34. Memorandum of Conversation1
SUBJECT
- The Secretary’s Visit to Moscow
PARTICIPANTS
- The Secretary
- Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Counselor of the Department
- Arthur Hartman, Assistant Secretary for European Affairs
- William Hyland, Director, Bureau of Intelligence and Research
- Brent Scowcroft, The White House
- Denis Clift, The White House
- Jan Lodal, The White House
- Robert Blackwill, Notetaker
Secretary: Just sit down anywhere. I want to go over the points Dobrynin raised with me yesterday. What about a test ban moratorium?
Sonnenfeldt: Our first reaction has to be no. We will have real problems with a test ban agreement in any event, both with verification and with peaceful nuclear explosions.
Secretary: Everyone has problems with everything I try to do with the Russians. We can’t kick them on every front.
Sonnenfeldt: There is a paper on the subject in your folder for this meeting. But in any event, I think we should tell the Russians that a moratorium won’t do and go on to acquaint them with our thinking. We may suggest we could eventually climb toward a threshhold test ban, but in any event, we would have to have bilateral technical talks before we proceed toward any agreement. You could also tell him of our problems within the Washington bureaucracy, especially with DOD on this issue. In other words, we have to be inconclusive.
Secretary: Where is the paper? All I see here is 2A, 2B, 2C.
Sonnenfeldt: No, you’re looking at Denis’s revised paper on possible bilateral agreements which has separate tabs.
Secretary: But where the hell is the test ban paper?
Lodal: What they are after is really a comprehensive ban for two years and that’s bad.
Secretary: Where is Eagleburger? Not everybody can stay at Zavidovo. We won’t have a goddamned crowd out there. Is someone thinking about who will be out there?
Scowcroft: Yes.
Secretary: Can I have the children there?
Scowcroft: Yes.
Secretary: Where is the goddamned paper on the test ban?
Scowcroft: It’s in your folder.
Secretary: Oh, this one. I’ve already read it. It’s good. Now the problem with the quota test ban is that they will run the tests together so we have verification problems and we have difficulties with PNEs in all of these options. Is that right?
Sonnenfeldt: That’s right. The only real possibility is the threshold and that is if they include their PNEs and keep them below the defined threshold.
Secretary: What will the threshold be?
Scowcroft: We haven’t really looked at that in enough detail.
Secretary: Don’t you have any idea?
Lodal: It would probably be from five to 50 kilotons and be measured seismically.
[Page 79]Secretary: How would it affect our new missiles?
Lodal: It could very well affect the Trident MIRVs.
Secretary: That is simple. If it affects the Trident MIRVs, we can’t do it.
Lodal: All these options will affect to some extent our missile programs, and that includes a moratorium.
Secretary: A moratorium is out of the question. It is obviously a heavy-handed form of Soviet pressure against the Chinese.
Hyland: That is what the Russians have in mind.
Secretary: How many tests can they run together?
Lodal: From five to ten.
Secretary: All together?
Lodal: It’s easy to do. We have done it ourselves. You could ignore the limit of the number of tests and rely on seismic indicators, but they too are difficult to verify.
Scowcroft: What we are talking about wouldn’t constrain either side.
[Secretary:] So what is the problem?
Sonnenfeldt: Cheating. But the point to make is that any test ban agreement is designed by the Russians against the Chinese.
Secretary: Would we accept a threshold test ban?
Sonnenfeldt: That depends on the threshold and when it comes in.
Secretary: How long will it take us to test our MIRVs?
Lodal: Around two years.
[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to arms control.]
Sonnenfeldt: On the test ban, I think we have to string the Russians along and offer some form of technical talks.
Secretary: That’s right. We’ll tell them we are not ready now, that we might consider a threshold ban but that in any event we will have to have technical talks before we move along any further. When are our MIRV tests going to be finished?
Lodal: Two years, but we might be able to speed it up a little.
Secretary: What will be the magnitude of our MIRV testing?
Lodal: Seismic level of five, which allows us to test to 100 megatons. But the higher level you set, the easier it is to cheat.
Sonnenfeldt: You could start with a high level and then eventually bring it down.
Secretary: We obviously have to study how this will affect our weapons program.
[Omitted here is discussion of Mutual Balanced Force Reductions, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the U.S.-Soviet summit.]
[Page 80]Sonnenfeldt: You also have their suggestions on environmental war, although it is unclear. There is a NSSM out but unfortunately the paper won’t be out before your trip to Moscow. Denis can give you the latest on that.
Clift: All except DOD are in favor of constraints on environmental warfare.
Secretary: What is the DOD view? It is most important.
Clift: They believe it would be a mistake to limit our options, that it is a new field. They had some success in Southeast Asia in controlling rainfall before and after the monsoon. They especially don’t want to give up research and development in this area.
Secretary: I suppose we will get another proposal on this from Defense that each country’s rainfall level must be far above present levels.
Scowcroft: The basic problem on weather modification is that it is not subject to verification; we will abide by it and they won’t.
Secretary: I can’t see verifying it.
Scowcroft: We called it weather reconnaissance in the Vietnam war.
Hyland: I am suspicious about their motives.
Secretary: They have one of two things in mind. Either it is simply fluff and they think it will be for the softheads, or they have discovered something we don’t know. I am inclined to the former explanation.
Hyland: We have a long list of other bilaterals; we don’t really need that one.
[Omitted here is discussion unrelated to arms control.]
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Summary: In preparation for his trip to Moscow, Kissinger, Department of State officers, and members of the National Security Council Staff discussed issues relating to a comprehensive nuclear test ban.
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P860117–0408. Secret; Nodis; Eyes Only. Drafted by Blackwill. The conversation took place in the Secretary’s office. All brackets are in the original except those indicating text omitted by the editors and “[Secretary:]”, added for clarity.
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