Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXXV, National Security Policy, 1973–1976

56. National Security Study Memorandum 228¹

Washington, August 14, 1975.

TO

• The Secretary of the Treasury
• The Secretary of Defense
• The Secretary of the Interior
• The Secretary of Commerce
• The Director of the Office of Management and Budget
• The Deputy Secretary of State
• The Administrator, General Services Administration

SUBJECT

• Strategic and Critical Stockpile Planning Guidance

The President has directed a reassessment of the current Strategic and Critical Stockpile Planning Guidance (NSDM 203) in light of the strategic stockpile problem areas identified in response to NSSM 197/ CIEPSM 33 (Critical Imported Commodities),² and Congressional criticism that current objectives are inadequate. The study should develop alternatives to the current planning guidance which take account of the problem areas and the Congressional criticism. The study should analyze:

—the impact on the US budget and on commodity markets of changes in sales, acquisition, and inventory maintenance which would result from each alternative;

—the adequacy and accuracy of the models employed to compute objectives;

—the effects of factors such as austerity, substitution, and production expansion in establishing the stockpile objectives for specific materials;

—shipping losses and reliability of suppliers;

—whether to hold stockpile materials in raw or upgraded forms;

—whether specific materials should be added to or deleted from the present list of stockpile materials.

The study should be prepared by representatives of the addressees and of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and chaired by the representative of the Administrator of General Services. The study should be forwarded not later than September 4, 1975 for consideration by the President.

Henry A. Kissinger

1. Source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser, National Security Decision and Study Memoranda, Box 2, NSSM 228. Secret. Copies were sent to General Brown, Colby, and CIEP Acting Executive Director John M. Dunn. Kissinger forwarded the NSDM to Ford under a covering memorandum, August 13, with the recommendation that he sign it. The issue needed resolution, Kissinger noted, because the U.S. government had accumulated “excesses” since NSDM 203 (Document 3) had ordered a reduction in the strategic stockpile. Congressional opposition, led by Representative Charles Bennett (D–Florida), prevented the administration from disposing of the excess, however, “on the ground that the stockpile should support more than one year of a defense economy.” (Ibid.)
2. NSSM 197/CIEPSM 33, March 5, 1974, and the interagency response to it are Documents 255 and 260 in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Vol. XXXI, Foreign Economic Policy, 1973–1976.