Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume IV, National Security Policy

153. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter¹

Washington, September 4, 1979

SUBJECT

• NSC Meeting on MX Basing (C)

The purpose of this NSC meeting is to review and decide upon the MX basing mode Secretary Brown described and recommended in the memo he sent you last week.² If at all possible the meeting should result in your final decision on a basing mode—an inconclusive meeting would probably have an adverse affect upon SALT. (S)

I suggest you consider the basing issue in terms of two separate questions—should we proceed with the recommended basing mode? and how should any decision to proceed be implemented? To begin discussion of the first question Secretary Brown is prepared to give a quick summary of the major features of his recommendations—the summary will assume that all present have read the backup memo. The issues of potential disagreement are:

Cost: Jim McIntyre (and some parts of OSD) believes the initial systems acquisition is likely to be significantly higher than the $33B or so estimated by Secretary Brown. They may be right, but in my view Secretary Brown’s arguments as to how costs can be held down sound reasonable too, and even if the costs were another $5B–10B higher, the arguments in favor of this kind of system rather than any of the alternatives, particularly a dyad, are compelling. (S)

Survivability: Stan Turner believes that the Soviets may try to increase numbers of ICBM warheads numbers enough to make targeting all MX shelters feasible. This doesn’t seem reasonable. While increasing numbers of silo based missile warheads might be possible at costs comparable to those required to make corresponding increases in the size of the MX system, the Soviets will see that their efforts can readily be offset, and that such a race would increase their vulnerability to a U.S. first strike. If on the other hand the Soviets consider expanding the threat to MX in the form of mobile missiles, they have some significant technical problems to solve, and would be at a significant economic disadvantage in such a race given the extra costs of mobile systems. (S)

Verifiability: Stan Turner also believes that we do not yet know what design measures are needed to allow satellites to verify that extra missiles are not hidden in the shelters (memo at Tab A).³ His staff believes that appropriate measures can be found—perhaps [1 line not declassified] You should question Stan to get as tight a statement of his concerns as possible, and then simply instruct Harold to ensure that the shelter design does allow satellite inspection.⁴ Waiting another several weeks or months in order to sort out the detailed design requirements of inspectable shelters isn’t reasonable. (S)

If at this point you can make a decision to accept Harold’s recommendation, or if you anticipate accepting it soon, we should discuss how to implement it. (U)

The first question on implementation is how we should continue to explain the counterforce capabilities of the MX. We need to agree on what the valid arguments are, and that no other arguments will be given without further NSC discussion.⁵ This is necessary in order to minimize the chance that anyone will undermine the arguments that have been made so far, or alternatively that the MX decision will be taken to imply things it does not necessarily mean such as—we are taking a first step toward a damage limiting capability. (S)

In my view there are two valid arguments we should use:

— We don’t want the Soviets to see a potential advantage in any nuclear exchange limited to strikes against each others forces (I used this argument in answering Senator Hatfield’s criticisms)

— MX counterforce capabilities should push the Soviets toward the same kinds of relatively expensive mobile systems we are moving toward. This would prevent them from maintaining their strategic posture at significantly less cost than we maintain ours, and may ultimately mean greater strategic stability. (Harold has used this argument in his memo to you) (U)

You may wish to discuss the arguments in this meeting, or simply say that the counterforce arguments in Harold’s meeting and the interagency Q’s and A’s (my argument is the only one used there) are the only ones to be used until the counterforce issue has been further addressed in another NSC meeting. (C)

You must also decide whether or not to ask for legislation to guard against attempts to block the MX on environmental grounds.⁶ Lloyd Cutler and I favor your announcing your intent to do this when the basing mode decision is announced. Such an action will underline your determination to proceed, and will undercut suspicions that you intend to let the system be blocked one way or another. (C)

Finally, there are the questions of who you should call in advance of the public announcement, and whether you should make a public announcement yourself. Background material on these questions has been developed and forwarded to you by Hamilton Jordan’s office. You might ask the principals at the NSC meeting for their views on whether you should make an announcement, for any inputs they might have on who should be contacted in advance—and any special points they think should be made in such contacts.⁷ I believe you should make a short announcement of the decision yourself, just as you did with the B–1. (C)

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 57, NSC–021, 9/5/79, MX Basing. Secret. Sent for action. Carter initialed the top of the memorandum and wrote “Swamp—[illegible].”
2. See Document 150.
3. See Document 151.
4. Carter drew a vertical line in the right margin next to this and the preceding sentence.
5. Carter drew an arrow in the right margin pointing to this sentence.
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