Historical Documents - Office of the Historian

Washington, January 18, 1982

Staffing of Secretary Haig’s January 11 Memorandum to the President Entitled “U.S. Foreign Policy in 1982”2

I attach some staff comments on the subject memo. The principal criticisms seem to be along the following lines:

(1): The memorandum follows no general concept of foreign policy or the national interest.
(2): Much of it suffers from meaningless phrasing and circular reasoning.
(3): It seems to grant our allies a quasi-veto over our policies and strategies.
(4): It endorses a form of detente, a discredited foreign policy and not part of this Administration’s objectives.
(5): It omits extremely important elements, such as relations with Japan and trade policy.

Source: Reagan Library, Executive Secretariat, NSC Subject File, Foreign Policy Accomplishments (01/12/82–07/13/84). Secret. Sent for information. Lenz initialed the top right-hand corner of the memorandum. Attached but not printed at Tabs A–H are comments from Lord, Nau, Russell, Wettering, Pipes, Weiss, Shoemaker, and Dobriansky. Pipes’s response is printed as Document 78.↩
See Document 77.↩

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume I, Foundations of Foreign Policy