41. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to Secretary of Defense Brown1
SUBJECT
- PD/NSC–18 Follow-on Studies
In response to your memo of 3 November on the above subject, I would like to make the following points.2
First, the study on targeting looks like it will address the issues of concern. I am assuming, however, that you will not limit the study to an examination of what we can do with the inventory of weapons that we currently project for ourselves. It is important for us to understand just how our targeting policies and their effectiveness might change as we continue with SALT. We should also consider what we could do with increases in our weapons inventories that might be driven by factors such as political sufficiency.
The second study appears to address most of my concerns about hard target kill capability and the future of the TRIAD concept. Your combining of these issues in a single study focused primarily on the future of the ICBM force seems like a reasonable approach.
The three questions you have posed for this second study seem appropriate. I assume that you will delve into the basis of requirements for the unique capabilities provided by the land based ICBM. I also assume that you will seriously consider the possibility that non-time urgent hard target kill capability in the form of (possibly improved) ALCM’s can meet substantial portions of our need for hard target kill capability.
Your intentions for the third study on “secure reserve force target acquisition” sound reasonable. I agree that much of this study must await completion of the targeting study.
The substance of the sustainability study also sounds reasonable; my staff has been in contact with yours and has given them informal [Page 189] comments concerning what you intend to do. Your memo does not, however, explicitly address the institutional arrangements for this study. My August 24 memo to you called for the sustainability issues to be “coordinated by the National Security Council for the President’s decision.”3 I suggest that we form an interagency steering group to (1) periodically review and comment on the study’s progress, (2) handle DOD requests for external tasks (e.g. of the DCI); and (3) review, coordinate and suggest changes in final DOD drafts of your study. I am also concerned that the time allowed for the study is overly long and, as a result, the study will not affect the FY 80–84 program. If this work is to influence that program, a stricter timetable is needed. I suggest that phase 1 be completed by 1 March 1978 and that the remainder of the study be completed by 1 July 1978, in time for the President to review the study and make decisions that could be accommodated in his review of the DOD program Status Report in August.
The fifth study may very well meet our needs, but I can’t tell from the information we have so far received on it. Perhaps the best course here would be simply to delay proceeding with an NSC/DOD study of the Navy’s purposes—on the possibility that an in-depth review of the Navy’s own study shows that our needs have been met.
I look forward to seeing detailed drafts of the terms of reference for these studies very soon. Overall, your descriptions of them suggest a good focus on a number of really critical questions. I hope we can see them properly answered—my staff and I will support you in this effort in every way we can.
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Defense/Security, Huntington, Box 45, PD 18: (Follow-On). Secret.↩
- Utgoff and Huntington forwarded Brown’s memorandum, printed as Document 39, to Brzezinski under a November 16 covering memorandum, which reported: “Harold’s memo shows that some progress has been made in getting these studies underway—though in general not much given the amount of time that has elapsed.” Utgoff and Huntington also noted: “We have worded the comments on the Navy study in such a way as to avoid the impression that we accept this study as an appropriate response to your request. We believe that it would not be prudent to give the NSC imprimatur to a study of the missions of the Navy—done by the Navy.” (Ibid.)↩
- See Document 32.↩