PRESENTING THE SOVIET PACKAGE 167the General Staff had bounced the Kremlin into a decision. The feeling
was the same in the KGB, whose leaders were accustomed to being
consulted about any big change of policy that involved state security.^33
Akhromeev arranged for the production of a diagram that in -
dicated the three stages in a visual format. He rushed the revised text
to Gorbachëv in Pitsunda. Gorbachëv immediately signed it off and
ordered Pravda to publish it as his own declaration.^34 Meanwhile on
11 January Gorbachëv finished a confidential letter to Reagan, object-
ing to American attempts to make the current talks on trade with the
USSR conditional upon the satisfaction of demands about human
rights. Gorbachëv warned that Washington’s posture would ‘bring no
benefit’. But at the same time he stressed a desire for the ‘normaliza-
tion’ of relations.^35 The letter gave no hint of the arms reduction
proposals that he was on the point of making public. In Washington
on 14 January, Ambassador Dobrynin alerted Shultz in vague terms
while omitting to specify the contents. The same day in Moscow, Gor-
bachëv at last signed another letter to Reagan expounding the general
rationale of his proposals for staged disarmament. He indicated a
desire to move away from the ‘extremely dangerous path’ involving the
development of space weapons. Instead he called for the total abolition
of nuclear arms. According to Gorbachëv, this would remove any need
for weaponry in outer space.^36
He knew that his letter would reach the White House after his
declaration was published. He intended it this way. The idea was to
preserve the element of surprise and achieve the maximum of impact
worldwide. He was reckless about the established etiquette of dealing
with the other superpower.
Gorbachëv’s declaration called for the global elimination of
nuclear weapons by the year 2000. The first stage would last between
five to eight years and involve a halving of stocks of strategic weap-
onry, leaving just 6,000 warheads on either side. Nuclear arms testing
would undergo an immediate ban. Intermediate-range missiles of all
types would disappear from Europe. The rationale was not to with-
draw weapons but to destroy them. The Soviet Union and America
were expected to lead by example. There would be an interdiction on
passing strategic weapons to any third country; and ‘England’ and
France were expected to guarantee that they would cease to develop
such missiles. The second stage, starting in 1990 and lasting between
five and seven years, would see the other nuclear powers joining the
disarmament process. Soviet and American forces would continue to