10. IN THE SOVIET WAITING ROOM
Reagan was finding that all his pressure on the Soviet leadership under
Andropov seemed only to make them dig their heels in. Nevertheless
he resolved to maintain the pressure. In January 1984 he signed a
directive about how to handle future talks with the USSR. He wanted
a four-part agenda. His administration would insist that if the Soviet
leaders wanted a deal on ‘arms control’, they would have to entirely
change their behaviour on human rights, regional conflicts and bilat-
eral exchanges. He had no intention of reverting to the practice of
the détente years under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter, when the
Kremlin had been rewarded for making concessions in any one area
under discussion by America’s willingness to moderate its demands in
other areas. Such an approach, known as ‘linkage’, was anathema to
Reagan’s mind. He wanted to implement the most ambitious policy
towards the USSR since the Second World War. At the same time he
hoped to provide the USSR with ‘incentives to bring the Cold War to
an end’. He was firm but hopeful: ‘If the Soviet government wants
peace, then there will be peace.’^1
When he opened the National Security Planning Group on 27
March 1984, there was a clash between Shultz and Weinberger. Shultz
was worried about the dangerous lack of communication between
Washington and Moscow. He proposed to resume arms control nego-
tiations in Geneva. Weinberger had a visceral dislike of anything that
implied compromise:
We need to focus on the content of an agreement, not on agree-
ment for agreement’s sake. The Soviet Union has little interest in
giving the President a victory. They would only give him an agree-
ment for which he could not take credit. What are they interested
in then? A SALT-II agreement that did not provide for reductions.
To get an agreement, they will require us to make major conces-
sions.^2