384. Memorandum From the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Rush) to the Chairman of the National Security Council Under Secretaries Committee (Irwin)1
SUBJECT
- Review of the COCOM System (U)
In response to your memorandum of 24 November 1972, the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and I have reviewed the report and the draft Memorandum for the President prepared in response to NSDM 159.2
We consider the report represents a balanced analysis of the COCOM system as it presently functions and options that could be adopted to control future exports to communist countries. It appears to reflect adequately those agency dissents on substantive issues. However, the draft Memorandum for the President does not present in adequate balance the views contained in the report and we cannot concur in it. We note that there was no interagency collaboration in the development of the Memorandum for the President. To insure that it reflects agency views as clearly as the Report, we recommend that our staffs collaborate in writing a new memorandum which does provide the needed balance and that it be returned subsequently for our concurrence.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, S/S Files: Lot 83 D 305, NSDM 159. Confidential. The memorandum is Tab B to a December 30 memorandum from Armstrong to Irwin; see footnote 1, Document 387.↩
- See Document 383 and footnote 1 thereto. The November 24 memorandum is from Acting Staff Director Weiss.↩
- Printed from a copy that indicates Rush signed the original.↩