The Road to Zero

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The other key issue was whether, despite earlier Soviet statements to the contrary, INF might be delinked from an agreement on long-range strategic weapons and Star Wars. Glitman took Obukhov aside and tried to persuade him of what he called the "logic" of a separate deal on INF. "Let's assume," he said to Obukhov, "that we were to agree fully with the position you've taken on INF. We could see reaching an agreement without linkage. Couldn't you?" Obukhov paused, thought hard, then replied that he could indeed see such a possibility. A few days later, after checking with his superiors, he told Glitman, "I can tell you that my answer was correct." Once again it was Gorbachev who officially enunciated the new Soviet position. On Oct. 3, during a visit to Paris, he said an INF agreement might be possible "outside of direct connection with the problem of space and strategic arms."

Meanwhile Karpov told U.S. negotiators in Geneva that he was "alarmed at how slow things are going." Kampelman, who relished the chance to out- stonewall a master stonewaller, told Kvitsinsky, who was now serving as one of Karpov's deputies, "Yuli, I don't see why Victor is so alarmed." Kvitsinsky replied, "Well, I'm alarmed that you are not alarmed."

Americans sensed that Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze, who had replaced Gromyko as Foreign Minister in July, had decided that INF was the one area where progress might be possible at the first Reagan-Gorbachev summit, which was to be held in Geneva in November. With that event looming, Karpov turned almost plaintive: "We have an opportunity to resolve some important issues in advance of the meeting of our leaders."

Shortly afterward Karpov and Obukhov tabled a new INF proposal that at first blush seemed to capitulate on the most critical issue of all. In what a Soviet official in Moscow later recalled as a "momentous sacrifice that left blood on the floor of more than one ministry," the Kremlin proposed its own version of an "interim agreement": the U.S. could keep a handful of the missiles it had deployed in Europe in exchange for a reduction of Soviet SS-20s in range of Europe and a freeze on those in Asia.

It turned out, however, to be the first in a series of now-you-see-it, now- you-don't Soviet teasers. Moscow's "interim" proposal was the bait for a summit, and it had a number of familiar strings attached. The Soviets had devised a complicated formula that would give them their long-sought compensation for the British and French independent nuclear arsenals that the U.S. insisted should not be part of any INF deal. Also, the U.S. would be allowed to keep only cruise missiles in Europe. The more capable Pershing II ballistic missiles would have to come out. Moreover, the Soviet proposal stipulated that the U.S. would have to commit itself to the eventual elimination of all American missiles in Europe.

At the Geneva summit in November, Reagan refused to yield on the British and French forces and insisted that the U.S. would keep Pershing IIs in West Germany as long as there were SS-20s deployed anywhere in the U.S.S.R. But in their final communique, the two leaders agreed there should be early progress toward an INF interim accord.