60. Memorandum for the Record1
SUBJECT
- President’s meeting with Congressional Leadership, Oct. 19
The President met with the bipartisan Congressional Leadership on Monday, October 19, at 1:30 p.m. The President worked from the attached briefing memorandum (Tab A),2 and the discussion at the meeting generally followed the attached agenda.
The President opened the meeting by giving his welcome to the Leadership and his thanks for their return from their homes and whatever else they were doing. He then asked Director McCone to explain what we know of the Chinese nuclear effort.
Director McCone gave a general explanation of the capabilities of the United States in satellite reconnaissance, and then described our current understanding of their capabilities. A copy of the notes from which he worked is attached (Tab B). The Director was followed by Chairman [Page 114] Seaborg who gave a general discussion of the problems of the technology of nuclear weapons. Chairman Seaborg indicated the probability but not the certainty that the Chinese weapon was made of plutonium (an assumption that was challenged by evidence from debris later in the day). He indicated his belief that the Chinese would begin with a device and that it would take sometime to “weaponize” such a device. Chairman Seaborg indicated that the speed of the Chinese development would depend on how much the Chinese knew about the technical details—quality of material and design details—in weaponmaking. He thought that if they had been fully cut off from what the Soviets knew for several years, it might be a matter of about 4 or 5 years before they would have a thermonuclear device. On the other hand, if they wished to make a thermonuclear explosion simply for its political and psychological impact, they could use the bulk of their production for this specific purpose and produce such an explosion considerably sooner.
The President asked Secretary McNamara to give an account of the military position of the United States vis-a-vis the Chinese bomb. Secretary McNamara began by discussing the dangers in the spread of nuclear weapons. He pointed out that there are half a dozen countries which could move rapidly in this direction if they made the political decision to do so, and that the cost of developing a nuclear device was now on the order of $120 million—not a prohibitive figure. He underlined the importance of finding ways and means to limit nuclear spread.
Secretary McNamara then turned to the strategic position of the U.S. and pointed out that Chinese targets as well as Soviet targets were included in our strategic planning. He explained that we had 2700 nuclear weapons in our survivable alert force, and said that 800 of these weapons would suffice to inflict unacceptable damage on the Soviet Union. The additional weapons were important for their damage-limiting capability.
Ambassador Thompson discussed the developments in the Soviet Union, along the lines of the attached memo of his talking notes (Tab C).
Senator Hickenlooper asked if the immediate meaning of the Chinese bomb was not more important in its psychological impact than in its military meaning. Secretary Rusk replied that we were taking every possible measure in consultation with interested nations to limit this psychological impact. We had given important assurances in the President’s statements. The Secretary reported that a number of Ambassadors had told him that his warning of September 29 had been very useful in limiting the impact of this event.
[Here follows dicussion not related to China.]