42 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
disputant; and he told Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin that America
would sign no treaty until the USSR permitted the Americans to verify
compliance. He stressed that the Americans had plenty of information
about infringements of internationally agreed undertakings, including
the Soviet programme to develop biological weaponry.^42 The man who
represented the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Geneva arms talks that
Rostow headed was Lieutenant General Ed Rowny. He had resigned
from the Carter administration rather than endorse the terms of the
SALT-II treaty.^43
The true Reaganauts in the White House, according to Wein-
berger, were very few. Apart from himself, he named them as Ed
Meese, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Casey, William Clark, Richard Allen and
George Shultz. It is striking that he included his rival Shultz on the
list. Weinberger claimed that Shultz started out with an undesirable
readiness to accept ‘the received wisdom’ of the State Department.
As Weinberger saw things, though, Shultz eventually came over to
Reagan’s standpoint in foreign policy. Late in life, Weinberger was will-
ing to concede that they agreed on sixty to seventy per cent of public
business; he also admitted that the State Department’s professional
staff would have been a handful for anyone. He accepted that Shultz
gave constant support to the Strategic Defense Initiative.^44 It is un -
deniable that the American administration had deep divisions on
policy. But about the need to confront and challenge the USSR, there
was unanimity. The Reaganauts came to office with the express inten-
tion of putting an end to the idea of mere détente. The previous
administration under Jimmy Carter had gone a long way in the same
direction, and Reagan’s officials were determined to proceed further.
They were going to confront and challenge the Soviet leadership.