A Potential Soviet Compromise on Ballistic Missile Defense

The body of this research memorandum was written before the Baker-Shevardnadze meeting in Wyoming. It presented evidence suggesting that the Soviet Union might agree to a compromise at the Wyoming meeting that defers the issue of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) negotiations to a later stage in arms reductions, thus facilitating a first-stage cut in offensive arms without an explicit Soviet endorsement of the Strategic Defense Initiative. In this approach, Wyoming, then, was expected to be only a first move in the Soviet negotiating strategy for a grand compromise on strategic defense. As explained in the afterword added to this paper, the actual events at Wyoming seem consistent with this interpretation.