>...Gorbachev: We have to make concessions on the medium-range missiles. We must do something in Reykjavik if we hope to make any headway. The US wants the negotiating machinery to run dry, but the arms race is overloading our economy. We need a breakthrough. Gromyko: We cannot just flip-flop 180 degrees. But the deployment of the SS-20 was a major error in our European policy. Gorbachev: We can no longer treat our security from a purely arithmetical standpoint. If they force a second arms race on us, we will be finished. The loss of our submarine (a Soviet nuclear submarine had just sunk off the Bermuda Islands) has revealed to everyone the condition we are in. And we are now supposed to panic and shout: "We are falling behind, let us rearm"?
Shevardnadze: I am in favor of revealing the truth about our troop numbers in Central Europe. Gorbachev (addressing Defense Minister Marshall Sokolov): When you go in somewhere, you also have to think about how you'll get be getting yourself out again ... Sokolov: We in the Warsaw Pact now have 170,000 more troops than NATO, and 70,000 of those are Soviet troops. Why reduce the number of troops? If we do so, how will we preserve what we have fought for? Troop withdrawal would be a political mistake. Chebrikov (the chairman of the KGB): We will simply take the region from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains. Then there will be no imbalance. Dobrynin (secretary of the Central Committee): If honesty is the objective, we must say that we have more troops in Central Europe than the others. Otherwise we can forget about Vienna. We have been pretending for 13 years. Gorbachev: The West already knows that. The public statements our generals have made in our military publications have made the West take notice, and these statements only increase their mistrust of us. If we continue this counting game -- one weapon for you, one for us -- we might as well abandon the idea of advancing socialism. Do we really want to transform the country into a military camp? -- Michael Pugliese