261. Summary of a Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting1
Attendees:
At the Table: Shultz, Nitze, Rowny, Holmes, Carlucci, Taft, Ikle, Powell, all six Chiefs (Vice Chiefs for Army and Air Force)
Around the Room: Brooks, Joseph, Burns, Howe, Director of the Joint Staff, EAs to Carlucci and Crowe
Discussion:
Shultz opened by saying these meetings were valuable, suggesting they be held frequently (later he suggested 2–3 week intervals) and [Page 1168] saying it helped the President to reduce the options he had to deal with at NSPGs.
Crowe said the JCS were working frantically, especially on counting rules. They were also working, as agreed at the summit, on SLCMs, but had no insights. He doubts we can make it by May.
Carlucci said Admiral Crowe should go to the NATO summit.2 He said the hard issues in arms control were (1) SLCM, (2) mobile ICBM verification, (3) Soviet attempts to kill SDI and (4) counting rules (Crowe interjected “especially ALCM”).
Crowe spoke at some length about the JCS problem with the draft D&S treaty. His objection was that the draft does not make it clear the U.S. has the right to test SDI under the broad interpretation. Crowe believes—based on the correspondence between Levin and Powell, as well as the JCS meeting with Nunn—that we can not allow ABM Treaty interpretation to be ambiguous. We must have a clear right to test under the broad interpretation or we can’t sign a START treaty. Carlucci agreed stating that Congress had linked START and Defense and Space. Shultz asked if we were shifting our position that START should be dealt with separately. Carlucci and Crowe both said we had no choice; Congress has linked them for us. After substantial discussion there appeared to be consensus that we must have not only words we can accept but a common interpretation that we, the Soviets, and the Congress will accept. (Note: During this Crowe’s objections to being asked to approve the Defense and Space treaty were repeated and strong.)
Carlucci said he wanted to put long lead money in the budget for a 1990 test that would violate the narrow interpretation. Shultz said we should do what we need to do but should not schedule a test just to challenge the narrow interpretation. Carlucci repeated his enthusiasm for the work Rand has been doing and said that there was ongoing work in DOD on alternate D&S approaches. Bob Joseph implied the work would be done by the end of the month.
After continued discussion there appeared to be consensus that we should lay out a seven-year program (Carlucci said this is possible), go to the Soviets in Geneva, tell them this is what “as required” means, and say that they have to tolerate that program if we are to make progress.
The discussion then turned to START. There was general agreement with Shultz’ statement that the 3300 sublimit was useful, but second order. All agreed we should preserve it for now and that we might get Soviet acceptance.
[Page 1169]Shultz then asked about SLCM. CNO went through a standard Navy pitch about the importance of conventional SLCM and the large number of platforms it would be carried on. All agreed that our position for now should be to (1) do our homework (i.e., see if there is any new approach we can devise), but (2) in Geneva hang tough and ask them to explain their verification approach. Shultz noted he would be pushing the Chiefs for results of their efforts on SCLM.
Carlucci indicated that he was probably going to accept an Air Force recommendation to kill Midgetman. Shultz asked for a private audience to reclama. (Subsequently Shultz and Nitze met with Carlucci;3 Nitze said they made little progress.) All the JCS explained why Midgetman was bad. Herres asserted that there were verification problems with fixed ICBMs. Cold-launch silos can be reloaded as easily as mobile ICBM launchers. Thus if the Soviets want to cheat, they don’t need mobile ICBMs. Herres further asserted that the Soviet ASAT can be set up on a bare concrete pad in four hours, and if the Soviets wanted to, they can do the same thing with offensive ballistic missiles. Carlucci said that if Congress funds rail garrison Peacekeeper, allowing mobile ICBMs is probably in the U.S. interest.
Shultz said we need to use the deadline of the summit to get the treaty we want and force the bureaucracy to do the necessary work. Shultz does not believe that we will cave in to the pressure of a deadline; we have not done so in the past. Crowe said the JCS were “working frantically”. A discussion on compliance ensued; all agreed compliance was a major problem, none had any suggestions for enforcement mechanisms. The most commonly mentioned suggestion was a “compliance supplemental” that would increase the Defense budget in some unspecified fashion if the Soviets cheat.
Shultz summarized by saying there was a lot of work which should be done now, not in the next two months. He said we need to sign something in Moscow and suggested Nuclear Testing Treaties were the best candidates. He then argued for some formal mechanism of recording the progress we have been making if we do not get a treaty. He recognized the objections to Vladivostok-type agreements, but we had “gone two-thirds of the way to the top, and we shouldn’t have to start over from the bottom.”
Everyone told everyone else how profitable the meeting was; Shultz suggested doing it again in two to three weeks.