CRUCIAL LINKAGES TO DANILOFF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100180001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 24, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 26, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100180001-3
ARTICLE A
ON PAGE FP
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR FILE ONLY
26 September 1986
Crucial linkages to Daniloff
By Robert R. Bowie
HE Daniloff case raises once more the issue of
linkage among various facets of relations with the
Soviet Union.
Nicholas Daniloff's arrest on the charge of espionage
is a blatant frame-up in retaliation for the arrest of
Gennady Zakharov in New York for spying. In essence,
Mr. Daniloff is an innocent hostage taken to provide the
basis for a trade. And Mikhail Gorbachev has com-
pounded the offense by virtually branding President
Reagan a liar after his personal assurance that Daniloff
was not a United States agent.
The choice of a correspondent as the victim may also
be intended to deter other foreign newsmen from con-
tacts with Soviet citizens and to restrain their zeal in
seeking out and reporting information from non-official
sources. Mr. Gorbachev's policy of "greater openness"
means more official briefings and access, not less control
of information and sources.
The Soviet effort to equate Daniloff and Mr. Zakharov
should be rejected, as the administration
seems to be doing. It should not agree to
any direct exchange, and any Package
deal for Daniloff's release should avoid
any implication of equivalence.
How should the United States re-
spond? Specifically, should it suspend ne-
gotiations on arms control or refuse to
hold any summit until Daniloff is released?
? A proposal for a global ban on chemical weapons is
on the table.
? The Vienna negotiations on conventional weapons
(MBFR), going on for years, continues.
Bringing these several negotiations or some of them to
successful conclusions will take patience and a readiness
to compromise on both sides. How far the Soviet Union
may be prepared to go on each topic can only be discov-
ered by testing them with concrete proposals in the
negotiations. But on many of the critical issues, the split
between the Defense and State Departments will make it
extremely difficult to develop and put forward realistic
negotiating positions.
Yet there is an overriding interest in attempting to
reach balanced agreements, especially with respect to
nuclear weapons. Fbr many years both sides have recog-
nized that the risk of nuclear war is a common danger. In
minimizing that risk and stabilizing and bolstering deter-
rence, suitable arms control agreements can make an
important contribution.
That interest is so vital that its pursuit through arms
control negotiations should not be made a hostage to
The holding of a
summit while the
Daniloff case re-
mains unresolved is
inappropriate.
Such negotiations are in various stages on a number of
fronts:
? The Stockholm Conference has agreed on a set of
military confidence-building measures.
? On intermediate-range missiles (INF'), both sides
have made some concessions, which bring them loser
together, though many specifics remain unsettled. Does the same
? The Genevaargument hold for going ahead with a
negotiations on strategic weapons have summit without regard to Daniloff's release? I do not
resumed with modified proposals, which may offer think so. The record of 11 summits since 1955 is mixed,
bases for compromise. As Mr. Reagan said in his UN but they can be useful for discussion of relations and
speech on Monday, he now recognizes the necessity for sometimes for completing negotiations on critical points.
considering both "the offensive and defensive sides of But they are seldom really essential.
the equation" and for cooperation between the two sides On balance, it seems to me that the holding of a
in moving toward greater reliance on strategic defense in summit while the Daniloff case remains unresolved is
order that neither side feels threatened. inappropriate and not justified by any sufficient benefit.
But he still adheres to his vision of a population shield The President could agree that necessary advance prep-
that would rid the world of the threat of nuclear weep- aations could go ahead if both sides desire, but with the
ors. His specific proposals, which would legitimize the explicit condition that his attendance is contingent on
deployment of strategic defense after a five-year period the release of Daniloff.
and negotiations for two years about "sharing the bene- Meanwhile, the US should be applying other forms of
fits of strategic defense and eliminating offensive ballis- pressure on the USSR to hasten his release.
tic missiles," will hardly appeal to the Soviets.
? Some constraints on nuclear testing may be attain- Robert R Bowie has been conemsed with, foreign.
able, if only under the Threshhold llreaty, although affairs for nearly 40 years on the Harvard faculty
Reagan continues to reject any comprehensive ban. in govern ment posts, and as a consulta
other Soviet actions, even as reprehensi-
ble as the seizure of Dani or.
Fbr a democracy, that is bitter medi-
cine - on occasion, too bitter to swallow.
President Johnson, who was eager for
arms control, suspended negotiations in
1968 when the USSR invaded Czechoslo-
vakia (but they were resumed a year
later). President Carter stopped the ratification of the
SALT I 1Yheaty upon the Soviet attack on Afghanistan.
But while that aggression continues, Reagan, who de-
nounced the treaty, has conformed to its terms for nearly
six years - though planning to end that soon.
So far the President seems to be following the sug-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/24: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100180001-3