169. Memorandum From Robert Linhard
and Steven Steiner of the National
Security Council Staff to the President’s Acting Assistant for National
Security Affairs (Keel)1
Washington, December 15, 1986
SUBJECT
- Secretary Weinberger’s
Briefing on SDI
At Tab I for your approval is a meeting memo to the President for Secretary
Weinberger’s briefing on early
SDI deployments.
We are still trying to pin down a full hour on Wednesday2 for this presentation and the
needed discussion. We feel strongly that a full hour is needed, as the new
DOD plan for beginning phased SDI deployments as early as 1993 raises a
number of very difficult questions: military, budgetary, political and
legal.
We aired some of these problems this afternoon at the prebrief with General
Abrahamson, who was unable to
come up with all of
[Page 580]
the answers.
General Abrahamson undertook to
flesh out some of these issues further with his staff, to talk them through
with Secretary Weinberger in the
morning and to discuss them further with us. Based on this additional airing
of the issues, we will submit to you by Noon tomorrow a supplementary memo
for the President designed to walk him through some of the thornier
issues.
RECOMMENDATION
That you forward to the President the meeting memo at Tab I.3
Tab I
Memorandum From the President’s Acting Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Keel) to President
Reagan4
Washington, December 16, 1986
SECRETARY WEINBERGER’S BRIEFING ON SDI
I. PURPOSE
Secretary Weinberger wishes to
present to you a relatively near term phased deployment plan on
strategic defenses.
II. BACKGROUND
Secretary Weinberger now
believes that in order to protect the SDI deployment options of future presidents, it is
essential that you take certain key policy steps in that direction
during your remaining two years in office. He will recommend that we
begin to lay the groundwork now for phased deployments of increasingly
effective strategic defenses, beginning with a deployment in 1993 of two
layers: space-based kinetic kill vehicles designed to intercept Soviet
ballistic missiles in their boost phase and a ground-based system which
would intercept Soviet warheads in their late mid-course. The plan
raises a number of difficult issues which need to be aired at the
meeting, including: a) the military utility of these systems and the
survivability of the space-based elements; b) the need for additional
SDI funding, including an FY 87 supplemental; c) the necessity for an
urgent enhancement of our space boost capability; and d) the need to
move to the broader, legally correct,
[Page 581]
interpretation of the ABM Treaty within a year or two and to break out of the
Treaty altogether when we begin deployments.
III. PARTICIPANTS
List at Tab A.5
IV. PRESS PLAN
No press plan.
V. SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
Secretary Weinberger will open
with a policy presentation, SDIO
Director Lt. Gen. Abrahamson
will brief on the program changes which would be involved, and Assistant
Secretary of Defense Perle will
brief on the ABM Treaty implications
and the plan’s relationship to your arms control objectives. Discussion
will follow.
