Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXIV, Middle East Region and Arabian Peninsula, 1969–1972; Jordan, September 1970

58. Minutes of a Senior Review Group Meeting¹

Washington, April 22, 1971, 3:42–4:05 p.m.

SUBJECT

• Indian Ocean (NSSM 110)

PARTICIPANTS

• Chairman—Henry A. Kissinger
• State—U. Alexis Johnson
• Ronald I. Spiers
• Christopher Van Hollen
• Thomas P. Thornton
• Defense—David Packard
• G. Warren Nutter
• Robert J. Pranger
• Capt. Robert N. Congdon
• CIA—Richard Helms
• William Parmenter
• JCS—Adm. Thomas H. Moorer
• R/Adm. William St. George
• OMB—James Schlesinger
• ACDA—Philip J. Farley
• NSC Staff—Helmut Sonnenfeldt
• Col. Richard T. Kennedy
• Harold H. Saunders
• Dr. K. Wayne Smith
• Jeanne W. Davis

SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

A Working Group will be established to examine in detail:

1) the various types of U.S. naval presence in the Indian Ocean and what each would do; and

2) the various arms control options and what they would do, with all their shortcomings, and with the understanding that the JCS does not believe any such agreement would be acceptable.

Mr. Kissinger: This is a follow-on to the earlier meeting we had on this subject in which the British participated.² It involves primarily the question of a U.S. naval presence in the area or some form of arms limitation agreement. Before we get to that, how fruitful is it to talk about the Indian Ocean as one unit? There are so many different countries and interests involved that it might be misleading to talk about our “relatively slight” interest in the Indian Ocean. If we add up our interests in the littoral countries it might be a helluva lot more.

Mr. Johnson: I have understood that we were talking about the Ocean as such, not the littoral powers.

Mr. Kissinger: The British make the point, as have some of our Ambassadors, that the presence of the Navy has an impact on the political consciousness of the littoral, independent of its military purpose. Is that a valid statement? Is it true that we cannot quantify its value simply in terms of its naval activity?

Adm. Moorer: There is no question about it.

Mr. Kissinger: If we carry this syllogism to its extreme—if the political orientation of these countries is of major policy interest to us, and if it can be influenced by the Navy, Tom [Moorer]³ will be asking for three more carriers.

Mr. Spiers: It depends on what kind of naval presence you are talking about.

Mr. Packard: If we had the SST, we could be flying it into these countries with the same effect.

Mr. Kissinger: In terms of what criteria should we look at the question of the military presence in the Indian Ocean? How do we merge the two considerations?

Adm. Moorer: We want to maintain our freedom to go into the area if it should become necessary for military purposes. Also, it is very useful from a political point of view to demonstrate our presence from time to time. I have just come from the MIDEASTFOR meeting.⁴ Although our MIDEASTFOR military force is small, there is no question of its political impact, with regard to Iran, for example. Also, it gives us some communications capability and the ability to move quickly for humanitarian or other reasons. In general, it demonstrates U.S. interest in the area. We are already being attacked on this question of freedom of the seas in the Law of the Sea discussions. I think the country’s national security would be damaged if we deny ourselves access to the oceans in any way. The day could come when we might want to put Polaris submarines into the Indian Ocean. The U.S. is a maritime nation; anything that restricts its movements on the ocean is inimical to our interests.

Mr. Johnson: No one is suggesting that we do anything like that.

Mr. Kissinger: What is our attitude toward the British presence? Do we welcome it or are we indifferent to it?

Adm. Moorer: We want them to stay as long as they can with as much as they can. They are limited by their resources.

Mr. Kissinger: Does anyone hold a contrary view?

Mr. Van Hollen: No.

Mr. Spiers: We have traditionally favored the British presence there.

Mr. Johnson: And we still favor it. Even with their pull-back East of Suez, they decided to maintain some presence in the Indian Ocean and we welcome it. It has symbolic importance if nothing else.

Mr. Kissinger: Are their activities related to ours or are they independent?

Adm. Moorer: They are definitely related. It is much easier for us to have the British there. It means, for example, that there is logistical support available. Also, we are going ahead with Diego Garcia which is part of BIOT. The basic characteristic of naval operations is their mobility— they do not stay at a fixed point. The British presence gives us greater access to ports, greater flexibility and consequently a quicker response.

Mr. Kissinger: The paper presents the choice between the arms control option and a naval presence.⁵ However, almost all the various types of naval presence (except the highest option) seemed quite consistent with the arms control option. It is obvious that the Soviets don’t believe that an increase in their strategic forces is inconsistent with SALT. Why would a U.S. naval presence in the area, pending an arms control agreement, be inconsistent?

Mr. Johnson: The paper does not say that.

Mr. Kissinger: It says there is a choice between them. Why couldn’t we pursue both courses simultaneously? What do we mean by arms control? No ships?

Mr. Farley: There is range of possibilities: no ships in the area, the definition of the level of ships or weapons, nuclear free zone, limitation on bases, as Dobrynin indicated in his feeler to Secretary Rogers.⁶ I think we should consider whether there is a possibility that the Soviets might agree to some restraints and that we might want to avoid prejudicing this possibility in any naval buildup we might undertake. Other than that consideration, I agree we could proceed in parallel.

Adm. Moorer: There is a big difference between arms control limitations on naval forces and on strategic missiles. You’re talking about controlling the area in which our ships operate. You would be putting a voluntary limit on the flexibility of U.S. forces. I consider this the height of imprudence for a maritime nation.

Mr. Kissinger: Why would this put the Soviets at an advantage and us at a disadvantage?

Adm. Moorer: We abide by agreements and they don’t.

Mr. Johnson: If it were estimated that, without some limitation agreement, the Soviets would seek to increase their presence in the Indian Ocean, would there be an advantage in exercising some restraint on the Soviet presence?

Adm. Moorer: The Soviets want to control both ends of the Suez Canal. They want to control the Persian Gulf and the Oman area. They will go ahead regardless of what we do.

Mr. Kissinger: Wouldn’t some limitation agreement reduce their ability to put their forces in?

Adm. Moorer: No. They could come down the Suez in two or three days.

Mr. Johnson: (to Adm. Moorer) I understand that you don’t think any restrictions would be effective. But for the sake of argument, if we could get some restrictions that were at least partially effective, would it be useful?

Adm. Moorer: You also have the question of the Chinese navy. They will be putting several submarines out of Hainan, and they may be testing missiles in the Indian Ocean in the future. The Japanese are also building up their navy to maintain their LOC with the Middle East.

Mr. Johnson: We are not concerned about the Chinese navy now. We consider the Japanese naval interest as complementary to our interest.

Adm. Moorer: But the Soviets might argue that they have been forced into the Indian Ocean by the Japanese presence.

Mr. Kissinger: The abstract options given in the paper are almost impossible to discuss. We haven’t staffed out the details of a naval presence or of an arms limitation. I think it would be extremely helpful if we could get a working group to work out various models of an arms limitation agreement, with the full understanding that the JCS does not think any agreement would be acceptable. I think we should carefully work out what such an agreement would do, its shortcomings, its influence on military capabilities, questions of asymmetry, etc. Second, we should work out what we mean by the abstract options of a naval presence. I know we have done that to some extent in the response to NSSM 104⁷ but it needs refining. Then we can put these two things side by side and get a definition of what we are trying to achieve with a naval presence. We can also consider what Soviet presence we should be reacting to and the best way to react.

Adm. Moorer: We had a good program in this area when the Vietnam war started. I was in command of the 7th Fleet, and every quarter we moved some ships into the Indian Ocean. We visited India, West African ports—we were never out more than two or three weeks at a time so we didn’t wear out our welcome. I think we should be doing the same thing now. We should upgrade MIDEASTFOR with newer, more modern ships. At the CENTO meeting, the CNO of the Iranian Navy told me that a Soviet naval force had visited Iran. Also, my Iranian counterpart was very concerned about Iraq and the Persian Gulf. I think periodic visits would be very useful, politically as well as militarily.

Mr. Kissinger: There is no doubt that in the absence of an arms control agreement we have to look very carefully at the Soviet naval presence and see how best to protect our interests. We have no quarrel with that. However, we do have the feeler from Dobrynin about some sort of limitation agreement, and they can force us to respond at any time by surfacing a formal proposal. Even if we reject the idea, we must have marshalled our arguments. If the Soviets are only two days from the Persian Gulf and our nearest base is X days away, we must certainly take this into consideration. We must decide what we are trying to limit. We can’t keep Soviet naval forces from operating in the Indian Ocean if they want to. One thing that makes it easier, of course, is that, if they do come in in numbers larger than authorized in any agreement, the problem of evasion is more difficult with naval ships than with anything else. They are so much easier to find and identify. I have never thought of putting limits on naval deployments. When we look at it, we may find that no scheme would be worth the anguish. However, even if we should decide on some agreement to permit X number of naval visits, this would be unrelated to the question of modernizing MIDEASTFOR. We would probably want to do that in any event. I think we need to do two things: we need to look in detail at the various types of a U.S. naval presence and what each will do; we also need to examine the various arms control options and what they would do, with all their shortcomings. We could be forced into the latter consideration by the Soviets at any time.

Mr. Van Hollen: We have already done a lot of work on the naval options but we can refine it.

Mr. Spiers: We should also consider upgrading Diego Garcia and modernizing MIDEASTFOR.

Adm. Moorer: We can upgrade Diego Garcia easily. We recommended the present plan only to get started.

Mr. Kissinger: We will get the working group established and working on these two studies. We will discuss them in detail with the JCS, of course.

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–112, Senior Review Group, SRG Minutes (Originals) 1971. Secret. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room. Saunders and Kennedy prepared an April 17 briefing memorandum for Kissinger that included talking papers. (Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box CL 304, National Security Council, Feb–Aug 1971) An April 22 memorandum from Saunders and Hoskinson to Kissinger discussed Soviet and Chinese policies toward Ceylon within the wider context of access to the Indian Ocean. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–054, Senior Review Group Meetings, SRG Meetings Indian Ocean (NSSM 110) 4/22/71) Nutter prepared a memorandum for the record of this meeting on April 26. (Ibid., RG 218, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Records of Admiral Moorer, Box 113, Work File (Indian Ocean))
2. See Document 50.
3. Brackets are in the original.
4. Apparently the CENTO Economic, Technological, and Scientific Cooperation Meeting held in Tehran March 9–10.
5. Reference is to the NSSM 110 response; see Document 57.
6. See Document 55.
7. See Document 46.