94. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter1
SUBJECT
- War Mobilization Exercise; NIFTY NUGGET
I want to call your attention to a crisis management contingency exercise which begins full play next week and which should prove instructive about our capabilities to mobilize for general war.
NIFTY NUGGET is the largest mobilization exercise held since World War II. It includes all military services and 27 civilian agencies, boards, and commissions. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and most of the principals of the agencies are participating in key decisions at some time during the four-month scenario which is largely compressed in the period October 10–30.
The level of activity varies from simple staff reviews of mobilization plans to extensive measures in the case of the services and some departments. The Army is calling a small number of personnel to active duty from every reserve unit planned for deployment in the first thirty days. The Air Force and Navy are contacting all reserves by mail or telephone to ascertain their location and availability. The Selective Service System has been preparing for the exercise since June because 110 days are required for it. As an example of civil agency play, HEW will be tasked to receive American civilians and dependents in a simulated evacuation from Europe.
A number of decisions by you are assumed in the early period of play. The scenario has you directing industrial preparedness measures, activating the Selective Service System, and asking Congress to approve military induction before the outbreak of hostilities. Later, a number of NSC/SCC decisions are required for allocating military resources among theaters of operations.
The purpose of the exercise is to determine the adequacy of existing plans, systems, and procedures. Interrelationships among OSD, JCS, unified and specified commands, the military services, and civil agencies will be evaluated. NIFTY NUGGET will be conducted with real world data collected prior to the exercise and played against requirements in current war plans to determine limitations and shortfalls in [Page 409] manpower and logistics for supporting operations. NIFTY NUGGET was partly inspired by the 2,000 deficiencies discovered two years ago in an Army exercise, MOBEX–76, and the 187 major issues still not settled in repairing the deficiencies.
Although the exercise play is classified, the general nature and extent of NIFTY NUGGET has been announced to the press.
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Defense/Security, Russell, Box 113, Mobilization Scenarios: 7/76–10/78. Confidential. Carter initialed the upper right corner of the memorandum. An unknown hand wrote beneath Carter’s initials: “return to Stebbins.”↩