81. Memorandum From the Military Assistant to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Odom) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1
SUBJECT
- Appraisal of Your SAC/NORAD Trip
The full impact of your personal appearance and touch with the officers and troops will not be fully apparent for some time, but it was undoubtedly great. I could see that, particularly in your interaction with the lower ranking officers and the enlisted personnel at Ellsworth AFB.2 The SAC Wing Commander said that White House interest in strategic forces has never been so great as in this Administration. He felt it from the beginning and sees the persistency manifested in your visit.
The discussions on operational, planning, and doctrinal matters was most fascinating and hard-hitting for the briefing officers. The strongest impact was Sunday evening at Offutt.3 Perry and Jones were clearly nervous. General Ellis was having a great time dumping the tough questions on the JCS, but when you nailed him on the implications of C3I vulnerability, he was very unhappy with the trap into which he had put himself. He merely wanted to lobby you for a larger C3I budget, not to raise the fundamental issues about how Soviet growing capabilities are making SAC’s posture less relevant to the President’s crisis management and war fighting needs. When I tried to pick up on “war fighting” the next day, he evaded the question. So did Jones.
The other officers in that evening briefing were noticeably moved. Three of them told me the next day that the discussions were the most “interesting” they have ever heard on this topic. Coyle, Duncan’s assistant, found them not only interesting but “troubling.”
Several of the one and two star generals who briefed at SAC clearly had some idea of the direction you would probe. They could not tell me two months ago how long it took to plan an LNO from scratch. Nonetheless, your repeated underscoring of the non-SIOP scenario and the longer campaign gave them more than they could handle. The result, [Page 362] in their mind, was a sense of our own military inadequacy for the era of strategic parity but also a sense that more of what SAC is doing may not help much.
One point to draw out in the question of C3I and the longer war is the “incentive structure” in the Pentagon for C3I budgeting. C3I funds are taken largely from the service budgets. The Air Force prefers new bombers and fighters if asked to choose between them and new C3I costs. So do the Navy and Army dislike surrendering their hardware to pay for the NCA’s C3I. Thus, it is difficult to find a sustained and powerful military interest in C3I. This is a key issue for Duncan who is chairman of the WWMCCS Council, the group which addresses the overall C3I budget and structure of the World Wide Military Command and Control System.
At NORAD, things were not as sharply focused as elsewhere, but General Hill’s briefers were pleasantly appalled to have the opportunity to answer many of your questions. Drawing out the Soviet SSBN threat to our C3I and the inherent asymmetry in the geography were two points they obviously had not expected the occasion to make. A number of other questions you asked gave them a chance to raise buried issues with Bill Perry. The solar interference with DSP coverage, for example, and the escalating space activity which NORAD is asked to monitor while much of its capability is eroding are two matters of considerable importance, not only for tactical warning but also for ASAT concerns and arms control verification.
Although General Jones’ presence was useful in many respects in your probing and questioning, it also dampened things for you slightly. At Ellsworth AFB and at NORAD the local command structure was obviously as much worried about pleasing and responding to Jones as about dealing with you. They will have to face Jones again and again, but not you; thus they had to split their attention. Jones intimidated General Hill by telling him that his small welcoming ceremony for you—involving a dozen troops—showed that Hill has too many unemployed personnel; otherwise he would not be able to afford the ceremony! Hill asked me several times thereafter if you were offended by the ceremony. I told him that you probably thought of it not as a personal thing but as a useful institutional symbolism that enhances the sense of purpose and coherence in his organization. I also learned that Jones did not desire to make the trip. “Someone” invited him twice before he “got the message.”
I cannot judge what Bill Perry took away, but your doctrinal and operational questions were not lost on him, and they clearly disturbed him at SAC. I was surprised that he did not challenge you more directly.
In summary, you have clearly opened the doctrinal debate within the SAC and NORAD circles on “deterrence” and “war fighting”, and [Page 363] I suspect that it will reverberate back to the JCS in a short time. The military reaction is going to be mixed. They like your rhetoric, and they are easily compelled by your logic. As the budgetary and institutional implications become clearer to them—as they immediately were to Jones—they will have second thoughts, but thoughts difficult for them to voice candidly.
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject File, Box 52, SAC and NORAD 8/20–21/78 Brzezinski Trip 7–9/78. Top Secret; Sensitive; Outside the System.↩
- Ellsworth Air Force Base, near Rapid City, South Dakota.↩
- August 20. Offutt Air Force Base, near Omaha, Nebraska, was the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command.↩