347. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (McFarlane) to President Reagan1
SUBJECT
- Instructions for the Geneva Talks
Following our session yesterday,2 I had a two-hour meeting with Cap and George to review the draft instructions.3 On the whole it went well, although George is concerned that he is not given sufficient authority to advance new proposals in the START and INF areas. Cap is leary of getting too detailed with new ideas at Geneva since it will reward the Soviets for walking out. George recognizes the problem but believes that if the Soviets walk out again and we have not presented some sign of flexibility, our own press and congress will criticize our “lack of seriousness,” and perhaps impose conditional authorities on our systems (e.g. MX) unilaterally. (S)
To try to meet the threshold of what it takes to appear reasonable but without giving anything of consequence away which could be better used later, I have expanded the sections on START and INF (pp. 13–14). My purpose is to spell out just what is meant by the “tradeoffs” you told Gromyko we would be willing to talk about in START. I have simply stated that we can envision trading some of our advantages in Air Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs) for their agreement to lower levels of ballistic missiles. I don’t get into specific numbers, although even that would be within the bounds of what we have already committed to. (S)
With respect to INF, I have added a reference at the end of the paragraph authorizing a rhetorical example of how we might provide a face-saving way for the Russians to reduce to an equal level of warheads. This would be through the adoption of “equal percentage cuts.” Under this concept both of us would cut launchers—not warheads—by the same percentage. Since they have three warheads on each SS–20 launcher, they would end up cutting more warheads than we would. We must be careful in pursuing such a course since not all [Page 1247] “equal percentage cuts” would be in our interest. For example, our GLCM launchers have 4 warheads each. I have added a cautionary note to the instructions as well so that your delegation will be careful in this regard. (S)
With these changes and a few other editorial changes which Cap suggested (and which are marked in red in the left margin), I expect George and Cap to be comfortable with the instructions. (S)
We will join you at 4:15 today to go over this final draft prior to your reaching decisions. Both of them have copies of this new draft.4 (S)
- Source: Reagan Library, Robert McFarlane Files, Chronological File, Sensitive Chron 1985; NLR–362–7–38–3–8. Secret. Sent for information. According to the President’s Daily Diary, McFarlane was with Reagan in Palm Springs from December 29 to January 2. (Reagan Library, President’s Daily Diary)↩
- See footnote 2, Document 346.↩
- The draft NSDD was in the decision package prepared by Kraemer, Linhard, and Lehman. See footnotes 1 and 3, Document 346.↩
- See footnote 1, Document 348.↩