Excerpts From Gorbachev’s Remarks at His News Conference

Here are excerpts from Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s news conference Thursday. Gorbachev delivered an opening statement, then answered questions for about 35 minutes.

The translation was provided by the Swiss hosts of the U.S.-Soviet summit.

What governs the actual thinking of the American Administration? That required a great deal of work on our part to appreciate that. Great effort was invested in that regard, and I might add that I would go so far as to say that we had to endeavor to be unbiased.

We had to endeavor to be broad-minded, and evaluate everything that possibly could promote a responsible outcome, a responsible attitude to this most crucial issue. . . .

During the course of that meeting, we uncovered that we do seem to share a certain initial premise as concerns improving our relations. That is the understanding that a nuclear war cannot occur, that there can be no winners in a nuclear war.

The differences between our two countries remain. There is still competition between us, but we have to try and keep a lid on this so that it does not come into the sphere of military rivalry.

We’re quite well aware of the weaker and stronger points of the American society, as well as those to be found in other developed countries. And we are aware of the achievements they can claim, their potential, and naturally we’re all the more aware of our own potential, some of which is still untapped.

In a word, we are for competition with the United States, for active rivalry with the United States.

To improve Soviet-American relations is perfectly possible.

If in today’s world, Mexico and Brazil and several other countries, rich countries, and there I could include Brazil, find themselves incapable not only of paying their debts but of paying the interest on their debts, you can imagine what effect that’s having on their societies. And this situation is going to get worse. There is going to be an explosion, so again, are people going to say, “That’s the hand of Moscow?”

You can’t. Can you be so irresponsible to give those kinds of opinions on these sorts of issues?

On the world stage, some people still do blame Moscow for everything, but they shouldn’t. It should not be allowed, especially at meetings like this, so we agreed at first that we’re not going to say stupid things to each other of this sort.

Enough of that sort of stupid remark has been made before. Thanks to you, my journalistic friends.

We explained to the American side that the “Star Wars” program will not only lead to a further arms race but it will mean that all restraint will be blown to the winds. We said it again and again. But the American side was saying it is a defensive system. . . .

We are prepared to engage in radical cutbacks in nuclear weapons, provided that the door to unleashing an arms race in outer space be firmly slammed shut. We are prepared to engage in an initial phase of a 50% cutback in arsenals, and we are prepared to appeal to other nuclear powers to join with us and take it further.

SDI (the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative--”Star Wars”) does involve taking weapons into outer space. It is weapons that are going into outer space. . . . What is going to happen if it all came crashing down? Try to imagine, and this is exactly what we tried to put across to the American side, just try to imagine what sort of a confrontation could arise, what’s already happening now, what would happen from those missiles if the warheads, say, if the nuclear charge were to suddenly break off from some sort of space ensemble.

I’m not even saying whose side would be responsible with such a mishap. But just imagine that could happen. There’s an attempt being made, say, to destroy it. And all sorts of computers will be at work; political leaders at that point would have no way of exercising any control over it.

The actual truth is, the Soviet Union is open to controls. And if there is agreement achieved to ban the extension of weapons into outer space, then again we’re prepared to open our laboratories to any sorts of verifications or checks.

But we’re being told to open our laboratories already so that they can check out whether we’re engaged in research for outer space weapons. But that’s not even logical. That’s certainly unacceptable at this stage.

If the U.S. authority calls a halt to any nuclear testing, and if we can arrive at agreement on that . . . there will be absolutely no problems on our side with regard to verification.

At this stage, the divergence between our two positions emerged. . . . But we’re certainly prepared to come up with some sort of mutually acceptable solution . . . provided there is no arms race in space.

We listened carefully to the American President’s assurances they don’t want nuclear war, they don’t want superiority. And we hope profoundly that their statements will be based on fact in the future. . . .

The American side turned out not to be ready yet to take any big basic decisions. But I would say there is no way this process could have been carried on and finished in just two days. But we have got the means and mechanisms to go on talking.

I’m very optimistic when I look ahead to the future. I would be so bold as to say the world has become a more secure place.