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On the evening of Andropov's Oct. 26 ultimatum, Negotiator Kvitsinsky and his wife were attending a dinner party at Nitze's Geneva apartment. As the meal ended, Kvitsinsky privately told Nitze that he had just learned of the ultimatum, and he noted that Andropov had also made a new bargaining offer. The gist of it was that the U.S.S.R. was prepared to reduce the number of SS-20s targeted on Western Europe from 243 to "about 140," down from a previous offer of 162, if NATO would cancel its plans for new missiles altogether. In addition, the Soviets would stop adding to their arsenal of SS-20s in Asia, which currently numbers 117. Said
Kvitsinsky: "Why don't you suggest equal reductions on both sides?"
Translated from arms-control jargon, Kvitsinsky was saying that if the U.S. would offer to give up the entire NATO deployment of 572 single-warhead cruise and Pershing missiles, the Soviets would agree to reduce by 572 the number of warheads on its missiles in Europe. Kvitsinsky sweetened the offer by explaining that he and his military advisers had calculated that this would leave the Soviet Union with only 120 triple-warhead SS-20s, fewer than in Andropov's latest offer. The bottom line, of course, was that the U.S. would still be left with no missiles.
Nitze was interested in drawing Kvitsinsky out to see if the Soviets might be willing to raise above zero the number of U.S. weapons permitted. For the West, this was a crucial point: the U.S. has never accepted the idea that the Soviets could veto any NATO deployments. Nitze probed further at a reception at the Soviet embassy a few days later. "Is there room in here for a reduction, say, of 472 that would leave us with 100 weapons on our side?" he asked. "No," Kvitsinsky tersely replied. "It is 572 or nothing." Nitze's response: "Under those circumstances, it is of no interest to us."
On Saturday, Nov. 12, Kvitsinsky made a highly unusual late-night telephone call to Nitze's home, urgently requesting to see him the next day. The pair met in Geneva's Botanic Garden, a park located across from the U.S. headquarters. "I am under instructions to give you the following message," Kvitsinsky said. "If the U.S. Government were to propose equal reductions from 572 to zero on your side and 572 from our side, my government would accept it." The Soviets, he said, would also temporarily set aside a longstanding Geneva sticking point: Soviet insistence that independent British and French nuclear forces be counted in an INF agreement. Nitze said that he would pass on the idea, but, he warned, "I'm certain that the U.S. Government will not convert a Soviet proposal into a U.S. proposal."