Office of the Historian

132. Memorandum From Robert Linhard of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Poindexter)1

Washington, September 12, 1986

SUBJECT

  • Paper on Restraints Associated with the President’s Proposal on Strategic Defense

Attached at Tab I2 is a memorandum for the President which forwards the final version of the SAGE 30 paper (Tab A)3 that we have been working for the last two weeks. We have provided this so that you can work this via memorandum if you so choose. We would recommend that you take the time to talk to the President about this—especially since SecDef may wish to do so.

The only issue remaining is the Secretary of Defense’s concern that the correct interpretation of the President’s letter4 is a treaty, negotiated now, that covers all aspects of the proposal vice an agreement that has embedded in it a Treaty which would be negotiated now but triggered under certain conditions later. We have provided you the OSD rationale for this position in our series of debriefs on this. We have summarized this rationale in the memorandum for the President. We should also expect the SecDef to wish to discuss this further.

Attached at Tab B5 is an annotated rewrite of the SAGE 30 paper produced by OSD staff showing where material would be deleted (as indicated by [ ]) and where specific material would be added (as indicated by underlining) to conform the paper to the SecDef’s point of view on the issue involving the scope of the Treaty proposed by the President.

We would recommend that you take the following steps:

1.
Discuss this with the President.
2.
Then use the memorandum at Tab I to obtain the President’s decision for the record.
3.
Assuming the President does not alter his view based on the SecDef’s concern, use the memorandum to agencies at Tab II6 to implement the President’s decision.

Recommendation

That you follow the course of action laid out in the paragraph immediately above to resolve this issue.7

Concurrence: Kraemer, Manley, Brooks, Steiner

  1. Source: Reagan Library, Sven Kraemer Files, September 1986 Chron File. Secret. Sent for action. All brackets are in the original. An unknown hand wrote “SEPT 17” in the upper right-hand corner of the memorandum.↩
  2. Printed as Document 133.↩
  3. See Tab A, Document 133.↩
  4. Reagan’s July 25, 1986, letter to Gorbachev is printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986, Document 254.↩
  5. See footnote 3, Document 133.↩
  6. Attached but not printed is a distribution memorandum from Poindexter to Bush, Shultz, Weinberger, Casey, Crowe, and Adelman dated September 17: “The President has approved the attached paper as supplemental policy guidance on the above subject. A similar paper will be developed providing additional elaboration on the elimination of ballistic missiles in the context of the President’s proposal. Both topics will then be incorporated into a new National Security Decision Directive on this general subject. Until superseded by the new NSDD, agencies should be guided by the attached paper.” (Ibid.)↩
  7. Poindexter approved the recommendation.↩