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Shortly afterward Karpov and Obukhov tabled a new INF proposal that at first blush seemed to capitulate on the most critical issue of all. In what a Soviet official in Moscow later recalled as a "momentous sacrifice that left blood on the floor of more than one ministry," the Kremlin proposed its own version of an "interim agreement": the U.S. could keep a handful of the missiles it had deployed in Europe in exchange for a reduction of Soviet SS-20s in range of Europe and a freeze on those in Asia...
...proposal was the bait for a summit, and it had a number of familiar strings attached. The Soviets had devised a complicated formula that would give them their long-sought compensation for the British and French independent nuclear arsenals that the U.S. insisted should not be part of any INF deal. Also, the U.S. would be allowed to keep only cruise missiles in Europe. The more capable Pershing II ballistic missiles would have to come out. Moreover, the Soviet proposal stipulated that the U.S. would have to commit itself to the eventual elimination of all American missiles in Europe...
...refused to yield on the British and French forces and insisted that the U.S. would keep Pershing IIs in West Germany as long as there were SS-20s deployed anywhere in the U.S.S.R. But in their final communique, the two leaders agreed there should be early progress toward an INF interim accord...
...bold stroke: a proposal for a comprehensive settlement that subsumed all three sets of negotiations. It was a three-stage, 15-year plan for total nuclear disarmament. The first stage called for cancellation of Star Wars, a 50% reduction in strategic weaponry and "complete liquidation" of Soviet and American INF missiles "in the European zone." In Geneva the next day, Karpov opened Round 4 of the nuclear and space talks with a verbatim reading from the eleven-page Gorbachev proposal. It was marked SEKRETNO even though virtually every word had just been distributed worldwide...
Karpov & Co. once again seemed surprised by their leader's tour de force in public diplomacy. When the American negotiators pressed them for clarification, the Soviets' answers were confused and contradictory -- particularly on the critical issue of whether an interim INF deal was contingent on U.S. acceptance of restrictions on Star Wars...