Heading for Geneva: "We Have a Strength We Haven't Had Before"

Q  Do you think you may be able to persuade Secretary Gorbachev at Geneva to agree to a set of principles to help accelerate development of an arms-control agreement?
A  I won't talk too much about negotiating tactics in advance, because then those tactics become useless. But I recently read a statement I like to quote: ''Nations do not distrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they distrust each other.'' So our negotiations should be aimed at eliminating the distrust. This would require not just words between us but deeds—actions that we both could take that would help convince the other side that we mean no first strike and no harm.

Q  What would constitute a successful summit?
A  For one thing, if we set a plan for continued negotiations, an agreement to go on seeing each other and working on these various problems. Another standard is if we eliminate enough distrust so both nations recognize that the details of arms control should now be turned over to our negotiators in Geneva, where the focus of our effort should be. Remember, the Soviets are on public record that they would like to see the elimination of nuclear weapons and certainly a reduction that might eventually lead to that. Well, if we both are agreed on that, then we certainly ought to be willing to find a way to get at it.

Q  Then you might expect from Geneva some kind of formal arms-control commitment from you and Gorbachev that would then be turned over to your negotiators to flesh out?
A  Yes. In two days of talks, I can't believe we will deal with specifics and numbers. It's apparent that we have agreed to some of the terms they submitted in their proposal.

I think we'd be wasting our time if we tried to fight down to the wire on the complexities of individual weapons or things of that kind in my meeting in Geneva. What is to be discussed there is much broader than that. It isn't really just arms control to be settled there. What is to be settled are the things like, for example, regional and bilateral issues that would make arms control a natural follow-up.

I engaged in negotiations in the labor-management field on labor's side for 20-odd years. I've always believed you go in with your proposal, there's a counterproposal and you keep on going until someplace between those two proposals you arrive at something mutually satisfactory.

Q  Many experts say that if the U.S. pursues SDI, the Soviets will only increase their deployment of long-range missiles even faster. Isn't that a risk?
A  Except for one thing: While we're going forward with SDI, they're going to have to understand that there's no way we will let them achieve a great superiority in arms that puts us at risk. If they're prepared to face the fact that we're determined not to give them such an edge, then I think they'll see the wisdom of serious discussion.

Q  So you'd like to see the Soviets hold offensive weapons in place while the exploration continues?
A  Both of us have expressed the desire to reduce the number of weapons. I just have to believe they will understand that we really mean we're not trying to develop a defensive weapon in order to obtain a first-strike advantage—that we'll sit and talk with them before we take advantage of that weapon once it is proven practical.

Q  Is your SDI system non-nuclear?
A  That's right, yes.

Q  But we seem to be continuing underground testing of nuclear versions of SDI—
A  You must remember that we are still playing catch-up with the Soviet Union on nuclear weapons. They are several systems ahead of us in their modernization program. Our testing is routine, because we have several projects on the drawing board that would probably be eliminated if we achieved an agreement on reduction of weapons.