15. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter1
Washington,
May 2,
1977
SUBJECT
- Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles
The Navy has prepared a briefing on the Tomahawk—our sea-launched cruise missile. Harold Brown forwarded a copy of the briefing to me noting that the flight profiles and the test program indicate many important facts about the nature and verifiability of cruise missiles that have not received enough attention to date. As you know, the Tomahawk is designed to fit a standard submarine torpedo tube, but it is also capable of being launched from a variety of platforms (see Tab A).2 A few highlights from the briefing follow:
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- At Tab B3 is a graph depicting comparative cruise missile development for the US and the Soviet Union. Cruise missiles, by the way, go back to the German V–1 “buzz bomb”.
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- The Navy’s approach to ensure Tomahawk’s ability to penetrate
enemy defenses was to make it fly as low as possible and to
reduce its visibility to enemy radars, visual and infra-red
detection devices. Here are a few results from the Navy’s test
program:
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- The Tomahawk has flown in actual flight at less than [less than 1 line not declassified] above the terrain.
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- Ground observations on the flight path were unable to see the missile until about 10 seconds before overflight. In addition, neither the ground nor air observers at the target could detect exhaust smoke from the missile.
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- The ability of the Tomahawk’s anti-ship missile to attack an over-the-horizon target has been successfully demonstrated (Tab C).4
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- An SSN in the Mediterranean simulated Tomahawk’s attacks against Soviet ships (Tab D).5 The tests were successful.
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- The Tomahawk land-attack missile has demonstrated a range capability in excess of [less than 1 line not declassified].
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- According to the Navy, the principle threats to the Tomahawk missile in the early 1980s will be advanced low-altitude SAMs and look-down, shoot-down interceptors. Results of the Navy’s survivability study based on these threats are found at Tab E.6 Harold Brown suggests we should reserve judgment on the vulnerability question since it depends in detail on defenses.