IN THE SOVIET WAITING ROOM 115can’t establish a relationship with him personally.’^87 Shultz accepted
the sense in having Rowny on board rather risk him causing trouble
in Washington. He also brought Perle with him. Shultz’s associates
suspected that Perle supplied secret messages to Weinberger about
the team’s discussions – and Shultz expressed his annoyance: ‘Richard
Perle is not a nice man.’^88 He gave a pep talk to the delegation stressing
that he and the President were reading from the same Bible.^89
The plan was for Shultz and Gromyko to meet in Switzerland on
7 January 1985. The Politburo had welcomed the chance to explore
possibilities for a relaxation of the tensions with America.^90 Gromyko
was looking forward to having some days in the political sun. After
Ustinov’s death he felt free to act as if only his opinion mattered in
questions of arms control.^91 He had no new ideas but assumed that the
world was safer when negotiations were taking place than when the
two sides refused to meet. Reagan and Shultz felt much the same.
Neither of them was optimistic, and Shultz felt no warmth or trust
towards Gromyko. They were calm to the point of coolness at their
encounter. Gromyko was adamant about Reagan’s favourite project:
‘SDI is not defensive. If you develop a shield against [strategic] ballistic
missiles, you could launch a first strike. We Soviets could do the
same. But why do it at all? Why not just eliminate nuclear missiles
themselves?’ After two days of negotiation the two sides came to
an agreement to meet again in mid-March. They declared it as their
common purpose to halt the arms race on earth and to prevent one
beginning in outer space. They committed their countries to the global
liquidation of all nuclear weapons. They scheduled a resumption of
arms control talks in mid-March.^92
Shultz was pleased about the current progress but he also recog-
nized the need to take account of the feelings of NATO allies. Nor did
he forget about Eastern Europe. But Shultz was in a buoyant mood; he
was confident that American could take proper advantage of the
factors in play around the world.^93 At the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on 31 January 1985 Shultz justified the return to the nego-
tiating table: ‘We have reason to believe,’ he said, ‘that the “correlation
of forces” is shifting back in our favour.’ He assured everyone that the
Reagan administration had no faith in the Politburo.^94 Reagan’s readi-
ness for talks annoyed many of his political supporters, and Senator
Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire confronted Shultz at the Senate
Armed Services Committee on 26 February 1985: ‘Do you think it is
wise to put the security of the United States and the West in the hands