140 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
Baldrige was scheduled to open negotiations with USSR Trade
Minister Nikolai Patolichev in Moscow on 20 May 1985. Perle, though,
refused to relent. He had commissioned a report on the perils of
allowing the Soviet economy to benefit from Western technological
inventions. He obtained the results he wanted to pose against Baldrige’s
initiative. The writers recorded that the USSR was interested in
buying automated production and control systems, computers, micro-
electronics, fibre optics and telecommunications as well as products
with an even more obvious military applicability. Their verdict was
that if such technology had been transferred to the Soviet Union,
Moscow would have saved up to $13.3 billion by avoiding the need to
develop the products for itself – and it would also have spared itself
between three and five years of research. Supposedly the USSR would
make savings of $136 million on ball-bearings alone in 1986–1991
under the terms of its current tender. The report had a stark conclu-
sion: it would cost the American economy $15 billion to match the
gains for the Soviet military-industrial complex.^13
Weinberger and Perle could see no point in budgeting to
modernize strategic weaponry while actively enabling the enemy’s
modernization. But they could do little against Baldrige at a time
when the State Department under Shultz was supporting the Moscow
economic mission.^14 Perle nevertheless objected to the supposed
premise that any arms agreement was better than none. He indicated
that the USSR was flouting the agreements that it had signed. Soviet
violations, he contended, ought to make everyone cautious – and he
evidently had the President and the Secretary of State in mind.^15 He
criticized British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe for his recent voic-
ing of concern about the Strategic Defense Initiative.^16 He also
complained of the American administration’s laxity about preventing
the transfer of sensitive advanced technology to the Soviet Union. He
described the CoCom framework of enforcement as weak and poorly
funded; he advocated the case for toughening it up and reducing the
categories of goods that were legally exportable.^17 Even Shultz had
objections to current commercial policy. While seeking to lessen the
tensions with the USSR, he opposed Reagan’s approval of selling sub-
sidized wheat to Moscow. He suggested that Soviet leaders ‘must be
chortling’ about paying less for bread than American housewives.^18
American frostiness annoyed Gorbachëv. When Italy’s Prime
Minister Bettino Craxi and Foreign Affairs Minister Giuliano And-
reotti visited in late May 1985, he affirmed a wish to dispel the