MEET THE PRESS - September 21, 1986

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tactical mistakes in giving the Zakharov arrest such high visibility and in down playing the arrest of Daniloff at the very beginning. But those are mistakes of bureaucratic management.

On the Soviet side we have this problem that you, Barry, mentioned; namely, here's a letter by the President to Gorbachev saying the man is not -- Daniloff is not an intelligence agent. And nevertheless they persist in calling him a spy. Whatever they think, normally the assurance of the President should have been enough to get off this problem. I conclude from this that the KGB is a major influence in Soviet policy making and that Gorbachev is very reluctant to cross them.

MR. SCHWEID: Is it possible that Gorbachev did not have a hand in the arrest in the first place?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: No, I think it's probable that Gorbachev knew about the arrest in the first place, went along with it, but then in trying to resolve it has to take into account the sensitivities of the KGB in a manner that a more established Soviet leader might not have to do.

MS. MITCHELL: Dr. Kissinger, what does it tell us the fact that neither Secretary Shultz nor President Reagan knew about the Zakharov arrest? What does it tell us about the way this administration is handling issues that ought to be of great sensitivity?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, I don't know whether you want to check the arrest of every Soviet spy with the President and the Secretary of State, but there should be some procedure to see to it that three weeks or four weeks before the visit of a Soviet Foreign Minister at least that an arrest is not given the dramatic publicity that this one did, especially since he seems have been a fairly minor league spy, but nevertheless that does not justify in any sense the Soviet behavior.

MS. MITCHELL: Well, without discussing the Soviet behavior, without judging that, how would you rate the crisis management by this administration?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, I would say that after the first few days of confusion which was in part caused by the fact that the government was dispersed, the administration has handled it properly and calmly.

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MS. MITCHELL: And in your view, do you think it is possible to proceed on summitry and arms control agreements without resolving the Daniloff case?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I think -- I agree with Secretary of State Shultz that there cannot be a successful summit without a resolution of the Daniloff case, because the Daniloff case won't get any easier two months from now than it is today and it's inappropriate to solve a hostage type situation at a summit, but I think that if it's resolved fairly quickly, summit preparations, that seem to be on train, can and should go forward.

MR. SCHWEID: I feel I must ask you, Dr. Kissinger, if you think this Administration really wants agreements with the Soviets. It seems to me every time we're on the eve of a major meeting, there is some blast, either accusations of Soviet cheating, or the other day, the to-do about the 25 Soviet diplomats. In fact, evidently, the Soviets were below the figure already. What is the Administration doing?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I think you might argue that there may be some elements in the Administration that are very dubious about negotiations with the Soviets, but you could also argue that there are other elements in the Administration that are maybe to eager for the fact of a summit and that the difficulty has been to reconcile the various points of view. I have no doubt that President Reagan and Secretary of State Shultz want a meeting and I believe that the real debate in America should address the substance of what we want to negotiate with the Soviets rather than the mechanics of how we get to the negotiations.

MR. KALB: Well, let's address that, Dr. Kissinger. Do you feel, yourself, that the Administration should sacrifice, to whatever degree you like, the Star Wars program of the President in order to get a major deal that cuts back on the offensive strategic forces of the two sides?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, it depends what you mean by sacrifice. No, I do not believe we should sacrifice the Strategic Defense Initiative. I think we have an opportunity caused by the fact that President Reagan is the most popular President in a long time and able to deliver on any

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agreement he makes and by the fact that the Soviets have to reassess
the direction in which they have been going for decades to make a
fundamental in strategic relationships between the United States and
the Soviet Union.

But this requires that we do something other than playing with
numbers and responding to Soviet proposals that are designed more or
less to keep the status quo. I believe defensive and offensive weapons
should be negotiated concurrently. I think the limit of defensive
weapons should be related to limits on offensive weapons. And the
lower the limits of offensive weapons the lower can be the limits on
defensive weapons, but I do not agree that we should give up the concept
of strategic defense or the approach to strategic defense.

MR. KALB: Dr. Kissinger, we went down that route in 1972. You negotiated both offensive and defensive weapons at the same time. It was then followed by a decade of build-up on the Soviet, a decade of some neglect on the American side. It wasn't a great success.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, what also happened was that following
this agreement we had Watergate in the United States and the disintegration
of executive authority. We then had a violent debate in the United
States in which every negotiation with the Soviets came under attack
from two opposite directions. I think now that the American political
structure is more unified, we should be able to conduct negotiations
that are practical, precise and whatever went wrong in the 70's had
nothing to do with the fact that offensive and defensive weapons were
negotiated concurrently.

If we separate defensive from offensive weapons, then five years
down the road, we're going to be faced with the problem that at the
level that it's now being discussed, 8000 warheads, that is still
enough to destroy humanity several times over.

MS. MITCHELL: Dr. Kissinger, aren't you saying that if we could
reach and agreement with low enough numbers on offense, we wouldn't
need as much defense and --

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Absolutely.

MS. MITCHELL: Since it's not to be deployed for ten years or more

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that we could really be, while guarding the concept, at least delaying
Star Wars. Isn't that the outlines of an agreement?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I would not put defensive weapons into a separate category and when you delay deployment, you run up against the history that the United States has never abandoned a moratorium that it has voluntarily accepted. We had trouble even with SALT II that we didn't ratify and are observing and now we're accused of not observing a non-ratified agreement that would have lapsed, any way, by the end of this year. So, I believe limits should be and can be established and they should be established symmetrically between offensive and defensive weapons, but I do not agree that there should be a deployment moratorium on strategic weapons.

MR. KALB: Dr. Kissinger, thank you very much for being our guest today, sharing your thoughts. In a moment, a different perspective from Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, when MEET THE PRESS returns right after these messages.

(Announcements)

MR. KALB: We are back on MEET THE PRESS discussing the current state of U.S.-Soviet relations now with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democrat from New York. In addition to everything else, he was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He comes to us from the NBC news room in New York. Senator, I'd like to begin by asking you the same question I asked Dr. Kissinger, do you feel that if what we are now seeing is a possible deal involving the release of Nicholas Daniloff --

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Marvin, stop right there. No deal. What is this talk of a deal? The Soviets have arrested an American journalist, accused him of espionage, for which the penalty is death. The President has solemnly assured Mr. Gorbachev this is not so. Two days after his, letter they indict him. Now Mr. Gorbachev has twice called, in effect, the President a liar. No. No deal.

MR. KALB: Okay, but, Senator, I have a feeling, covering this story, lots of other reporters as well, even on this panel, that some kind of a deal is being negotiated on both sides. And Mr. Shevardnadze said at a news conference last night that he thought some resolution of

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this deal could take place this coming week at the UN.

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Oh, Mr. Shevardnadze will trade Sakharov for Mr. Daniloff and say they were both spies. No. I mean -- and the point is if the Administration shows it's willing to do this, it shows it wants a domestic -- I'm sorry, it shows it wants a summit so badly that it will, you know, call into question the honor of the United States, its willingness to protect its people and go to a summit in which any agreement will be seen to have been reached under duress of domestic politics.

MS. MITCHELL: Senator --

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: And I would plead with the Senate -- President, don't do that.

MS. MITCHELL: Senator, let me ask you about those who say that President Reagan is now getting trapped by the same thing that Jimmy Carter was trapped by, that he's placing the importance of Daniloff above possible arms control agreements that are close to being negotiated, perhaps European missiles. Why place Daniloff at such a high point that everything else is sacrificed?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Because the Soviets have decided to do it themselves. They arrested him. Incidentally, they don't seem to -- arrested "Misha" the man who gave the secrets. The President assured them, as Dr. Kissinger said, in 1963 -- I guess it was Marvin who said it -- just in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy wrote Khrushchev saying a Yale professor was not an intelligence agent. They said, "All right, all right." Now, they have escalated -- this is testing the President. And if he wants the summit so bad to take that, then they go in two points ahead at the outset.

MR. SCHWEID: Look, Senator, the debate really, I don't think, in this country, is over whether Daniloff is innocent or guilty. Can't the United States save its honor by saying Daniloff is innocent and we trade, because God knows we did that at least twice before.

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: No American journalist has ever been accused of espionage in the United -- in the USSR. There was one exception under Stalin. He threw Anna Louise Strong out of Moscow in 1949,

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because she was a Maoist, nothing to do with us.

MR. SCHWEID: Well, not necessarily journalists, but businessmen, professors, as you have mentioned, they have held people before, accused them of crimes. The United States has traded --

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Accused them of --

MR. SCHWEID: Senator -- but in the process, the United States has been able to secure the release of five prominent dissidents. What's wrong with such a deal this time?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Oh, the Carter Administration did something very nice. Mr. Crawford was arrested for -- in retaliation to our picking up two UN employees who were Soviets, who were picking up submarine matters. We paid his fine. He went home. They went to trial. They went to the slammer, to jail, 50 year sentences, then we traded for five dissidents.

MS. MITCHELL: Senator --

MR. SCHWEID: And they didn't stay a year in jail.

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Traded dissidents for the spies, not the American.

MS. MITCHELL: Senator, didn't we already concede equivalency when we agreed to the release of Daniloff and Sakharov, simultaneous releases?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: I think, no. I think that has been a practice, and maybe we should have been careful here, of remanding the accused person to his Ambassador.

MS. MITCHELL: So, you think that at this point we should not proceed on summitry, on arms control or anything else?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Oh, arms control? Yeah. But summitry? If the President wants to go meet the man who's called him a liar, that's the President's choice. But no decent interval. No deal. We stand for something in the world and the world has to see us do it.

MR. KALB: Senator, we hear you loud and clear. I'd like to ask your judgment of your colleagues. What do you think the Congressional view is now about proceeding toward a summit if -- if -- Daniloff is still being held in the Soviet Union?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Marvin, I think the Senate would see it as a -- any agreement -- as reached under the duress of domestic politics, Gotta

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show something for the six year build-up and all the talk about evil empire and so forth. I -- no one can speak for the Senate, but I can report the cloak room talk, which is that -- "better not send us an agreement reached in those circumstances, because we think they were reached in conditions of weakness."

MR. KALB: Do you think that the club room talk also has it that President Reagan is really not as tough on the Soviet Union as his rhetoric would suggest?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Yeah. And that's been a friendly understanding for, oh, four or five years. I mean, that's what he says. He's actually a decent man and a -- not an aggressive man. Well, you can be a decent man and be aggressive, but we want to strengthen the President in this situation, because we think he needs it.

MS. MITCHELL: Senator, let's talk about the UN for a moment, since you know that arena so well. Was the United States correct, last Wednesday, in ordering the expulsion of 25 people whom we say are KGB agents?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: We were entirely --

MS. MITCHELL: Did we do it too publicly?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: We were entirely within our rights. We'd have been better off had we done it 30 years ago or 20 or 10 or at the outset of this Administration. It would have been better if we had said we're doing it because these particular people are intercepting telephone calls all over Manhattan from their tower in Riverdale. It would have been a little more specific. One of the things that comes of avoiding what is a duty is when you do do it, people say, hey, you know, you changed the rules.

MS. MITCHELL: Was it smart to do it right now? Was this not escalating the whole Daniloff problem and adding just another element that the Soviets could view as provocative?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Yeah, I think I'd have kind of kept it clear, Daniloff is not an agent, get that man out of the Soviet Union fast, then we'll talk about anything you want.

MR. SCHWEID: The United States intends to keep chopping away 25

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every six months until the Soviets are reduced to 105 diplomats, the theory that most of these people are spies, that was true in your time. Has there been a change? Why make such a public issue over something that the UN Secretary General says is illegal in the first place?

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: May I say, I think that with respect to -- the Secretary General is not correct. That we have that agreement. Under the headquarters agreement, we have that power. May I say, I would have thought the United States should, first of all -- had addressed the Soviet spies in the UN Secretariat. They are there in direct violation of Article 100 of the charter. We know that they know that we know.

When I was Ambassador, their number one man in the UN defected to us. It was very quiet, but for two years we knew the name, rank and serial number of every KGB agent in that glass building. And those are the ones we really should be indignant about. I mean, we can assume their Mission has spies. Half their Tass correspondents are spies, KGB people. But the real issue is principle. And we haven't held to the charter -- we'd be better off I think.

MR. KALB: Senator, thank you very much for being out guest today and sharing your views.

The indications are that sometime during the next two weeks, when SHultz and Shevardnadze are at the United Nations, the Daniloff case may be resolved, opening the door to a summit. We'll see.

That's it for now. Thank you all for joining us and we'll see you next Sunday.

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