44. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to the Chairman of the National Security Council Under Secretaries Committee (Rush)1
SUBJECT
- International Restraints on Environmental Warfare
The President has directed that a study be made of possible international restraints on environmental warfare.
The study should specifically examine the advantages and disadvantages of promptly initiating discussions with the USSR, or in a broader international context, on such restraints, and should address the following:
—The definition of “environmental warfare” and related terms for such discussions, including options for narrowing the area of discussion to those environmental modification techniques considered practical in this decade.
[Page 103]—The military utility of various forms of environmental modification, including technically and/or politically acceptable distinctions between hostile and non-hostile use.
—The state of Soviet development in environmental modification and its relationship to their capability to engage in environmental warfare.
—The options for various levels of restraint (for example, all use, first use, hostile use, development of capabilities, R&D ) and how such restraints might be defined in terms of capabilities or intent. For each of the restraint options, assessment should be made of verification possibilities and their security implications, and the impact on our civil activities and programs in environmental modification.
—Alternative forms an agreement might take (for example, bilateral or multilateral renunciation, treaty, moratoria), possible fora for conducting discussions, and the advantages and disadvantages of various positions the U.S. might take in discussions.
This study should draw upon (1) the 1972 Report of the NSC Under Secretaries Committee on International Aspects of Weather Modification, (2) the report being prepared by the Department of Defense on the military aspects of environmental and geophysical modification activity, and (3) the recent briefing by the Department of Defense on weather modification activity in Southeast Asia.
The President has directed that this study be undertaken by the NSC Under Secretaries Committee, with its membership supplemented by representatives of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Department of Commerce.
Because of the sensitivity of the subject, knowledge of the study and participation in its preparation should be kept on a strict need-to-know basis. The study should be submitted no later than May 13, 1974, for consideration by the President.
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Summary: Kissinger notified Rush that President Nixon had directed the National Security Council Under Secretaries Committee, supplemented by representatives of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Department of Commerce, to study possible international restraints on environmental warfare.
Source: Ford Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files—Meetings, Box 13, Senior Review Group Meeting, 8/28/74—Environmental Warfare (2). Secret; Limdis. Copies were sent to Schlesinger, Dent, Iklé, Colby, and Moorer. A copy of NSDM 165 and a copy of Senate Resolution 71 are ibid. The May 10 paper was not found. The executive summary of the Department of Defense study is Document 42.
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