Good evening, everyone and welcome. Were delighted to join this evening guillaume serina, journalistre and historian and paul carroll, director of Nuclear Security partnerships. Guillaume serina is a graduate who specialize in history and experienced journalist was written for many articles. He has published five books in french. Including the first french language biography of barack obama. His new book, United States is for sale to commit. My name is julia and then a Senior Program officer at World Affairs. If you enjoy to match discussion and interest and more about the organization please come introduce yourself after the program. We are recording tonight conversation so please take a moment to silence her your cell phone. Additionally, please note after the conclusion of the recorded program the microphones will be shut off and you have the opportunity to ask additional questions to our speaker stereo. I would now turn over tour moderator paul carroll. Welcome. Thank you, julia, good evening and think of joining us tonight. Yes, n square, utterly more about that later if youre interested. That was quite a mouthful. I i apologize. Its my pleasure to be here with you tonight and guillaume serina, he joins us this evening to discuss the reykjavik summit in 1986, which for those of you who didnt maybe live through it, if you google it and read about it in this wonderful book, you will understand why itsde become such a crucible and historical landmark for what mightrk have been, and i would d what might still could be. Todays leaders we feel, and interested to hear, i feel could learn from this missed opportunity. Im going to be discussing the book and questions that i have with it, and then at the end of the conversation we will open up to the audience for questions. Guillaume, thank you for joining us. Did you hear me . Hello . Thank you for having me. Thank you to the World Affairs council for inviting me. Ir its our pleasure. Lets region by discussing i think bush on everyones mind, which is what got you interested in thiswh topic x y write a book on the reykjavik summit, which is not only hard to pronounce, its harder to spell. And hard to write. Well, i was born in the 70s and i remembered it as a get on tv. I remember reagan anda gorbachev shaking hands in front of that strange white house in reykjavik, and i studied history, especially use history and,to international relations,d ive always been fascinated in the coldlw war, especially the last part of it. When there was talking with a friend of mine, another journalist and we were talking about the leaders from that era, reagan and then bush and thatcher and helmut kohl, you know, these are people with huge personalities, where the agree with them on the policy matter. And i was comparing them to the leaders that was five or six years ago when it seemed like the leaders were so different in the world has changed so much. Such a started to research a look at what happened between reagan and gorbachev, more than what i knew, and i discovered the reykjavik summit, which is quite a particular missed opportunity as we would see. And so you mentioned the personalities of world leaders, which as we all know today can be extremely important in understanding or maybe confounding. But a lot of the book also mentioned and describes sort of the politics at home and surprisingly not just in the United States, which is after all of the markers and an open society, but in the soviet union. You talk about gorbachev and the powers that be, but also his desire and need frankly to develop the economy in the soviet union. And for reagan it was politics, it was an upcoming Midterm Election cycle. It was the promise had brought to the American People and basically protecting his flank. I wonder if you might say a a little more about aside from these personalities the importance, the role, the opportunity that public power and political power, political with a small piece might play in these types of affairs . Yes, of course. To get this level because they both grew up in the countryside agricultural backgrounds. To make the decisions it is complicated. I summarize there was no trust because of the systems, but then in addition as you say you have the whole background of Current Affairs in both countries. The Midterm Elections or three weeks after the regular meeting and gorbachev had to deal with the aftermath of chernobyl and starting to have some effects. Also unlike what we all suppose, the soviet union wasnt necessarily one man deciding everything. It had to deal with inside sources. It had to deal with the bureau with the red army and the kgb powerful but really quickly he arrived in power in march of 85 but really quickly in the one year he kind of had the whole support of the machine and when you look at the papers of the bureau the archives right before the meeting, he had a blank check from the bureau to discuss whatever he wants again, which i think is quite unique. Its quite unique in that system but there was this unity around ten and you could feel that. The americans ended up being more divided than the soviets. So a lot of the information is fairly new. Youve done a lot of Archival Research and you just mentioned that the pilot bureau and the documents. Im curious as i spent some time i felt looking at our own classification system and it is and byzantine to say the least, was it prudent that they decide okay we can take the lid off some of the stuff, was there a wall and a certain number of years past, how was it that you are able to access this . I a i am not sure about putin but under Boris Yeltsin right after the corruption of the union i remember having teachers at the University People being able to speak and read russian who rushed to moscow and they were the first ones to look at all these archives cause of the source of having the book were actually even kremlin archives translated into english and these archives are actually in the United States from George Washington university they have a whole department of dealing with the soviet archives so i was lucky enough to work with that and the reagan president ial library where all of the white house and Department Archives are. So, it was interesting to compare and its interesting to actually see that the note, the recalls of the actual conversations between the two leaders, almost 100 identical from both sides, so the note takers did a good job. Im not sure there were any notetakers recently in helsinki or hanoi were spying on, but thats important. Thats extremely important. We have a law in the United States where the administrations are obliged to keep all the archives so the historians can work. And if youve never been to the Reagan Library even if you dont coincide it is a pretty nice place. So, you mentioned that gorbachev was able to consolidate do with it is the right word but to get the backing of the bureau and others rather quickly. What do you attribute that to him i wasnt young white he was, was this the recognition that its his timitis time to pass tm curious. Im not sure that he was the youngest for sure. When you land in power it is 55 and he remember the previous generals all died one year after another starting in 82 and finally they find a younger guy that was the number two and number three but it does have to do with older people and with all these balances between these institutions, i think that it did have that power of communicating really well. He was the first soviet leader to join the streets around him to talk to the soviet people. He was i think really a master in the butt wasnt necessarily popular within his team. When i talked to his new clear advisor, he was pretty cynical. He loved to listen to himself. And definitely i had the chance to meet him a couple of years ago in moscow. He definitely is a straight shooter and looks you in the eyes. When the Americans First started to speak to him during the funeral this is George Herbert walker bush. Before he was president. He came back and had the same impression saying this is a guy we can work with. I want to keep this theme of the personalities that matter going but obviously reagan and gorbachev you could say were soon elected but theres a whole cast of characters that are not and this is just the way the system works. You elect your congress or parliament and then they elect people. You mentioned the russian or soviet science advisor who interestingly married Susan Eisenhower and i thought it was interesting because in the book you said we are going to use these quotes from eisenhower ticket at reagans was interesting the kind of closeness nature of the personalities, but then you also have people like george shultz, edward on the other side, robert mcfarland, also the guy by the name of richard perle, who at least in my small arms control community is held like this nicely, doesnt have a big fan base. But the way you characterize the meetings happening and it seemed very mission oriented. There seemed to be a clear eye on what could be so is there something in the book about those characters, with their more of a mass shift then i gleamed . I could talk to some of them and obviously 30 years later they were keen and happy to talk about it without any pressure so that was really nice. Buchanan, the head of communications and poindexter, for example. For them, its good memories which was nice to have them talk about. The feeling i have reading the notes they were sending to each other at the time within the white house between departments, it was really professional, it was really interesting. Definitely they were not agreeing on many things. As im sure it i is true in many administrations you could feel the weight of the military and diplomats not wanting the same thing and that became a very big issue and you have to do with dh personalities. As you can see in the buck, shultz and shall remedy, the two Foreign Affairs people who are sitting with the president s in the room brings something different, bring a different kind of emotion or different kind of thinking things through and that is the collaborative effort. At the end of the day is two leaders choosing which have all these people sometimes with a different agenda and its really fascinating the same thing on the soviet side you have very strong characters. You also mentioned the size of the delegations was limited. In fact the doctor was i wasnte which may have had some interesting roles. I want to talk about hi in a mot but actually what hes emblematic of which is the scientists and Technical Expertise and how it plays into these negotiations not just the pageantry of the summits but the fact that on the one hand we are talking about an incredibly powerful weapons and it doesnt take a scientist to understand the devastation but when it comes to getting down to the nittygritty of the arms control negotiations were treaty and how you are going to inshore each side is adhering to it these are extremely important. So the question i have is from reading the archives and your understanding of frankie the core of this country at large could you provide your observations of the role of the importance of that Technical Expertise not only from the government or official aspect but from Citizen Science because you mentioned the Strategic Defense Initiative was ultimately a spoiler alert and Sticking Point that there were harsh critics about whether it would work and even if it did if you wanted to do it because of the underlying deterioration of the deterrence. So im curious about whether you feel scientists, technical experts, how important they are and how they should play a role and what the health of that is today. Thats a lot, i apologize. Obviously it is extremely important. When reagan announces the Strategic Defense Initiative that was nicknamed starwars by the media which is a key point in the book, he takes the American Community by surprise and the reaction of the u. S. Senate is all over the place. He does that speech in the white house and you can read in the newspapers of the next few days they dont understand and they say you are taking up the arm space but this is not achievable in terms of science how you are going to put a laser on a satellite and maintain it in space for years. The irony of this story is 35 years later it is still not possible so you have a historic missed opportunity based on something that wasnt scientifically possible. Politics in the policy was based on that and something that couldnt exist certainly not in the next ten years. So indeed that is where the science and the Technology Advisors become extremely important. And im not sure, i didnt see it in the archives that reagan had the knowledge of how it would work or healthy Intercontinental Missile would work are the implications of that. What was interesting to see in a summit in preparation of the summit is that the soviets came with extremely precise and specific points category by category of Nuclear Weapons and missiles etc. So to answer very broadly to the question because im not an expert myself in a scientific way, it is extremely important and the fact that you were mentioning in the geneva of the first time they meet and 85, he wasnt in and official summit it was an intermediate summit and in a surprising way it wasnt planned but he definitely had several meetings with gorbachev after and had an exchange of notes with gorbachev himself. So you are asking about today. Im not sure how the current american president works or how we advise him on this question and the technician i cant answer that. Fair enough. Going back to the question about the archives there is a fair amount of secrecy out there although the good news is theres an incredible amount of access to a a lot of the focus begins appropriately in sort of 84, 85, 86 in the fall of 85 we talk about the context of chernobyl and the sort of spy affairs as well is making it a challenging environment. Thats what i did not see and perhaps i missed it is any reference to the American Television program the day after which baird and 83 rightparen at the time of the speech, or the 1982 Nuclear Freeze march and this was still in Ronald Reagans first term was curious because for my experience specifically in the Nuclear Arms Control community, these are iconic. And in particular the day after is credited with a come to jesus moment for ronald reagan. I could have linked to it, but i didnt do it. It is a book for the mainstream audience that the storytelling and human interactions had to make some choices i found this very easy to read. Im not a huge reader as it turns out, but this is written like a series of newspaper articles, so i think the journalist background comes out and its very quick and precise, so i appreciated that aspect of it. Youve spent a fair amount of time on this issue which was the Sticking Point for Strategic Defense Initiative really became the Sticking Point because as much as i think the engineers and scientists might have said this isnt going to work, the soviets were afraid of it. One of two things would happen. Its going to work and thats scary or even if it doesnt, we are going to spend ourselves into oblivion to overcome the marginal Defense System and so what gorbachev was willing to offer was limited testing in the laboratory over a decade and the word laboratory became a big problem. The u. S. Line is they are going to denuclearize a. In this sort of observation about you mentioned the record keepers be very in sync. The words particularly dealing with different languages, but the terminology in the definition of word and preparation it oversold and in terms of the context with vioxx and to be at the impact of chernobyl within the bureau and the system was huge so i think there was that fear and need to address it. You are mentioning the laboratory in october you can fix or to reduce intermediate missile, so thats the deal. The second day in the morning gorbachev basically placed his cards and said why dont we get rid of all Nuclear Weapons and we dont talk about offensive or defensive, whatever. But in return, we do that in ten years, but in return, you have to get rid of the fdi. So the whole day they go back and forth in this and they laugh and almost cry and the joke is there is a lot of tension and its extremely touching in a way when you read that. The whole talk becomes about that because reagan keeps saying i dont want to give it up to the development i promised it to the American People. I cannot go back on that. And he says why dont you do it in the laboratory because you dont have the technology right now. We know you had some breakthrough, but its not ready and it wont be ready within ten years. In the meantime if we reach an agreement within ten years. The same thing here in the u. S. And the failure of these talks are because of the definition of laboratory. So when you bring it to the advisors, he says it could have meant anything. Laboratories not necessarily the basement with people in white coats trying to do something. It could have been in a very safe way and it could have been elsewhere in a very safe way. It looks like there might have been a misunderstanding there. We are not sure. It was very, very moving to the promised priority. He was negotiating but also said things like i cant bring that back home, or that will hurt me back home. Having the midterm in to b