THE MONTH OF MUFFLED DRUMS 229Strategic Defense Initiative. Shultz could not see why the two sides
could not at least start to discuss the subject.^44 Weinberger also urged
that the President should highlight the requirement for reliable pro-
cedures of verification. If America were to agree on arms reduction, it
had to secure firm safeguards. He warned against giving the impres-
sion that the American side was willing to makes compromises in
order to attain an agreement. Weinberger advocated a policy of re-
calcitrance.^45 He had his usual ally in Casey, who disliked any unequivo-
cal commitment to sweeping away all nuclear arms capacity. Casey
pointed out that America and the USSR were not the only powers with
such weaponry; he urged the desirability of moderating official opti-
mism about how to achieve cooperation with all of them. The world
would remain full of dangers in the years ahead.^46
Shultz replied with a rationale for American optimism. He asserted
that Reagan had succeeded in pushing Soviet leaders into assenting to
drastic cuts in nuclear weaponry. They had also essentially accepted
the four-part agenda that Reagan in 1984 had laid down for talks
with Moscow. Gorbachëv now recognized that he could achieve no
progress towards disarmament without giving way on human rights,
regional conflicts and bilateral exchanges. The American administra-
tion ought to get ready to resume the negotiations.^47
With this in mind, he drafted a ‘notional plan’ for Reagan to real-
ize the American agenda. Strategic nuclear stockpiles should be halved
and intermediate-range weaponry completely eliminated. This should
be done in five years in the first of three stages to the accompaniment
of agreed procedures for verification. If Gorbachëv would consent to
detaching the Strategic Defense Initiative question from talks about
offensive nuclear weapons, the American side should commit itself to
adhering to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty for the next ten years.
International citizen-to-citizen contacts should be facilitated in stage
one – and restrictions on foreign broadcasts and publications should
be lifted. The USSR and America should cease to interfere in the
world’s regional conflicts. In stage two, which would also last five
years, Shultz proposed to reduce each side’s strategic weapons stock-
piles from 6,000 warheads to a ‘small residual strategic force’. Free
movement of persons and information across national boundaries
had to be introduced; there should also be guarantees of freedom of
speech. The third and final stage would involve ‘a legal enforcement
regime for a world free of nuclear and mass destruction weapons’. All
obstacles to international trade would be dismantled.^48