16. AMERICAN REJECTION
The American administration received Gorbachëv’s declaration very
coolly. His smooth, pacific diction failed to divert attention from the
corrugated implications of his new proposals. The proposed stages
for disarmament were framed so as to give the edge to the USSR. Gor-
bachëv, if he had his way, would render America inferior in firepower
in the next few years.
Washington talk was heavy with suspicion. At the Geneva summit,
Gorbachëv had broached the possibility of agreements on various cat-
egories of weaponry. Now he was presenting an all-inclusive package,
and nearly all of Reagan’s subordinates concluded that the General
Secretary was playing a cynical game to the world’s gallery. They
declined to take him seriously. Shultz was unusual in arguing for
the merits of a more nuanced approach. In conversation with John
Poindexter, the unobtrusive retired admiral who succeeded Robert
McFarlane as National Security Adviser in December 1985, he argued
that the declaration was far from being ‘warmed-over Soviet propa-
ganda’; and in discussion with his aide Hill, he described it as ‘a big
deal’.^1 He went to the White House to talk things over with the Presi-
dent. This was the first time, he stressed, that the Kremlin had put
forward a staged schedule for the complete elimination of nuclear
weapons. According to Shultz, something important was in the offing.
He speculated that Gorbachëv had cracked; and he urged Reagan to
take full advantage.^2 Reagan at first was more impatient than suspi-
cious: ‘Why wait until the turn of the century for a world without
nuclear weapons?’^3 But since the idea of getting rid of all such weapons
appealed to him, he listened attentively to Shultz’s analysis.
Unfortunately Gorbachëv had been too clever for his own good.
He had shown discourtesy to the Americans by releasing a copy of the
declaration just a few hours before it became public knowledge.
Ambassador Dobrynin forwarded the text of Gorbachëv’s introduc-
tory speech on Soviet TV only after the broadcast.^4 Shultz vented his