General Secretary Gorbachev. In this session, unlike the two sessions that had taken place on Saturday, and for the first time, the General Secretary showed some flexibility with respect to intermediate nuclear forces, not as it turns out as much as we would have liked, but nevertheless important progress was made there too, when General Secretary Gorbachev agreed that he would limit to 100 the number of warheads on intermediate nuclear missiles retained by the Soviet Union outside the European portion of the Soviet Union, and he proposed that the United States also retain 100 warheads on intermediate nuclear missiles, and those would be retained in the continental United States.

Neither side would deploy any intermediate nuclear forces in Europe, and so we came very close to realizing the administration's longstanding position, a position approved by our NATO allies over and over again in every encounter we have had with them, the zero option, and I can't resist reminding this committee that when the zero option was first proposed in 1981, it was the view of a great many people, including I believe some members of this committee, that this was an impossible, overly taxing, overly demanding position to propose to the Soviets, and that it was contrivance simply for the purpose of frustrating movement toward any agreement.

There were editorials to that effect, and so I must say I was dismayed to read this morning an editorial by my friend, Steve Rosenfeld, who is now suggesting that our current proposals are once again intended to frustrate movement toward agreement, deliberately too demanding and too far-reaching, and I would hope that the record of performance with respect to the zero option and intermediate nuclear missiles would persuade some of those who are uncharitable in their interpretation of our motives that sometimes if one is prepared to make a bold and far-reaching proposal and stand by it, it may be possible to bring it to realization.

So, the two sides agreed, then, that they would limit themselves to no more than 100 warheads on intermediate nuclear missiles. This represents a reduction from 1,421 on the Soviet side down to 100, and a reduction on the American side from roughly 250 down to 100.

One may ask why the Soviets are prepared to abandon a very much larger force than the United States is compelled to abandon, and I like to believe that the General Secretary's willingness to accept something approaching the zero outcome is a vindication of a 6-year policy of standing by a proposal that we thought to be in the interest of both sides.

Now at this point the meeting was scheduled to end, but enough had been accomplished with respect to strategic offensive forces and intermediate nuclear forces so that the two leaders decided they would continue into the afternoon, and a break was agreed upon. The President returned to his residence for lunch. The General Secretary did the same, and other members of the American delegation remained behind at the Hofdi House, and it was decided to hold a session of experts this time, chaired by Secretary of State Shultz on the American side and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze on the Soviet side, in order to recapitulate the events of the preced

ing three sessions and to see whether we could come to terms with the remaining issue, which was the treatment of strategic defense.

In that session, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze made a proposal. He proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union agree that neither side would withdraw from the ABM Treaty for a period of 10 years, and during that time, the two sides would agree to be bound strictly by the terms of that treaty. I don't believe that the Foreign Minister expected the answer he received, but I can't be sure. The American side caucused, and Secretary Shultz on an ad referendum basis put a counterproposal to the Soviet side. He said we can agree not to withdraw from the ABM Treaty for 10 years, and we can agree further to be bound strictly by the terms of that treaty for 10 years, provided that the Soviet side would agree that both the United States and the Soviet Union, in the second 5 years of that 10-year period, the first 5 years allowing for the reduction down to the 50 percent ceilings previously agreed to the night before, agreed that the sides would go beyond those reductions, and in the remaining 5 years eliminate all offensive ballistic missiles of all ranges.

Foreign Minister Shevardnadze said that he had no authority to agree to such a proposal, and while he doubted it would be agreeable to the Soviet side, he was prepared to refer it to General Secretary Gorbachev. Secretary Shultz indicated that he too lacked the authority to make the proposal formally, and so he had only advanced it on an ad referendum basis, and it was suggested and agreed that the two sides would delay for a short time the afternoon session between the leaders so that they might confer among their respective delegations; and at this point we held a meeting with the President and discussed in some detail the proposal that we had tried in an effort to accommodate the Soviet side on strategic defense: Its implications, its benefits for the United States, and we believed to the Soviet Union as well.

The President agreed that we should proceed formally to table the proposal as he walked into the room with General Secretary Gorbachev, and so we committed the essence of that proposal to writing, and early in the afternoon session the President tabled it with the General Secretary.

There followed about an hour and a half of discussion between the two leaders accompanied only by Secretary Shultz and Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, and the appropriate interpreters and notetakers, at the end of which a recess took place, and we convened with the President to hear the reaction of the Soviet side to the American proposal. It was here that we learned for the first time that the Soviets were insisting that we go far beyond the ABM Treaty and agree to limit all space research to the laboratory. There has been some speculation since as to whether the Soviets had expressed themselves fully on the subject of what constitutes a laboratory, and as you know, there have been hints from the usual suspects that they may have something in mind other than the normal meaning one attaches to that term.

But I can assure you that while the record will not show this, because gestures are seldom recorded in proceedings of this kind, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze was very clear when he said again and again the four walls of the laboratory. He described four walls

with his hands every time he used the term. So the Soviets proposed that we confine research, development and testing in a manner that is not only unverifiable but that goes, as I have said, way beyond the limits of the ABM Treaty.

Second, the Soviets proposed not that we agree in the second 5year period to eliminate offensive ballistic missiles, but that we agree to eliminate all strategic arms. Now there has been a certain airy casualness with which these terms have been used sometimes interchangeably, but the distinction between these two terms is vital to understanding what happened in Reykjavik, and I have already alluded in my opening remarks to the significance of the term "strategic arms" as it is understood by the Soviet Union.

We believed and continue to believe that the elimination of all offensive ballistic missiles, the SS-17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, their SLBM's and the new Soviet ballistic missiles presently under development, as well as all offensive ballistic missiles on the United States side would leave an adequate American strategic deterrent, an adequate Soviet strategic deterrent, with a greatly improved prospect for the future stability of the relationship between us, because we would have eliminated that category of weapons that is suitable for the conduct of a first strike.

And I have on several occasions heard members of this committee and members of your counterpart committee in the other body decry the role of offensive ballistic missiles as a contributor to the instability that is inherent in a strategic relationship in which the side that strikes first can hope to gain thereby an enormous and perhaps decisive strategic advantage.

So we advanced this proposal, not casually, not after an hour's thumbsucking, but after careful deliberation over a long period of time in Washington, and a thoughtful and illuminating discussing among the principals in Reykjavik.

There was another issue that divided us with respect to strategic defense. That is, what would happen at the end of the 10-year period. Here, the United States took the position that at the conclusion of 10-years, and with all offensive ballistic missiles having been eliminated, the two sides would be free, if they so chose, to deploy strategic defenses, as an essential assurance that the other side would not achieve a monopoly in offensive ballistic missiles by violating the terms of the agreement.

Given the near impossibility of verifying at that time that the last missiles had been destroyed, based on a ban on the systems, we would need and require an insurance policy in the form of a limited strategic defense. We made the point that such a strategic defense would need not be nearly as elaborate or extensive or costly as the sort of strategic defense one would need in a world in which thousands of warheads were positioned on ballistic missile.

Indeed, I think members of this committee have made the point over the years, that a good arms control agreement on offensives would greatly facilitate a stable agreement in the deployment of defenses. If our thinking was at all defective in this regard, you should know that our thoughts very much parallel those that have been presented by this committee on a number of occasions.

The Soviets took the position that at the end of 10 years we would revert to the status quo-that is, the ABM Treaty would be

in effect, prohibiting the deployment of any strategic defense. And again and again, President Reagan asked General Secretary Gorbachev, what possible objections could you have to the deployment of strategic defenses after we have eliminated offensive ballistic missiles on both sides? Because in those circumstances, those systems could not possibly add to one's offensive capability, they would serve only as an insurance policy against cheating by the other side, and against third countries.

We now had a clear division-it must have been 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday. We had 39 hours, correspondents waiting for results of a meeting that should have ended some hours ago and was still in progress, and the Soviets committed to writing their proposal-the proposal that I have just described.

Another recess was taken, and we met with the President, examined the Soviet proposal, discussed it at some length, and decided that we would redraft the Soviet proposal preserving as much of the language upon which they insisted as we could, consistent with the fundamentals of our own position and consistent with the strategic concept that I have been outlining.

Two of us were tasked to produce a draft which the principal advisors would then be able to examine. And that is the scene, rather colorfully portrayed in some newspaper accounts of the session drafting in the bathroom at the Hofdi House. Actually it was a rather large bathroom, plenty of room for drafting. We set down in writing, incorporating a great deal of the Soviet language in what became the last offer made by the United States, and I believe-in fact I am quite sure that was the last offer submitted in writing by either side, in Reykjavik.

That proposal read that the two sides would be prepared not to exercise their existing right of withdrawal from the ABM Treaty for a period of 10 years; that we would be prepared during that 10year period, to confine our research, development and testing, to that permitted by the ABM Treaty; that in the second 5 years of the 10-year period, both sides would eliminate all offensive ballistic missiles; and at the conclusion of the 10-year period, either side would be free to deploy a strategic defense if it chose, unless agreed otherwise and that last phrase was added in the hope that it would elicit a favorable response from the Soviet side.

The President was prepared to go very far. What he was not prepared to do was agree to an arrangement on strategic defense that would have made it virtually impossible to carry out the strategic defense initiative. To suggest that one can develop and test strategic defense in the laboratory, or outside space, because some of these systems are either space based or have space based components, is a little bit like suggesting that submarines must be tested on land. You simply can't do it. You can't achieve a result under those circumstances.

So, finally, at about 8 o'clock in the evening, the discussion having exhausted all of the participants, and without a clear agreement, the sides parted and divided over the question of what would happen after 10 years, and divided over the Soviet proposal to eliminate all strategic arms, and our counter or our proposal to eliminate all offensive ballistic missiles, divided over the Soviet effort to amend the ABM Treaty by imposing a restrictive regime

that exceeds even the restrictive regime that some here would favor.

Looking back on what happened at Reykjavik and in the subsequent negotiations, I think a very solid foundation has been laid for what eventually will become an agreement on strategic offensive forces. We have vastly more offensive forces than we need on both sides and both sides could safely reduce them, provided they can reduce them down to equal and lower ceilings.

I think we made significant progress with respect to intermediate nuclear forces as well, and in a willingness to agree not to withdraw from the ABM Treaty for 10 years-a suggestion_that_we were hearing from liberal quarters not so long ago-the President demonstrated his good faith and his willingness to reach an agreement on strategic defenses, but he drew the line at a regime that would so cripple the program so as to force its abandonment.

In short, the President demonstrated in Reykjavik that he was capable of saying yes, but he was also capable of saying no. And I have to tell you, Mr. Chairman, that privileged as I was to participate in that last round of discussions as the President contemplated whether to respond to the Soviet proposal to eliminate all strategic arms, whether to respond positively to a regime that would have meant the end of the strategic defense initiative. He must have been aware-I am sure he was aware that he could walk out of that room with an agreement that millions would have cheered and a Nobel Prize, but he was persuaded that the agreement that the Soviets put on the table, by forcing us to abandon our nuclear deterrent and by robbing future generations of any prospect of strategic defense, that that agreement would be not in the long term interests of the United States. He had the courage to say no when I think many others might well have been tempted to say yes.

The CHAIRMAN. If he had said yes, he probably would have been impeached. He certainly would have had a revolt on his hands with his allies, and he would have had mass resignations from his Government, and he would have had an awful mess on his hands. So, let's not give him too much credit for turning down an obviously kooky proposal on the Soviet side.

I would like to address the question then of where our position is now. As I understand it, we came out of Reykjavik with a proposal for 50-percent reduction in 5 years, zero ballistic missiles in the next 5 years, zero-zero in Europe on the INF front, with 100 in Asia, 100 warheads in the United States, and essentially an offer to abide by the ABM Treaty for 10 years, followed by an open question as to what is to happen?

Mr. PERLE. Followed by a recognized right to deploy.

The CHAIRMAN. Right to deploy. Deployment unless there is an agreement?

Mr. PERLE. Unless otherwise agreed.

The CHAIRMAN. It is also my understanding that soon afterward we tabled that proposal, in Geneva, in essence that same outline but with more details. What has happened now in the light of Maggie Thatcher's statement of her meeting with the President and George Shultz' statement the other day that we are backing off of the zero ballistic missile option.