339. Memorandum From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Vessey) to President Reagan1
SUBJECT
- Geneva (S)
(TS) The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe we need a clear, consistent strategy for the upcoming talks in Geneva. Our approach should strive for significant reductions in offensive nuclear forces, particularly in those forces which are the most destabilizing. Our position should protect our own capability to conduct those actions essential for our own defense, including continued modernization of our strategic forces and your Strategic Defense Initiative. As the Joint Chiefs of Staff stressed to you last week,2 strategic modernization, arms reductions, and a shift to strategic defense are integrated components of our deterrent nuclear strategy. These essential elements of an effective nuclear deterrent will deny the Soviets the confidence to either attack or coerce the nations of the free world.
(TS) To achieve these goals we must gain and maintain the moral high ground going into Geneva and coming out of Geneva, no matter what the results in Geneva may be. This is especially important since the Soviets use arms negotiations as one component of an integrated diplomatic, military and propaganda strategy. We will, in effect, be negotiating with our allies, our public, and the Congress as well as with the Soviets during the talks. We must maintain Congressional and allied support. We must not allow the Soviets to create a situation in which either strategic modernization or SDI is delayed through Soviet negotiating tactics and resultant false public perception.
[Page 1214](TS) It is clear that the Soviets fear the renewed interest in national defense which you have set in motion. They will, therefore, seek to curtail or eliminate United States’ strategic defense efforts while continuing their own massive program. To defuse this, we should use the negotiations, particularly those concerned with space, to discuss the entire offense–defense relationship. We should reaffirm that SDI has never been intended to place in space nuclear weapons which could be brought down upon the world population. And we should continue the efforts begun this week by Secretary Weinberger to set forth a clear explanation that strategic defense initiatives offer a defensive shield with long-term benefits for ourselves and our allies.3
(TS) Because we consider the preservation of your Strategic Defense Initiative to be essential, we wish to make certain the links between ASAT and SDI are well understood. Substantive limits on ASAT will inevitably affect SDI, since SDI will have the intrinsic capability to destroy satellites. Since SDI, in its current phase, is essentially an R&D program, and since the technologies involved are highly similar, limitations on ASAT could inhibit early development of SDI alternatives. This argues for extreme caution in accepting any specific agreements on ASAT.
(TS) In the short term the free world’s continued security depends on completing your strategic modernization program. In the long-term the Strategic Defense Initiative offers the vision of a safer, more stable world. To achieve our goal through these short-term and long-term objectives, it is essential to act now and seize the public diplomacy high ground. We must explain to the allies and to the American people the wisdom of our present course and the necessity of approaching [Page 1215] arms control, strategic modernization and strategic defense as integrated components of our deterrent nuclear strategy.
For the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
General, USA
Chairman
- Source: Reagan Library, Robert Linhard Files, Arms Control Chron, Geneva Prep III—December 1984 “Geneva—NSDD Instructions” (2). Top Secret; Sensitive; King. A copy was sent to Weinberger. In a handwritten covering note to McFarlane, attached to another copy of the memorandum, Vessey wrote: “Bud—The JCS views in response to your 20 Dec memo. I have sent a copy to Cap. Jack.” (Reagan Library, Ronald Lehman Files, Subject File, Geneva Talks—Background #2 12/21/1984–12/26/1984)↩
- According to the President’s Daily Diary, Reagan met with the JCS in the Cabinet Room on December 18 from 11 a.m. to 12:08 p.m. (Reagan Library, President’s Daily Diary) No record of this meeting was found, but Reagan noted in his personal diary: “A meeting with the Joint Chiefs re our mil. force compared to that of the Soviets. In strategic weapons when the Soviets refer to maintaining stability they mean superiority & they have it. More & more I’m thinking the Soviets are preparing to walk out on the talks if we wont give up research on a strategic defense system. I hope I’m wrong.’” (Brinkley, ed., The Reagan Diaries, vol. I, January 1981–October 1985, p. 409)↩
- During the December 17 NSPG meeting (see Document 334), McFarlane noted that the NSC Staff was working on a public diplomacy plan for SDI. During a press conference on December 19, Weinberger stated: “I think it’s vital that we continue to pursue the research program on which we’re now embarked to see if we can’t hold out a far better future for mankind.” He continued: “the strategic defense initiative of the kind we’re planning will be equally effective and perhaps can secure earlier success in dealing with intermediate range missiles than strategic range weapons. There’s not the slightest possibility that America would be decoupled from Europe by the pursuit of this vital initiative.’” Gwertzman, who reported on the press conference in the New York Times, commented: “Mr. Weinberger’s strong defense of what the Administration refers to as the ‘strategic defense initiative’ what others call ‘Star Wars’ weapons came as Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the high-ranking Soviet official, was warning on a trip to London, that Moscow was giving priority in next month’s negotiations with the United States toward negotiating a curb on development of defensive weapons in space.” (Bernard Gwertzman, “Weinberger Calls U.S. Space-Arms Effort ‘Vital,’” Special to the New York Times, December 20, 1984, p. A7)↩