Office of the Historian

215. Memorandum From Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft)1

Washington, December 15, 1976.

SUBJECT

  • Chemical Weapons (CW) (U)

(C) The Department of Army included in its FY 1978 request for appropriations funding the amount of $15.3 million to support a stand- [Page 698] by binary CW production facility. These funds would provide $2.0 million for modernization of an existing facility at Pine Bluff Arsenal and some $13.3 million to purchase production-related equipment. This would be a long-range program requiring two years before the facility would be ready to produce. These funds have since been deleted at the White House.

(C) Over the years, U.S. ability to deter Soviet use of CW through the threat of retaliation in kind has steadily decreased. At the same time, intelligence reveals that the Soviets have continued to emphasize operations on a chemical battlefield. While their intentions concerning the first use of CW are not entirely clear, the fact that they are able to launch a chemical attack against NATO in depth presents a serious threat to allied forces. U.S. forces require a credible CW retaliatory capability in order to deter the Soviets from using chemicals and possibly lowering the nuclear threshold as a result.

(C) The Department of Defense is fully supportive of the principles behind the ongoing arms control negotiations in the area of CW. However, we are aware that there has been little positive movement toward achieving an effective agreement. In our view, a primary reason for Soviet intractability is the fact that they see no real advantage in giving up their superior capability. Thus, DOD sees two significant advantages accruing from the appropriation of funds for the long lead-time binary production items requested by the Army: (1) The appropriations would preserve our options concerning future modernization of the U.S. CW stockpile and (2) it would provide a strong, but by no means provocative, signal to the Soviets that the U.S. is prepared to rebuild its CW capability if an effective arms control agreement cannot be reached.

(U) In this regard, DOD has prepared the attached position paper which outlines the essential elements of an agreement we consider would meet our security needs. It is provided for interagency consideration. The DOD is prepared to couple our request for FY 1978 funds for binary items to a DOD commitment to negotiate an acceptable agreement along these lines.

(U) I urge that the Army’s request for these items be restored in the FY 1978 budget.

Donald Rumsfeld

  1. Summary: Rumsfeld noted that the White House had deleted FY 1978 appropriations funding requested to support a stand-by binary chemical weapons production facility and urged that the White House restore funding for long lead-time binary production items requested by the U.S. Army.

    Source: Central Intelligence Agency, DDI Files, Job 82M00587R, Box 5, NSSM 195. Confidential. The date of the memorandum is hand-stamped. Also printed in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, volume XXXV, National Security Policy, 1973–1976, as Document 121. Attached as Enclosure 1 to Document 217. The attached position paper is Document 216.

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