GRINDING OUT THE TREATY 287the American delegation in Geneva, after thirty months of intensive
bargaining, had secured assent to ‘a fantastic agreement’ on intermedi-
ate-range missiles. He asked for further compromise in order to move
towards signature. Kampelman desired to confine the Strategic
Defense Initiative to being a research programme only. He was talking
without his normal precision. He knew that not even Gorbachëv was
demanding so restrictive a set of conditions. He angered Weinberger,
who contended that America should never forgo the right to deploy
the results of research.^10 The President came down yet again in favour
of facilitating progress at the negotiating table: ‘I’ve been reading my
Bible and the description of Armageddon talks about destruction, I
believe, of many cities and we absolutely need to avoid that. We abso-
lutely need to avoid that.’ Carlucci willingly conceded: ‘We certainly
need to avoid Armageddon.’ Weinberger sensed a slackening of the
presidential will and bluntly asserted: ‘The answer is SDI.’^11 These were
the last words recorded at the meeting, and victory lay with Shultz and
those who wanted a treaty. Weinberger never recovered from his
reverse. Within a few weeks he was to decide to step down from office.
Shevardnadze flew to America for talks with Reagan and Shultz. He
was in a confident humour. He told aides that the differences between
the two sides were merely a matter of ‘cosmetics’.^12 His mood changed
at the White House on 15 September 1987 when Reagan sharply
objected to the Soviet Army’s continued presence in Afghanistan: ‘If
you want to withdraw [your] armies, withdraw them!’ Shevardnadze
took umbrage at the tirades about Soviet policy on human rights and
on Eastern Europe. He bluntly posed the question to Reagan: ‘Do we or
don’t we want an agreement?’^13 When Shevardnadze proposed to put
Weinberger in touch with Soviet Defence Minister Yazov, Weinberger
bridled: ‘If they invite me to Red Square to make a public admission of
breaking the INF Treaty, I’ll come!’ But even Weinberger calmed down,
remarking that as Secretary of State for Health under Nixon he had got
on rather well with his opposite number, Minister of Health Petrovski.
Shevardnadze expressed regret that Petrovski had not taken over the
Defence Ministry. Reagan grew philosophical: ‘If suddenly the earth’s
civilizations are threatened by other worlds, the USA and the Soviet
Union will unite. Isn’t that so?’ Everyone wondered how to deal with
such a question. Bush did it with one of his jokes: ‘An interplanetary
spacecraft entered our galaxy. The CIA conducted surveillance on it
and picked up the following conversation: “Four heads are anyway
better than two.”’^14