The Dead Hand

Mirovaya Ekonomika I Mezhdurnarodnyye Otnosheniya and translated by FBIS.

64 The U.S. team was led by Nitze, and the Soviet team by Akhromeyev. See Strobe Talbott, The Master of the Game: Paul Nitze and the Nuclear Peace (New York: Knopf, 1988), pp. 317–322.

65 Shultz, p. 763.

66 Reagan, An American Life, p. 677.

67 This account of the final dialogue is from Shultz, and Reagan gives a similar account. However, Gorbachev said Reagan reproached him, “You planned from the start to come here and put me in this situation!” Gorbachev recalls he replied he was prepared to go back inside and sign a comprehensive arms control document “if you drop your plans to militarize space.” He quotes Reagan as responding, “I am really sorry.” Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 419.

68 Reagan diary, Oct. 12, 1986.

69 Gorbachev press conference, Oct. 14, 1986, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, SU/8389/A1/1.

CHAPTER 12: FAREWELL TO ARMS

1 Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton, eds., “The Reykjavik File,” TNSA EBB 203, doc. 19.

2 TNSA EBB 203, doc. 21.

3 Anatoly Chernyaev, My Six Years with Gorbachev (University Park, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. 87.

4 Gorbachev needed to raise prices that had long been set artificially low, but he could not bring himself to do it. Stable prices were part of the social compact with the population that went back to the late 1950s and early 1960s. Yegor Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2007), pp. 122–139.

5 Politburo instruction No. P34/I to the Ministry of Defense, Oct. 14, 1986, as referenced in an excerpt from Protocol No. 66 of the Politburo meeting, May 19, 1987. Katayev, Hoover.

6 Sergei Akhromeyev and Georgi M. Kornienko, Glazami Marshala i Diplomata (Moscow: International Relations, 1992), pp. 124–126.

7 Gorbachev broadcast on Soviet television, Oct. 22, 1982, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, SU/8398/A1/1.

8 In his televised address from the Oval Office October 14, Reagan said, “We offered the complete elimination of all ballistic missiles—Soviet and American—from the face of the Earth by 1996.” He also described a 50 percent cut in other weapons along with elimination of the missiles.

9 Don Oberdorfer, From the Cold War to a New Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 208. Crowe said in his memoir that he told Reagan the plan was “ill-advised,” but he does not quote directly from his presentation. William J. Crowe Jr., The Line of Fire: From Washington to the Gulf, the Politics and Battles of the New Military (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), pp. 266–269.

10 Reagan diary, Oct. 27, 1986.

11 TNSA EBB 203, doc. 23.

12 The arrival of Stinger shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons to the U.S.-backed Afghan resistance in September marked a turning point in the six-year-old war. Congress pumped $470 million in secret aid to the fighters in fiscal year 1986 and increased that to $630 million the next year. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), pp. 149, 151.

13 Chernyaev, p. 95.

14 Reagan, who earlier adhered to the SALT II limits, decided that the United States would no longer do so, and the United States broke through in late November 1986.

15 This was a reference to Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, who was removed as chief of the General Staff in September 1984 but at the time remained in the defense ministry and continued to be outspoken about the need to provide advanced technology to the military.

16 The radar issue was first raised by the United States in 1983; Gates was repeating the charge.

17 William M. Welch, “Soviets Have Far Outspent U.S. on Nuclear Defense, CIA Says,” AP, Nov. 25, 1985. The spravka is in Katayev, Hoover.

18 Sakharov said February 15, “A significant cut in ICBMs and medium-range and battlefield missiles, and other agreements on disarmament, should be negotiated as soon as possible, independently of SDI… I believe that a compromise on SDI can be reached later.” Sakharov, Moscow and Beyond (New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 21.

19 See “The INF Treaty and the Washington Summit: 20 Years Later,” TNSA EBB No. 238.

20 Podvig, Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 224–226. Gorbachev, Memoirs, pp. 443–444.

21 Katayev’s account is drawn from his memoir; a lengthy monograph, “Structure, Preparation and Application of Decisions in Political-Military Problems in the Soviet Union;” and a monograph on civil-military relations.

22 Chernyaev, p. 103, n 4.

23 Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 481–482.

24 Gorbachev, Zhizn’ i reformi, vol. 2, pp. 36–37. George Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), p. 890.

25 An upgrade was planned to give the Oka a range of 372 miles, but it was never carried out. Katayev.

26 TNSA, EBB 238.

27 Gorbachev approved May 19. Katayev.

28 Yarynich, interviews with author.

29 This account is based on K. Lantratov, “Zvezdnie Voini, Kotorikh ne bylo” [Star Wars That Never Was], at www.buran.ru/htm/str163.htm. Two days after the crash, on May 17, Defense Minister Sokolov sent a message to the Central Committee, saying new programs would be readied for anti-satellite combat as well as the SK-1000 list that had been put on Gorbachev’s desk in 1985. The Politburo referred Sokolov’s message for further study by a four-man committee on May 19. However, most of the projects were never built. “On questions of perfecting the structure of the strategic nuclear forces of the USSR and counteracting the American program to create a multi-echelon system of anti- missile defense,” a memo. Katayev, Hoover.

30 “On completed investigation of the criminal case against Rust,” Central Committee memorandum, July 31, 1987, Hoover, Fond 89, Perechen 18, Delo 117; a documentary by Danish radio, DR, at http://www.dr.dk/Tema/rust/english/index.html; Peter Finn, the Washington Post, May 27, 2007, p. A20; The Observer, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2002, interview by Carl Wilkinson.

31 Pravda, May 28, 1992; see Michael Dobbs, Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire(New York: Knopf, 1997), pp. 180–181.

32 Gorbachev, Memoirs, p. 232.

33 Chernyaev, p. 119.

34 Chernyaev, p. 119. Also, “On Violation of Soviet Airspace and Measures to Strengthen Leadership of USSR Armed Forces,” Volkogonov Collection, Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, Reel 17, Container 25.

35 Chernyaev diary, June 15, 1987.

36 Katayev, Hoover.

37 Cochran told the author that by measuring the spacing between the centers of the radio transmitter housings, one could calculate the signal half-wavelength and therefore the frequency of the transmitter. This was