AT ARMS TALKS: TIGHT SECRECY AND TIGHTER SPACE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403310016-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: March 28, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403310016-7
?n1~R A~~
NT1+' Y'RK TIMES
Z8 "parch 1985
AtArthsTaJks. Tight Secrecy
6
and Tight~rSpac6:
By BILL SELLER
SONdal 00 TIM Now York Timm
GENEVA At the United States
Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency offices on the Avenue de la
4Paix here, Ambassador Max M. Kam
pelman has made a concession on the
issue of space. The chief American
arms negotiator will have the carpen-
ters move his office wall, ceding a bit of
territory to make more ? room for the
secretaries.
In the months ahead, Mr. Kampel-
man will make greater decisions, to be
sure. But the process of controlling nu-
clear weapons begins with the process
of shoehorning 90 people into offices
built for half that many.
The negotiations that
early March nuclear and space
arms have been described as the most
complex bit of superpower bargaining
undertaken in the nuclear age.
The Russians and Americans are dis-
cussing long-range nuclear weapons,
the medium-range nuclear balance in
Europe, and the contentious new third
category of space weapons.
Secrecy Above All,
To accommodate this intricate as-
signment, the Americans have assem-
bled a miniature foreign policy estab-
lishment, complete with seven ambas-
sadors, dozens of advisers, treaty law-
yers, interpreters,' archivists and
cablegram writers, with all the attend-
ant complications of office space and.
telephone hookups, hotels and cars,
~diplomatic protocol and bureaucratic
And fives
secrecy: under the negotiating
ground rules, which establish Geneva
as a demilitarized zone in the war of
words, American officials refused to
discusk even the most humdrum
aspects of the anonymity., without a
p Each el of the three American chief
negotiators willgolwork flanked by
representatives. Government
agencies, each
wi its own perspective
and its own, sometimes conflicting, bu-
reaucratic imperatives. ' ?
There is the Arms Control and Disar-
mament Agency, which is nominally in
charge of arms control. There is the
State Department, watching over the
broader picture of East-West relations.
The civilian leadership of the Defense
Department and the military leader-
ship of the joint Chiefs of staff each.
have representation to advise the dele-
Intelligence Agency. fhrujah
now ere
publicly acknowI ged, is everywhere
!Mresented. one o main jobs is to
assure that a tree can be verified
witiheusttng mte genre-ga ring
abilities.
7 Rank as Ambassadors
The three American chief negotia-
tors and their four deputies have all
been awarded the rank of ambassador,
entitling them to comfortable houses
and chauffeur-driven cars, maids, an
entertainment allowance and the use of
y mov
o the
ues
ays
The lower-ranking members of the `L`
- . i The he senior diplomat on either side
hotels, where they will live on a i75
daily allowance that, the officials say,
leaves little for luxuries in a city as ex-
pensive as Geneva, even with the dollar
in robust condition. -
Some in the delegation, like the
strategic arms negotiator, John G.
Tower, and the intermediate-range
Offices Seem Vulnerable ,
They most of their working
week on ve rented floors of a nonde-
script office over the Zonca lamp store
and the Permanent Mission of the Re-
public of San Marino, behind,a Marine
guard and a sign detailing the proper
handling of document burn bags.
In contrast to the Russians, who op-
erate behind the tall iron fence of their
United Nations mission, the American
offices, readily accessible by an under-
ground garage and a cramped eleva-
tor, seem vulnerable, And this is known
to worry top officials,
A typical. negotiat4-mee i ig will
begin with the two teams facing -off
across a large conference table, depu-
ties and aides arrayed behind them. If
it is Thursday, these "plenary" ses-
sions will be held in the Americans'
eighth-floor conference room, deco.
rated with tennis and ice hockey prints.
the
e t
On T
d
Soviet
reads a statement, slowly and formal-
ly, allowing time for an interpreter to
translate. , - ? '
After this formal exchange, the dele-
gations usually break up into sub-
groups of two to six people. The chief
negotiators go off together, and repre-
sentatives of each agency pair off with
their counterparts.
'
negotiator, Maynard W. Glitman, have ! These "post-plenary bilaterals,"
as
brought their wives. Most will be sepa- they are called, are less formal, but
rated from their families half of the ; still carefully orchestrated. ? ? ;;
time, on a rhythm of two months in "What your chief negotiator said
Geneva followed by two months in I about mobile ICBM's today seems to
Washington, possibly for years. contradict what he said on the subject
A nurse at the American mission, two weeks ago," a participant might
who has attended to the fatique and in. begin. "Can you explain this?"
somnia of previous arms delegations, Aside from the full sessions, much of
said this back and forth makes, for a the haggling is done in English.
punishing life. . Of_ the top seven Americans here,
"It's hard," said the nurse. "It's only Warren Zimmermann, a former
stressful. It's long hours and it's lonely. deputy chief of the American Embassy
There are strains on those who bring in Moscow who serves as Mr. Kampel-
their wives, because the wives sit in the man's deputy, speaks Russian. But all
hotel with the kids without anything to three top Soviet negotiators are fluent,
do. And there are worse strains on
those who do not bring their families. in English, and the chief negotiator,
Of course, it must affect their work.- lican Viktor P. Karpov, is known for wordplay.
During a 1976 negotiation, an Amer- `
was suggesting a definition of mis.
sile launch weight, the weight of the
missile free of its launch-pad append-
ages.
"Excuse me," Mr. Karpov interrupt-
ed. "I thought in America there was no
free launch"
.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403310016-7