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Perle and other hard-liners remained insistent, during the arms-control strategy sessions chaired by McFarlane, that various provisions be added to make the proposals more favorable to the U.S. military. Even with the plan all but finished, Weinberger dug in his heels. At a top-level planning group meeting two weeks ago, headed by Reagan, the Defense Secretary said that the proposals would compromise U.S. military security. McFarlane challenged him to cite specifics. Weinberger could not come up with a single item. Admiral William Crowe, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered no support to the Secretary.
Reagan took all this in, say his aides, and indicated that he felt there was an opportunity to take the Soviets up on some of their offers. Weinberger retreated from his substantive attacks, instead questioning the timing. Shortly thereafter, Weinberger and Perle went off to Brussels for a NATO meeting. There the Secretary presented a tough and well-documented lecture, using a pointer and photographs, about alleged Soviet violations of existing arms-control agreements. He received qualified support for the American claims from the U.S. allies and helped negotiate an agreement between the U.S. and Britain on joint participation in SDI.
While Weinberger was still in Brussels, Reagan convened the National Security Council Planning Group last Tuesday to reach a final decision. Deputy Defense Secretary William Taft, sitting in for his boss, repeated the Pentagon case that there was no need at the moment for a new proposal, and that the terms had to be more favorable to the U.S. But Chief of Naval Operations James Watkins, representing the JCS, said the Joint Chiefs did not find the plan detrimental to U.S. military interests. Having put the numbers through the & wringer, he said, the military brass found them acceptable.
Shultz was also arguing forcefully for a new plan. There was, he told his boss, the "right political dynamic" to make the offer now. "I cannot go to Moscow without this," he reportedly said, "or you will be the one to look bad." When Reagan finally gave his approval the new instructions were quickly sent by cable to Geneva, and the outlines of the offer were incorporated in a letter from Reagan that Ambassador Arthur Hartman delivered in Moscow. As one State Department official put it, "Once it was out in two capitals, the Pentagon would not be able to reverse it."
After 64 full-dress negotiating sessions in Geneva since March, and with the summit just weeks away, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have now moved dramatically closer to defining areas of compromise on offensive weapons. "There is a very good prospect," said McFarlane last Friday, "that from Geneva there can come not a signed, sealed, delivered agreement, but a commitment on both sides to reductions and to a process of dialogue with regard to defensive systems that would truly be a watershed." In order to continue such a dialogue, Shultz will try to set up another summit for next year while he is in Moscow this week. His attempt may fail, because Moscow has stressed that there must first be some specific progress at the summit, before an ongoing process can be instituted.