The legacy of Reykjavik and the future of nuclear disarmament

Abstract

Twenty-five years ago in Reykjavik, Iceland, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev walked to the threshold of a nuclear-free world—and then turned back. Reykjavik has since become synonymous with the unforeseen and anticlimactic in nuclear diplomacy. Another feature of Reykjavik’s legacy is less well-understood—its constructiveness. The authors contend that nuclear disarmament should serve as the public keystone of US efforts to reduce nuclear threats across the board and compare and contrast the geopolitical and diplomatic contexts of 1986 with today. The authors identify three historical parallels—fiscal pressures, nuclear accidents, and missile defense; and they identify three discontinuities—a transition from global bipolarity to multipolarity, a shift in US priorities from arms cuts to nonproliferation, and weakening support for international law in US domestic politics. From this comparative analysis, the authors deem Reykjavik to have imparted three core lessons: Disarmament agreements are achievable if the right conditions exist. Even if unrealized, good-faith disarmament efforts provide the diplomatic framework and global credibility needed for nuclear diplomacy to succeed. And Reykjavik’s successes and shortfalls testify to the crucial importance of leadership in making progress on the entangled matters of nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament.

After two exhausting days of debate, negotiation, and concession in Reykjavik, Iceland, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had come to a dead end. An improbable agreement for nuclear disarmament was in jeopardy because the delegations quibbled over one word: “laboratory.” Could the United States test its Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—an embryonic antiballistic missile system known as “Star Wars”—in space, or should research and development stay grounded? ¹

When the discussions stalled, Gorbachev’s foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, warned of history’s final verdict: “I feel that we have come very close to accomplishing this historic task. And when future generations read the record of our talks, they will not forgive us if we let this opportunity slip by” (NSAEBB, 2006: 15:7–8).

Yet the opportunity did slip by. The regret was palpable. US Secretary of State George Shultz appeared dejected when he addressed the press afterward. Reagan later confessed that his “hope for a nuclear-free world soared briefly” that afternoon in Reykjavik, “then fell, during one of the longest, most disappointing—and ultimately angriest— days of my presidency” (Reagan, 1990: 675).

Reykjavik’s legacy remains unresolved 25 years later. The summit of October 11–12, 1986 was the nearest the world has come to abolishing nuclear weapons. Antinuclear doves and experienced diplomats alike were despondent over the opportunity lost. But Reykjavik was never meant to be a watershed. The original agenda was modest—to prepare for upcoming summits in Washington and Moscow. American and Soviet negotiators were stunned when their principals raised the prospect of mutual nuclear disarmament. As a result, Reykjavik has become synonymous with the unforeseen and anticlimactic in the intervening years.

A third aspect of Reykjavik’s legacy is less well understood—its constructiveness. James Matlock, an American negotiator at Reykjavik and later US ambassador to Moscow, deemed the summit “a psychological turning point” (Matlock, 2004: 239). True, the United States and Soviet Union never reached full accord on disarmament. The Reykjavik talks were nevertheless pivotal to achieving the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and the 1991 Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START I). As Gorbachev himself concluded when he returned to Moscow that October day, “[W]e drew the conclusion that the necessity for dialogue ha[d] increased even more.” He remained “an optimist” (NSAEBB, 2006: 19:1).

If Reykjavik showed that disarmament talks could generate progress on interrelated matters, it also proved that disarmament was no fantasy; on the contrary, it was achievable given the right conditions. Reagan and Gorbachev overcame years of distrust and conflict to contemplate a world without nuclear arms. The Soviet economy’s feebleness and the Chernobyl disaster helped to impel this push for nuclear disarmament. The ongoing global recession and the nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station should spur global statesmen to similar ends. For there to be continued progress toward Reagan and Gorbachev’s common dream, however, today’s leaders must display equal vision and boldness in pursuit of nuclear abolition.

The rocky path to Reykjavik

Reagan entered office at a moment of extreme distrust between the superpowers. His early presidency has been called “the most dangerous [period] … in Soviet–American relations since the Cuban missile crisis” (Gaddis, 2005: 357). This enmity resulted from developments in the Middle East in the late 1970s. Soviet support for the Islamic Revolution in Iran, where rebels took 52 American hostages, and the Red Army’s invasion of Afghanistan worked together to sabotage US–Soviet détente. Resurgent US anticommunism helped to vault Reagan to electoral victory in 1980. More than 50 senior officials in his administration, including the president himself, belonged to the Committee on the Present Danger, a hardline foreign policy group that objected to arms control agreements. ² Reagan quickly increased the US military budget from less than $175 billion in 1979 to nearly $230 billion in 1981—the same proportion of GDP in 2010 would have amounted to over $1 trillion. His administration moreover issued provocative statements of nuclear brinksmanship, drawing on the conclusions of Team B, a group of intelligence outsiders who judged the CIA to have underestimated Soviet military capabilities and bellicosity. This truculence deepened the worries of a Soviet leadership already concerned about the upcoming deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles and medium-range Pershing II missiles in Europe.

Reagan crystallized the more confrontational US posture in a speech on March 8, 1983, before a meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals in Florida. Branding the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” Reagan lambasted those who “would place the United States in a position of military or moral inferiority” by supporting a freeze in both sides’ nuclear arsenals (Zelizer, 2010: 318). Soviet actions and anxieties also heightened tensions. MiGs shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 after it strayed into Soviet airspace in September. Then, in November, the KGB alerted Moscow that a NATO nuclear-release exercise code-named “Able Archer ’83” could camouflage a real first strike. CIA Director Robert Gates later acknowledged that US intelligence had “failed to grasp the true extent of their anxiety” (Hoffman, 2009: 100). Gorbachev captured the tense state of affairs, observing, “Never, perhaps, in the postwar decades was the situation in the world as explosive … as in the first half of the 1980s” (Fischer, 2007).

How, then, can the events at Reykjavik three years later be explained? The historical record points to two geopolitical and two personal causes. First, Reagan realized that the Soviets had a legitimate fear of US belligerence. This understanding hastened a power shift in Reagan’s foreign policy team from ideological Cold Warriors to a more pragmatic group that included Secretary Shultz and Special Adviser on Arms Control Paul Nitze.

Second, Gorbachev’s election as Soviet general secretary following a trio of geriatrics—Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Che-rnenko—re-energized Soviet domestic and foreign policy. Reagan commented that he had a keen interest in better relations as early as 1984, but the Soviet leaders “kept dying on him” (Reagan, 1990: 25). In contrast to years of sclerotic policy, Gorbachev was highly critical of the status quo, urging “new thinking” to inject vitality and creativity into the communist system. In domestic affairs, he tried to revamp the stagnant Soviet economy through perestroika and make the government more accountable through glasnost. In foreign affairs, he challenged policy makers not to remain “firmly stuck in the logic of antagonism” and instead find approaches based on mutual security rather than respective advantage (Gorbachev, 1987: 14).

Third, plummeting oil prices, environmental degradation, and structural inefficiencies had weakened the Soviet economy substantially. Gorbachev responded by appointing officials with reputations for non-doctrinaire thinking: Shevardnadze and Anatoly Chernyaev in the Foreign Ministry and Alexander Yakovlev in the Central Committee. Gorbachev and his modernizing allies saw deep cuts to the overgrown military-industrial sector as essential for socioeconomic recovery. “The hypertrophy [of] military might,” Shevardnadze later remarked, “had reduced the state to the position of a third-rate country” (Matlock, 2004: 192). Reductions in military spending, particularly that lavished on the nuclear weapons complex, was a major and often overlooked component of perestroika.

Fourth, the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown on April 26, 1986 reinforced Gorbachev’s desire to limit and reduce the world’s glut of nuclear weapons. The accident contaminated large swathes of Ukraine and Belorussia, overwhelmed first responders, and exposed Soviet bureaucratic stonewalling. It also dramatized the USSR’s unpreparedness for a nuclear catastrophe. The Soviet leadership quickly grasped the event’s military implications. Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov admitted that before Chernobyl he had believed the Soviet Union could win a nuclear war. The disaster disabused him and Gorbachev of that notion. Nuclear weapons might even be unnecessary; an attacker could simply target Soviet nuclear plants.

The consolidation of Gorbachev’s power and his growing fear of nuclear weapons coincided with Reagan’s newly cooperative mood and long-standing antinuclear views to create a window of opportunity (Lettow, 2005). Thereafter, US–Soviet relations improved gradually, albeit fitfully. Reagan dismissed Gorbachev’s 1985 announcement of a unilateral cessation of nuclear testing as mere propaganda. The relationship began to warm, however, when Reagan and Gorbachev finally met in Geneva on November 29, 1985, the first superpower summit in seven years. The meeting was cordial, constructive, and, at times, even warm. Gorbachev recited a biblical verse—“There is a time to throw stones, and there is a time to gather them”—to express his hopes for improved relations (NSAEBB, 2005: 20:4). The summit ended with an unprecedented joint announcement that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” repudiating the analysis of such neoconservatives as Richard Pipes who had insisted that the Soviet Union was prepared to fight and win a nuclear war (Pipes, 1977). Most noteworthy, the summit served as an opportunity for each man to size up the other. This growing trust and understanding persuaded Reagan and Gorbachev that future deals were possible. Despite these positive signs, however, arms control talks remained stalled. As the clock chimed midnight on January 1, 1986, a US–Soviet thaw still seemed distant.

Two days in Iceland

The New Year was still young in Moscow when Gorbachev outlined a radical plan to achieve global disarmament by the year 2000. The speech occurred on January 15 and was widely heralded around the Soviet Union and the world. It was the first time either side had presented a concrete disarmament agenda with a specific target date. The plan entailed three stages. The first would last five years, during which the United States and the USSR would sign a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), reduce strategic nuclear weapons by 50 percent, and execute “deep reductions” in intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), including their complete removal from Europe. The second stage would include the remaining nuclear powers in multilateral negotiations for strategic arms cuts and the elimination of tactical nuclear weapons. In the third stage, the world community would destroy all surviving nuclear weapons and sign a global treaty to abolish them. The plan recapitulated many standing Soviet positions. Nonetheless, as David Hoffman has shown, Gorbachev and Soviet Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev viewed steep arms cuts as essential for Soviet recovery and nuclear disarmament as itself a vital goal (Hoffman, 2009).

The proposal caused a stir in Washington. Hardliners such as Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, and Gates at the CIA dismissed it as “a clever stroke” designed to put them on the defensive (Gates, 1996: 377). Reagan and Shultz were more sanguine. Reagan’s diary entry that night revealed surprise at Gorbachev’s boldness and enthusiasm for the proposal’s thrust. Shultz was charged with bringing the most hawkish national security staffers into line. Shultz informed them that despite their protests, “the president of the United States doesn’t agree with you.  …  [H]e thinks it’s a hell of a good idea” (Shultz, 1993: 705).

Gorbachev had supplied the framework. Now mutual trust sturdy enough to hammer out the finer points was needed. INF negotiations in Geneva made headway on verification matters and the United States endorsed the elimination of IRBMs over the summer. ³ However, the tête-à-tête at Geneva had convinced Gorbachev that face-to-face interactions were key to building trust. On September 15, Shevardnadze gave Reagan a letter from Gorbachev suggesting a meeting in London or Reykjavik to lay the groundwork for the Washington and Moscow summits. Reagan agreed, selecting Reykjavik because of its location geographically and symbolically halfway between the superpowers.

Most of the US security establishment had low expectations for Reykjavik. In contrast, Shultz and Reagan had higher—albeit still qualified—hopes. Shultz told the president they were “entering the crucial phase in the effort to achieve real reductions in nuclear forces.” He saw Reykjavik as an opportunity to agree on “basic elements” and believed they “were justified in aspiring to accomplish something useful there” (NSAEBB, 2006: 4:1–4).

Gorbachev prepared for the Reykjavik summit more thoroughly and inventively. In a Politburo meeting on September 22, Gorbachev warned that “US governing circles  …  do not want to allow a relaxation of tensions”; he felt the United States would “try to undermine our reforms” by accelerating the arms race (NSAEBB, 2006: 2:2). ⁴ Despite his well-founded concern that most American policy makers preferred confrontation to cooperation, Gor-bachev warned his subordinates not to give him dead-end proposals: “[W]hen we are putting our proposals forward, we have to take their interests into account.  …  [W]e will not get 100 [percent] satisfaction on any of the issues” (NSAEBB, 2006: 3:1). A few days before Reykjavik, Chernyaev gave his impression of Gorbachev’s strategy; namely, “to sweep Reagan off his feet by our bold, even ‘risky’ approach  …  [and] to get all we can out of an international situation currently favorable to us for a major step toward disarmament” (Chernyaev, 2000: 81).

The talks began on October 11 at Höfdi House, Iceland’s guesthouse for foreign dignitaries. The leaders would meet four times in two days with their translators and, when desired, foreign ministers. The groups arrived together at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Gorbachev noted the importance of the talks, since INF negotiations at Geneva were “at an impasse”; Reagan underscored the need for progress on START, prompting Gorbachev to name the essential features of an accord—mutual security, parity, and verification. Reagan seized on the opportunity to quote his favorite Russian proverb, “doverjai no proveryai”—“trust, but verify.”

Reagan was nonetheless a willing partner. His abhorrence of nuclear weapons dated back to his days in postwar Hollywood when he had planned to speak at an antinuclear rally in December 1945, only to be stopped by his nervous employers at Warner Bros. In Reykjavik, he explained to Gorbachev that he viewed the START, INF, and test-ban treaties as “interim steps” by which the world could “mov[e] toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons” (NSAEBB, 2006: 9:4). Gorbachev seized on Reagan’s words to unveil the package of proposals he hoped would break the logjam.

He had brought the Soviets closer to US positions on numerous items. START would be decoupled from INF, take into account missile throw-weight, and include a “substantial” reduction in heavy missiles, a weapon group in which the Soviets led. As for intermediate-range missiles in Europe, the Soviets would disregard British and French forces for purposes of negotiation. These measures, he believed, would smooth the way for a test-ban treaty. However, these components were conditional on an agreement not to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty or test SDI outside laboratories for 10 years.

Before the first meeting adjourned, Reagan raised concerns about what would prove the talks’ main stumbling block—the Strategic Defense Initiative. He viewed missile defense as the only guarantee against cheating or a “madman” who got his hands on a nuclear-tipped missile. He repeated his offer to share any working system with the USSR. Gorbachev was skeptical and intimated that the Soviet response to US missile defense would be a buildup of strategic forces to levels sufficient to break any shield.

Even with this discordant note, the Americans sang the package’s praises. Nitze had worked on nuclear arms control for 40 years and thought the offer to eliminate the SS-20s and cut Soviet strategic forces by half was “the best we have received in 25 years” (Thompson, 2009: 302). The second meeting was taken up by discussion of the package’s particulars. How would the two sides define strategic weapons? Would they set sub-limits for heavy bombers and Soviet heavy ICBMs? Would the 50 percent reduction be based on warhead numbers, delivery vehicles, or throwweight? ⁵ Would antimissile research be conducted in the atmosphere and outer space, or confined to the labs? Reagan, Gorbachev, Shultz, and Shevardnadze agreed to let the negotiators flesh out the details overnight.

By the time Nitze collapsed on a couch the next morning, he and Akhromeyev had ironed out most of the wrinkles, determining acceptable sublevels for a 50 percent reduction in strategic weapons, capping medium-range ballistic missiles at 100, and agreeing on measures to verify both. Trust and optimism were building. “Damn good! It’s what we came for!” Shultz told Nitze, who responded, “I haven’t had so much fun in years” (Thompson, 2009: 304–305). The detail work now mostly complete, Reagan and Gorbachev set off to try and secure a final deal.

Despite the progress, the two men began the third chat sounding displeased, posturing so as to preserve their bargaining positions. The tone quickly improved, and an agreement that would have reversed the arms race and lessened the risk of nuclear war was close at hand. Reagan raised the subject of global nuclear disarmament, noting that a US–Soviet pact could induce “other nations … [to] eliminate their own nuclear weapons” (NSAEBB, 2006: 15:7). With rough agreements already sketched on INF and START, Reagan and Gorbachev wrestled over procedures for negotiating a test-ban treaty and the linkage between adherence to the ABM Treaty and deep arms cuts. Reagan edged closer to the Soviet position on a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty while Gorbachev held firm that the package’s fate rode on Reagan’s willingness to restrict ABM research for a decade.

The fourth and final meeting began with renewed determination. Reagan, Gorbachev, and their advisers continued to discuss ABM Treaty compliance and the Soviet requirement for SDI to remain in the laboratory. The Americans came back with treaty language specifying the two parties abide by the ABM Treaty and “strictly observe all its provisions, while continuing research, development and testing which is permitted” (NSAEBB, 2006: 15:8). Gorbachev asked if the word laboratory had been purposefully omitted—it had. Then Shultz, Reagan, and Gorbachev clarified the stakes:

Reagan: It would be fine with him if we eliminated all nuclear weapons.

Gorbachev: [W]e can do that. We can eliminate them.

Shultz: Let’s do it.

It was an extraordinary moment in Cold War history. Gorbachev cited a “reservoir of constructive spirit” as the reason why he could make such far-reaching offers. But he could not agree to a disarmament package without the word laboratory in it. Reagan asked his counterpart to leave laboratory out as a favor, repeated his promise of US ABM Treaty observance, and pleaded with him not to kill the treaty over “a question of one word.” But Gorbachev refused to budge, feeling Reagan had not yet made serious concessions at Reykjavik. Moreover, he considered the requirement a “matter of principle” without which the USSR could not contemplate drastic arms cuts, let alone full nuclear disarmament (NSAEBB, 2006: 15:11–16). The press cameras waiting outside captured the two men and their advisers leaving the house. Their faces said it all. They had failed.

The lessons of Reykjavik for today

Gorbachev chose to accentuate the positive when he spoke to the press that day. The summit had “shown that accords are possible” and promoted trust and understanding on both sides (Gorbachev, 1987: 28). His optimism was well-founded. Though the initial assessment of Reykjavik was negative, progress on INF and START recommenced shortly. Gorbachev decoupled INF from the larger package and, on December 8, 1987, an entire class of feared quick-strike weapons was eliminated. The START agreement had to wait until July 31, 1991, when Gorbachev and Reagan’s successor, former Vice President George H. W. Bush, signed the treaty halving US–Soviet strategic forces.

What then is Reykjavik’s legacy? Gorbachev warned Reagan at Reykjavik that their window of opportunity was narrow. “Time passed; things changed,” the Soviet leader said; if they failed to agree, “Reykjavik would be simply a memory” (NSAEBB, 2006: 13:7). Circumstances have changed in the subsequent 25 years. The global balance of power has transitioned from a bipolar equilibrium to a messier arrangement, shifting US priorities from arms cuts to nonproliferation. Post-New START, US and Russian arsenals still outstrip the rest of the world’s combined. With nuclear weapon numbers projected to double in South Asia in 10 years though, US leadership is more vital than ever to building unity among nations against an overreliance on nuclear deterrence (Yusuf and Pandya, 2010). The global nonproliferation regime needs reinforcement to reverse long-term nuclear proliferation and stockpiling trends. As rising powers exert more influence, US support for Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires its signatories to pursue “good-faith” talks on nuclear disarmament, is more important than ever.

A deepened US commitment to disarmament talks and arms control treaties would strengthen the international system of laws, norms, and institutions that currently moderates nuclear risks. Unfortunately, US support for international treaties has waned, as evinced by the congressional commotion over New START’s ratification. Knee-jerk opposition to diplomatic achievements runs counter to Reagan’s record on arms control. In the absence of military will, prudent and constructive diplomacy remains the primary instrument of the national interest. Swift congressional ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would signal that nuclear disarmament remains at the heart of US global engagement.

The manifest continuities that link the historical contexts of 1986 and 2011 in fact indicate that disarmament remains a viable and beneficial end goal. Economic problems in the Soviet Union were a primary spur for Reykjavik. Current US fiscal pressures make military cuts inescapable. Drawing down the overbuilt US nuclear arsenal could serve a dual purpose, however, repairing the federal budget while improving the prospects of US nonproliferation initiatives. The recent nuclear disaster in Japan meanwhile echoes the tragedy at Chernobyl. The Soviet meltdown opened the eyes of many to the ungovernable hazards of nuclear power and war. It certainly impelled Gorbachev to make nuclear disarmament a central feature of his diplomatic agenda. The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station holds a corresponding warning for contemporary leaders and the public and should serve a similarly cautionary purpose.

Reykjavik’s foremost lesson, however, is the crucial importance of leadership. Reagan called Reykjavik a “major turning point in the quest for a safer and secure world” (Gaddis, 2005: 366). Gorbachev and Reagan built the trust necessary to use the window of opportunity afforded them at Reykjavik to peer over the horizon at a nuclear-free world. A comparable window is opening today. What the world needs are leaders with the courage, imagination, and will to look through it. Until then, the legacy of Reykjavik will remain in the grandness of its ambitions and the smallness of that one word—“laboratory.”