Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–14, Part 2, Documents on Arms Control and Nonproliferation, 1973–1976

94. National Security Decision Memorandum 277¹

Washington, October 15, 1974.

TO

• The Secretary of Defense
• The Deputy Secretary of State
• The Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
• The Director of Central Intelligence

SUBJECT

• International Restraints on Environmental Warfare

The President has reviewed the report of the NSC Under Secretaries Committee (USC) on possible international restraints on environmental warfare, forwarded by the memorandum of the USC Chairman on May 10, 1974, and associated agency views regarding such restraints.

As reflected in the Joint Statement of the United States and the Soviet Union on July 3, 1974, the President has decided that it is in the United States’s interests to consider with the USSR restraints on the use of environmental modification techniques for military purposes and, to this end, to enter into discussions with the Soviet Union to explore the possibility of such restraints.

The President has decided that the U.S. approach to these discussions should be consistent with Option 2 as presented in the USC report, which focuses on those environmental modification techniques having long-term, widespread, or severe effects.

Henry A. Kissinger

1. Summary: Kissinger communicated President Ford’s direction that the U.S. approach to discussions with Soviet officials on environmental modification techniques be consistent with the option in the National Security Council Under Secretaries Committee report accepting prohibitions on military use of environmental techniques that had long-term, widespread, or severe effects.

   Source: Ford Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files—NSDMs, Box 69, Originals—NSDM 265 to NSDM 280. Secret. A copy was sent to Brown. Scowcroft signed for Kissinger above Kissinger’s typed signature.