23% of GDP, compared to a mere 3% for South Korea. Yet, because South Korea is vastly more prosperous than the North, despite the fact that the North holds the vast majority of the peninsula’s land and resources, North Korea’s total military spending was almost three times lower than South Korea’s ($5 billion vs. $14 billion).
81. There were other contributory factors to the deficit, some Reagan’s doing and some not. 82. Weinberger said that Reagan told him this “frequently,” a point that Weinberger himself has made frequently. Among other examples, see Weinberger, In the Arena, 275. 83. Gorbachev’s remarks as recorded by Morris, Dutch, 561.
84. Alexander Bessmyrtnykh interviewed on “Reagan,” The American Experience, PBS. This book could be filled with such testimonies, from the Russian in the street, to military officials, to apparatchiks, to the Soviet ministry, to Gorbachev. I cut twenty pages of testimonies from this chapter.
85. Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, “Retrospective on the End of the Cold War,” A Conference Sponsored by the John Foster Dulles Program for the Study of Leadership in International Affairs, Princeton, NJ, February
25–27, 1993; and Bruce Olson, “SDI, Chernobyl Said to Break Cycle of Nuclear Buildup,” Executive News Service, February 26, 1993. His remarks are also published in Wohlforth, ed., Witnesses to the End of the Cold War, 31–32.
86. The Soviet press articles cited throughout this chapter offer examples of both perspectives. 87. Still, as Soviet officials and Gorbachev aides and confidantes attest—such as Anatoly Chernyaev and Nikolai Detinov—Gorbachev was at the very least fearful of a workable limited antimissile system. One of the better presentations of this Soviet thinking, provided by highlevel Soviet officials themselves, is a May 8, 1998 discussion held at a Brown University symposium, “Understanding the End of the Cold War,” a transcript of which is provided by Brown University.
88. Gorbachev, Memoirs, 407.
89. Chernenko reportedly said of SDI: “The goal is…to deprive [the USSR] of the possibility of a reciprocal strike in case of nuclear aggression against it.” Atanas Atanasov, “In Moscow, in March,” Rabotnichesko Delo (Sofia, Bulgaria), March 8, 1985, 6, published as “Marshal Tolubko Interviewed on Geneva, SDI,” in FBIS, FBIS-12-MAR-85, March 12, 1985, AA4.
On the Soviet TV program, “Top Priority,” Sergey Plekhanov of the Institute for USA and Canada Studies said that a “shield” or “astrodome which would protect the United States from Soviet missile[s] is a pie in the sky, there’s no possibility of building that.” He maintained that the real purpose of SDI was to ensure the United States a “first-strike capability.” “‘Top Priority’ Program Addresses U.S. Policies,” transcript published in FBIS, FBIS-30-JAN-87, January 30, 1987, A2.
90. These Gorbachev remarks were made at the 2:30–3:40 pm session on November 19. “Geneva Meeting: Memcons of Plenary Sessions and Tete-A-Tete,” November 19–21, 1985, declassified May 2000, RRL, Box 92137, Folder 2. Gorbachev told Reagan in a December 1985 letter that, “Viewing the SDI program from such a position the Soviet leadership inevitably arrives at one conclusion: in the current actual conditions, the ‘space shield’ is needed only by the side which is preparing for a first (preemptive) strike.” See Reagan, An American Life, 646.
91. Grinevsky speaking on May 8, 1998 at Brown University symposium, “Understanding the End of the Cold War.”
92. Slipchenko continued: “Marshal Sergeev eventually shut it [the program] down as ineffective. Why did the money get invested there? The investment began early, of course, and once it got started, it continued.” Slipchenko speaking on May 8, 1998 at Brown University symposium, “Understanding the End of the Cold War.”
93. Tim Weiner, “Lies and Rigged ‘Star Wars’ Test Fooled the Kremlin, and Congress,” New York Times, August 18, 1993, A1.
94. Quoted in Morris, Dutch, 544. In an April 28, 1987 interview Reagan said it was “very obvious” that Gorbachev “is faced with a tremendous economic problem, and a great deal of that problem has been aggravated, made worse, by their military buildup.” Reagan, “Interview with White House Newspaper Correspondents,” April 28, 1987.
95. A tense Gorbachev reported to his Central Committee that the White House “clearly wants to pull us into a second scenario of the arms race. They are counting on our military exhaustion. And they are trying to pull us in on the SDI.” Also at this session, a pained Gorbachev lamented that his government was “stealing everything from the people” in trying to keep up with the Reagan spending. The Soviet attempt to match the United States was “turning the country into a military camp.” These notes from the May 8, 1987 Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee Session are found in Anatoly Chernyaev’s diary, held at the Gorbachev Foundation. Credit goes to Peter Schweizer for finding these notes. Schweizer, Reagan’s War, 258.
96. Gorbachev said this at the third plenary meeting, held from 11:30 am to 12:40 pm. “Geneva Meeting: Memcons of Plenary Sessions and Tete-A-Tete,” November 19–21, 1985, declassified May 2000, RRL, Box 92137, Folder 2.
97. Likewise, Gorbachev said this at the third plenary meeting. “Geneva Meeting: Memcons of Plenary Sessions and Tete-A-Tete,” November 19–21, 1985, declassified May 2000, RRL, Box 92137, Folder 1, 2–12.
98. Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence (New York: Random House, 1995), 591. 99. Regan, For the Record, 297.
100. “Let there be no doubt,” Reagan said in February 1987 in reference to SDI and the technical challenge it presented to the Kremlin, “we have no intention of being held back because our adversary cannot keep up.” Reagan, “Address to the Conservative Political Action Conference,” February 19, 1987.
101. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 690–710.
102. These were the words of Reagan Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, referring to one such episode during the 1987 INF negotiations. Thompson, “Interview with Frank Carlucci,” 52.
103. Kenneth Adelman in Hannaford’s Recollections of Reagan, 5.
104. Reagan, “The President’s News Conference,” January 9, 1985. On January 14,
1988, he said flatly: “SDI is not a bargaining chip.” Reagan, “Statement on the Soviet-U.S. Nuclear and Space Arms Negotiations,” January 14, 1988.
105. Reagan, An American Life, 548, 608.
106. Reagan, “Statement on SDI,” March 23, 1987.
107. Reagan, “Interview With Foreign Broadcasters on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva,” November 12, 1985.
108. Reagan, “The President’s News Conference,” October 22, 1987.
109. Ed Harper testimony is published in Thompson, ed., Leadership in the Reagan Presidency, Pt II, 125.
110. Thatcher recalls a discussion she had with Reagan on SDI: He admitted to her that he was unsure whether it could work, though he felt it warranted investigation. Yet, said Thatcher, Reagan told her that even if SDI was not developed it would be an enormous economic burden on the USSR: “[The president] argued that there had to be a practical limit as to how far the Soviet government could push their people down the road of austerity.” Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 467. Richard Allen spoke to this: “I don’t believe Reagan saw SDI as a shield you could put over the United States, and it would be invulnerable. I believe that he thought that this was far out enough that if we put some big bucks behind it, the Soviets would have to fall for it.” Schweizer, Victory, 136, 277–78. Reagan’s new national security adviser, John Poindexter, said that Reagan “understood just what he had in the SDI system, and that it posed a grave challenge to the Kremlin.” For additional illuminating statements on SDI and the Reagan buildup as forces for change in the Soviet Union, see remarks by Soviet officials on the public television documentary, “Messengers from Moscow,” WNET-New York, PBS, 1995. 111. NSDD-153, January 1, 1985. NSDD on file at RRL.