAL WILL? BECAUSE THIS HAD NOW BECOME A TEST OF NATO’S POLITICAL WILL. WERE THERE DOUBTS THAT NATO WOULD BE ABLE TO RISE TO THIS OCCASION?

Oh, of course there were doubts. And opinion was very much divided. And for the most part, the pessimists, those who thought they would not deploy in Europe, were for throwing in the towel and cutting whatever deal we could with the Soviets. And one of Paul Nitze’s motivations in proposing the formula he did during the “walk in the woods” was a deep pessimism about the political situation in Germany. He was convinced the Germans would never agree to deployment.

THEY DID, OF COURSE. BUT ALONG THE WAY, THEY DID ASK FOR MODIFICATIONS TO THE ZERO OPTION, DIDN’T THEY? I MEAN, THE GERMANS HAD A HAND IN THE INTERIM.

The Germans wanted to change the American proposal every time we sat down and talked to the Germans, because they couldn’t bear the lack of movement in the negotiations. As I said earlier, they drove us crazy. You’d never want to go into a negotiation again with the Germans advising us on how to proceed. They can’t stay put for 30 seconds.

LET’S MOVE ON. I JUST HAVE TWO OR THREE FINAL QUESTIONS TO ASK YOU ABOUT THE DEAL, THE INF DEAL. LET ME FIRST OF ALL ASK YOU THE CENTRAL QUESTION, WHICH IS, WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS IN TERMS OF EUROPEAN HISTORY, IN TERMS OF THE ALLIANCE? WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS DEAL WITH NATO?

Well, I suppose the significance is that after a decade of chaos and confusion, no harm was done. That despite the unbelievably fickle quality of the Europeans, whose views on these subjects changed from one day to the next, the Alliance somehow muddled through. It faced up to the very serious political challenge to its very existence, that was inherent in the possible failure of this decision to deploy. And in the end, it all came out okay.

I WON’T PUT TO YOU THE EUROPEAN POINT OF VIEW, WHICH IS THAT THE AMERICANS ARE TREMENDOUSLY FICKLE, AND A WIMP WAS SUCCEEDED BY A COWBOY. BUT YOU’RE FAMILIAR WITH THAT. LET ME PUT TO YOU THE KISSINGER-ROGERS LINE...

I think it’s true that a wimp was succeeded by a cowboy. But the cowboy got results beyond the wildest dreams of the Europeans. They should have more respect for cowboys in Europe.

OKAY, LET ME PUT YOU THE KISSINGER-ROGERS LINE, WHICH IS YOU GAVE AWAY THE WRONG MISSILES AND YOU GOT NOTHING BACK ON THE CONVENTIONAL.

Well, we never tried to get anything on the conventional, nor is it likely that we would get anything on the conventional, nor would any of the allies in Europe have stood still for asking something on the conventional, it was all we could do to get them to stay still for asking the Soviets to give up their missiles. So I think this is just an unrealistic view of what might have been done. Now, if you say, shouldn’t we have got rid of other missiles rather than these? The answer is probably yes in the abstract. Although these missiles were permitted to become vulnerable to a degree that General Rogers would not acknowledge and Henry Kissinger doesn’t understand.

RIGHT. I THINK I HAVE A FINAL QUESTION. OKAY, MY FINAL QUESTION IS REALLY ESSENTIALLY THIS, THAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY CONSISENT IN SAYING THAT YOU CAN’T HURRY THESE KINDS OF NEGOTIATIONS. YOU EVEN FORCED YOUR COLLEAGUES TO SIT THROUGH, SAMUEL HALL ON THIS POINT ONCE.

Over and over again. I used to drive them crazy.

I NEVER THOUGHT THAT SIR SAMUEL HALL WOULD BE. HOWEVER, HOW DO YOU REACT TO THE CHARGE THAT, AGAIN, HAS BEEN MADE BY THESE FICKLE EUROPEANS, THAT THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN FALLING OVER ITSELF TO GET DEALS FOR ALL SORTS OF POLITICAL REASONS, AND THAT YOUR NOTION OF HANGING TOUGH HAS BEEN THROWN TO THE WIND.

I’m afraid that’s true, and it troubles me deeply.

I’M SORRY, CAN I ASK IN YOUR ANSWER TO SAY WHAT’S TRUE?

I’m afraid it’s true that the administration, having demonstrated the utility of patience and perseverance in negotiations is now throwing that to the winds and falling all over itself to conclude agreements as quickly as it can, and with most certainly bad results. I’m deeply troubled by the collapse of this administration’s philosophy with respect to negotiating agreements with the Soviets, and this unseemly rush to conclude a strategic arms treat is bound to produce a bad treaty.

OUR FINAL QUESTION, MR. PERLE, IS ESSENTIALLY THIS: YOU’VE LIVED WITH THIS OVER QUITE A LONG PERIOD OF TIME. CAN YOU JUST GIVE US A SENSE OF THE WAY IN WHICH THE RUSSIANS HAVE CHANGED? NOW, YOU WOULD SAY THAT THEY HAVE CHANGED BECAUSE CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE CHANGED, BUT THEIR NEW THINKING, A LOT OF IT IS BULLSHIT, BUT IT’S NOT ALL BULLSHIT. THEY HAVE CHANGED. WHAT’S YOUR SENSE OF THAT?

I think the Soviets have changed in the sense that the repression that has characterized that society, the heavy hand of the party repressing creativity and ingenuity and independent thinking has been lifted just a little bit. And that is a welcome development from the point of view of those who are a little freer now to give expression to their thoughts and even freer to think. And you listen to Abatov, a sort of hack propagandist for years, he sounds different today than he did just a couple of years ago. How he can look in the mirror and recalling what he was saying a couple of years ago, not be torn by an identity crisis of massive proportions, I don’t know. But a lot of these fellow have changed their mind, because they’re now freer to say what they think. And that’s a significant development. I don’t know how long it’s going to last.

BUT IN DIPLOMATIC TERMS, THEY’VE BECOME MUCH MORE, I MEAN, GORBACHEV IS A REAL...?

In diplomatic terms, the Soviets are far more agile than they were before. They’re far more creative and imaginative. They no longer say “nyet,” they say “da, but,” and then they lay out a series of conditions that make the affirmative answer they appear to give you wholly unacceptable. So, in a highly manipulative way, they have managed to avoid doing the things that are awkward in a public relations sense while achieving the same results in other ways. And they are much more formidable and, in this sense, more dangerous negotiating partner.

FINAL, FINAL QUESTION. I PROMISE THIS TIME IT WILL BE MY FINAL QUESTION. YOU’VE SAID THAT THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN A LITTLE HASTY. BUT, NONETHELESS, YOU’RE REALLY A DEFENDER OF WHAT HAPPENED AT REYKJAVIK. CAN YOU JUST GIVE US SOME SENSE, AND BEAR IN MIND THAT I’M MORE INTERSWTED IN THE INF THAN ANYTHING ELSE, SOME SENSE OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WHAT HAPPENED AT REYKJAVIK? WAS THAT A SORT OF EXTRAORDINARY BREAKTHROUGH?

With respect to INF, I think we made a mistake at Reykjavik. That is, we accepted Gorbachev’s proposal to eliminate intermediate missiles in Europe, but to keep some in Asia, in Asia on the Soviet side and in the continental United States on our side. That was a foolish mistake. It shows you what can happen at summits when you caught up in the emotion of the moment. Fortunately, we were able to walk that back, and subsequent to Reykjavik successfully pressed the Soviets to abandon the remaining missiles that they would have had in Asia and that we would have had God knows where. So, we recovered from that, although we had to pay a price to do it. We had to lower our standards on the verification, and that was unfortunate. But Reykjavik was the first time that the Soviets began to negotiate more or less on the basis of zero option. And I’m convinced they did that as part of an overall strategy to capture the American SDI program and to offer concessions on intermediate missiles, and then, as the President reached out to pocket those concessions, Gorbachev, in essence, said, “Just a minute, Mr. President. You’ll have to give up your SDI if you want that agreement on INF.” That was the Soviet policy at Reykjavik. Now, it turned out to be an untenable policy, and Gorbachev abandoned it six weeks later. And the residue of Reykjavik was pluses for the United States, both on INF and on strategic arms, where the concessions that Gorbachev had used as a lure to get SDI remained, although he didn’t get anything on SDI.

THANK YOU.