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FROM WASHINGTON STRAIGHT / JOHN MCLAUGHLIN

# THE SUMMIT ACCORDING TO HENRY

IN A SENSE the Strategic Defense Initiative (a/k/a Star Wars) is non-negotiable for both the United States and the Soviet Union. President Reagan wants it off the table in the sense that he wishes to press forward with research, testing, and deployment. Mikhail Gorbachev wants it off the table in the sense that he wants it dropped altogether—wants to deny the Strategic Defense Initiative any status at Geneva.

In an interview with me in Washington, Henry Kissinger made a salient, seminal point: The defensive Star Wars program should be put on the table at Geneva and the extent of its deployment made subject to negotiation, just as would be the case with an offensive weapons system; any pre-emptive Soviet attempt to separate deployment from research and testing must be resisted from the start.

The opening gambit of Gorbachev's strategy will be to take the conventionally extreme Soviet position: to try to force the U.S. to abandon the entire SDI program, principally through agitprop appeals to our Western allies, who have not shown themselves to be predisposed to Star Wars. The Russians know, of course, that Ronald Reagan will never agree to this, so their fallback position, wrapped in peace-loving rhetoric, will be ready for instant call-up: Okay, they will say, go ahead with SDI research, and go ahead with testing (within the ABM Treaty framework), but no deployment.

Kissinger is hawkish and correct on this point: "If the SDI is confined to research, or to research and testing, with no deployment, the system will be abandoned." The ABM Treaty's language would create an immobilizing web of ambiguity. "There would be an endless dispute whether that treaty permits or does not permit space-age testing," thereby killing strategic defense. "I consider Star Wars deployment as non-negotiable," Kissinger

adds. "We must have deployment," but we can "be prepared to limit deployment," treating strategic defense like an offensive weapon.

Gorbachev will have "won" the summit, says Henry, if President Reagan agrees to SDI research plus testing under the ABM Treaty, but no deployment. "I'm prepared to limit deployment but I do not agree to the proposition that defensive weapons should be put into a separate category from offensive weapons. If offensive and defensive weapons are limited concurrently," says Kissinger, then President Reagan "will have succeeded in Geneva."

Henry's insistence that the President stand his ground on SDI stems from his belief that an "historic" turnaround on nuclear war is within reach. The West "blackmails" itself with its own nuclear weaponry, contends Kissinger: Our lethal armaments hang over our heads like a sword of Damocles, extorting "unilateralism and pacifism." With Star Wars, each superpower would have its own shield to repel a nuclear onslaught, thus, in a sense, nullifying or tabling the nuclear option. An agreed combination of nuclear offense and defense would lead to a "concentration" of spending and effort on conventional forces. "That is why this is a turning point."

Kissinger believes that "the way is now open for negotiations." Gorbachev wants to make a deal because of the "domestic pressures which he faces," notably a beleaguered Soviet economy, his not quite yet consolidated power (a favorable arms accord would solidify it), and "changes in Soviet population composition," principally the increase in the number of mostly indigent Muslims in the southern reaches of the Soviet Union. "And I think Gorbachev is probably sincere in wanting a respite from the conduct of crisis-controlled foreign policy," observes Kissinger. That crisis management, in combina-

tion with domestic pressures, complicates (and potentially jeopardizes) Gorbachev's rule.

If Mr. Reagan does link offensive and defensive weapons at the summit, and persists in that linkage, Gorbachev will cave, according to Henry. He will then have the option of either going with a balanced agreement combining offensive and defensive elements, or being "forced to wait out Ronald Reagan—three years in the future—and after that, 18 months before the new President gets his feet on the ground, plus three congressional elections and a presidential election—a very uncertain prospect." That adds up to five years, a period long enough to undo Gorbachev's governance, and to put his nation into an intolerably deep economic hole.

## A Wedge?

HAS MR. GORBACHEV succeeded in driving a wedge between the United States and her Western European allies? "No," Kissinger believes. "I think actually he is a little bit too obvious, too clever by half. It is so manifest what he is trying to do. And his proposals are so one-sided when you analyze them carefully. He's not as effective as somebody who is more traditional."

Slimmed down since his White House days, the chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc., and counselor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University still conceptualizes more sharply than anyone on the Washington scene, in government or out. The essence of the Kissinger summit formula ought to guide Mr. Reagan and his negotiators at Geneva: Tie defensive weaponry (Star Wars) and offensive weaponry together for negotiation. But absolutely no capitulation on the testing and deployment of the SDI. Then the other pieces will soon fall into place. ☐

24 NATIONAL REVIEW / NOVEMBER 15, 1985