Office of the Historian

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

Washington, November 7, 1979

SUBJECT

  • Telecommunications Policy

I am submitting for your signature a directive on telecommunications policy. It is greatly needed for two reasons:

First, you have sent a message to the Hill supporting deregulation of the telecommunications industry. If deregulation is written into law, the requirements for the Defense and other agencies in the National Communications System (NCS) to prescribe national security criteria to common carriers will increase significantly. They will also need the authority in new legislation to develop and ensure national security and emergency preparedness capabilities. The directive proposed by the NCS and Harold Brown provides a combination of long-term objectives and specific operating principles for dealing with common carriers to achieve the C3I capabilities we need.

Second, the National Communications System (the Secretary of Defense is the Executive Agent), which integrates all national security communications systems, has relied almost exclusively on AT&T for voluntary hardening interoperatibility, and creating a sufficiently dense network to make it impossible for the Soviets to prevent “connectivity” for SIOP purposes. A recent SAC connectivity study and some Defense studies2 have thrown doubt on the survivability of the AT&T system under stress today. By deregulating and forcing Defense to give more guidance to industry, we shall be taking Defense from under AT&T’s protective wing and making its analysts determine more precisely what capability we have and what we may need to add or relinquish.

The absence of national objectives and guidance has allowed the C3I concerns to become fragmented and unfocussed. The directive at Tab A3 will not cause major improvements at once, but it will place responsibility more precisely and provide directions which are necessary for improvements.

Harold Brown, as Executive Agent of the NCS (his memo is at Tab B),4 supports this directive. Its substance has been staffed through [Page 719] the NCS with Defense, State, Interior, Commerce, Energy, GSA, FAA, NASA, CIA, and FEMA. All agencies concurred.

RECOMMENDATION: Sign the Presidential Directive at Tab A.

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, General Odom File, Box 50, Telecommunications: 11–12/79. Secret. Sent for action.↩
  2. Not further identified.↩
  3. Not found attached. The directive is printed as Document 165.↩
  4. Not found attached.↩